Good saturn emulation

[aLuCaRD_No1]

Ive read over the rules and think this question is allowed...

I have a few Saturn games that I want to play, I have bidded for 2 Saturn systems on EBay and am waiting for the auctions to end and the payment to go through and the delivery etc etc, anyhow I was curious as I cant find a single Saturn emulator to actually play a game, I want to test the games and their backups so I can put the games back in the loft out of harms way, so does anyone know of a relatively good working emulator, and yes Im a newbie to the Sega Saturn and MegaCD scene.

Thanks anyone.

 

[Curtis]

Good saturn emulation doesn't exsist, and I think never will. There are a few emulators about (SSF, Giri Giri and Satourne) but all are very slow and have limited compatability.

 

[malr]

Well I wouldn't say never, but let's just say there's not going to be a working Saturn emulator for a long time.

 

[ExCyber]

There already are working Saturn emus, they're just slow. Once a few emus get really well-established and people realize that there are good docs floating around, someone will probably try writing a fast Saturn emu (assuming that the current emu authors don't manage to optimize their code to a playable speed). It might take a while, but Saturn really isn't that arcane, it's just unpopular and takes a lot of effort to emulate.

 

[Taelon]

Mind you...emulation in general keeps progressing and growing ever more impressive... the Commodore Amiga in its various incarnations (up to 68040 CPUs and all kinds of expansion cards) is emulated almost perfectly via WinUAE nowadays, and current high-end PCs are plenty fast enough to do so in realtime...and PCs themselves also get faster and faster...in 5 or 10 years we'll all have 20 or 30GHz processors (I'm not kidding)... so I for one am absolutely confident that we'll have very good Saturn emulation by then... even so I have this feeling that as less and less working consoles survive until then, they'll start increasing in price again

A new Saturn used to be $399, now they can be had for $20, $30 ... I could see this increasing again over time...just a thought, though

 

[aLuCaRD_No1]

Heres hoping that we dont have to wait that long, lol, but it seems a lil weird how both my computers and laptop (Computers kick ass specs laptop isnt bad spec.) can all run CVGS or whatever its called to run Playstation games, I use it while traveling/away from home but the Saturn which is a lower spec then PSx hasnt been done yet..? :woah:

 

[ExCyber]

the Saturn which is a lower spec then PSx

Hold it, I think I missed the part where a dedicated background processor, general-purpose DSP with dedicated RAM, and 2 28MHz CPUs is a "lower spec" than no dedicated background processor, a hardwired "geometry processor" that needs each instruction to be written to it by the CPU, and a single 33MHz CPU...

 

[Curtis]

Forget it Ex...you'll never convince many people of the real power of the Saturn

 

[3rdman]

Sega was once working on a Saturn emulator for the Dreamcast...They pulled the plug because they felt that there wasn't a big enough Saturn userbase to justify the work.

Supposedly they had the SH2 code running pefectly on the DC...It would have been nice.

 

[aLuCaRD_No1]

I assumed the PSx had a better spec, probably wrong it seems, sorry mate, lol, just got that impression, whats SH2 and there must be someone out there with a beta of the Saturn>DC emulator, that'll be my next thing to track down.

 

[Silender]

Originally posted by Curtis@May 12 2002,06:06

Forget it Ex...you'll never convince many people of the real power of the Saturn

He has me

 

[mal]

Originally posted by 3rdman@May 12 2002,17:08

Supposedly they had the SH2 code running pefectly on the DC...It would have been nice.

But did they have the rest of the system emulated?

 

[3rdman]

http://alwaysgame.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch...l?msg_id=00036y

"The Dreamcast had a partially working emulator of the Saturn. The SH2 code was the easiest from what I know, but getitng the 2nd paralell SH2 to work was a bit difficult but they still managed to get the thing working. The sound processors were more of a cinch from what I understand. The hard thing was the VDP1 and 2. Was the emulator working? Only partially with alot of bugs. Was it ever finished? Nope, the project was canned for some obvious reasons. Not enough Saturn owners to make the project worthwhile.

Sonic"

Also heres some info SegaWeb had on the matter...

http://www.segaweb.com/news/0399/05.html?f=05.html

"PlayStation may have been announced in the last few hours WITH backwards compatibility (and Sega Web shall refrain from covering the format as it has done to date), but if the latest rumours are to be believed, the Dreamcast will have a new emulator to play Saturn games!

Sources indicate that Sega of Japan is indeed working on a Saturn emulator for the Dreamcast, and they plan to name it "Sat-Cast".

Once into the Dreamcast's memory, it will allow Sega fans to slam a Saturn game into the regular GD-ROM drive, and play it. The emulation software will also feature pull-down menus, allowing you to alter the emulation speed and territirial setting (NTSC / PAL), tinker with a debug mode and perhaps more.

The Sat-Cast will be unveiled at the imminent Tokyo Game Show in Japan and should be available for 3300 yen. The whole Saturn era is about to be re-ignited once again!

Adam Doree"

Ah! It would have been nice.

 

[Falstaf]

Ummmmmmmmmm.... Sega has catagorically denied they ever had such a thing as sat-cast in developement. From what I understand, this was a web-rumour/joke and was never real.