Getting Started

Hello All

Thinking about getting started on Saturn Dev.
I've been coding on other machines for a while and for comparison purposes I got out my old Saturn. This has become rather tempting to have a go at coding too.

I was hoping someone could help me get going with the Sega SDK (PC or MAC) used to have an indy somewhere when the old offices shut down but that died long ago.

Also, what would be a good set up for testing? Would it make sense to try things in an emulator then use a fenrir for tests on real hardware?

Thanks in advance.
 
Its best to join sega xtreme discord, as there is channel dedicated to saturn dev. Its the fastest way to get started and get help.

As for the SDKs, there are multiple choices, the most popular ones are SGL/SBL (official sega libraries), jo-engine (base on top of SGL, nice for first time users) and Yaul (more advanced, and currently in developement).

For debuging its ok to use emulators, I personaly use mednafen, but everyone uses some other emu that fits what they need the best. Its a good practise to periodically test on real HW tho.
 
Jo Engine is the obvious place to start, although there are other SDKs in active development. It does a lot of things and many people have used it, or built on top of it (which itself is built on top of SGL).

For testing, I'd just use an emulator. It takes like 10 seconds to compile some basic code, run the emulator, and see what you did wrong. Of course testing on real hardware is a good idea too, since emulators aren't perfect.

If I had a complaint about Jo Engine, the documentation isn't the best, but it's enough to figure some of the basics out at least.

also check out some of the github accounts of the people here, there's even a github compilation thread - lots of examples to dig through if you don't know how to do something, but somebody else already figured it out..
 
Thank you all for the feedback.
As i look into things i shall join the discord

I have been looking at the sega documentation i think id like to begin there with the official kit if possible.
 
I have been looking at the sega documentation i think id like to begin there with the official kit if possible.
I strongly suggest starting with Jo Engine. It's a wrapper for the offical SDK. You can have "Hello World" running in minutes. Ultimately it's up to you.
 
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