Sega Saturn

[rich violet]

Nice!

[serene thunder]

Peg the message, for the greater good

[tiny quartz]

Not sure if anyone's noticed this yet, but ST-V dev docs:

https://bsky.app/profile/suddendesu.bsky.social/post/3lqncu77kbk2f

ＳＵＤＤＥＮ・ＤＥＳＵ (@suddendesu.bsky.social)

Next up, we have some development materials for the Sega ST-V arcade hardware!

archive.org/details/sega...

Bluesky · Jun 2, 2025, 5:36 PM

[floral saddle]

No idea about the previous unstable, don't worry about it for now.

[marsh crypt]

Any chance of 8mb support in the future?

[ripe valley]

I asked srg320 but he is busy at the moment.

[marsh crypt]

Some games required expansion ram for saves and/or accelerates

[wise brook]

we already have that

BACKUP, 1MB ram, 4MB ram, etc

[marsh crypt]

Some games were developed to take advantage of the extra RAM, allowing for larger levels, more complex visuals, and more extensive features

[marsh crypt]

But no 8MB support

Some popular games that utilize 8MB RAM cartridges include certain SNK fighting games, and some Capcom games

[wise brook]

you mean the made up cartridge that only runs a non-commercial piece of software.

snk used 1mb, capcom used 4mb

[marsh crypt]

I don't mean the Pseudo Kai Cartridge

[wise brook]

maybe show me this cartridge you’re referring to

[pallid pier]

8Mbit isn’t 8MB

[ancient surge]

Yeah I'm confused, because officially there is only the 1MB and 4MB cartridges.

Where is this 8MB one coming from?

[pallid pier]

make sure you’re talking about the right cart

8Mbit = 1MB, 32Mbit=4MB

[marsh crypt]

Knowing me .. I most likely did confuse megabits and megabytes

Gahh... Losing my mind

[thorn turtle]

Is anyone using their mister with a rt4k?

[wise brook]

yeah, a couple

and the morph

[thorn turtle]

I set mine up tonight on a LG CX OLED tv

[wise brook]

sounds like it should be a hoot

[thorn turtle]

Trying to figure out if I need to turn on VRR

On the rt4k

[wise brook]

oh within the Mister ini

probably

i do the same with the tink5x

[thorn turtle]

I’m using direct_video over hdmi to the rt4k

[wise brook]

should be fine my dude

[river river]

Sounds like it's not ready needed https://consolemods.org/wiki/AV:RetroTINK-4K#VRR_(Variable_Refresh_Rate)

[warped saddle]

it's display dependent

there are some TVs that have quite a bit of reduction in buffering/latency when the VRR flag is set and the output refresh rate is something non-standard

[frail token]

Does VRR even work with direct video?

or are you not using direct video

Which I'd assume you are

[warped saddle]

they're not talking about enabling it on the mister

enabling it on the tink is basically the same as what the mister does. so it can help

[celest lake]

Lg c1 and beyond have trouble with the fun refresh rates. With vrr off, latency can be 30ms. Sub 10 with vrr on

[radiant karma]

Hard choice that one. Without VRR, you can enable input lag boost mode, which lowers lag to 2ms. But only if you are using standard refresh rates.

[warped cliff]

I think in the retrotink community they have a recommended mister.ini, and I think they have VRR off

I'll have to check. I use an LG C3

so if I can reduce latency by 30ms by turning it on, that would be amazing

[warped cliff]

oh neat!

[warped saddle]

yeah, it should be off in the ini, although with DV it doesn't matter

[celest lake]

Yeah, you enable it on the tink side

[radiant karma]

Now that I think about it, I haven't seen tests on LG OLEDs with boost mode enabled and vrr disabled using non standard refresh rates. Maybe boost mode drops those 30ms. How do you lag test non standard refresh rates?

[celest lake]

Mister laggy. I thought @royal saffron was futzing with this way back - but I might be misremembering

[royal saffron]

Yeah I have one

[radiant karma]

Does mister laggy work with non standard refresh rates? I don't own one so don't know if it lets you select resolutions and refresh rates.

[celest lake]

Yes, you can step it all the way 50-60hz (can’t do non whole numbers but that’s fine).

[celest lake]

Which lg did you grab at Christmas? Weren’t the laggy numbers bad without vrr?

[royal saffron]

C3. It was worse with vrr I think, I need to check back

[celest lake]

I think it was worse with vrr at 60 but better at 57?

[radiant karma]

Common non standard arcade refresh rates, 55hz, 57hz, 61hz? Maybe those need to be retested with vrr on off and boost mode.

[celest lake]

I’d test but I don’t think my CX does boost mode

[royal saffron]

Found some of my posts

[celest lake]

but then waka had you test 57hz I think

or maybe 55?

[royal saffron]

Hummm

[radiant karma]

2ms is about right with standard refresh rates and boost mode on.

[celest lake]

there it is #settings-workshop message

[radiant karma]

Thanks for finding that. A solution would be to set vrr for arcade and computer cores only as those are most likely to have non standard refresh rates. [arcade] and [computer] settings in mister.ini . What I am not sure is if the oled tv can enable vrr while the boost option is set to on, maybe it disables boost mode automatically. Will have a look later in the day.

[royal saffron]

You search my posts better than I search my posts 😘

[radiant karma]

Setting vrr for arcade and computer cores using mister.ini works perfectly. Lg oleds just turn off boost mode when detecting vrr. So now I have 2ms lag for consoles and 10ms lag on arcade and computer cores. Thanks guys, would not have found an optimal solution if not for your comments here. I could set vrr for each arcade game that does non standard refresh rates, but till I find the time to do so, this is the best compromise.

[rich violet]

What's the name of that game that uses the dev cartridge?

Ah, it's Heart of Darkness 1996 proto

"Update sys" -- that means the Saturn core gets the new advanced bob deinterlacing, right?

[radiant karma]

If there are no regressions I don't see any remaining issues, the core could be considered finished. It only means 3DO soon!

[rich violet]

Unfortunately the single ram and both ST-V builds failed

Well, it looks like the build actually worked

But uploading the finished artifact failed:

https://github.com/MiSTer-unstable-nightlies/Saturn_MiSTer/actions/runs/15469422009/job/43549618819

[marble laurel]

https://github.com/MiSTer-unstable-nightlies/Saturn_MiSTer/releases/download/unstable-builds/Saturn_unstable_20250605_145f81.rbf

STV's build Failed because of this issue
#9 11.92 Info (12023): Found entity 1: emu File: /project/Saturn.sv Line: 17
#9 11.92 Error (10161): Verilog HDL error at Saturn.sv(1387): object "dezaemon2_hack" is not declared. Verify the object name is correct. If the name is correct, declare the object. File: /project/Saturn.sv Line: 1387
#9 11.92 Warning (10222): Verilog HDL Parameter Declaration warning at jtframe_resync.v(33): Parameter Declaration in module "jtframe_resync" behaves as a Local Parameter Declaration because the module has a Module Parameter Port List File: /project/rtl/jtframe_resync.v Line: 33

something with declaration so need an update I think

[warped saddle]

it does not have the new bob, the menu entry in the actual core wasn't changed

[marble laurel]

srg320 fixed the build of STV

[ripe valley]

I need to check some parts of the core during next week, after our discussions with StrikerX3.

[marble laurel]

Biometal logo seems fixed on Dezaemon 2

[wide glacier]

holy shit

the saturn core is finally 100% perfect

[celest lake]

https://tenor.com/bifUi.gif

[ripe valley]

100% perfect, not sure.
But very close, yes.

[marble laurel]

Also some timing will not be perfect because of de10nano

[muted cradle]

Screen flipping would be a neat addition though for all those TATE games.

[wide glacier]

is that not possible over HDMI?

[warped saddle]

no, not right now

[wide glacier]

gotta bring out the old crt

[solemn ledge]

Hey guys, quick question. does the saturn core support a guncon 2? And if so, would I need a SNAC adapter?

[wise brook]

yes and no

yes to guncon, no snac adapter required

[solemn ledge]

perfect, thank you!!

[wise brook]

unless you get the Virtua Gun, that would require SNAC

[wise brook]

usb light guns work basically perfect with all but one game that uses an interlaced mode

@untold cloud basically had that solved, but a lot of updates were coming down the pipe at the time so wasn’t worth trying to add at that time

[naive whale]

Ignore me hadn’t loaded all the messages haha

[thorn pagoda]

do you think its worth putting a bug in for this just so its not forgotten?

[wise brook]

probably, even it it’s not srg personally fixing it. maybe the code would be added to the next stable?

[alpine pagoda]

Oh man, I didn’t realize guncon 2 support got added, that’s great!

[kind bough]

The one game was 'Scud - The Disposable Assassin', has an interlaced title screen
#1046941029296779344 message
#1046941029296779344 message

Dont think Ash made a PR with that fix (he added the lightgun support to the core)

That game needs player 2 set as light gun in OSD also (you play with gun as p1)
if its set as 'digital' the game's menu keeps looping back and wont let you start

[ripe valley]

I will close my pending issues tickets later next week for the dev DRAM cart and Dezaemon 2.

I need to check also 2-3 things on the core and discuss eventually with srg320.

[pastel basalt]

The latest cores are so good

What an odessey it's been with this one. Can't believe we got stv also

[ripe valley]

I need to check some parts of the core -for future proofness- later this month.

[wise brook]

now we just need some youtuber to review the core, and claim it’s still not good because they forgot to run update all for the last 2 years

[ripe valley]

I need to run down some unit tests and check against the real system.

Some extreme accuracy tests.

If my idea is correct, that should help for the 32x and possibly have a correct base for future possible cores.

[wise brook]

absolutely incredible to think this core, if paired with a better ram architecture would probably be indistinguishable to the original hardware.

hopefully the code is very portable and can move to other FPGA platforms without too much effort.

[ripe valley]

A SuperStation- like system with a Saturn form factor.
That's on my mind right now.

[deft verge]

i'm not a saturn fan but would be interested in that

[wise brook]

the Saturn is a gorgeous form factor

[left chasm]

I dream of a handheld with a tribute to the Sega design language, like the GKD Bubble (black) but better materials and bigger screen, 6 buttons, running mister

Someone modded the blue button but otherwise a great start

[deft verge]

i just think the saturn as a console looks pretty nice

[wise brook]

Model 1 or 2?

i think Model one in grey looks

a e s t h e t i c

[tiny quartz]

Navi FTW. Then in descending order: model 2 HiSaturn, Skeleton(s), White, V-Saturn, black, model 1 non-black, model 1 black, and dead last, the SGX.

[wide glacier]

model 2 v-saturn goes hard

[tiny quartz]

I've got the coloured v-saturn buttons in my skeleton. Looks great. 🙂

[serene thunder]

That dpad... 🤢

[exotic elk]

lovely rocker

[inner kayak]

I've been wondering when the SH2 model can be transplanted into some arcade cores, but hadn't done the deep research to know what the other 'missing pieces' are in open source verilog 🙂

[warped saddle]

I know JT looked at taito SH-2 board(s) and the problem there is they are basically an SH2 coupled with a massive custom chip that no one has done the magic on to recreate it

[wide glacier]

what taito games used an SH-2 configuration

[warped saddle]

it's a bunch that share a mostly common sh-2 based board. TGM2, dragon blaze, some strikers games, gunbird2 various other stuff

I'm sure there's other arcade stuff out there that uses sh2 tho

[wide glacier]

ah, i forgot about the psikyo SH2. should've known lol

would love to see more psikyo stuff on mister if it's ever possible

hell just more arcade games in general. pcb prices are ludicrous these days

[light magnet]

I think we'll get Psikyo stuff eventually. The games are prolific enough.

[somber grail]

I ordered the components for that sega saturn 3d controller wireless usb board, with the PCB and ESP32 it was about $50 after shipping

[naive whale]

so thats 100% boot yes? with Heart of Darkness now?

[naive whale]

There’s a comprehensive list out there somewhere I’ve seen before

Let me see if I can find it

Sega H1 / Psiyko SH-2 / CPS III / Kaneko Super Nova / ST-V (duh)

H1 and Super Nova being the outliers

H1 would be annoying because it runs one game but it’s Cool Riders so it’s a legit 10/10 game. Technically there’s Aqua Stage too but that’s a coin pusher

And it’s lousy with Sega customs for the graphics side

[exotic elk]

Sega customs? will these tariffs never end

[naive whale]

Supernova has some decent shit. Nothing special

https://www.system16.com/hardware.php?id=807

[naive whale]

Orange Sega bad? 🤣

[wide glacier]

would love to see supernova on mister someday. cyvern and sengeki striker are great

[high bramble]

Orange Sega the best!

[wide glacier]

i think the big three that use the SH2 would be the (aptly named) psikyo SH2, kaneko supernova, and of course CPS3

[naive whale]

Psiyko brings the goods the best

[wide glacier]

J.J. Squawkers must take top priority though

[mortal mist]

I checked how the new bob in core works, I don't know why but sometimes after switching from wave to bob the image starts to streak (ghosting)

[drifting frigate]

This is a T-Shirt I made (and I love it)

[exotic elk]

it shows you're a true Nintendo fan

[drifting frigate]

Here's the full artboard. But this one is the one that stuck fo rme.

[warped saddle]

it's not "new bob" he did the build wrong and it is still old bob. all "bob deinterlacers" will cause image retention (temporary) on most IPS panels

[mortal mist]

no , I built my own core with changes

[wise brook]

https://tenor.com/view/cat-shaking-head-gif-21797829

me stuck at work for the next ten hours unable to test

[warped saddle]

oh

yeah, bob does image retention on ips. I dunno, I think at this point most people should weave+filter

[tawny forge]

@frail token pls sell these T-Shirts lol

Unless @drifting frigate already sells those of course haha

[frail token]

Good lord I could never

[drifting frigate]

My friend WILL be selling the playstation one. He is flat broke, so I'll let you know when he uploads it. Here's his store for some other fun shirts. https://tylerfromtheinternet.tri-pod.com/

[drifting frigate]

Moving to #spicy-off-topic

#spicy-off-topic message

[naive whale]

@warped saddle sent you a DM just to clarify a detail for a vid 🙂

[light magnet]

Hopefully not referring to the #spicy-off-topic subject, @naive whale

[naive whale]

No I dont even know what they were talking about haha

I just wanted to confirm / deny 100% of games booted

I know the testing sheet says 0% no boot but double confirming

[light magnet]

Thanks for clarifying XD

[naive whale]

Do I even want to know whats in spicy? lol

[light magnet]

IDK, I don't go there either

[sweet vale]

One message removed from a suspended account.

[warped saddle]

<@&806015468916703282> git on it

[radiant karma]

I don't think that gun works on the reflex adapter. You need snac/snax for that.

[cosmic bear]

I have a Dual RAM setup but the Dual RAM core gives me a black screen. Any thoughts?

[celest lake]

Does the single ram core work? If not, you’re likely missing the bios (or it’s not named boot.rom)

[cosmic bear]

It does. And I found an older Dual RAM core that still works.

[polar mountain]

MiSTer main up to date? Have you run update-all lately?

[ripe valley]

For documentation.

I'm beginning a full deeper review of all parts of the Saturn core starting today, and for the next days of this week.
We already have a quick talk privately with srg320, so possibly expect some updates on the core later this month.

[ancient surge]

Any obscure inaccuracies found so far?

[ripe valley]

Many, I can't comment more at the moment.

I have good faith that it will be useful for the 32x and future SH2 arcade games.

[high bramble]

Thank you for everything that you do.

[floral saddle]

Before I forget could you please re-open the Parodius Konami Sign bug on Github? If you don't want to deal with it just let me know and I will create a new ticket. Thanks.

[ripe valley]

Thanks for the reminder.
I'm busy at the moment, gimme a hour or two.

Issue reopened.

srg320 begins to work on the last findings today.

I'm comparing some results with other emulators on my side.

And will probably discuss with their authors later tonight.

[floral saddle]

Thank you!

[ripe valley]

I need to test it on my side.

[ripe valley]

I can confirm, I've seen it on my MiSTer systems.

A quick flickering just after when the claws transporting the KONAMI sign are destroyed,

For Radiant Silvergun, we cannot reproduce the issue at all, even with all our MiSTer systems and IPS/TV panels...

[floral saddle]

I will leave the Silvergun one up for a little longer, if it's really just an outlier with my DE-10 and setup like with those audio pops you couldn't replicate then I will close it.

[cobalt rune]

Noooooo let the man work on the 3DO core!!! 😂

[ancient surge]

Stay mad 3DOrks 💪

[celest lake]

how dare u

[cosmic bear]

It is. I ran Update All a few days ago.

[celest lake]

weird. maybe try deleting and downloading the core again? How are you getting it onto your mister?

[cosmic bear]

Alright, I'll try that. I downloaded it from Discord.

[celest lake]

yeah, but how are you transferring it to your mister? filezilla?

[upper dust]

Maybe config file needs deleted too. Always a classic

[inner kayak]

in case you don't hear it enough, I super appreciate all the coordination you do across the community ❤️

[cosmic bear]

Manually. Not wirelessly

[celest lake]

oh weird

yeah, then I am out of ideas

[polar mountain]

Dodgy second stick of ram?

[cosmic bear]

I'm really thinking there's something with the core. The older version works fine and the PS1 Dual RAM core still works, too.

[left chasm]

@cosmic bear worth a test. Btw you might not know as I didn’t that the default memtest only checks the first stick, you need to download another memtest for the second stick

[cosmic bear]

That's good to know. Would you be able to supply a link?

[left chasm]

learned it from #help message

[cosmic bear]

This is from the 2nd RAM MemTest

[left chasm]

see the README of the git repo of the memtest project, it explains the numbers, I think you need to run it for a bit longer

here https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/MemTest_MiSTer?tab=readme-ov-file#memtest-screen

[lofty spire]

gotta test your MiSTer for memes

[cosmic bear]

I ran it for 2 minutes and there were no fails. Has anyone with a dual RAM setup taken the time to test the most recent build for themselves?

[left chasm]

the quick test is 10min, and 1-2h to be sure

[celest lake]

yup, I have it running on a couple of misters

[polar mountain]

What ram do you have in the second slot?

[cosmic bear]

I got it from Ultimate Mister prebuilt about a year ago. No issues with any cores until now. They describe the RAM as, "Official Memory Module v3 128MB SDRAM"

To be clear, the core boots and I can access the OSD. But games won't load.

I'm at 10 min now. Still no errors

[muted cradle]

I guess that a 2 minute test is without any meaning

Should be at least 10 minutes

[celest lake]

if the previous core is working, then something else is afoot

does the jaguar dual ram core work for you @cosmic bear ?

[small ore]

I was playing saturn games all day yesterday with the most recent unstable dual ram core, no issues loading or playing anything

[polar mountain]

Is there a switch that needs flipping for dual ram?

[celest lake]

if it’s not a 9.2 board

but, again, other dual ram cores are working

[polar mountain]

Ah

[cosmic bear]

No, I don't have any Jaguar games. But, not only did I test an old build, I also tested the dual RAM PS1 core without issues. I'm going to let the test run for 2 hours. Then, assuming everything passes, I'll test the Jag core.

[celest lake]

I also have a couple of dual ram misters. I can see if it’s a weird “works with some but not others” situations

[polar mountain]

Frustrating, hang in there brosef!

[cosmic bear]

Another thing I want to do is comb through the ini file to see if something is amiss. Maybe, somehow, it's trying to output a signal my screen doesn't like?

I've only tested with my modern display. I also have a PVM. I'll also test that. I'll keep y'all informed. Thanks!

Um... The mem test reset. Is that normal?

It's says it's on minute 2 now

[celest lake]

yes, it probably hit an error on that speed

so it drops to the next speed down and starts over

basically, you want the upper right-hand number to stay above 140

if you can get an hour at 140+, it’s fine

(my guess is that it’s fine)

[cosmic bear]

Good to know. Thanks!

[celest lake]

and when you’re testing jaguar, you don’t need a game. you just need the core and bios (both are pinned in the jaguar thread). if the core boots and you get a red jaguar screen, then you’re good

[cosmic bear]

We've passed the hour mark at 147 and no errors

Jaguar core didn't seem to work. I'm testing the first mem stick now

This is from the Jaguar osd

[celest lake]

and you have the jaguar bios in the root directory?

[cosmic bear]

hmmmmmmm no lol

[celest lake]

that would explain that :p

should be pinned in the jaguar thread, hold on

#1055574003810578503 message

rename that to boot.rom and drop it in /games/Jaguar

[cosmic bear]

That fixed it. The Jaguar core works for me. Thanks!

I'm going to move on to reviewing the ini file and trying a different display. Thanks again for all the help with this!

[celest lake]

i’m running through all my dual ram setups now

just to see if I can get a no boot

[cosmic bear]

I don't currently have anything core specific in the ini file. I don't think the problem is there.

[celest lake]

all your files are stored locally, on the card?

[left chasm]

weird one, I've been playing daily wo issues, dual ram too

md5sum /media/fat/_Console/Saturn_DualSDRAM_unstable_20250519_168bd5.rbf
f1f291ac9ab3fad5bd0ad509996b97aa

[cosmic bear]

Yeah. I don't deal with doing stuff over a network. My Mister sits on top of my computer, so it's just as easy to take out the SD card and do things manually, for me.

[celest lake]

this isn’t the latest core

[cosmic bear]

That one works for me. There's a newer one and a newer newer test build lol

[left chasm]

ah! which one did you get? I got it from unstable-nightlies, checking (update: ooops they made a new one)

[celest lake]

just for a sanity check, we know for sure this one works as it came off of one of my misters. try it just to be 100% certain

[cosmic bear]

I'm wrong. The Test build is outdated.

[left chasm]

ok also works (for me)

md5sum /media/fat/_Console/Saturn_DualSDRAM_unstable_20250605_17c4f6.rbf
b323e885525cbc995ad5b988c7976893

[celest lake]

can't share that, unfortunately - copyrighted. However, if you use update, delete the bios and then enable the bios downloads in the settings. ti will grab the correct bios

(also, delete that message 🙂 )

[cosmic bear]

How about the boot rom?

[celest lake]

that's the bios

[cosmic bear]

Is there a reason I would have both?

[celest lake]

nope, only need the 1. it only loads boot.rom

[warped saddle]

make sure you don't have extensions hidden

and that file isn't named like boot.rom.bin

[cosmic bear]

This worked for me! There must have been a corruption in my original download or something.

[celest lake]

Go forth and play grandia without flickering

[warped saddle]

wait, did we get githubbed?

[celest lake]

I dunno - I haven't done the direct download

the first build did fail - surely it wouldn't be listed as the working build

surely

[cosmic bear]

The build that I got that wasn't working was downloaded from Discord Unstable-Nightlies

I didn't realize there were two. I probably grabbed the wrong one from 6/5

[ripe valley]

So, user error.
That's reassuring.

[cosmic bear]

Yup

Actually... I grabbed the correct one. So, that's not it.

ends in 4f6. The wrong one has a different identifier.

[celest lake]

maybe something got gunked up in the download

we could go down some real rabbit holes and start memtesting your mac.......or we can just shrug and say we figured it out

[cosmic bear]

I'm thinking so. Alls well that ends well. Thanks again for helping me. Now I can experience all that Saturn content that needs 2 RAM modules. hahahaha

I guess the real immediate benefit is knowing that the Mister doesn't have any hardware issues.

[polar mountain]

https://tenor.com/view/fireworks-firework-fourthofjuly-chineseinvention-celebrate-gif-10257809852617572145

[cosmic bear]

I'll shrug for now. If something like this happens again, I'll take it further.

[celest lake]

this is the right call

[cosmic bear]

Are there bugs when playing Grandia on the single RAM build that the Dual RAM build circumvents? I was actually fixing to start a playthrough

[celest lake]

there can. on a bunch of misters, you'll get texture flickering in certain areas on single ram

You can see a video of it here: https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Saturn_MiSTer/issues/355#issuecomment-2660922664

[cosmic bear]

On a completely different note, not to open another can of worms, but has anyone had issues with using a USB mouse? When trying to play Phantasmagoria or Broken Sword, the right click registers as a left click. I haven't tried a different USB mouse yet nor do I have a real Saturn mouse to test. But I did just confirm that the issue still exists on the newest core (that finally works for me).

[warped saddle]

crank that ddr clock!

[cosmic bear]

I'm assuming it's the mouse. I have the NES styled 8bitdo one. I love it. But it is kinda weird.

[cobalt rune]

Broken Sword? I could've swore that was PSX only.

[cosmic bear]

Oh you're right! I tested multiple cores. There you go. It IS the mouse. Although it works fine on ao486

[ripe valley]

Discworld and Policenauts are good candidates for tests.

Destroying partially the idea of a possible future Turbo core / overclocked Saturn was my final thing for today.

People asked on comments section from the last video of AwBacon.

The video hardware uses the same clock as the CPUs, so if you overclock the CPUs, you break the video.
And changing the CD-ROM speed is counter-productive as the SH-1 would still spend the same amount of time polling the CD hardware for data and likewise for the SH-2's polling the SH-1 for data.

[cosmic bear]

I think people just love the fact that they can play n64 games at more than 10 frames a second lol I personally don't think the Saturn needs much of a boost even if it were possible.

[wide glacier]

i can't think of many saturn games where the performance was bad enough for me to wish the cpu speed was faster

loading times however are another story, but even the most egregious ones are usually bearable

[cosmic bear]

I totally agree

[wide glacier]

the worst i can think of off the top of my head would maybe be the initial load in daytona usa circuit edition, and between levels in sonic 3D blast

[cosmic bear]

But those are still nothing compared to someof the load times the PS1 saw.

I feel like I'm sounding like a SEGA fanboy lol

[wide glacier]

i guess it's just a game by game basis

[cosmic bear]

Yeah, if every PS1 game was coded as cleanly as, say, Naughty Dog's games, it would be a different story

[ripe valley]

Let's hack the BIOS for gaining some resources on the system, yeaaaaah!

Some dev when creating Crash Bandicoot (respect for Andy Gavin for that wonderful idea back then).

[cobalt rune]

Broken Sword is such a great game. If you've never played thru I highly recommend it

[left chasm]

yeah, I was all excited thinking I somehow missed a Saturn port

[cosmic bear]

I'll play it on ao486

[cobalt rune]

Right? I was like oh shit was there a fan port? 😂

[left chasm]

scummvm (on any pc/mac/other) probably is a better choice but up to you, just heads up

[cosmic bear]

Really? Why so?

[cosmic bear]

Well, now I feel bad getting people's hopes up.

[cobalt rune]

Haha no sweat

[ripe valley]

No Broken Sword for you!

[cobalt rune]

I'm gonna play thru Discworld here on the Saturn tonight.

[ripe valley]

https://tenor.com/view/seinfeld-soupnazi-nosoup-gif-5441633

[cobalt rune]

I've played thru the PSX version my multiple times over the years. Figure I'll try it on the Saturn this time and see if there's any noticeable differences

[ripe valley]

Broken Sword is a meme factory in some languages.

[cosmic bear]

I always felt like Discworld was particularly hard. Maybe if I was more familiar with the source material, the puzzles would make more sense to me.

[ripe valley]

Discworld is hard, that is coming from a very hardcore fan of the genre.

And I survived to the Deponia series & Dark Seed.

[cosmic bear]

I played through the first 3 Deponia games. But I think there's a 4th one now, right?

[ripe valley]

Right.

[cosmic bear]

Just watched a video on Dark Seed 2. It sure looks like... a game lol

[ripe valley]

HR Giger.

[cosmic bear]

Do you recommend the first one? Does it hold up in your opinion?

I haven't played either Darkseed

[ripe valley]

Not on Saturn, as it is in Japanese.

Whether it holds up is a personal impression, but I wouldn't recommend it directly and we have so much more choice with PnC games.

[cosmic bear]

Fair enough

Phantasmagoria was next on my list. That, and Unavowed.

[ripe valley]

Far better choices.

[small ore]

There is an english patch for the saturn version now

[lofty spire]

lotta Saturn stuff getting English translations. i'm stoked

[cobalt rune]

I played thru both Discworld 1 & 2, some of my all time favorite games. Gonna give em both Saturn runs this week. I need to try Discworld Noir too, but I'm not sure I'll like that one as much as the first two

[lofty spire]

never thought Princess Crown would get one and now it's got one 🙂

[cobalt rune]

Damn that's right. I gotta play thru that too

[cosmic bear]

I think new translations are what I get most excited for nowadays

[cobalt rune]

Gonna finish Blackthorne on SNES here tonight, and then move onto the next game.

Same here.

I don't give a crap about modern gaming. There's barely anything interesting that comes out today.

[cosmic bear]

It's become a slow drip feed, for sure. Plus, good games get buried in a sea of shovelware so easily.

[cobalt rune]

I also wanna start up Albion on the AO486 core, but I feel like that's a game that needs all my attention and don't wanna play thru multiple games while going thru that one

Lucky for us, there's enough retro stuff to last us several lifetimes!

I keep an eye out for good Soulsborne like games today and that's about all.

And I'm behind on that too lol

[cosmic bear]

I started with BB. Since then, I've played ER and Dark Souls 1. Almost done with DS3. So, I still have Demon's Souls and DS2 on my plate.

haven't even looked at Another Crab or Lies of P yet

[lofty spire]

i couldn't get into Demon's Souls when it first came out but things clicked when i played Dark Souls 1 so i went back to Demon's Souls and it became my favorite Souls game lol

[upper dust]

...Sekiro for us Tenchu heads...

[cosmic bear]

It's rare I hear either that game or DS2 get compliments. Did you play the remake?

[cobalt rune]

I love dark souls 2

[upper dust]

Though i love them all

[cosmic bear]

I forgot about Sekiro! It's my fav. I played it after DS1. I guess I don't think of it like a Souls game

[lofty spire]

i played the original Demon's Souls, i don't like the art style shift in the remake but if that doesn't bother you at all it's a way to play Demon's Souls in the modern day

[cobalt rune]

Absolutely hated Sekiro. It's a me issue though. I could never get the timing down

I hope they go back and make a new Kings field

[cosmic bear]

I have a tip for you that made me click with it. I'm an audio guy... the timing on the audio ques is off. It's just letting you know to pay attention. So, if you play it like a rhythm game, you'll keep messing up the timing.

[cobalt rune]

I'll have to try that

Thanks

[upper dust]

Yeah, plus you have to like stealth games, which can be a big ask. Unless you're so good you don't need the stealth (but I like the hunt)

[cosmic bear]

No prob. There's a YouTube series that is fantastic for tutorials. I can find it for you.

[cobalt rune]

I installed Mortal Shell on my PC today I wanna give that a try soon

[small ore]

Mash Parry, don't worry so much about timing

[upper dust]

Also you get very fast and varied movement in Sekiro. Strike hard and fade away

[cosmic bear]

The content by Katiecakes is super helpful

[cobalt rune]

The problem for me might've been I tried to play it like demons souls

[cosmic bear]

That tends to be a common problem with Sekiro. But, to @small ore 's point, the game is very forgiving about mashing the parry button. Eventually, you'll have to start "getting gud" but mashing can help

[cobalt rune]

If I can beat Elden Ring I'm sure I can beat Sekiro if I kept at it

[small ore]

It's kind of a joke I make about sekiro. Mash Parry, Win Game. It's not 100% true, but the game is very forgiving about it, and there's straight up a boss where it's required, which is where I learned that it's OK to mash it and timing isn't super strict

[cosmic bear]

Absolutely. And Sekiro has some of the most rewarding bosses to beat. There was one optional secret boss that, when I won, I screamed out loud lol

[upper dust]

Same, lol

[cobalt rune]

I was that way with Bloodborne a few times.

Bloodborne is my favorite of all of them

Lies of P was pretty damn good too coming from a totally different studio. I really am excited to see what that studio does next

[cosmic bear]

Ok, so, I've heard that the game promotes lying. That rubs me the wrong way. So I haven't tried it. haha

[small ore]

I'm really stoked for Mortal Shell 2, the 1st one was fantastic IMO, and the no shell challenge was pretty easy and fun

[cobalt rune]

You don't have to lie. It's just an in option

I gotta share with you guys this Bloodborne story...you'll love it

[cosmic bear]

But isn't it like the "right" option?

[cobalt rune]

I mean you can play it how ever you like really

I think it affects the ending

Without giving shit away ... You should lie in the end

[cosmic bear]

What's the Bloodborne story?

[cobalt rune]

so my buddy brings his ps4 over and we're gonna play thru the game together.

well...

we get invaded, he attacks my buddy, and he insists he's got this....they go at it for bout 5 minutes but my buddy gets killed

so im standing there, and this invader is bout 50 ft away from me

literally at the exact same time, we each take a bow

and then battle it out for like 10 minutes

finally took em down.

Shouted so loud when i finally took em down

but the part where we both bow'd outta respect at the same time i remember thinking how bad ass that was.

[cosmic bear]

That's one of those moments you wish you were recording, I bet

[cobalt rune]

absolutely

Do try Lies of P man, it's really good, and trust me, telling a few lies pays off in the end 😉

[cosmic bear]

I'm sure I will. That was just the deciding factor on whether to do more FromSoft games first or jump to that one. It looks too good to pass up.

[cobalt rune]

It's a game where if you told me it was a FromSoft game I'd believe it.

[cosmic bear]

Now that's high praise!

[cobalt rune]

Great graphics, amazing soundtrack, controls beautifully, I really enjoyed the story, and the ending was pretty sick, and what it leads to for a potential sequel is very promising.

[cosmic bear]

Yeah, isn't it supposed to be the start of a series where each game is loosely tied to a children's fairy tale? (like Pinochio)

So, like, the next one is supposed to be like Alice in Wonderland or something like that

[cobalt rune]

Yeah something along those lines yeah.

Next one seems linked to Wizard of Oz

[upper dust]

That seems like a better backdrop. Return to Oz is practically a Souls movie

[kindred sundial]

Realize this is getting way off topic but Bloodborne is the best one

[cosmic bear]

I'm sure people are thinking, "Isn't this the Discord for Saturn on the Mister? What's with all the Souls-like talk??"

[cobalt rune]

Hahaha

[upper dust]

Umm, play Baroque on the Saturn?? But yeah, play them From and From-likes

[cobalt rune]

While I'm tossing out recommendations if you did cinematic platformers... Check out Full Void

[cosmic bear]

Did Nightmare Creatures make it to the Saturn?

[cosmic bear]

Not counting Sekiro, I have BB tied with ER. If we ever get a remaster, that might change, though 😉

[cosmic bear]

It looks cool!

[cobalt rune]

It's absolutely amazing man

[cosmic bear]

Downloading the demo now

[cosmic bear]

I totally forgot Return to Oz existed. Talk about a fever dream of a film.

I miss 80s dark fantasy so much. I wish it would make a comeback

[cobalt rune]

Dude I wish good cinema in general would come back lol

[sage axle]

just a quick question, is there any disadvantage using single ram version currently or is the core targeted towards dual?

[wise brook]

yes

[muted cradle]

Some games have timing problems. Mostly those on the Virtua Fighter engine. Those games need the fast timing hack on single RAM or a dual RAM setup.

[wise brook]

and even then…

[muted cradle]

Dual RAM is better but not perfect for those games.

[sage axle]

thanks for that clarification! I recently got the newer Analog IO means, that I will not be able to use the dual sd ram version and I think I have my priorities set on better analog output 🙂

[wise brook]

you can have that with dual ram

direct video

[sage axle]

yeah I know, but I like to switch between my crt and my tv, it's just a lot easier for me to have them separate

[wise brook]

no idea what he means by this tbh

[strong osprey]

i prefer analog board over dual ram even for saturn

[wise brook]

i mean some folks don’t care, the Saturn is just a curiosity to them.

but when I’m playing, I notice that some of the best games of the fifth generation don’t run right.

Single ram sometimes feels like playing on a PC emulator

[muted cradle]

Dual RAM does not magically solve the timing problem for those games. Just improves on it. At least according to the developer.

[wise brook]

Yeah, it’s close but no cigar

[wise brook]

yes, on a fundamental level, the core struggles with the timing, still as an end user you will not see a difference between this and original hardware

[strong osprey]

saturns still under development right

[muted cradle]

Original HW > Dual RAM > Single RAM with fast timing hack > Single RAM

[sage axle]

then i'm good.. Grew up with the n64 and having 10 bit output on analog io is crucial to me

[wise brook]

Coresfrom 2017 still get updates so nothing is ever really over

[wise brook]

turning fast hack on games with slow down, causes them to run too fast in some cases

decathlon get weird

[wise brook]

without moving to a new FPGA platform my current preferred method is to take analog video and split it, one straight into a CRT one straight into a scaler

[radiant karma]

Using dual ram I doubt you could tell the slowdowns from fighting games are not from the games itself. Unless having a Saturn as reference. Me and some friends owned Saturns as kids and none of them ever mentioned / noticed the slowdown when we play on mister.

[muted cradle]

Just make sure that the fast timing hack is not enabled for all games, just those that show timing problems.

[visual grove]

Yeah usually I just use my Saturn since it’s one I leave hooked up but I played some VF2 the other day in the core and I noticed feels slightly slow without fast timing and slightly fast with fast timings 😉

Good enough to have a fun experience but yeah not dead on. Haven’t tried with one of my dual ram setups but my understanding is the timings are still slightly off real hardware regardless so shrugmoji

[radiant karma]

Try it with dual ram, you will be surprised how close it is.

[visual grove]

Eh those are in my arcade cabinets and I have VF2 arcade hardware so I’ll never choose the Saturn port 😜

It’s an awesome port and I played the hell out of it back in the day but it’s got nothing on the arcade

[radiant karma]

Model 2 is only second to namco system 12 on my list of most wanted platforms on mister. I keep playing Sega rally and Daytona on my simrig. Model 2 would probably make me skip Saturn as my favorite games there are model 2 ports.

[wide glacier]

i don't know enough to say if model 2 is possible but it would be amazing to see. same with namco system 12, i NEED to play fighting layer

as far as saturn goes, i've been a single ram user from the beginning and never felt it was an issue outside of the few known problematic games. tried lots of shmups and platformers and it felt 100% like my real saturn

besides the vf2-adjacent games, are there any known slowdowns elsewhere? i didn't see if grandia was ever fixed

[ripe valley]

The current flow of progress on the core since yesterday is to check all known remaining system issues & currently non-simulated quirks on almost every chip in the system.
Priority should be given to the SH7604 chip aka. SH2.

This should help greatly for the 32x and prepare the next step towards other arcade boards.

I left some notes and test results for srg320 last night and he read them today.

The SCU also needs verification as it is the only part of Mednafen more advanced than the core.

[floral saddle]

Thunderforce V, Radiant Silvergun, Fighting Vipers and Dead or Alive can in places have more slowdown than real hardware. But only DOA's slowdown on the mirror match in single player is slow enough to effect gameplay negatively.

@ripe valley Checked Parodius and the bug is fixed, thanks for opening the ticket again so it could be looked into.

[rich violet]

Oh, I missed this one earlier

[zealous karma]

is there a way to verify with certain games? Just wondering if you need help testing particular games/scenarios?

[ripe valley]

I have everything needed on my hands (and now srg320 too).

"We are working on it."

[celest lake]

So help me if “it” isn’t “3DO”

[visual grove]

YASSSS

Saturn & its ICs forever!

3DO never

[exotic elk]

3do had ICs

[hushed hinge]

is RadS on par with hardware with fast timings?

[floral saddle]

I use dual ram builds, no idea about single performance.

[warped saddle]

I guess we have to sort out how to do arcade release for ST-V now

[naive whale]

Sat hitting update all?

just saw the patreon email and those usually mean new core for non-testers

[warped saddle]

the only other combined arcade/console release doesn't split the core. I think we can do it the same way, but people will have to live with seeing an ST-V and saturn core in both _Console and _Arcade/cores

[naive whale]

if someone can confirm it hit update all ill spin up a "woohoo go update that shit" vid

https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Saturn_MiSTer

well then

[wise brook]

hopefully the core can just… be split fully? and update all can evolve to let users choose dual or single

[warped saddle]

full splitting the cores into different repos would be really annoying for him because it's all the same code

[celest lake]

@naive whale

I don't see stv comig down

so not sure what needs to happen there

[warped saddle]

wiki updates

but there's no MRAs and if we add ST-V to the arcade wiki it'll copy both rbfs to both locations

[celest lake]

gotcha

[ripe valley]

There is something wrong with the core on my MiSTer Pi.

I need to check on the other systems.

When I try to launch the core, I have an "off-limits" message on my IPS panel screen.

I will try on a 4K TV.

[celest lake]

I can check after my meeting

[radiant karma]

No issues with the new core on mine (DE10). I see STV in releases now, I suppose we still need to keep downloading manually?

[marble laurel]

How it was done for Atari 500 and atari 800 ?

[warped saddle]

you'll get an ST-V in _Console I think

500 and 800 are not split between consoles/arcade. that's different entirely

[ripe valley]

The QMTech and the MiSTer Pi are panicking with the Saturn core on my IPS panel.
The DE10 Nano ones are fine on my 4K TV.

[naive whale]

Srg making me change my 4pm video one more time haha

[radiant karma]

No, it does not get downloaded by update all. Not yet anyways. Maybe some change needs to be made.

[ripe valley]

The ST-V core is working fine on all my systems, even on the 640p IPS panel.

[ripe valley]

I reverted to the unstable from yesterday on the QMTech and the MiSTer PI,.
When I'm performing the new internal tests, the results are the same on the SH2 and the other ICs between the last unstable and the stable one.

[celest lake]

I was just about to type and say that it's working ok on all my clone boards hooked up direct to HDMI. I have a mister pi hooked up to a tink and can checkl that too

[devout dawn]

It checks for the arcade- prefix

So this should fix it: https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Saturn_MiSTer/pull/401

[ripe valley]

Maybe something broke with some resolutions, as I'm using a 640p60 IPS panel on my work desk.
I will test later by moving the systems between rooms to the 4K TV.

[warped saddle]

there's no support for putting the mras in a folder inside the release dir, right?

it's like 70+ mras, lol

[celest lake]

might be something weird there (although I don't have a baseline). Screen is reporting 59.9

[warped saddle]

thx for the ip

[devout dawn]

@warped saddle not yet

Maybe is time to add that

[ripe valley]

That's normal, I don't worry, just reporting something strange on my side.
And I will see during a next version of the unstable.

The core works fine now, after years of work.

Just some quirks are missing, that are supported either by Mednafen (SCU interrupts timings) or Ymir (some DIVU extreme cases on 64 bit divisions).

Some quirks on the SH2 could be interesting, especially on the 32x (and fixing the remaining issues).
And creating a solid baseline for a SH2 module for future arcade boards.

[celest lake]

When is the 3DO beta, Zet. tellllllll usssssssss

[warped saddle]

you don't have it?

[celest lake]

I plead the fifth

[stiff latch]

i had my sd card loaded up months ago, i was waiting for this moment to arrive

thanks to everyone who put in hard work to make this real

[celest lake]

@devout dawn any discussion around handling of the dual ram core?

[ripe valley]

Neveeeeeer
In fact, we ain't talked about that with him at the moment.

[river river]

For anyone using update_stv I've updated it so that if the ST-V core file that update_all downloads exists it'll clean up after itself and remove the old unstable symlink. It currently still downloads the MRAs, but once that's in place I'll push an update to stop it from doing that too

[celest lake]

https://tenor.com/bVAbm.gif

[devout dawn]

Last time I've checked on this, there was a plan to make the firmware aware of these cores somehow

[stiff latch]

so update_all will update the cores, but will it pull the requisite bios files if you tell it to as well? also, ill probably have to move the st-v games some place else after everything updates i imagine

[river river]

If you've got the right option in update_all configured to pull BIOS files it'll download the Saturn BIOS. ST-V games should just stay in games/mame

[stiff latch]

ok, that sounds about right. i originally placed st-v zips in their own folder, but putting them in mame makes sense, thanks

[river river]

Although I don't know about the ST-V BIOS 🤔

[stiff latch]

well, ill just have to run update_all and find out then

haha

[warped saddle]

ST-V stuff will be part of the arcade rom db

[stiff latch]

so it will pull roms automatically with the rest of the arcade roms, then?

thats fine w/ me if so

[devout dawn]

Now there is https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Distribution_MiSTer/commit/2051884406b8e9fd0796f503d9abc0419ed5b292

[warped saddle]

hoorj

[celest lake]

that....uh...don't seem right

my beloved beastie feastie

[devout dawn]

You pull the trigger very quick xD

Try again in a 3 minutes

[celest lake]

https://tenor.com/mgtGvjfjQ21.gif

[devout dawn]

I need to raise the assertion value for these kind of errors to be picked by the CI, 13000 files is so 2022

[marble laurel]

yes but they are split between Console and computer

[river river]

https://tenor.com/view/fine-happy-sad-im-fine-i-am-fine-boy-crying-gif-22504050

[naive whale]

ready to go for 4. Fun times

[celest lake]

stv might be sorted by then. the core is coming down

just waiting on MRAs

[warped saddle]

subscribe to my patreon to accelerate mra work

[warm ledge]

Lost video signal using latest core downloaded vía update all on qmtech board

Original de10nano no issues

It seems that clone boards starts to show some weaks

[river river]

huh I get out of range on my MiSTer Pi connected up to an old 9.7" ipad screen over HDMI, it worked before.

Latest unstable is OK

[celest lake]

oof @ripe valley

#1046941029296779344 message Zet also had trouble on the clone boards

are you guys loading a specific game, or are you getting that at the bios? @river river @warm ledge

[river river]

@celest lake I'm getting it at the bios

[warm ledge]

Just starting the core

[river river]

Oooh, hey, alright. So my default MiSTer.ini runs the screen at 1024x768 (the iPad screen's native res). Switched it to my 1080p profile and all is good. Guess I'll need to make some changes to my default profile.

[warm ledge]

Ok, It only happens using 720p

With 1080p no problem

[ripe valley]

So, on 640 and 720p HDMI.

[warm ledge]

Using original DE10 there is no problem with 720p

[ripe valley]

Same results.

My DE10 Nano systems are working fine on 720p.

[warm ledge]

This is the first time I see a problem with the clone board that doesn't happen with the original one 😅

[wise brook]

multi system 2 shouldn’t have any issues, exact same chips were used top to bottom

[ripe valley]

The unstable version of yesterday is fine, and exactly the same in terms of performance and accuracy.

So let's keep it at the moment.

Strangely, the new stable ST-V core is working completely fine.

[warped saddle]

trace length may matter too

[wise brook]

yeah

[warped saddle]

best part about the unstable build

[river river]

Huh, the ST-V rbf is coming down as a two byte file for me

/media/fat/_Arcade/cores# ls -l ST-V_20250612.rbf 
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 2 Jun 12 11:13 ST-V_20250612.rbf
/media/fat/_Arcade/cores# file ST-V_20250612.rbf 
ST-V_20250612.rbf: ASCII text, with CRLF line terminators
/media/fat/_Arcade/cores# cat ST-V_20250612.rbf 

/media/fat/_Arcade/cores# 

[warped saddle]

#9 1919.5 Critical Warning (332148): Timing requirements not met

[exotic elk]

sudo !!

[celest lake]

Ok, so on my mister pi, it took much longer to find sync on 720p, but it's working

lemme try 1024

[river river]

Oh... https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Saturn_MiSTer/blob/main/releases/Arcade-ST-V_20250612.rbf

[celest lake]

fuck, he optimized the shit out of that

lemme go check the other mister pi and qmtech board

[river river]

@devout dawn looks like that rename of the ST-V core resulted in an empty 2 byte file

[celest lake]

@river river @warm ledge what v_scale are you guys using?

[warped saddle]

I wonder if the ST-V core should just have a region setting, instead of mras that just differ by what bios they load

[river river]

Don't know if srg320 will merge my PR but here it is https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Saturn_MiSTer/pull/402

[devout dawn]

You were quick, I also sent a PR, I'll close it then

[river river]

Aha I just closed mine! 😄

[devout dawn]

Alright haha

then I'll let it open

[river river]

I figured srg320 knows you so will be more likely to merge yours

[celest lake]

Ok, I think I figured out the display issue

first of all, shame on all of you

how do you live with vsync_adjust=0

it's a WHOLE FRAME

(it's also what's causing the issue - if you swap to 2, 720p and 1024x768 works)

[warped saddle]

it's more than a frame depending on the difference between input/output refresh rates!

[celest lake]

well right now it's EVERY frame

[warm ledge]

Integer scale only

[celest lake]

but you're using vsync_adjust=0 yeah?

[warm ledge]

Yes

[celest lake]

change that to 2 and the core will load

I have to run out but can someone check a de10nano and see if setting it to vsync_adjust=0 also borks it?

[warped saddle]

I wonder if his release build failed timing

[celest lake]

(remember to disable direct video if you're using that)

[warm ledge]

Doing this It works

[river river]

It "works" on my MiSTer Pi but then its offset and there's black vertical lines on the right hand side. I'd post a photo but discord isn't letting me atm

https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipM5aFu5sbN8RiHmJyoqZ3v7FcpDvqdLMaa9UZ3irXu_TYgF2LCas_Mo8NjVEsOo0Q?key=RkNzaVY2Q0dJZHBIUmhycFVLM19WUElNaUZNUlN3

Nevermind I figured it out. It's the weird LCD driver board that this screen is connected to. Just had to change display size setting from Full Screen to 4:3 and its happy now

lol dammit, the saturn core needs to have that setting set to 4:3, but everything else is OK as Full Screen. This is going to be painful.

Oh well, this seems like a my hardware problem. Its just a secondary screen anyhow

[celest lake]

Also, I think this will be fixed. If adjust 0 is busted in the core, then that’s a bigger issue

[ripe valley]

Only works with adjust 2 on my side, but my IPS panel doesn't like it much, it takes 5 secs for resync between games on the core.

[celest lake]

What about on the de10?

[ripe valley]

No problem.

I need to test the DE10 systems on my IPS panel, but I need to remove all the cables and such between rooms.

Lazy

[celest lake]

Yeah. I can also test it when I’m back home. I’m just curious if adjust 0 is busted or if it’s a clone board issue

[ripe valley]

Okay, it's my IPS panel with that version of the core which don't want to work together.

I could use the unstable build.

[river river]

Yeah, unstable works on my screen with vsync_adjust=0 as well

[ripe valley]

I think something is busted as the ST-V core is working fine.

[river river]

Oh interesting, my unstable is v250611, stable is v250612

Looks like unstable nightly is built in CI? And stable is built not in CI? That seems to be the only difference at the moment

[warped saddle]

the best part is the unstable failed timing

[radiant karma]

Maybe adding an entry in mister.ini for dual ram and make downloader look for that entry should be possible?

[warped saddle]

it can be detected

but really "the plan" was some people saying "we should do this" and then I'm not sure there's been any movement on it. kinda a Sorg thing

semi-invasive change for basically 2 cores

[ripe valley]

For 5 ? 10% of the userbase ?

[devout dawn]

I have thought of a similar solution, requires modifying a filter in downloader.ini instead. But it'd be better if there is no need for users to modify any ini at all

[warped saddle]

you'd have to rename the core too

[devout dawn]

Or having it with a different name

The other solution was to hide the non compatible core from the firmware afaik

[warped saddle]

I mean that was "the plan" that keeps getting referenced

I've seen zero movement on that thing for months at this point

[celest lake]

He’s working on my rotation flag

[devout dawn]

I can ping sorg about it again

But I don't want to distribute a dual sdram core by default without any mechanism to hide it when is not gonna work

otherwise you can imagine the party at the Issue tab

[sturdy dagger]

I reckon you might get an increase in dual ram users due to the price of Takis ram. I wouldnt have got a 2nd stick of ram if it wasnt priced at £20 shipped. (I probably wouldve left the analog bridge thing). I only use hdmi.

I havent even played that Gradius or whatever its called xD (The saturn game that had issues with flickering images or something. But it works fine on Dual Ram)

[radiant karma]

I still think the entry in mister.ini or downloader.ini is a good option. 0=single ram cores 1=dual ram cores 2=both. Most users get used to mister.ini settings, so it is not much different than changing settings for analog video, direct video, etc.

[sturdy dagger]

To expand on that, maybe have it as opt in as I'm guessing most people are running single ram.

[radiant karma]

Shouldnt need to, the default would be single core unless changed.

[sturdy dagger]

Yeah i got my opt out and opt in mixed up haha

[devout dawn]

I disagree, most users don't wanna touch an ini file. The people you see active is not representative.

[celest lake]

Whatever the solution, it’s best to go through sorg because (as much as we may grimace) not everyone uses update all.

Some monsters just use update.sh

(They probably also use vsync_adjust=0)

[sturdy dagger]

An interesting take. I reckon the users that don't touch the ini are missing out on a wealth of amazing settings and tweaks

Like vrr and HDR. Video scales to vsync

[devout dawn]

I asked him in january and march, I'll check again now

[ripe valley]

Shoot. I see a regression on Gunbird...

[celest lake]

Eye on the prize Zet. It’s 3do time

[ripe valley]

No, never!

[sturdy dagger]

You mean Gamecom

Il send you a Gamecom Zet

[ripe valley]

Or a Virtual Boy ?

[sturdy dagger]

I have never came across a Virtual Boy at all.

[ripe valley]

I tested one last week.

[radiant karma]

And those users are not likely to buy dual sdram, so having it opt in is better.

[ripe valley]

I regret it.

Never again.

[sturdy dagger]

Which is why I think opt in would work for that (incase I've got my opts mixed up again. Default/unchanged is single ram so the end user is affected by anything. But a dual ram user would opt in and change that ini settings)

[ripe valley]

You're safe... for now.

I cannot reproduce the issue a second time, with the Fast Timings and the Dual RAM system.

[celest lake]

Two rams better than one rams is just maths

[devout dawn]

The ST-V also benefits from dual ram right?

[celest lake]

Yeah

Wait, no

I don’t think any of the games do

Maybe Zet can correct me but I don’t believe that any of the problematic games are on stv

[devout dawn]

That scenario makes the optional ini solution even worse

Ideally you have just one MRA per game that calls either the single ram core or the dual ram core

[ripe valley]

No idea.

[drowsy hull]

is vf kidz one of those?

[radiant karma]

No one plays that one, so it does not matter 🙂 Will have to take one for the team and play it in single ram core tonight to see if there is any slowdown.

[ripe valley]

VF2 was on Model 2, same for DoA.

[naive whale]

Saved the best for last

MiSTer is just an overpriced doorstop til I play Killing Time on it

[muted cradle]

AFAIR not affected

[radiant karma]

Yeah, you would need different mras downloaded per ini option. Not sure if that is doable.

[ripe valley]

Let's see the videos of VGE and PCN, if people are ranting about missing functions anymore (I see you, integer scaling).

[naive whale]

Nobody rants about features. They are either stoked or yell that FPGA is a scam we are all running 🤣

Feast or famine…nothing in between

[drowsy hull]

still no faster than cd loading I assume?

[ripe valley]

Not possible.

I explained why the other time, gimme a moment.

[drowsy hull]

saroo cart support when

[devout dawn]

It's doable but it's a waste, somebody will have to maintain 2x the MRAs for no good reason, and people could end up with 2x MRAs in their SDs too

It's cleaner doing it in the firmware

The additional MRAs just for different bioses also feels wasteful

[ripe valley]

​The original system was done in a way that you can't overclock anything on it, with extremely tight timings between chips.
And changing the CD-ROM speed will not help loading times too, as the SH-1 would still spend the same amount of time polling the CD hardware for data and likewise for the SH-2's polling the SH-1 for data.

[celest lake]

So just to verify what we probably already know: vsync_adjust=0 is broken on all boards in certain resolutions. Now it's zakk's job to figure out why

https://tenor.com/WDvGTQKtpm.gif

[visual grove]

The reason is sin

lights incense by Toshiba and claps twice before praying to crt gods

[ripe valley]

Pet Shop Boys were right.

(It's a sin)

[celest lake]

The morph’s triple buffer is screaming but I think I may have found the problem

https://tenor.com/bmzKH.gif

[burnt matrix]

The Saturn core is amazing because of all the work the community does to support it and srg320. The community really is the best part of MiSTer.

[timber marlin]

On my setup, the latest official release is running at 39.9 hz instead of 59.8 hz at 2048 x 1536 resolution. The unstable from a day ago didn't have this issue.

[celest lake]

Yeah, something is broke

Probably should file an issue

[pine bobcat]

The native resolution of the iPad screen that everyone is using is 2048x1536
(mode 13 in mister.ini was specifically added for this)

Unless you pulled a panel out of an old iPad 1 or 2 yourself and set up a custom driver board, yours should be the same

[celest lake]

(I’m pretty sure Dave knows this)

[naive whale]

The real core is the propane we made along the way

[celest lake]

Sir, have you been drinking? Do you know how fast you were going

[river river]

My screen is from an iPad 2 that I owned and it's 1024x768

[pine bobcat]

Gotcha. Any reason you went with that over the standard iPad 3/4 screen?

[river river]

Because I already owned it and reused/recycled it instead of creating more ewaste

[pine bobcat]

I still have my original iPad 1 kicking around, thinking I'll use it for a project someday

The rest of them I gave to my kids, but that one is just too old

[celest lake]

https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Saturn_MiSTer/issues/404

[high bramble]

Man, why you always gotta be pointin out prollems...

[celest lake]

I dunno. I am a broken man

[bitter moth]

Anyone having button issues in Radian Silvergun on the S-TV core? I can't get all the buttons working. On the USA version I can't fire green homing shots and on the Japanese version I can't get the sword to work.

[celest lake]

It might be that the mras need updating. Not sure if today’s new core needs new mras.

If you haven’t updated MRAs recently, make sure you do that

There is a script in the pins that will do it automatically

[next bronze]

"Radian Silvergun"? Is that a special educational verison of the game?

[bitter moth]

I ran this script
https://github.com/davewongillies/MISTer-update_stv

[river river]

Yeah, I just tested both versions and I'm seeing the same thing

[celest lake]

Word. Can someone write up a bug?

Or actually wait

Let’s see if the MRAs need updating

[river river]

Actually hold up, I think its the game plays different to the Saturn version?

Oh no, I really can't do the sword in the JP version

Oh no I can't

I just was just struggling to hit the combo

This sucks on a dpad lol

[bitter moth]

On the USA version I couldn't even fire a homing shot. Didn't think to try a three button combo on the Japanese version.

[river river]

OK yeah, the US one doesn't seem to behave. I think the JP one is OK?

[small ore]

The USA arcade version of radiant silvergun is only 2 buttons, they thought Americans would have too hard of a time with all 3. The USA version behaves just as it should

[bitter moth]

No homing shot is Turd

[river river]

oh dang, rip the US version

[bitter moth]

Going to have to dig out my arcade stick, can't do 3 buttons on my game pad.

It seems the Saturn version is the best but we need a cheat for more credit. 3 is just not enough in this quarter muncher.

[wise brook]

did it ever, ever actually come to US arcades?

or is this just an anti-piracy spoiler thing

[wise brook]

yes decathlon at the very least

[ripe valley]

I really need to check more on Gunbird.
Another person is reporting the same issue I saw yesterday, but I've not seen it a second time when activating the Fast Timings on my MiSter PI.
I need to check with the Dual RAM and do another check without the Fast Tmings OFF one more time.

[ripe valley]

Gunbird needs the Fast timings option on Single RAM systems, after more checks.

[devout dawn]

@warped saddle releases/mra in the end, It seems mras sounds bad in russian 👀

[small ore]

No idea, but japanese text is also removed from the game running on the US BIOS, so whether or not it was actually released out west it seems some active consideration was taken during development for non-japan releases. The 2 button US version is functioning as intended.

[viral pebble]

Hey testing out the new core and I have some issues with Alone in the Dark: One-Eyed Jack's Revenge. There is a constant flicking of white pixels across the screen at all times. Has anyone else experienced this?

[wise brook]

de10 or mister pi

[viral pebble]

DE10

This issue is also present in Andretti Racing. Do we need the latest unstable version of main or since it hit update_all is that relevant anymore?

Both NTSC versions btw

[celest lake]

I can take a look when I get home

HDMI > screen, yeah? No scalers or CRTs

[viral pebble]

Yes. HDMI

No scalers or anything of that sort

[celest lake]

cool, I will take a look when I’m home

[ripe valley]

I'm available for 10 minutes, I will check.

I see something with the stable version, but not the unstable one.

Hmmm.

I need to recompile the core.

[celest lake]

more video timing stuff?

[ripe valley]

Most probably, something broke during the compilation.

I see something like the SNES core case.

[celest lake]

yes, exactly

[ripe valley]

I'm checking the last Taito F2 compile right now, and launching a Saturn Single core right after (with seed 10).

[celest lake]

I filed an issue for the video timing stuff

[ripe valley]

I see.

The core is compiling, I will upload it within the next 30 mins.

I want some people testing it with vsync_adjust=0 and the games cited just before.

If we're successful, I could upload it on the issue log later.

Otherwise, we will need to search and inform srg320 about an issue that we can't resolve by ourselves.

[celest lake]

it's a vsync_adjust issue

Alone in the dark looks fine on vsync_adjust=2

[ripe valley]

The core seems to work on my end with vsync_adjust=0

I need some tests here and some feedback, please.

[celest lake]

yep, timings are correct here

loading alone in the dark

I'm sorry

this zombie has a fucking gun?

[ripe valley]

A French idea.

Infogrames...

[celest lake]

luckily, their aim is shit

but game looks ok here

I wasn't able to replicate the dots though

checking andretti

[ripe valley]

So, same issue like the SNES core, changing the seed to the 10 value could let us meet the timing requirements.

[celest lake]

seed 10 remains undefeated

[ripe valley]

And the stable version of yesterday is once again... borked.

Great.

[celest lake]

yeah, this core seems fine

did you check gunbird?

[random shard]

Hey guys

[ripe valley]

Gunbird needs the fast timings.

I have a note from last year where I noted the 'issue' for myself as a reminder.

[random shard]

Where do you get the latest stable dualsram? Robbie's links lead you to the latest unstable

[ripe valley]

The 'stable' dual RAM one is the latest unstable.

[celest lake]

yeah, there isn't a "stable" dual ram

[random shard]

Ah, as I suspected

Thanks guys

[celest lake]

won't be until they figure out how to do dual ram releases in the update channel

[ripe valley]

I left it here for everyone outside of the Discord server.
https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Saturn_MiSTer/issues/405#issuecomment-2970541136

[celest lake]

do you know if STV games needed new MRAs? there were some issues with radiant silvergun in the latest STV

[warped saddle]

nothing changed

[river river]

I think we came to the conclusion that Radiant Silvergun is fine, its just that the US version is intentionally gimped to only have 2 buttons and the JP version has button combos like a fighting game.

[random shard]

Im confused, should I download this version or the one on update all?

[celest lake]

ahh gotcha

[celest lake]

this one

[river river]

If you have unstable nightlies configured in downloader.ini that's the same version that gets dropped in the Unstable folder

[random shard]

What was fixed? I don't want to scroll up 😜

[river river]

Its effectively the same as the stable version, except its dual ram

[random shard]

I thought I did. Is it on the pins?

[river river]

I can't tell if you have or not, your MiSTer is too away from my desk to see how it was configured

[random shard]

The question was for thejesusfish

[celest lake]

Yeah, GET OUTA HERE DAVE

(but yes, that build fixes the issues from yesterday)

[ripe valley]

I don't know if it's possible to republish the stable core with my compilation shared on the issue page.

[random shard]

What were those?

[celest lake]

video timings were real messed up

[random shard]

Ahhh gotcha

[river river]

well actually... it just happens to work because it was compiled in CI

[celest lake]

didn't work with vsync_adjust=0

[ripe valley]

I see some other people having the issue on comments to VGE's video.

[celest lake]

https://tenor.com/FWNK.gif

[random shard]

So I'rather wait a few days because timing issues are pure chaos

[ripe valley]

I corrected them already during the compilation and only the single stable core was impacted.

[celest lake]

yeah, zet's core fixes the issues

it is the stable as SRG intended

[river river]

But whatever stable version gets pulled using update_all isn't fixed though right?

[random shard]

So, how do we move zet's changes to the dualsram unstable? 😬

[ripe valley]

I want to know if we could change the stable version by mine.

[warped saddle]

was the dual sdram build even broken?

[ripe valley]

Nope.

[celest lake]

it was never built

it's just the unstable

[warped saddle]

well there's one from unstable

[high bramble]

The changes weren't for the dual SDRAM version... 🤦‍♂️

[warped saddle]

I can't wait for this seed to break the dual version

everyone's hair will be on fire

[ripe valley]

I've done the test some minutes ago and didn't break anything.

[river river]

If you look at the commits between the unstable and "stable" git repos they're exactly the same

[celest lake]

if you want the dual ram version, just download this: #unstable-nightlies message

it's the same

[devout dawn]

I don't think the dual ram versions will become stable anytime soon

[river river]

The only difference is the compiled rbfs

[ripe valley]

Yep.

[random shard]

I didn't want to scroll up 🤷

[high bramble]

Couldn't give a shit...

[warped saddle]

I think it might be worth finding seeds that cause the core to meet timing for both single/dual versions and comitting that seed to the repo

so at least the CI builds make timing

(although any small change may break that so...fun)

and to be fair almost every unstable version ever build fails timing requirements

sooooo

[random shard]

Yes, thank you. I got them from Robbie's pins, it just wasn't immediately obvious to the causal onlooker

[warped saddle]

we just got unlucky

[ripe valley]

So, is it possible to change the stable version to mine for Update_All ?
The seed 10 works for the two versions of the core with timings requirements met when I checked some minutes ago.

[warped saddle]

yeah, he can just put yours in the release folder

(or build it himself)

[ripe valley]

So, I have to ask to srg320.

[river river]

Or you could raise a PR with the changed core

[celest lake]

don't bug him. he is busy playing way of the warrior

[warped saddle]

probably worth checking if ST-V meets timing with that seed too

[ripe valley]

The ST-V core is compiling now on my end.

[mortal mist]

From my experience I know that seed 10 is not always the solution, sometimes seed 13 sometimes 8 or others

[warped saddle]

yes, it depends on the code contained in the core

[celest lake]

I can't believe you guys would talk that way about seed 10

[ripe valley]

And the ST-V core passed the timing requirements on my end.
Yeah, seed 10 is not a panacea for every issue with the timings.

[marble laurel]

We need mra's seed compliant if more than one version of rbf 😅

[ripe valley]

I left a message to srg320 though the issue log and left also some notes to users complaining about the issue on VGE and PCN videos.

[celest lake]

https://tenor.com/mZaTSHdW8rJ.gif

[random shard]

Is that in a pin? Could find it

[warped saddle]

ugh, this STV bios situation is annoying

[river river]

Dunno, I just have it documented in my update_stv setup instructions https://github.com/davewongillies/MISTer-update_stv?tab=readme-ov-file#setup

[random shard]

Beautiful, thank you good sir

Well there's a good idea for theypsilon, a toggle option for unstables

That will "unalienate" dualram users 😂

[celest lake]

I can’t remember what it is but there is a reason it’s not there

[celest lake]

I didn’t go to college but 10 > 6

[random shard]

I have a feeling that casuals will get confused or complain too much, or something along those lines

[celest lake]

No it’s something else.

If that were a concern, the llapi and yc builds wouldn’t be there

[left chasm]

yeah, casuals go with defaults and avoid config files or opt-ins?

[warped saddle]

because making unstable generally that easy to enable is just going to annoy developers with bug reports for stuff that they haven't actually released

[warped cliff]

Yep, then you'll have content creators calling them betas and draw more attention to unreleased stuff

[ripe valley]

Casuals are already complaining about Grandia being broken when they don't know they should activate the fast timings option.

Don't ask them to toggle something on the Update_All menus.

[visual grove]

Why does grandia get so much attention? Never even heard of it back in the day

[ripe valley]

Recent remaster, most probably.

The possibility to play it with the superior version, with JPN language.

😏

[celest lake]

*on PlayStation

[exotic elk]

I play my mario games in the original Japanese

[ripe valley]

Never @celest lake

Weebs want their Saturn version.

[devout dawn]

I've been talking to Sorg on the dual sdram cores. And it seems that they won't get first-class support in firmware, and thus neither on the updater side, since they are considered dev/test cores only. They are not even officially released yet

So it's better to let this clear to people potentially buying dual sdram setups

[ripe valley]

I had the question just a moment ago on the Gunbird 'issue'.

[celest lake]

Gonna be rough when 3DO is dual ram only

[devout dawn]

I can enable some kind of .ini solution for the dual sdram cores, but that's a problem for when they get released

[celest lake]

10s of people will cry out

[left chasm]

I think because 1) it comes up in several "top games to play in saturn" lists (I reviewed a few and found it like this) and 2) there is an English translation from just a few years back https://www.retrorgb.com/saturn-grandia-english-translation-release-candidate-published.html

[warped saddle]

yeah, Sorg was never big on dual sdram cores I guess. maybe in his own way he's forcing devs to not just go 'core only works on dual sdram'

although in typical Sorg moves he simultaneously makes a new i/o board specifically to allow easier swapping to dual

[wise brook]

https://tenor.com/view/blink-kid-sigh-ugh-mhmm-gif-15809387

[random shard]

Whoa! You're being generous 🤣

But in the end, it was causals ruining it 😂

[devout dawn]

Somebody could do a dualsdram database already, and that would do the trick for the most part. Dual ST-V core can use the same path as the single sdram one, and then users would be required to filter out !stv from distribution_mister. That way there is no need to duplicate MRAs.

[warped saddle]

hmm, I wonder if I should just make all the mras use the stv multi bios

[winter phoenix]

is there a list of games that require fast timings to be on?

It seems to be more than just "3D fighting games" since it's now also Grandia and Gunbird

[livid grotto]

Nights - Some slowdown on single ram.

[muted cradle]

The PWM build is out. Is this affected by the vsync_adjust=0 problem?

[celest lake]

dunno

probably not?

it's a build issue

not a code issue

[ripe valley]

Not at the moment, we are discovering them when testing and comparing results.

[random shard]

For the saturn core its starting to sound like dualsram is the premium option and single ram is the "oh here's a hack for you" option 😂

[ripe valley]

Radiant Silvergun needs the option too, for later stages.

[winter phoenix]

single-RAM peasants!

[strong osprey]

single ram is the truth

that analog board is simply too important

[winter phoenix]

we single-RAM proletariat cry out for freedom from slowdown

[wise brook]

people just want to pretend their isn’t an issue with single ram because it will possibly inconvenience their setup

[random shard]

https://tenor.com/view/pc-master-race-gaming-the-feels-gtx1080-gif-7941212

[ripe valley]

Dual RAM Master Race.

[winter phoenix]

OK, so what's going on with this scaler issue? Does it just affect the Saturn core that's on update_all right now?

[ripe valley]

It's just the Saturn core on Update_All, something broke when the code was compiled.

[winter phoenix]

OK

[ripe valley]

Recompiling the core manually and/or changing the seed value on the Fitter operations seem to have a positive action, and the core works once again as wanted.

[winter phoenix]

so what should the average user do if they're having problems? switch to an unstable core?

[ripe valley]

The ST-V core isn't affected.

[winter phoenix]

do you need SRG to push a new version to update_all?

[ripe valley]

Yes, I try to talk with him

[winter phoenix]

OK cool

And this doesn't affect anyone using HDMI or composite?

[ripe valley]

I've recompiled the core some hours ago and uploaded it on a issue ticket, but I want srg320 to upload either that version, or a new one from him/compilation bot to the Releases folder

[river river]

It effects HDMI users

Here's the issue for it on github https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Saturn_MiSTer/issues/404

[ripe valley]

HDMI with people using the video_adjust option set as 0 on MiSTer.ini.

If you set the option on value 1 or 2, it should work once again, but some IPS panels (like mine) only work if set as 0.

Okay, the core was changed 25 mins ago by my compilation.

So people could load Update_All once again.

And it will change the core to the newer one from today.

[river river]

@ripe valley ooh yeah, that works just like before, nice!

[ripe valley]

@celest lake Could you check and see if we could close the ticket later.

Thanks.

[celest lake]

Yep, I haven't pulled it down yet

[ripe valley]

I've left a note to some users who were impacted.

[celest lake]

ok, I have the new saturn RBF now

[warped cliff]

Every time I see the extension rbf, half of my mind reads it as reel big fish. Is it just me? 😅

[exotic elk]

isn't it Robby binary file

[warped cliff]

Perhaps, but that's just too many syllables 🤣

[exotic elk]

hm yes

I have a mind bug as well where whenever I see MLB I read out "Martin Luther Bing" in my mind

I don't know why

[river river]

ST-V MRAs are now being pulled down by update_all 🎉

[rich violet]

Does update_all pull the games now too?

[warped saddle]

give it a bit

there's a delay after they show up in distribution

[river river]

They also appear to be from the future 🤖

MRA                                          Core       Year Manufactu. Category
################################################################################
Astra SuperStars (J 980514 V1.002).mra       ST-V       9999

[warped saddle]

yeah, there's probably a bunch of metadata to update

[river river]

I'm thinking that the Radiant SIlvergun MRA should get modified to use the JP BIOS otherwise people will probably keep reporting how only two buttons work in the US version of the game even though its by design

[remote berry]

I just did update_all and can see the Saturn core, but no ST-V core. Where is it and what should the name be? (I'm using the renaming option in update_all)

[small ore]

ST-V is an arcade core. It has MRA files to launch the games directly, under the arcade folder. You won't see it in the cores lists directly.

[rotund steeple]

Just tried some ST-V games. But all MRAs seems to start Radiant Silver Gun.

[river river]

Bug or feature? Who knows?

Hmm, I just launched Astra Super Stars and it launched what it was supposed to launch

[rotund steeple]

I'm clueless. Never cared for ST-V untill now.

[warped saddle]

you may not have roms yet