Pseudo Saturn Kai official thread

[cafe-alpha]

Exactly, there are a lot of different variables at play when using the swap trick. Trial and error indeed. For those still struggling to flash their carts using the swap trick, here's a repost of my noobie tutorial (warning, very long lol, its noob friendly):

Re-thank you 🙂

 

[cafe-alpha]

I received feedback about Return Fire not working with latest Pseudo Saturn Kai : can someone confirm/infirm this fact ?
I will give a try here on next week, but if someone else could help in testing, that would be great 🙂

Edit : problem fixed, it was a bad dump/bad burn. Sorry to the people(s) who tried this game in the meantime.

 

[ontariostone]

Just got my Saturn + AR and got PSK installed. Created an account just to say thank you @cafe-alpha for your work. Thank you!

The best way I can describe the swap trick:

1. Place your target disc in the drive, power on
2. Wait until disc slows down, swap to real disk
3. Wait until drive head reads outer ring, speed up the disc, then it will jump to inner ring and read quickly (1/4 second)
4. Swap target disc before "produced under license" appears

The trick is to swap between steps 3 and 4. Took me a few tries but I got it.

 

[cafe-alpha]

Just got my Saturn + AR and got PSK installed. Created an account just to say thank you @cafe-alpha for your work. Thank you!

Thank you too, and please have fun with your Saturn ! December is the good moment to play Christmas Nights 🙂

 

[SegaSaturnShrine]

Thank you too, and please have fun with your Saturn ! December is the good moment to play Christmas Nights 🙂

I've still yet to ever play Nights period, such a sin. I'm going to have to give it a go over winter break!

 

[cafe-alpha]

Yes, that's the good moment to play it. If you can't play during winter, it's still possible to modify Saturn internal clock too 🙂
BTW, it seems that I received my first Saturn 20 years ago (Christmas 1996) ... I feel old ^^;


Unrelated edit : what is the default file extension for SSF save file ?
I use ".SSF" in my Save Data Manager when importing SSF saves, but it seems that ".SAV" is used too.
If somebody using SSF can help me, that would be appreciated 🙂

 

[Thales Peres]

Here in Brazil its Summer
And its getting so hot latelly, that gets tiring

I'm a little late to give feedback on Return fire... But its working here too... But it is an unreleased game on the Saturn so its Buggy as hell

 

[cafe-alpha]

Here in Brazil its Summer
And its getting so hot latelly, that gets tiring

Don't hesitate to send some sun here : in exchange, I can send you some rain or wind 😀

I'm a little late to give feedback on Return fire... But its working here too... But it is an unreleased game on the Saturn so its Buggy as hell

Ah ah, Pseudo Saturn Kai doesn't fixes games bugs, unfortunately ^^;

 

[SegaSaturnShrine]

Don't hesitate to send some sun here : in exchange, I can send you some rain or wind 😀

What do you mean Pseudosaturn doesn't fix bugs? Aren't the region locks and copy protection in the Saturn's, bugsvthemselves? Lol ik



Ah ah, Pseudo Saturn Kai doesn't fixes games bugs, unfortunately ^^;

Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays everyone! Finally played Christmas Nights yesterday, so much win!

 

[cafe-alpha]

Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays everyone! Finally played Christmas Nights yesterday, so much win!

Great ! I just saw your video 🙂
Finally in winter vacations here ! Happy holidays everyone too ♪

 

[vbt]

finally i'm doing some debug using devcard+pseudo saturn.
i've burnt a fba cd with ip.bin. i want to do some debug and need cd access. two solutions :
- i boot with "start game & USB"
- i boot with USB DMA transfert type

with the solution 1, it says cdrom unlocked , you can upload any program
=> finally it worked, i load 3/4x the same binary and it boots
with the solution 2, the cdrom is not unlocked and if you try to unlock it, the saturn tries to authenticate the CD

so what's the best way ? sol1 with some retries or sol2 but it lacks cdauth ?

 

[SegaSaturnShrine]

finally i'm doing some debug using devcard+pseudo saturn.
i've burnt a fba cd with ip.bin. i want to do some debug and need cd access. two solutions :
- i boot with "start game & USB"
- i boot with USB DMA transfert type

with the solution 1, it says cdrom unlocked , you can upload any program
=> finally it worked, i load 3/4x the same binary and it boots
with the solution 2, the cdrom is not unlocked and if you try to unlock it, the saturn tries to authenticate the CD

so what's the best way ? sol1 with some retries or sol2 but it lacks cdauth ?

Sorry, just trying to understand your question (no offense, but the wording is weird, ik English is a second language for you, so I understand 🙂 )

So you need access to the CDROM drive for debugging FBA, correct? With solution 1, it works most of the time. With solution 2 the cdrom drive is inaccessible?

Also is your saturn chipped? If so, depending on the modchip, the cd shouks "authenticate" no oroblem everytime 😉. Mine is one of the really old ones, that only wirks at boot up and shuts down, requiring a reboot to load another cd-r.

Grabbing a newer modchip that doesn't shut down after boot up, might be a good solution for you, if your Saturn isnt already equipped with one.

If you need your Saturn chipped, if you get one (I don't stock them at all) Im willing to install it for free (just pay shipping) for all your hard work on fba 🙂.

Last i knew Rob Webb had chips in stock here: consolegoods.co.uk

 

[cafe-alpha]

Sorry for the delay.

Sorry, just trying to understand your question (no offense, but the wording is weird, ik English is a second language for you, so I understand 🙂 )

So you need access to the CDROM drive for debugging FBA, correct? With solution 1, it works most of the time. With solution 2 the cdrom drive is inaccessible?

Also is your saturn chipped? If so, depending on the modchip, the cd shouks "authenticate" no oroblem everytime 😉. Mine is one of the really old ones, that only wirks at boot up and shuts down, requiring a reboot to load another cd-r.

Grabbing a newer modchip that doesn't shut down after boot up, might be a good solution for you, if your Saturn isnt already equipped with one.

If you need your Saturn chipped, if you get one (I don't stock them at all) Im willing to install it for free (just pay shipping) for all your hard work on fba 🙂.

Last i knew Rob Webb had chips in stock here: consolegoods.co.uk

It is not that simple : solution 2 (DMA transfer) doesn't initializes CD block at all, hence a modchip won't help.
Solution 1 allows to do iterative test with only one CD-R (vs one CD-R for each build when only a modchip is used), but this is still a bit experimental.
(I tested Planet de Pon with the "one CD-R for each build" method because I only had one modded Saturn for dev at that time ... and I'm happy antime developped his USB dev cart atfer that 🙂 )

finally i'm doing some debug using devcard+pseudo saturn.
i've burnt a fba cd with ip.bin. i want to do some debug and need cd access. two solutions :
- i boot with "start game & USB"
- i boot with USB DMA transfert type

with the solution 1, it says cdrom unlocked , you can upload any program
=> finally it worked, i load 3/4x the same binary and it boots
with the solution 2, the cdrom is not unlocked and if you try to unlock it, the saturn tries to authenticate the CD

so what's the best way ? sol1 with some retries or sol2 but it lacks cdauth ?

Solution 2 is absolutely not designed for testing of applications accessing to CD-ROM : it is convenient when developer wants to test something just after BIOS gave execution to cartridge (after that, Pseudo Saturn Kai main menu changes contents of RAM and some registers. Theses are reset to initial value when executing a program from USB, but not when reading data from USB).
I personally use this mode when USB transfer doesn't works after making changes to USB Pseudo Saturn Kai sources ^^; Since source for DMA transfer mode are separated from Pseudo Saturn Kai, at least this mode still works as long as Pseudo Saturn Kai boots.



Solution 1 is the best way in order to test applications accessing CD-ROM : I added this feature for that 🙂

> i load 3/4x the same binary and it boots

Can you describe in details what's not working correctly ? If something doesn't works (and if that's fixable), I will fix it 🙂

This feature requests fba burned on CD-R, with first executable, drivers, and data : if it boots fine with Pseudo Saturn Kai loader, then it is OK for "Start Game & USB" feature.
After enabling "Start Game & USB" feature, you are ready to execute first executable via USB, and it will be used instead of the one on CD-ROM.
Please note that it works only with first executable, so testing of drivers requires a CD-R each time (or to make driver bootable without first executable.)

 

[vbt]

Sorry for the delay.
Solution 1 is the best way in order to test applications accessing CD-ROM : I added this feature for that 🙂

> i load 3/4x the same binary and it boots

Can you describe in details what's not working correctly ? If something doesn't works (and if that's fixable), I will fix it 🙂

This feature requests fba burned on CD-R, with first executable, drivers, and data : if it boots fine with Pseudo Saturn Kai loader, then it is OK for "Start Game & USB" feature.
After enabling "Start Game & USB" feature, you are ready to execute first executable via USB, and it will be used instead of the one on CD-ROM.
Please note that it works only with first executable, so testing of drivers requires a CD-R each time (or to make driver bootable without first executable.)

here is what i'm doing :

SatLink.exe usb_dev_cart.ini -l d_slpfgh.bin 0x060B4000 -x sl.bin 0x06004000 -exit

i have a batch file for each driver, i disable the driver loading from the cd then load driver + main binary.
Satlink executes successfully the task (no error in the log) but then saturn ignores data. i retry the same thing till it works. it's like a dma transfer failure (that's why i rarely used dma).

 

[cafe-alpha]

Seems to work well with latest build of SatLink on vbt side.
Reason why old version of SatLink doesn't works is unclear, but I suppose that is was similar to this bug detailed in my blog.

If someone wants to do similar testing (burn only one CD-R with initial program and data, and do iterative testing on initial program via USB : no need to burn CD-R each time), please let me know in this thread.
(I really need to finish SatLink and do a proper release of it someday ...)

BTW, are (is ?) there people other than vbt and me using SatLink ?? Don't hesitate to post here (even if it is just to say hello) if you're still developing things on Saturn 🙂

 

[zone66x]

Hi all,

posting about the custom cartridge case I've been designing for the cafe-alpha's Gamer's Cartidge. Been a year in the making with a long MIA period in between here's some of the results:

This is one of the first cases I made with transparent ABS plastic. I was also testing how well text would print along with cafe-alpha's iconic cow 😛 I know the cart isn't called Psuedo Saturn Kai but I think it looks pretty cool

Here's another version of the case with an indent for a sticker label. Some of you might be wondering where the holes are for the leds on the Gamer's Cartridge. Well depending on the color of the plastic the case is transparent enough to let the light through without making holes which is awesome.😀

Can't go wrong with glow in the dark plastic....

Last version of the case I made with text on the front. It came out really well. I really like the lime green plastic too. Kudos to anyone who can tell what game that font comes from.

Well that's enough show and tell for now. I will be posting the Gamer's Cartidge design on thingiverse at some point when I feel up to it. I'm not sure I will be posting the earlier versions but I will definitely be posting the label version and text engraved one.

Enjoys ^_^

 

[SegaSaturnShrine]

Hi all,

posting about the custom cartridge case I've been designing for the cafe-alpha's Gamer's Cartidge. Been a year in the making with a long MIA period in between here's some of the results:

This is one of the first cases I made with transparent ABS plastic. I was also testing how well text would print along with cafe-alpha's iconic cow 😛 I know the cart isn't called Psuedo Saturn Kai but I think it looks pretty cool

Here's another version of the case with an indent for a sticker label. Some of you might be wondering where the holes are for the leds on the Gamer's Cartridge. Well depending on the color of the plastic the case is transparent enough to let the light through without making holes which is awesome.😀

Can't go wrong with glow in the dark plastic....

Last version of the case I made with text on the front. It came out really well. I really like the lime green plastic too. Kudos to anyone who can tell what game that font comes from.

Well that's enough show and tell for now. I will be posting the Gamer's Cartidge design on thingiverse at some point when I feel up to it. I'm not sure I will be posting the earlier versions but I will definitely be posting the label version and text engraved one.

Enjoys ^_^

Nice work! They all look amazing <3

 

[cafe-alpha]

Hi all,

posting about the custom cartridge case I've been designing for the cafe-alpha's Gamer's Cartidge. Been a year in the making with a long MIA period in between here's some of the results:


This is one of the first cases I made with transparent ABS plastic. I was also testing how well text would print along with cafe-alpha's iconic cow 😛 I know the cart isn't called Psuedo Saturn Kai but I think it looks pretty cool



Here's another version of the case with an indent for a sticker label. Some of you might be wondering where the holes are for the leds on the Gamer's Cartridge. Well depending on the color of the plastic the case is transparent enough to let the light through without making holes which is awesome.😀

Can't go wrong with glow in the dark plastic....


Last version of the case I made with text on the front. It came out really well. I really like the lime green plastic too. Kudos to anyone who can tell what game that font comes from.

Well that's enough show and tell for now. I will be posting the Gamer's Cartidge design on thingiverse at some point when I feel up to it. I'm not sure I will be posting the earlier versions but I will definitely be posting the label version and text engraved one.

Enjoys ^_^

Thank you for the pictures and continuing the good work ! Please keep up informed 🙂

Just an additional information about "compatibility" between PCB and Zone66x's cases : case is designed for Gamer's Cartridge's PCB revision 3.3 (a), (b) and (c) and doesn't supports PCB revision 3.1.
In simpler words, case is compatible with cartridges using Action Replay cases, but isn't compatible with carts using cases from official Memory Cartridges.

The main point to take care about when changing case from Action Replay to 3D printed one is that 3D printed case doesn't have hole for LEDs. Rather than drilling holes for LEDs, it is recommended to re-solder them without their 3mm spacers so that PCB can fit in the case and light from LEDs can be seen by transparency.
Rather than long explanations, please refer to the following pictures : Zone66x's cartridge PCB vs PCB from with same revision, and spacers user for LEDs.

 

[cafe-alpha]

Anyone ready to test next release candidate ? Testers are welcome 🙂
Please PM me if you're ready for testing. Requirements are a couple of CD-R, some free time, and to follow my instructions.

(Note : that's a "release candidate" version, so not public until tested enough. Publishing pictures or videos from this version is OK, but please don't leak executable/flasher/etc files)


What's new in this version : basically, not a lot of major features (sorry !), but fix of a critical bug affecting Gamer's Cartridge, and addition of some "minor, but that I wanted to add someday" features.


Features for Gamer's Cartridge users :
Indirect Dump. Dump cartridge (boot cartridge, or official memory cartridge, or any other cartridge) by compressing data to dump to internal backup memory, and extracting it to SD card when Gamer's Cartridge is inserted. Because of small size of internal backup memory, it may be required to repeat the "insert memory cartridge -> Indirect Dump -> Turn off Saturn -> Insert Gamer's Cartridge -> Indirect Dump -> Turn off Saturn" cycle several times.
Requires some motivation and free time on user side (It took me 45 minutes in order to dump my good old very first official memory cartridge), but I didn't had to unsolder cartridge memory chips in order to dump it, which is the most important for me 🙂
Note : if you are the lucky owner of Saturn FDD, then floppy disc is used instead of internal backup memory, and dump is significantly faster.
One application of this feature was to dump ROMs from legacy cartridges : X-Terminator, Satellite, ST Key and "8MEG memory cartridge". Theses ROMs will be available for flashing (at your own risks) for curious people wanting to test theses cartridges.
Special thanks to A Murder Of Crows and AtariBorn who dumped their cartridges ... and reported many bugs from early versions of Indirect Dump feature ^^;

Save Data corruption bugfix. This corruption problem concerns saves on Saturn internal memory, with save data size making save sector allocation table finishing exactly at the end of a sector. Very few games are concerned, and the only example I could find so far is Albert Odyssey.
I found this problem when testing Indirect Dump, and didn't received any feedback from users about it, so let's hope it didn't corrupted saves elsewhere than here 🙂

Autodump. Automatically dump new saves from internal backup memory to SD card. With this feature, you won't have to say anymore "I lost all my saves because of that $%QTY@!#% CR2032 battery" 🙂

Virtual FDD. Simulate Saturn Floppy Disc Drive behavior, with save data stored on SD card. Worked fine with Dezaemon 2 (can now handle 10 saves at once : 5 saves from cartridge, and 5 other saves on FDD ), but didn't tested for other games supporting FDD, so any feedback is welcome.


Features for Action Replay and Gamer's Cartridge users :
Proper support of FDD in Save Data Manager. It supports now both two partitions of Saturn floppy discs for all common operations such as copy, move, delete, import, dump, etc.
Special thanks to Dezaemon DB for big assistance in beta testing 🙂

Soft Reset Patch. Change the "A+B+C+Start key combo" soft reset from "exit to multiplayer screen" to system reset. This idea is not from me, but from neuroacid (rmenu developer).

More saves to import from Save Data Manager. The most noticeable addition is saves from Urawaza Dataro cartridge, containing quality saves for Japanese games. Special thanks to @Madroms for dumping the cartridge 🙂

Other. Fixed many bugs. Added other bugs (the usual routine 😀 )



Before being asked "where are the cheat codes ?", please let me reply 🙂
Cheat codes support is still under development. Menu in order to select game and its cheat codes is 90% done, but the bit of code in order to apply codes is still TBD. I didn't touched this feature for around half a year mostly because of lack of free time, motivation, and being busy in developing other features. I plan to finish this for "next-next release" however.

There are many things scheduled for "next-next release" : I initially planned to release everything at once, but had to make this intermediary release in order to fix the save data corruption bug on Gamer's Cartridge.


PS : Special thanks to Stac for beta testing :3 All the features above wouldn't exist without his help !!!

 

[SegaSaturnShrine]

Anyone ready to test next release candidate ? Testers are welcome 🙂
Please PM me if you're ready for testing. Requirements are a couple of CD-R, some free time, and to follow my instructions.

(Note : that's a "release candidate" version, so not public until tested enough. Publishing pictures or videos from this version is OK, but please don't leak executable/flasher/etc files)


What's new in this version : basically, not a lot of major features (sorry !), but fix of a critical bug affecting Gamer's Cartridge, and addition of some "minor, but that I wanted to add someday" features.


Features for Gamer's Cartridge users :
Indirect Dump. Dump cartridge (boot cartridge, or official memory cartridge, or any other cartridge) by compressing data to dump to internal backup memory, and extracting it to SD card when Gamer's Cartridge is inserted. Because of small size of internal backup memory, it may be required to repeat the "insert memory cartridge -> Indirect Dump -> Turn off Saturn -> Insert Gamer's Cartridge -> Indirect Dump -> Turn off Saturn" cycle several times.
Requires some motivation and free time on user side (It took me 45 minutes in order to dump my good old very first official memory cartridge), but I didn't had to unsolder cartridge memory chips in order to dump it, which is the most important for me 🙂
Note : if you are the lucky owner of Saturn FDD, then floppy disc is used instead of internal backup memory, and dump is significantly faster.
One application of this feature was to dump ROMs from legacy cartridges : X-Terminator, Satellite, ST Key and "8MEG memory cartridge". Theses ROMs will be available for flashing (at your own risks) for curious people wanting to test theses cartridges.
Special thanks to A Murder Of Crows and AtariBorn who dumped their cartridges ... and reported many bugs from early versions of Indirect Dump feature ^^;

Save Data corruption bugfix. This corruption problem concerns saves on Saturn internal memory, with save data size making save sector allocation table finishing exactly at the end of a sector. Very few games are concerned, and the only example I could find so far is Albert Odyssey.
I found this problem when testing Indirect Dump, and didn't received any feedback from users about it, so let's hope it didn't corrupted saves elsewhere than here 🙂

Autodump. Automatically dump new saves from internal backup memory to SD card. With this feature, you won't have to say anymore "I lost all my saves because of that $%QTY@!#% CR2032 battery" 🙂

Virtual FDD. Simulate Saturn Floppy Disc Drive behavior, with save data stored on SD card. Worked fine with Dezaemon 2 (can now handle 10 saves at once : 5 saves from cartridge, and 5 other saves on FDD ), but didn't tested for other games supporting FDD, so any feedback is welcome.


Features for Action Replay and Gamer's Cartridge users :
Proper support of FDD in Save Data Manager. It supports now both two partitions of Saturn floppy discs for all common operations such as copy, move, delete, import, dump, etc.
Special thanks to Dezaemon DB for big assistance in beta testing 🙂

Soft Reset Patch. Change the "A+B+C+Start key combo" soft reset from "exit to multiplayer screen" to system reset. This idea is not from me, but from neuroacid (rmenu developer).

More saves to import from Save Data Manager. The most noticeable addition is saves from Urawaza Dataro cartridge, containing quality saves for Japanese games. Special thanks to @Madroms for dumping the cartridge 🙂

Other. Fixed many bugs. Added other bugs (the usual routine 😀 )



Before being asked "where are the cheat codes ?", please let me reply 🙂
Cheat codes support is still under development. Menu in order to select game and its cheat codes is 90% done, but the bit of code in order to apply codes is still TBD. I didn't touched this feature for around half a year mostly because of lack of free time, motivation, and being busy in developing other features. I plan to finish this for "next-next release" however.

There are many things scheduled for "next-next release" : I initially planned to release everything at once, but had to make this intermediary release in order to fix the save data corruption bug on Gamer's Cartridge.


PS : Special thanks to Stac for beta testing :3 All the features above wouldn't exist without his help !!!

I don't have the time during the week, but this Sunday I could take some time playing around with this on my Action Replay Cart. I don't have a Gamer's Cartridge though, so I would be very limited in what features I can actually test. Just let me know.