Sega Saturn

[wide glacier]

strange regression. thanks for reporting @amber heart

[small ore]

We were told there would probably be regressions from the 9/18 build, and Zet asked people to test things as much as possible

[celest lake]

yep

[wide glacier]

i'll play around with some other games then

anything specific to try/look out for?

[celest lake]

did anyone test the single ram?

can someone do that if not?

just so we can confirm it's on both

[amber heart]

Testing now

[burnt matrix]

I heard that this core is the greatest Saturn emulator that the planet earth has ever seen. Is this true?

[celest lake]

How dare you call it an emulator

[wide glacier]

single ram is what i've always used. it happens there as well

[burnt matrix]

Err sorry, I mean it’s a replicator

[amber heart]

Yup, just as slow on 9/18 single ram

[celest lake]

filed it. thanks friends

[radiant karma]

I tested 100+ games, but didn't have that one in my library. But slowdown is much difficult to pin down unless it is extreme like in this case.

[wide glacier]

yeah, especially in saturn games where fps can vary so wildly

shame there's no turbo option like in the psx core but that's probably asking for a LOT right now :p

[radiant karma]

Yeah, most Saturn games have unstable framerate so unless compared side by side it's hard to tell.

[small ore]

It's not going to happen, the saturn architecture doesn't allow for it. Zet has spoken about this at length before.

[amber heart]

@celest lake the speed is correct in 9/14 when walking around in the area but it still slows to a crawl when the warg is dying. Which doesn’t happen in the YouTube playthrough

So it’s better in 9/14 but not completely right

[wide glacier]

i had a feeling, thanks for clarifying

[celest lake]

good catch

[amber heart]

Unless og hardware also did that and YouTubers are using emulators

[wide glacier]

it does slow down quite a bit when the wargs die

[celest lake]

how is it on the stable when the worgs die?

🎵 this is what it looks like, when wargs die 🎵

https://tenor.com/rUuDBXovsj1.gif

[amber heart]

The stable doesn’t work for me since i updated main. I’d have to revert. I can but does anyone else have it handy?

[celest lake]

does it not work at all? I thought you just couldn't save

[amber heart]

Some games work but anything that uses backup ram gives an error message

[burnt matrix]

This was good

[wide glacier]

i can test on my real saturn rq

[amber heart]

Awesome that will do it

9/14 warg death speed for reference. Speed is fine when he’s not dying but super slow when he is

[wide glacier]

thank you for the video. just tested on my real saturn, and this looks to be the correct speed

[amber heart]

Awesome. So 9/18 is the only inaccurate build

[radiant karma]

Good catch. There were supposed to be some regressions with the new cache changes.

[strong zephyr]

My dream would be a universal ‘fix mesh into true transparencies’. But afaik that not even a thing in sw emu. Still amazed we even got this far. It’s brilliant!

[wide glacier]

agreed, that would be sick though

[glossy steppe]

It is, both Ymir and the ancient SSF support it

SSF is very old and has literally like 11 pages of settings so it's easy to miss it, but Ymir has it too

[river wing]

Are you guys seeing games stall on the Saturn BIOS logo (Hi-Saturn) when loading several games in a row without manually resetting?

First game always works perfectly, but after loading 3-4 games, the core tends to stay at the BIOS logo

Then a reset makes the game work normally

known issue?

[glossy steppe]

The setting in SSF

And Ymir

Here's what it looks like in Ymir with it off and on

[scenic snow]

Kronos also have true transparency

[glossy steppe]

I guess either I fogot that or haven't seen the setting

But yeah, it's not hard for software emulators to do since it's litearlly a build in command of the VDP to take a solid image and turn it into a mesh

They just have to intercept that command and use a modern pc's gpu to render it was transparent instead

I am guessing it's probably not really possible for the saturn core to do it though

Especially not without massive work that likely would not fit on the FPGA even if you can

[wide glacier]

wonder why it's so common on software emulators but not available on the mister core? you'd think it'd be a fairly trivial thing

[split heart]

is it still recommended to use the hi saturn bios?

[strong zephyr]

Ooooh very interesting! I know it's silly but the mesh thing was always a big distraction for me. Will try and mess around with Ymir a bit and see how that works!

[ancient fractal]

For one thing, transparency will always require more memory accesses - which are trivial to add in a software emulator, but not when working directly with a hardware memory device in real time. The Saturn core is already deploying a lot of tricks to mimic the many separate memory types of a real Saturn, and it can’t fully keep up even in the dual SDRAM configuration.

That said, it might still be possible to come up with something. But saying it’s trivial is ignorant, at best. 😉

[rare swan]

I must be missing something with the latest instructions - the STV MRA shortcuts no longer work for me, well I found a different STV subfolder with two working shortcuts in it. What do I need to change to get back up to date? Are we still using game shortcuts for STV titles?

I suppose I still have the shortcuts from when the STV was a new feature

[ripe valley]

@celest lake Thank you for the issue ticket on SOTN.

[rare swan]

Oh I see, the games are just in the arcade list now. I'll delete that old _STV folder then?

Die Hard Arcade just gives me "error on cartridge" now, but it worked before. How can I ensure it is using the DualCore version if I am launching from the arcade list?

Other games seem fine tho

[radiant karma]

I've always had that happen with the core. Seems random. But there was never an issue open for that. And even on a real Saturn you will randomly need a reset for a game to load so I didn't think it was a real issue. It also could be my roms.

[burnt matrix]

I am in the extreme minority most likely but I’d actually prefer to not have any enhancements. I want a console core to be as accurate to the original as possible and any FPGA headroom to be dedicated to that, not turbo mode or graphical improvements that the original console couldn’t do.

I think that stuff is awesome though so I don’t ever complain, but for me that’s what software emulators are for. If I’m going to modify the original system’s output might as well go all the way with a software emulator.

[tawny forge]

I wouldn’t complain about having analog shoulder buttons support though

[burnt matrix]

Ok true lol

I am also a hypocrite because I like to play some PS1 games widescreen and with texture filtering sometimes. Colin McRae Rally 2 looks like a PC game when you do that.

[burnt matrix]

I think that’s definitely worthwhile imo, even if the juice isn’t worth the squeeze now. That sets up future cores that use analog gas and pedal options for success.

[visual grove]

You and me both pal, I can play fantasy versions of these consoles on my PC already. Finally I’m in an extreme minority. Call redbull and ICE

[glossy steppe]

Same here usually, though since I play over HDMI it would be nice to have some enhancements that can replicate some of the CRT effects in games without effectively blurring the entire image.

Also, I guess it depends on what the enhancement it. Rendering a PSX game in 480p 16:9? I get why that would be less desirable than something like speeding up the NEO-GEO CD drive. I'm not exactly looking forward to waiting for 10 minutes of flashing epileptic colors every time I load a C64 game off of tape.

[burnt matrix]

Ok true I do rely on 480p

[mortal mist]

Castlevania should be fine now

[celest lake]

I filed that bug 12 hours ago

Would SRG pass the voight-kampff test? I am not sure anymore

[glossy steppe]

Yes as long as he never works on a core based on Laserdisks

[muted cradle]

That was a quick fixup update. Thanks Srg!!

[burnt matrix]

You’re welcome

damn time to update the pins again lol

pins updated

[muted cradle]

@latent wigeon , I guess that yesterday was not a good time to update the pwm build with those timing regressions becoming known yesterday

[tawny forge]

srg is always on fire, so there's not such a thing like "good time" 😄

[burnt matrix]

My favorite was the solid few months or so when @naive whale would put out a new Saturn build video and srg would release a new core update like the same day lol.

[tawny forge]

Where can I find a curated list of the best Japanese-only (english friendly - games that can be played without knowing Japanese) games for Saturn?

[mortal mist]

It's still hard to build a core with good timings for dualsdram.

[wide glacier]

i do understand that it can be seen as straying from being a 1:1 replication of the original hardware, but i'll take enhancements in games when i can get them. part of the reason why i love the psx core so much is because of the turbo setting; it makes it feel like a "ps1 pro" that we never got

[tawny forge]

I think I will just grab all from A and B from this list without a [US] or [EU] on them: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ps9KkqjELGX_7s38LOA0fv7wltobC908gKlAD2nBBbc/edit?tab=t.0

[drowsy folio]

That's a nice list

[burnt matrix]

Yeah, I’m totally a hypocrite lol. I realized that I use the 480p enhancement constantly lol.

[strong osprey]

flicker for life

[naive whale]

I’m the reason we got so many cores back then

I willed them into existence

[white tendon]

Updated release with the today's srg320 fix is available here it seems : https://misterfpga.org/download/file.php?id=12293

[obsidian herald]

For the uneducated (like me) what is the pwm build?

[pine bobcat]

For people with the old analog i/o board; it improves the video quality

[upper dust]

Basically reduces color banding since the older boards have 18bit color instead of 24

[muted cradle]

A software workaround for the missing hardware bits thus Saturn, PSX and N64 FMV videos can show their full, uncapped glory.

[burnt matrix]

I know people aren’t big fans of dithering but I thought it was such a brilliant workaround for not having enough bit depth.

[obsidian herald]

Thats super cool!

[leaden dagger]

Well also it just looks better than 24 bit in a lot of cases

[burnt matrix]

Nostalgia has warped my brain and it doesn’t look like a PS1 game to me unless it’s dithered lol. I totally get people not liking the look though.

[leaden dagger]

It's not even nostalgia. Like the games are built for dithering
Without dithering the games are too bright

Fog effects need dithering to properly hide draw distance

Like I get it for certain games that are bright and poppy or use a lot prerendered backgrounds but eh

Dithering smooths out shading

Etc etc

[frail heath]

100% agree on as close of a "real console" experience as possible since i've used software emulators for a gazillion years and the number one reason I like Mister is that I dont have to fiddle as much to get a " correct" experience

[river wing]

That's very interesting... I had several PAL Saturn consoles and I don't remember them doing that. But maybe they do that when loading from an ODE-type device? I always used original discs on my Saturns, unlike what I did on PSX.

[mighty zephyr]

I think the console resets itself when you open the lid

[safe trail]

I don't know how he can make this kind of update so quickly.

Even if I knew what was necessary, it would probably take me a minimum of a week to get something that I believed was fixed, and compile it

[river wing]

So does the core when you insert a new disc image, so I guess it should be the same in that regard? Maybe I am wrong and the core resets but...well.. less.. 😄

[cunning citrus]

It resets back to the cdplayer directly.

[muted cradle]

How did you find that one? It's not listed: https://misterfpga.org/viewtopic.php?t=7565

[sudden tusk]

Saturn 4 life!

https://tenor.com/view/miklo-blood-in-blood-out-damian-chapa-smile-finger-gun-gif-16205242

[rare swan]

I deleted the _ST-V directory but now none of my STV games launch, so maybe I do need to keep it? Any helpful directions? Pinned comment says nothing about the MRAs but I originally downloaded them from a repo. Assumed they weren't needed anymore but I'll have to put them back for now

Weird how they don't work, but the stv arcade shortcuts break without them there

[upper dust]

Try and replace the core in /_Arcade/cores with the latest unstable dual ram one. Copy it in and rename it to the current stable one in the cores directory.
ST-V_20250612.rbf

Up to you if you want backup the old stable.

[ripe valley]

We are so much precise with the core that we could recreate original game bugs not present on software emulation.

On Hop Step Idol, there is a corrupted frame when choosing the OPENING option, on the main menu.

EDIT : The nightly version of Ymir does it too, but not Mednafen.

---

On Hokuto no Ken, some emulators like Mednafen shows a black screen after the SEGA Bios logo.

On original hardware, it shows a frame with some stripes.

Only the current nightly version of Ymir does it too, but shows them red.

[glossy steppe]

Is there any difference in these bugs between different regions or hardware revisions of the saturn? Or even different bioses? Most emulators generally recommend you use the standard BIOS files, and the Mister Saturn core used to, but a few months ago it was replaced with the Hi Saturn version BIOS which is a far less common version of the console

[ripe valley]

We tried with 4 different consoles (with different revisions : V-Saturn, Hi-Saturn, regular Model 1 & 2), same behavior.

Just the color of the stripes seems red on some revisions, but that should be another question for much, much later.

[small magnet]

Is CD audio supported by the core? I am just realizing I don’t have it for any of my games and at this point I can’t recall if I ever did.

[hallow fossil]

Something up your end as core definitely has audio support and has done for a very long time

[safe trail]

Are you trying to use the official release from about a year ago ? Or a nightly build ?

There was a change put in somewhere over the past year which had both a Main Mister and a Saturn core update... Main got updated officially, but I don't believe that Saturn did

[small magnet]

I’ve been using whatever update_all has been downloading, so I’ll have to check.

[safe trail]

Read this thread - https://misterfpga.org/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=9569

There was also a thing about sound, but I think that was older

[small magnet]

So I just checked and my mister file is from 9/12 /25and my Saturn rbf is from 6/13/25

[safe trail]

Yeah, there was - at one time - some way to edit the mister.ini to force a specific version of Main for a given core, while it was under construction. This hit some people on anbother core at one point, and they forgot that they had edited their mister.ini

Not sure if this might have happened to you, if you were following Saturn development at one point

[small magnet]

I was following the development loosely over the past year or two so it’s possible I made ini edits. I have noticed that when I run update all there’s a snippet at the end about having issues updating boot.room for Saturn.

[safe trail]

Anyway, that's all I know - maybe somebody else can be of more help, either in this channel, or the #help channel

[split heart]

classic movie

[mortal mist]

yes. it.s supported. cdda works fine

Check that you have the correct game images. Each audio track is a separate file.

[glossy steppe]

Yes, it has supported it for a long time now. Might want to check your disk images.

[mighty zephyr]

I guess you could make a bin & cue image of a audio cd if you wanted, I might test that for fun

[small magnet]

Are CHDs supported? I have games in that format too. As for the currently installed games, they are bin cue, though I’ll have to double check if they are single bin or split

[mortal mist]

Yes, chd are supported

[small magnet]

Ok I just noticed that all of my games have single bin files. I seem to recall needing to combine all the bins into one in order to get one emulator or another to work with them. I’ll try with the CHDs

[pearl harbor]

There are a few games that can have issues in CHD format, but the vast majority of the library works great in the format.

[small magnet]

Ok I’ve got some experiments to do, thanks for the help!

[small magnet]

Update, the one CHD I tested with has functional music, so my single bin formats are the issue. Thank you all again!

[cobalt rune]

Does Crusader No Remorse work now?

[small ore]

It always did, there was just a strange edge case that could cause it to freeze loading for some setups. This has been fixed for awhile now.

[cobalt rune]

Ah

[glossy steppe]

There is a list pinned here of the Saturn games that have issues in CHD. Basically, it's any game that has an index 2 or later, CHD was not designed to handle that. If you open the CUE file and you just see index 0 or index 1 you're fine, but if you see index 2 or later listed anywhere you shouldn't compress that to CHD

Vast majority of Saturn games don't have an index past 1 on any track

[cyan tapir]

Hey guys, how are you? I'd like to ask for some help: I just updated the SS core on Mister FPGA, and my saves won't load. The BIOS asks me to format the saves memory space. The saves folder is in the correct location, with all the games I played on the previous core. How can I get the new core to load the saves from the "saves" folder?

[rich violet]

You need the unstable Saturn core

A recent stable Main update broke Saturn save

We don't know when a new Saturn core with the fix will be released

So use unstable for now

[cyan tapir]

The last one I downloaded is exactly the unstable core 20250920

[rich violet]

Not sure then

[mortal mist]

check which version of Mister Main you have ( in the menu)

[ripe valley]

You need the latest stable Main MiSTer version too.

240110 is an old version.

[mortal mist]

just run update_all

[cyan tapir]

ok, i'll do that. thanks guys for the help

I'll come back as soon as I can, to let you know if it worked.

[ripe valley]

On TECMO J-LEAGUE GO GO GOAL !, there are two green stripes on both part of the screen, after choosing the teams and launching the main match.
That's an original game bug.

https://youtu.be/XUylJmgd9cI?feature=shared&t=218

[ripe valley]

I haven't noticed any regressions in the last 3 days, and I've updated the compatibility list (we're at 70% of all commercial games and software released with a 100% playable state).
Some minor graphical issues remain in my testing in my tests and are noted in the issue log.

[outer hull]

Hey there, I was directed here about an unstable build of Saturn because the stable build is broken? (I recently updated and most saturn games no longer work). Thanks!

(sorry maybe i should have poked around more before commenting)

[ripe valley]

Hello, you can access to the unstable versions here #unstable-nightlies

[outer hull]

It says no access, maybe i need a role or something

[ripe valley]

You need to give yourself the right role from the Channels and Roles section near the top of the channels list to access the unstable channel.

Once done, you will have access to the builds, the last one is from 2025-09-20.

[outer hull]

alright Ive never had to mess with this before; I hope it's just a drag and drop thing 😅

[ripe valley]

Yes, it's quite simple.

[outer hull]

All that time playing Operation as a child has prepared me to extract and replace the micro SD from my MiSTer

[ripe valley]

The stable Main MiSTer file was deployed a while ago, before the Saturn stable core.

There have been changes to the way saves are handled internally, so if the core and main files are not aligned, this causes this message issue on all games.

I just hope we can get one in the next few days; we are finishing the final validation steps for this new core right now.

I am sorry for the situation, we are doing our best and as quickly as possible to resolve the issue for users who only use stable versions.

For the moment, it is necessary to manually install the latest unstable version, but I have already spent 3 days and 3 nights of testing, normally this one is very solid.

[outer hull]

I appreciate it, thanks

[ripe valley]

If you need help, we are always available on this channel or on #help.

[outer hull]

I just need a quick pointer about what to do with the unstable build file, if it's not too much trouble

[ripe valley]

You need to go on your SD card, and check inside the _Consoles folder.

[outer hull]

right, im there. just noticing they are rbf files and the one I just downloaded isn't

or maybe i misread

[ripe valley]

There should be a file named Saturn_20250613.rbf, if you're on the last stable.

[outer hull]

yeah

[ripe valley]

You need to add the file Saturn_unstable_20250920_13d225.rbf you just DL'ed (you could rename it 'Saturn_20250920' if you want) inside the _Consoles folder.

The idea is to replace 'Saturn_20250613.rbf,' by that newer version.

[outer hull]

ok so get rid of the old one and replace it, sweet

[ripe valley]

Yeah, just like that, and that's all.

[outer hull]

thanks! appreciate your help

[ripe valley]

Are you on a single RAM MiSTer system ?

[outer hull]

shoot, uhhh I thought I had two. I bought it premade from misteraddons

pretty sure I got two

[ripe valley]

Otherwise, you will need the file for the Dual RAM (the Single RAM one works, but if we could take advantage of the two RAM sticks...).

The Dual RAM version is just above the Single RAM one on #unstable-nightlies

[outer hull]

wait so in that link should I be going to the very latest on the list and choosing dualsdram? because the link sends me somewhere in the middle of the list

[ripe valley]

Yes, you should go to the very latest on the list, and choose the one with Dual RAM specified.

Saturn_DualSDRAM_unstable_20250920_13d225.rbf

[celest lake]

What was the game that had trouble with 32mb dual ram modules? Was it saturn? I have in my brain it's a saturn game

32mb for the 2nd ram stick, I should say

[ripe valley]

Dead or Alive, if I remember well.

[mortal mist]

For me, the problem was the power stability.

2.9/3.0 works better because it has better voltage stability

I can reproduce this every time in different games. I recently had problems with Dead or Alive, and now with Panzer Dragoon I/II.

i use pololu switch (mosfet) for power button in Atlantis board

When I connect the power supply directly to the DE10 Nano, the problem disappears with 32mb sdram

[upper dust]

How many amps? I got slowdown with a new 32mb stick in DoA using a 5v 3a adapter.

Hmm, I was going thru a MiSTer Addons Direct IO's USB-C power in. Maybe I could try going directly into the DE10 with a Y barrel jack adapter too.

[tawny forge]

Is Grandia still glitching with fast timings on with single ram?

[celest lake]

depends on if you won the silicon lottery or not

[tawny forge]

It looks it’s not glitching on single even with original timings now? 😱

I am on a CRT via component, not sure if that counts

Nah, still happens

[mortal mist]

It's not about slowdowns, the core crashed.

[warped saddle]

OC that ddr ram 😉

[upper dust]

Oh, yeah it was crashing for me too. Sorry mis-typed

[outer hull]

Hi! I got some help here earlier, getting Saturn working again with the unstable core. Looks like putting that file into "consoles" (replacing the current Saturn rbf file) has made Saturn core not even boot to bios at all

Not sure what went wrong

Ok i think I downloaded the wrong core, it's a sega arcade thing, i goofed, got it

[ripe valley]

I found an issue on Real Bout Garou Densetsu.

https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Saturn_MiSTer/issues/472

It took me 3 days and 3 nights for finding something to report.

The core is really solid, it just needs some polish here and there.

[celest lake]

Do you think we can get a new stable, Zet? Would be nice to clear the saving issue up for folks. Seeing about one report a day of folks running into that

[ripe valley]

I've spent all these days ensuring that we promote the unstable core as the next stable release.

I'd like srg320 to look into this last major issue and ask him to release a new stable version.

I'm not sure about that horizon line on Panzer Dragoon Saga as a real issue.
The CD Audio issue is an error from the user.

I tried more than 150 games during almost 40 hours of tests.

[ripe valley]

I'm as bothered as you are here about this situation, I want us to end it as quickly and as well as possible.

[wide glacier]

i'd like to test a few games myself where i can. any specific things i should load up/look out for?

[ripe valley]

If you could test Astal, Die Hard Arcade, 2 Virtua Cop, 2 Bug games, Guardian Heroes, the Panzer Dragoon games, VF2, Nights, Burning Rangers & Dragon Force.

That's the last ones on my list, and I need some rest/sleep at the moment.

[mortal mist]

I tried Die Hard , Guardian , Panzer , Burning and VC2

[celest lake]

Not trying to put pressure on you as I know you’re also frustrated by it. I just don’t have a line to SRG, I need to go through his consigliere https://tenor.com/bt11k.gif

[ripe valley]

We're not hiding it, the Saturn core is one of the most anticipated features on the MiSTer now.

With MMS2, the new clones, and the SuperStation One, we're going to have a significant influx of users.

I'd like to wrap this up, before the SuperStation One's release if possible.

And I won't hide the fact that I'm also starting to tire of the Saturn, even though it's an excellent and little-known console (compared to its two competitors at the time).

celeriyacon is struggling with the upcoming SMPC testroms, so this gives us time to properly test the games, and for srg320 to then move forward with 3D0 without being constantly bothered.

[safe trail]

"Its two competitors at the time" -> clearly Playstation, but you really consider PC-FX to be more well-known ? 😉

[wide glacier]

pc-fx core when

unironically

[safe trail]

Actually, I'm having trouble imagining what the other competitor would have been.

[wide glacier]

the marty lol

[sturdy dagger]

Tire of the Saturn? Is that confirmation that Gamecom core might be next?

[safe trail]

Not soon. I'm gathering info, hoping srg320 will get to it after 3DO

[sturdy dagger]

https://tenor.com/view/wink-smile-james-franco-gif-15074342

[ripe valley]

srg320 seems interested by the SA1 chip on the SNES carts.

[wide glacier]

that would be awesome. original pc-fx hardware can be expensive and fickle, plus no rgb video, so a core would be amazing

[winter phoenix]

Instead of discovering new cheat codes this week, Bo found new extensions of cheat codes to two shooters: Cotton Boomerang and Terra Cresta 3D! See what these augmented codes do in the latest Under the Microscope:

https://www.segasaturnshiro.com/2025/09/23/under-the-microscope-cotton-boomerang-terra-cresta-3d/

[safe trail]

expensive ? Not really. Fickle ? Well, the drive does seem to be the first thing to fail

[ripe valley]

Do we need a MPEG part for the PC-FX ?

[wide glacier]

doesn't pc-fx decompress videos as jpegs

[safe trail]

Motion JPEG. That's in some of the documents I'm translating. It's also in Mednafen, but there is a minor decode bug in there

[wide glacier]

i think you used to be able to get brand new proper replacements, but not anymore. plus being limited to s-video kinda stinks :p

[safe trail]

They're very available secondhand, and most units that claim "junk" are actuallly working, or need a minor laser adjustment. There are some where the laser is too far gone though. The difficulty on PC-FX is finding the software. Although most games aren't so expensive (but some are), they are all getting somewhat difficult to find.

[wide glacier]

some of the rarer games are just ridiculously expensive

zenki fx and chip-chan kick are at least several hundred dollars

[safe trail]

And the other issue is that the games are loaded up with text, all in Japanese.

[safe trail]

Yes, but lots of games are in the $30 range too

[wide glacier]

some of them are admittedly not too interesting. but the bigger issue is, as you said, the language barrier. there are some great games that could very much use an english translation

blue breaker and boundary gate come to mind

[safe trail]

Yeah, once DE25-nano is up and running, and X68000 is working better, and PC-FX core is working, then maybe I'll work on a PC-FX translation or two

[wide glacier]

that would be dope!

[safe trail]

Or an original game maybe

[wide glacier]

that would also be very cool

zenki fx is pretty english-friendly, but i think a translation patch would be cool for that one. i'm a big fan of the anime myself

[safe trail]

Yeah, I feel the same about "playable" Japanese games

[ripe valley]

Okay, I'm really tired, I tested the game with the 4MB DRAM instead of the 1MB.

#1046941029296779344 message

PEBKAC for my part.

[wide glacier]

lol, glad it's gotten resolved

i'll do some testing today

[marble laurel]

maybe add link on the readme for specific configuration regarding games

[wide glacier]

satakore has a decent list

[wide glacier]

i know some games, like blue breaker, boundary gate and langrisser FX were also released on playstation eventually. i have to imagine those are the superior versions and maybe more worthy of translating?

there's still some exclusives that i think would be cool to have in english, though. miraculum is the first one that usually comes to my mind. looks like a really solid jrpg

[mortal mist]

For me it's not a bug in PDS

[ripe valley]

Me too, but that's from memory.
And I don't believe it either.

[celest lake]

I thought that was a solved bug

I remember it from like 6 months ago

[ripe valley]

I let you finish testing some games, if everything goes well, let's ask srg320 to promote that build as the new stable one.

[safe trail]

It's game-by-game which one is better on which platform, I hear. If you're interested, maybe youshould join the PC-FX discord where these topics are dealt with in more depth

[wide glacier]

i will, thanks!

[floral saddle]

Tomorrow is quiet for me so will look up a bunch of PDS footage and let you all be the judge or close the issue if it's clear that it's all ok.

[dusky jetty]

Is there a list of known issues for this core besides the github issues section?

[small ore]

No, that is the list of known issues, however the majority of them at this point are either feature requests, or already fixed and just not closed by the OP.

[dusky jetty]

Thanks! Just making sure I won't be reporting known problems in the future.

[mortal mist]

It's best to check this on real hardware. Videos vary in quality and often mask various things.

[floral saddle]

Yup, not looking for anything but videos that mention real hardware being used. Although I have a feeling when doing this the first time round the video I posted on github was the best quality I could find.

[analog totem]

kept running into an issue last night on stream with Suchie-Pie Doki Doki Nightmare…the first level is a shmup level and the game was crashing to a black screen after the first “boss”. Using latest stable MiSTer main and latest unstable dual ram core

other factors: CHD stored on an SSD

I’ll test bin/cue when I get the chance here

[ripe valley]

I don't remember that game having an issue there.
This will call for a new test.

[small ore]

I'm getting the same thing, CHD on SD Card, black screen after defeating the first boss and the game just freezes.

[celest lake]

👀

[analog totem]

trying bin/cue really quick

[celest lake]

I must be playing a different game because this shit looks like a visual novel

[analog totem]

Suchi-Pie Adventure - Doki Doki Nightmare

ok, same thing on bin/cue stored on SSD

[celest lake]

The throbbing nightmare

[analog totem]

yes lol

that's it

[warped saddle]

I had one of those last night

[analog totem]

last night I also ran into an issue where the sky in Powerslave wasn't rendering correctly, but I died in game and restarted the level and then the sky was fine

[ripe valley]

I never defeated the first 'boss', normally you should lose before the battle and the normal game should continue.

[celest lake]

yeah, that;s what it did for me

[analog totem]

there's a guy that shows up and you just shoot him a bunch and he dies

one sec

[small ore]

big purple fella who dies really quickly and doesn't fight back

[celest lake]

what room is he in? I made it into the dojo(?) but I always die in there

i run out of explosive frog scrolls

[analog totem]

video: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2573310415?t=03h32m21s

[celest lake]

ahh ok, I have not made it to that dude yet

[analog totem]

trying the single ram core

[small ore]

I have the same issue in the single ram core, with or without fast timings

[ripe valley]

Same result for me, I never beat him before and saw the classic game continues, so I noted it down as Playable.

[celest lake]

yeah, you can hear when the game crashes

[analog totem]

yes, you hear like a pop

[ripe valley]

Issue ticket done, nice catch.

[sudden tusk]

Anybody test astal yet ? I’m pretty adept at the game can clear it easily

[analog totem]

@sudden tusk actually funny you mention that, but I experienced some crashes in that recently a couple core versions ago...a MiSTer reset allowed me to continue playing the game, though

[sudden tusk]

Alright I’m on it

[ripe valley]

Go for it.

[sudden tusk]

Mannnn

[analog totem]

the crashes I did have happened at random spots...I think there was a couple times where level 2 just didn't load for me....I haven't played it again on the latest core, though

[sudden tusk]

Reminds of stuff that used to happen on the early builds

[analog totem]

yes

possibly a regression, but I remember it crashing more consistently before....my bad for not documenting that one, but it was inconsistent for me

[ripe valley]

I've never tried that hard on Astal, because others are better at it than me.

[analog totem]

ohhhh I see, that shmup part is jsut a mini-game

dang, and here I was thinking like Metal Jesus "oh! A hidden gem!"

[wide glacier]

https://tenor.com/view/metal-jesus-uh-uhh-okay-awkward-gif-15128818

[sudden tusk]

Ok made it past level 2 , so far the only thing I noticed was a slight sound glitch after rescuing the bird on the very first level but that might have been due to me having turbo timing

I’ll replay level one with original timing after I clear a few more stages

Slight visual glitch when entering the plant boss fight , game shows a blue screen for a couple of frames before loading .. fight loaded just fine though

[ripe valley]

With some images, that should be even better for the issue ticket.

[hearty marten]

Stop finding bugs

[sudden tusk]

Crap that’s gonna be hard to capture lol I’ll start a new game and see if both those things happen again

Fresh reboot . Original timing latest unstable

Will get video evidence if it happens again

Shit dudes .. it happened again

@ripe valley

[wide glacier]

doesn't this happen on real hardware as well? joe from game sack mentioned it on his episode covering the saroo

[sudden tusk]

Wouldn’t be surprised if it did , but i originally mastered this game on original hardware and don’t remember it glitching out like this

[wide glacier]

let me see if i can find the example

[sudden tusk]

I’ll document the next bug

[wide glacier]

https://youtu.be/JqIBxuN42cQ?t=991 here it is from his console with a satiator

admittedly it sounds like it stutters in a different way on the core, but it's there regardless

[sudden tusk]

Sweet core accuracy!

Right at eleven seconds garbage frame

[analog totem]

no crashes though? that’s good if not

[lofty spire]

putting the As back in Astal

[sudden tusk]

No crashes !

Made it past the volcano and moved on to testing other stuff

Unfortunately wwf in yo house is back to having frequent odd sound glitches

[sudden tusk]

You criticizing my gameplay bro ?

[lofty spire]

nah, just not a fan of Astal lol

[sudden tusk]

Word not everyone’s cup of tea , but the art style and music are dope af

[ripe valley]

Okay...
The sound glitch on the first level, is it normal or is it not ?

I see original footage on the JPN version and the glitch isn't present.

[sudden tusk]

I don’t ever remember the glitch being present on og hardware as well but unfortunately I can’t confirm that on my end as alas my Saturn is not on hand

[ripe valley]

I'm searching now a US version with the original disc used with the console, not something taken from an ODE.

[sudden tusk]

That would be the best way to find out , I did a quick search but didn’t specify disc

Also fighters megamix still crashes if you let the intro cutscene play out , I forget if that happens in og hardware as well

[ripe valley]

Everyone on my side is using either a SAROO or a Fenrir.

[sudden tusk]

When I played it I used a burned disc on a modded console and don’t remember the glitch being present

[wide glacier]

i'm not sure then. it sounds different in every video from real hardware i've watched

i can only test on my saroo, where the stutter doesn't occur

[obsidian herald]

I just checked it on a Japanese Saturn using the USA ROM via a Saroo (with the timing configs in place) and it did not stutter at that part.

[ripe valley]

I opened the issue for the frame glitch on Stage 6.

[wide glacier]

the saroo isn't accurate in this regard

[obsidian herald]

That part being the opening segment where you rescue the bird.

[wide glacier]

it loads things much faster than an original drive or other drive emulators

check the video i linked above for comparison

[obsidian herald]

Gotcha, I'll swap to my MODE system later today and try again.

I really need to install my Fenrir in my other Saturn

[analog totem]

if it’s helpful i could test a burned copy of Astal on a real Saturn

[wide glacier]

that might be best

[obsidian herald]

That would be the best test I suspect

Yeah

I should get some blank CDs

[analog totem]

ok I should be able to do that later tonight

[obsidian herald]

I think the Saroo lets you boot burned discs, yeah?

I think I have an action replay clone as well somewhere. I'll order some CDs for future testing.

[wide glacier]

supposedly, but i've never tried

[obsidian herald]

I am not even sure the CD drive on this saturn works actually

[stiff latch]

On a MODE, it doesnt skip

[analog totem]

probably? I just have one of those red 4-in-1 carts or whatever it is with PseudoSaturnKai

i actually already have a burned copy of Astal too

honestly, for cases where testing a burned copy on real hardware is helpful I can do that

just gotta set my testing station back up

[obsidian herald]

Yeah I just confirmed my CD drive works on this Saturn and I have one of those 4-in-1 carts and a Saturn so I'll buy some blanks for future testing.

[ripe valley]

I found someone with a real disc

[sudden tusk]

Damn it’s hard to judge if fighters megamix improved or … most stages feel at the right speed but anything with a ring and it kinda tanks the frame rate

[obsidian herald]

That's how it played on my MODE

Specifically that indoor stage, I can't remember whose it was.

Would be funny to hook up a single controller to both the MiSTer via SNAC and a real Saturn and be able to capture footage for both.

[ripe valley]

Fighters Megamix seems consistent from last time I checked with my dual RAM system (around 2 weeks ago).

The real game disc is stuttering too.

But another test is always welcomed.

[obsidian herald]

To be clear I have not tested the most recent Saturn core but Megamix's framerate is not smooth on all stages on my VA0 Mode Saturn.

[wide glacier]

are you on single or dual ram

[sudden tusk]

I’m single ram but got an extra stick around in case I ever wanna go dual

Burning rangers performing beautifully

[obsidian herald]

Someone can correct me if I'm wrong but my understanding is that Fighter Megamix and some other 3D fighters are expected to not perform 1:1 with original hardware without dual RAM right now.

That was part of the reason I moved off the MMS and went to a dual RAM stack - hopefully one day only single RAM will be necessary.

[ripe valley]

We could alleviate most of the slowdowns with the Fast timings option, but it's not a panacea.

For Astal, that's a bug with the core.
I tried every variation of the game, JP & US too.

On the original discs the bug is not present, but I fear that the ODE that srg320 has may have the same problem as the core.

So, researching about it will be tricky (and srg320 seems to have some troubles with his Saturn at the moment).

That's all for me for today.

[obsidian herald]

Maybe we should pitch in and send srg320 a Saturn and a Fenrir Lite

I keep buying good condition Saturns from Japan because every time I see a Saturn for $60 I can't help myself.

[ripe valley]

Fenrir (Lite) have the issue.

EDIT : I will check once more with a friend.

[obsidian herald]

Ah

[thorn pagoda]

surprising MODE doesn't

i thought fenrir was the best

[ripe valley]

It seems Joe from GameSack took the captures using a Satiator at the time.

I need a recheck on the video posted earlier.

EDIT : Okay Satiator, I will ask a second check to a friend with a Fenrir Lite.

[stiff latch]

none of the odes are truly "perfect" but imo mode is very good all around. most of the bugs are resulting from enabling "igr" in relation to returning to the mode menu

if you turn that stuff off, it works as expected

also the recent patch that got pushed for gameid stuff on the dc side fixed some longstanding issues on sat side

[wide glacier]

i prefer the fenrir over the mode in a saturn for price alone tbh

[stiff latch]

well cant argue with a good deal

lol

[obsidian herald]

I never could get igr to work with my MODE because I have a VA0 Saturn. Saw that the new firmware might fix that which is cool. The only issue I ever had with my setup was Aquazone would freeze / stutter if I left it on for a few hours. Turns out that this was due to my cheap 4-in-1 memory cart and the issue was not present with an OEM memory cart so was not ODE related at all.

My Saroo has all kinds of weirdness but I really like that thing. Works way better on my newer Saturn.

[wide glacier]

saroo is just weird in general. firmware is still beta, compatibility is spotty

but getting a good quality cartridge and adjusting the delay timings in the .cfg file helps a lot

[obsidian herald]

Yeah there's that cfg file that someone is maintaining with all the little hacks in it

That project is so cool, I hope that it gets to 100% compatibility one day. Seems like it's going to be an uphill battle against the weird way they emulate disc reads, but that's part of the charm. I just love not having to worry about save carts or RAM carts.

[wide glacier]

yeah, it's a really nice all-in-one solution. the faster load times are super nice as well

[obsidian herald]

Plus box art!

[stiff latch]

the only thing i dont love about the proliferation of saroo carts is all those vendors cannibalizing original consoles and selling those custom boxes with parts removed

[obsidian herald]

It handles a complete 1G1R collection really well

[wide glacier]

those are pretty awful lol

[obsidian herald]

Ah haven't seen that, that sucks.

[stiff latch]

like i enjoy the saroo as a concept but you dont have to kill original hardware to do it

[obsidian herald]

Hate to see a Saturn get hacked up.

[wide glacier]

cool concept, but shitty to do

[obsidian herald]

I keep putting off installing a PAL switch in my NTSC VA0 Saturn because then it would be permanently modified, lol

That and I need to figure out how to actually do it

[wide glacier]

it's pretty simple to wire up iirc

[obsidian herald]

By the time I get around to it the MiSTer core will probably be perfect and I won't have to

Yeah I think it's dead simple on a VA0 I just need to figure it out. I'm okay at soldering but my knowledge of electrical stuff is "follow instructions" basically.

I'm going to recap my VA0 Saturn and while I'm in there probably install the Switch. There is also some kind of weird mod you need to do on VA0 Saturns to fix skipping audio in Saroo. Something about covering pins on the CDROM connector or something weird like that.

https://youtu.be/nWIs6qGuU84?feature=shared

So not the connector leading to the CDROM but what looks like the mainboard to the CDROM controller.

[acoustic sable]

A friend thought he had that, turned out to be a crappy Saturn->HDMI adapter breaking the sound instead

He'd bought that and the saroo at the same time, so blamed the saroo initially after a cursory websearch for it

[obsidian herald]

I’d have thought the same!

[minor cipher]

@mortal mist looking at the specific frames captured in the PDS github issue, i don't see any artifacts in the video you posted. i think the video you posted is in fact hardware capture, but the lines don't appear the same as on the core

i see the artifacts on some frames as you mentioned. but if you line the exact captured frames up with the frames from your video, the core has lines but the video does not

[mortal mist]

video

the lines are there

[minor cipher]

you're right i think

i do see the lines of course on the video, just trying to be thorough as it was already suggested there might be a difference in degree

i was aligning the wrong frames there looks like

apologies, thanks for the reply

[mortal mist]

no prob my friend!

[minor cipher]

i don't see a video capture from MiSTer in that thread (just stills), i may try to make one just for a reference

looks like it is most likely correct now

[floral saddle]

From real hardware, cutscene is at 3:53:40, looks the same as the other hardware footage I posted on the github ticket page. https://youtu.be/IuoN2OA6Dv8?feature=shared

That's 2 videos showing the difference from core, still want me to find more? Don't mind if so.

[mortal mist]

Thanks for another video. I'm not here to convince anyone that there's no error. However, I would like to see a recording made by someone from here on real hardware.

Unfortunately, I don't have a way to check this myself.

[glossy steppe]

I have a real Saturn but I have no idea where it's cables are anymore, my CRT is also in storage and too big to move right now, not sure how nice it could play on a modern LCD TV 🙁

[ripe valley]

I'm trying to explain the audio stutter after liberating the bird on Astal to srg320, but we don't understand each other at the moment.

Hmm, I explained a bit further, but I think I'll need help on the issue ticket later.

Like from @sudden tusk

Thanks.

I have to go for today.

One more thing - @analog totem BTW, The JALECO logo is really like that on Suchie-Pie Adventure - Doki Doki Nightmare. That's not a bug from the core at all.
I was reviewing your last shared video.

[analog totem]

Yeah, I actually looked up a YT video and realized it was normal

[tawny forge]

Without real hardware to be compared against it really sounds like a legit sound effect 🤣

[opal tundra]

I just installed the unstable st-v core. Does anyone also get an error when running astra Astra Superstars? "error on cartrdige, please service button to exit". Other games are working correcty.

[burnt matrix]

Did you get latest MRAs?

from update_all

[opal tundra]

Yes, I deleted everything from my old setup and ran the update_all and update_stv script. The mra files have an old old date though

[burnt matrix]

Yeah, delete those. Updated MRAs are just in the _arcade folder, no subfolders.

The update STV script might be outdated now

[opal tundra]

Ok thanks. Hmm okay, the newer mra's are also there

[burnt matrix]

Check for Astra Superstars in “_arcade”

[opal tundra]

The last picture is the _arcade folder

[burnt matrix]

Oh ok seeet

Then try running that to see if you get the same issue

[opal tundra]

Yup

st-v core looks up to date. Do you also get this error?

[marble laurel]

https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Main_MiSTer/pull/1038

[burnt matrix]

Ok be real, did you make that name up

Because that’s an A+ Japanese game name

[marble laurel]

It is the sequel of Doki Doki Panic 😂

[analog totem]

ah interesting, I didn’t realize that was a Main fix at first

[hearty marten]

Now we need a new stable main release after the next stable Saturn release

When will this nightmare end?

[sudden tusk]

It’s testing time!

[hearty marten]

NO!

If you look for bugs, you will find them, and those of us who are too lazy to install an unstable version will never get a new core

[sudden tusk]

https://tenor.com/view/starship-troopers-doing-my-part-stoked-team-teamwork-gif-5546341

[glossy steppe]

What about games like Mushihimesama? Even "normal sounding" games are not safe, such as "Super Street Fighter II X for Matching Service"

[glossy steppe]

Found some!

[inner kayak]

I love how you’re thinking about the incoming users

[strong zephyr]

Is astal testing on real hw still required? I can ask in another discord where the chance of both people having a legit copy or having a satiator is high. I am a fenrir user myself, thanks to @opal tundra 😅

[burnt matrix]

I own a Saturn Deez myself

[ripe valley]

Yes, I need as many testers as possible here.
Capture the moment the bird is released and the 30 seconds that follow.
srg320 wanted us to try this multiple times, with a reset between each attempt.
To see if this affects the results or if it's a glitch in the game.

[ancient surge]

Oh no is this another RAM lottery situation

[obsidian herald]

Ugh I need to get a good capture setup

[strong zephyr]

Your saturn sounds like a nutjob! 😇

[burnt matrix]

Noooooo you didn’t fall for it, I failed!!!

https://tenor.com/view/pokemon-team-rocket-blasting-off-again-fly-sky-gif-5141373

[analog totem]

oh! ok, if testing with a burned copy is still useful, I will do my part 🫡

[ripe valley]

You can do it too.

[analog totem]

I guess when you found someome with a real copy yesterday I erroneously thought that meant maybe I didn’t need to test. I’ll get things set back up so I can hopefully be of more help on this front since I do have real hw

[strong zephyr]

I asked if ppl have the game or a satiator. Will return if that’s the case. Ofc i hail from pal country. I know first hand not all games were optimised…but most of us prefer ntsc, sooo maybe?

[burnt matrix]

What do we need to test?

[ripe valley]

When the bird is free'd from the cage on Stage 1, Astal will say some words "Quit following me, you stupid bird!". Just after that the music does something strange depending on the original disc and the ODEs.
Some ODEs and the current core will repeat the first sample multiple times.
The original disc does not on some captures.

I'd like some testers with the original system and original disc (or a burned copy), to try that exact moment and reset and redo the test.

At least 5 times in a row, so we could know if the results are consistent with each other.

[strong zephyr]

I (also) have one tester who is burning a disc to test. No og discs unfortunately.

[ripe valley]

srg320 wants to know if this is a game bug, a core bug. Or something else.

Yeah, the game is quite expensive these days.

[strong zephyr]

It is a cord with 40+ peepz. Could be that someone has it. But many ppl use ode or fpga as well

[upper dust]

Is it this dun-dun-dun sound?

[ripe valley]

Yes, that one precisely.

srg320 can't hear it, as he seems to have some hearing problem.

You should have only one "dun" sound.

[strong zephyr]

Test here failed on reading the burned disc! My tester will verify his saturn with an store bought game and will use a verbatim disc to burn the game again.

[strong zephyr]

Og games work, but second copy also didn’t work. He thinks his saroo only makes the saturn region free. And ignores copy prot. So no dice unfortunately!

[glossy steppe]

Back in the early 00s before I had a modchip for my Saturn I was doing the swap trick

If your tester has any retail Saturn disks he could try that instead of using the Saroo to try to boot a burned game

[strong osprey]

disc swapping is really cool

[analog totem]

i seem to recall trying the swap trick when I was waiting for my 4-in-1 cart to arrive but I couldn’t get it to work

[obsidian herald]

Ah yeah I had mistakenly thought the Saroo could do backup disks but: https://github.com/tpunix/SAROO/issues/156

I am going to prioritize getting a capture setup and also having a method to reliably play burned CDs for future testing

[thorn pagoda]

those random 4-in-1 type carts work with burned discs i think?

pseudo saturn kai is the phrase i was looking for

[obsidian herald]

Yeah, and I have one, I just have only ever used it as a memory card / RAM cart so I need to make sure it doesn't need some kind of custom firmware.

[thorn pagoda]

i can't remember if i ever used it or not heh

[obsidian herald]

Yeah had no reason to. If my capture card can deal with the output of the Tink 2x Pro I should be good. My second GBS-C finally died and my Tink 4K is buried in my AV setup in the living room.

[rotund steeple]

Saroo plays CD backup discs since firmware 0.7 (iirc). Seems a bit picky though with my burned CDs.

[obsidian herald]

Ohhh good catch

[upper dust]

Maaan. Tried to bootup my VA0 Japanese Saturn with a Fenrir to test, but it's got the black screen now. Worked the last time I tried it

[rotund steeple]

Fenrir and Saroo can be really problematic. My VA9 PAL+Fenrir doesn't work properly, the sound the nearly completely broken. There are hardware fixes, but i didn't care.

Got a japanese console with the original CD-Drive, best choice for Saroo imo.

[sudden tusk]

lol hell yeah ! I remember I put gum on the little button that the disc door pushes down on to make it think the tray was always shut , cool thing about using gum is that I could still use the button to open and close the tray

[glossy steppe]

It's been decades so I don't recall, but IIRC it was very simple and easy compared to the PSX swap trick that required multiple swaps. IIRC it just reads the copy protection ring once, and you cabn easily hear when it's doing it since it has to move the laser all the way to the outer edge to do it.

[glossy steppe]

Right, that can be another factor. Modern drives and even what blank media can be found aren't really ideal anymore for drives from 30+ years ago, especially with how those drives would have aged by now. If you are burning at max speed... that can explain it. You would probably want to burn at the slowest speed your drive and media support. I have tested it on PS2 games with both the quality of the media and burn speed had an impact, with the game taking longer to load, music/fmvs skipping, to eventually not even loading at all when I used the cheap media at the fastest setting (the good media at fastest setting BARELY loaded, with massive skipping). The SegaCD was quite an early drive and can be VERY picky, especially if it's a Model 1. It's not going to like a Memorex burned at 48X compared to a Taiyo Yuden burned at 4x or 8x

[glossy steppe]

I recall REMOVING the button from my Model 1 Saturn. I don't recall why, I think for some reason the button actually opens the circuit when pressed instead of closing it, so removing the buttin made the Saturn think it was always closed. Though I eventually got a Model 2 and modchip for it. I remember having that button hanging on a pin on my wall in case I ever needed it... I doubt it's still back there anymore XD

[cunning citrus]

Fun fact. Batman Forever for some reason reads the copy protection several times after the sega Logo. Modchips still defeat it though. It also works with the System Disc (can't recall which System Disc).

[glossy steppe]

Yeah, both PSX and Saturn had that. Games that after they boot would check the copy protection section again to make sure it was still there and they weren't just booting off a swap trick. Modchips generally just kept feeding the copy protection data the console expects into the system's memory so a second check would still pass. Though some later PSX games got around this by checking if the console was still getting the code WITHOUT reading that part of the disk, and halting with an error message if it was. It was not really a great idea because it wasn't detecting the presence of the game disk being copied so much as detecting the presence of a mod chip, so it would go off even if you had a legit retail copy of a game. Plus since this was happening AFTER boot and in the software modification devices like a Gameshark/Action Replay could disable it since it was usually a single check. Later modchips got around this by adding additional wires to check when the system was trying to read the copy protection section and only feed the console the code at that moment.... then after that was the can of worms that was Libcrypt... (Which thankfully for me, only effected PAL games)

[analog totem]

dang trying to get a good capture setup for the Saturn and for some reason I can't get audio ugh

using hd retrovision cables > retrotink 2x-pro > hdmi switch > hdmi splitter > elgato hmmmm

I wonder if it's this HDMI cable

it's some cheapo cable I bought at a thrift store years ago

ah ha! yep!

sweeeet, I'm all setup to capture stuff now for testing Saturn HW

[analog totem]

@ripe valley Alrighty, just tested Astal on a real Saturn w/Pseudo Saturn Kai via a CD-R copy 6 times and was not able to reproduce the sound bug when getting the bird in Level 1

Man, I do kinda like the Retro-bit wireless pad, but it just absolutely does not feel as good as a real Saturn pad

Trying on the core now...interestingly, I was noticing a couple slight stutters/slowdowns when moving through the first part of the level on a real Saturn, but not on MiSTer...sound issue happened on first try here

[split heart]

I have it with my Saturn console as well and I have the updated batch without that d-pad problem IIRC

It feels fragile but it’s kinda sturdy at the same time

However I actually think I prefer the M30 I use with my Mister

[opal tundra]

Does anyone got this daemon Saturn adapter working? Other adapters work, but I cannot get this adapter recognized in the mister menu and Saturn core.

[wise brook]

is it detected by any hardware? pc etc

[opal tundra]

Yes it is detected, does not register any input though

[sharp forum]

Shocking that it wasn’t the elgato. those things love to just not work randomly

[analog totem]

I honestly haven’t really had many issues with mine. I did initially have more issues when I was trying to use the built-in pass-through, but once I switched to using a splitter instead, those issues pretty much went away. I think it also helped to adjust my capture settings to match what the MiSTer was outputting rather than leaving it set to device default.

[analog totem]

I don’t think mine has a problem either? Though, I definitely have an earlier model…if I remember the issue was that the d-pads were just straight up breaking very quickly…don’t recall the issue being “feel”, but maybe I’m misremembering 🤔

[ripe valley]

@analog totem Thank you for the discovery of the issue on Suchie-Pie Adventure.
@inner kayak Thanks for the kind words yesterday.

srg320 will need the real disc of Astal for working on that sound issue.

[analog totem]

no problem at all! I’m all set up with my real hw capture now and can definitely help do more testing (with burned discs 😅) when it’s useful. More importantly, thank you for everything you do for the MiSTer project 🫡

[wide glacier]

unfortunately, all i have in the way of real saturn hardware is my saroo, but i'm shotgunning through random games on the core and haven't run into any issues yet

[analog totem]

I will mention that if any testing is needed on Bug! or Sega Rally, I do actually have retail copies of those…they are the only real Saturn games I own

[wide glacier]

i mean, do you really need anything else in life besides bug and sega rally

[obsidian herald]

Is the concern that booting a burned disc through the Saroo is inaccurate? Would a burned disc via the Pseudo-Saturn Kai be acceptable?

[thorn pagoda]

this kinda seems like it might need firmware flashing to it or something? might want to contact the seller

[ripe valley]

From what I understand on the system, he needs to to watch the CDBlock signals.
And if I'm not wrong, the Saroo (and maybe Pseudo-Kai) bypass(es) the CDBlock and replace(s) its functionality.

[thorn pagoda]

kai isn't that clever i dont think

[ripe valley]

For the Saroo I'm 98-99% sure because we can't load VCD & Lunar MPEG-ban with it.

I'm checking the source code of Pseudo-Kai.

[rotund steeple]

is it possible to modify the boot iso that's available on the Pseudo-Kai site for an ODE like fenrir? Then we would have cheat support.

[analog totem]

hmmm it sounds like maybe I should pop my pseudo kai cartridge out and try to master the swap trick

[strong zephyr]

btw does it matter which Astal we test?

[wide glacier]

these are supposedly just different disc pressings, but perhaps it's worth trying all 3?

[ripe valley]

No change between all the pressings.

[glossy steppe]

Sometimes there is no difference at all, sometimes there is though usually it's a few bytes. I remember performing hash checks when I run into stuff like this to see what if anything was changed

[opal tundra]

I would think so too, I sent them an email today. I cannot find any new firmware though.

[kindred peak]

Getting caught up in here. I have a few more hours of work, but I'm leaving these out to remind me to test this and report. Still getting caught up. Thanks for checking out the Astal sound, @analog totem 🙌

[river river]

How do things look if you test it here https://hardwaretester.com/gamepad

[celest lake]

Where did we land on the auto-detect cartridge stuff? I feel like @hearty marten was working on it? Or am I misremembering

[strong zephyr]

Btw is it correct that STV hasn't gotten an entry in the arcade organised folder? Or am i just overlooking it

here i mean /media/fat/_Arcade/_Organized/_3 Collections/_1 By Platform

[opal tundra]

Okay mistery is finally solved, Astra SuperStars is working now. For some reason the update_all in my case also did not work. I deleted the old STV folder, files etc and also checked the update ini settings, but only for the STV core I was not getting new MRA files. I copied the MRA files from the github zakk4223/STV-MRA release, but these are apparently not up to date. Finally I got the mister (auto download) MRA file from @strong zephyr and this version works. It differs from the github version, lacking i.a. the rom index 0.

Does anyone have a link to the correct STV MRA files from the update_all?

[warped saddle]

they are all here https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Saturn_MiSTer/tree/main/releases/mra

however, that all should come down via updater, they are in the distribution repo

[strong zephyr]

could it be a setting in update all thats not enabled by default? I had the same issue @opal tundra had but indeed deleting the subfolder STV and then running update all made the MRA files appear among the other aracde mra's (so no longer in a separate folder)

[warped saddle]

I guess maybe if you have some filters configured you could accidentally be missing them that way? Otherwise they are no different than any other arcade mra

[opal tundra]

No filters applied here.

[strong zephyr]

i think i indeed have it set to installing every available arcade game, if you only install what you want there it makes sense to not get them by default

[opal tundra]

The mra is diferent from the "old" one, its missing the index 0 for example. The only thing I know is that the newer version works

[warped saddle]

well I don't know what's going on there because the released MRA certainly has a rom index="0" in it

(for Astra)

I would check if you have multiple ST-V cores in /media/fat/_Arcade/cores

[strong zephyr]

are you actively updating this entry @warped saddle? github zakk4223/STV-MRA

[burnt matrix]

The only MRAs you should have are from https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Saturn_MiSTer/tree/main/releases/mra

[winter phoenix]

Remisse has patched English into the Japan-only Saturn version of Wizardry VI — and not only that, he's fixed a long list of bugs and missing content in the console port, too! Read all about it in my story:

https://www.segasaturnshiro.com/2025/09/26/fan-patches-english-into-wizardry-vi-for-saturn/

[warped saddle]

I made my old STV mra repo private so people don't keep using it

[small ore]

It is supported by the organizer, it's listed as Sega ST-V in the _1 By Platform folder, or just ST-V in _2 By MiSTer Core

[pearl harbor]

My arch nemesis Sega Saturn Patcher returns!

[surreal bison]

Ugggh. My Policenauts save isn’t being seen by the game all of a sudden. Any ideas?

[safe trail]

https://misterfpga.org/viewtopic.php?t=9569

[celest lake]

one day there will be a new stable

[ripe valley]

One day.

[small ore]

[ripe valley]

Up to srg320.

[surreal bison]

Thank you! I will have a look at this tonight.

[glossy steppe]

https://tenor.com/view/it-is-not-this-day-not-today-lord-of-the-rings-gif-14797074

[safe trail]

It's basically saying that you need a recent build ("unstable" or "nightly") in order to access save files, due to changes that went into MiSTer Main. Old versions of the Saturn core will have the behaviour that you found.

[warped saddle]

I love how the timing of me making that change couldn't have been worse

[safe trail]

I don't recall the change

[warped saddle]

it was the change that let you load a different save file. but it required changing the index of the save in the core+main

and right after I did it, some months long c64 related PR finally got into proper shape and Sorg push a new release just for that feature

[glossy steppe]

load a different save file?

[warped saddle]

you can load a different sav (system storage + backup cart)

[glossy steppe]

Oh, it's specifically for saturn?

[warped saddle]

yes

[glossy steppe]

Or do you mean the internal and cart can be seperate saves?

[warped saddle]

no, they are still combined

it's just 'load this different save file'

[glossy steppe]

I see, so you could not manually choose a save file before? Didn't notice that

Is there any way to choose to switch to a single save across all games intead of per-game?

Or copy a save from one file to another?

[small ore]

Saves are named after the folder the discs are in. I believe if you stored all your games in the same folder, they'd all share the same save memory, like a real saturn would.

[warped saddle]

you'll need to manually reset every disc swap if you do that

[glossy steppe]

Yeah, not a good idea to hav every saturn game in just one folder

[small ore]

You can move a save to a different game, by just copying + renaming the save file to the name of the new games folder.

Certainly a neat thing to do with the PSX core since at least metal gear solid reads your memory card for other konami games during a certain fight.

[glossy steppe]

There are some Saturn games that do that too

Panzer Dragoon Zewi and SAGA unlock stuff for each other if you have a save from the the other game

How long you have played Zwei even effects you starting money in saga

[winter phoenix]

RetroRaiderJohn has made a ton of progress on his recreation of Tomb Raider 2 using the Saturn version of Tomb Raider 1, as shown in a newly uploaded video! SHIRO! exclusively has the details on how he's accomplishing it:

https://www.segasaturnshiro.com/2025/09/26/tomb-raider-2-fan-recreation-shows-off-dynamic-lighting-new-animations-and-more/

[wide glacier]

@ripe valley got a couple of glitchy frames and stuttering audio in the ending cutscene of puyo puyo tsuu's easy mode. using the latest unstable mister main and unstable saturn single ram core; tried both normal and fast timings, same results

[ripe valley]

@wide glacier Could you report it to srg320 with some explanation and how to reproduce it ?
I will not be available for quite some time starting tonight, I need some unexpected time off for my family.

[wide glacier]

i am heading to bed soon, but i notice there's multiple disc pressings of this game, similar to astal. i will try the other one tonight just in case. if it happens again, i'll open a ticket on github. thanks zet ❤️

[burnt matrix]

It’s a reminder that while the Zakk giveth, he can also taketh away.

[left chasm]

Maybe something I missed or haven’t learned yet, but I do wonder if this unstable couldn’t be promoted to stable since effectively it’s what folks need to install manually anyway

I guess not if it has a bigger issue (worse than no saves), but missed it

[warped saddle]

it probably could honestly but Zet and SRG out here chasing dragons

[celest lake]

It's all up to SRG. Definitely feels like this unstable is more stable than the stable, but only one person can promote it

[safe trail]

Actually, it's usually sorgelig who does the releases (however srg320 has the ability on this core)

[warped saddle]

it kinda depends on the core and who the primary author is

like I suspect sorg doesn't have the patience of robert to do builds for half a day to get a good one

[safe trail]

Releases since March 2024 have all been srg320, but sorgelig was all of them before that

[left chasm]

Ah, thanks all for explaining

[warped saddle]

Sorg was only two. one was a sys update and the other may have been for...geopolitical reasons

[safe trail]

Well, he does pretty much all the other system, except the most vigorously-worked-on ones

I noticed he tends to stand back on those

[celest lake]

The sense I got was that he was pretty hands off if the core was actively being worked on (or, as Zakk said, one of robert’s “spend the day building” cores). He was doing sys updates for SNES and TG16 until SRG picked them back up

[warped saddle]

he did a lot of sys updates and releases when he made the new i/o board, probably because he didn't want to wait for other people

[upper dust]

I recapped my Japanese VA0 Saturn to help with testing

Was just getting a black screen before

[glossy steppe]

Nice

One day I need to recap my SNES (Had no idea it had SMD caps, I assumed it was all through-hole, not sure I have the skills to do that) in hopes that it makes the sound work again

[wise brook]

how’d you pluck the cap’s?

hot air, soldering tweezers

[river river]

Wow you did the whole lot, respect! To fix the black screen issue you can get away with replacing only 3 caps but it'll be nice to have a fully recapped board

[river river]

I personally go for attacking them with flush cutters then soldering iron to remove the left behind legs from the pads

[wise brook]

not a bad technique

i’ve never ripped a pad, tho i concede it’s a possibility with certain motherboards

[river river]

I've only ripped pads when I tried the twist method. I don't know how people manage to do that and cause no damage 🫣

[green swift]

Do you use hot air for SMD cap removal? Looks clean.

[green swift]

This is what I do as well. It’s savage, but it works. I have yet to rip a pad.

[upper dust]

Hot air. Slowly and continually blasted in general areas, then focused on caps for a couple seconds until they gently lifted off. I try heat up the ground plane and areas around the components. Then I cleaned the pads. Oh and cap kit was from Console5.

I used an aluminum baking sheet covered in foil as a heat shield, lol

The sound glitch appears with a Fenrir

[visual grove]

Mmm curvy tube 👀

[upper dust]

13 inch Apex DVD combo I got out of the trash. That's composite in the video, but I Svideo modded it by stealing the DVD player's header. The Saturn's composite looks great with fresh caps.

[zinc vine]

anyone having problem with update_stv script?

[upper dust]

You don't need it anymore. It's all incorporated into update_all if you have the latest main and unstable core. You can use the arcade organizer tool in update_all if you want a sub directory that just has ST-V

[zinc vine]

oh didnt know that, thank you quick reply

[warped saddle]

(my plan worked)

[river river]

I just pushed an update to update_stv so that all it does is print a message and nothing else 😂

[warped saddle]

now you get to discover how many people don't read messages 😉

[zinc vine]

sorry, i dont be here as much

[river river]

Oh I know, people not reading messages is like my day job 😭

[timber marlin]

I'm getting vertical shakes during gameplay in dead or alive with the unstable core. This is through direct video to my crt (ypbpr) on a dual ram setup. Have tested both stable and unstable build of mister main and they both exhibit this issue. Tested on the old stable core and there's no vertical shaking there. Also tried vf2 to see if it affects all 480i games. No shakes in vf2 either. Here's a short video of the issue. https://youtu.be/91QNxSk5leU

[glossy steppe]

I forgot if I asked this but, at this point, are we sure that the sound glitch doesn't happen based on what model or revision of a Saturn you have?

[glossy steppe]

Should have made it do something like flash a giant red "VIRUS DETECTED!" ... then go "Just kidding, but now that I have your attention...." 🤣

[quick sorrel]

Hey all~ Is the Sept 25th mister main + Saturn Sept 20 saving working again?

[celest lake]

hard to see in the video. I just tested on my dual ram > ypbpr > CRT setup and it looked ok here

[celest lake]

yeah, should be fine. it was only broke if you were using the stable core

[quick sorrel]

Thank you kindly my good sir 🙏

[timber marlin]

Thanks for testing on your end. If u look at the health bars, u can see the whole screen is jumpy vertically like it's having trouble getting sync.

[quick sorrel]

I haven’t been stable in years

[timber marlin]

The strange thing is it only happen in this game on the recent unstable core. The old stable core doesn't show this issue. But if it's looking fine on your setup, perhaps it has got to do with my setup.

[celest lake]

Which version of doa are you playing (I doubt it makes a difference but we can look)

[timber marlin]

This version, Dead or Alive (Japan) (Rev A) (10M). Maybe I'll try y/c when I have time to see if the same thing will happen.

[celest lake]

thats the one I was using so I dunno :/

what io board and cable?

[timber marlin]

9.2 but I am using direct video since it's a dual ram setup. Perhaps it's the vga to ypbpr adapter that doesn't like the signal. Thanks for checking out though.

[celest lake]

yeah but the stock 9.2 board can't output via the vga port with dual ram. sounds like maybe you're using the retrocastle board?

[timber marlin]

I am using a standard de10 sandwich. I removed that mezzanine board from the io and am using an hdmi to vga dac->vga to ypbpr adapter (for sog).

[celest lake]

ahh ok, that's what I was wondering - how you were getting video out. It could be something in that chain gumming up the works. maybe someone else will see this and be able to test that setup

[wide glacier]

can anyone else test puyo puyo tsuu just to make sure it's not only on my end? preferably someone with a dual ram setup, since i'm single ram

@ancient surge i saw you mention puyo a few times, maybe you could give it a shot :p

[strong zephyr]

I indeed see it under mister core, but not under Platform folder. Note i used to have a seperate STV folder under /media/fat/_Arcade for the .mra's but not anymore. If you still have the STV folder under platform, can you check if you still have a separate stv folder for your mra's please? Just ran update all again but still the above applies.

[river river]

There's no STV folder in _Arcade anymore, all the games have been merged into the regular list of arcade games

[strong zephyr]

Clear thanks. But to be sure, is there a STV folder under /media/fat/_Arcade/_Organized/_3 Collections/_1 By Platform ? That i do not have, and to me it would make sense for it to be there. This is how it currently looks for me

[river river]

Check in update_all settings if arcade organizer is enabled. I think it might have gotten disabled when the 2.0 version got released

[strong zephyr]

Good one! that was indeed not enabled. I was also suprised by the older dates in my screenshot! running now

And indeed now it is theren, cheers!

[floral saddle]

Will try will dual later on and let you know how it looks/sounds, hopefully i can complete easy mode!

[wide glacier]

thank you! shouldn't be too bad if you know the basics

[burnt matrix]

is the core finally in a good enough spot where it makes Saturn games fun?

[wide glacier]

be nice

[burnt matrix]

heeee heeee hooo hoooo

[wide glacier]

apologize now and i'll consider forgiving you

[burnt matrix]

I am sorry that the Saturn isn’t good

Because the Saturn is great!!!!!!!!!!!

[wide glacier]

apology accepted

okay, it seems like darius gaiden JP revision A doesn't want to boot. it stays on the system menu with the "drive door open" message. other revisions and regional variants seem to boot fine

gale racer i can't get to boot at all; both revisions get to the sega license screen, crash, and reset to the system menu

[celest lake]

I am actually looking for a rip of that. If you’re using bin/cue, check it. I bet you don’t have all the tracks (the freshly downloaded zip I have is missing 1, 2, 5, and 16)

[wide glacier]

you're right! so it's a bad dump then

[celest lake]

I am not sure

I got a real bad case of brain worms, so I am redoing all my redump sets (and checking them with romvault). I should have another version downloaded - going to check if it’s in the same boat

[wide glacier]

the JP 2M and 3M releases, as well as the USA release all worked fine on my end

a certain website has rev A listed under "missing/outdated", so i assume it's just a bad rip. so that takes care of that, i suppose

gale racer still refuses to boot however. if anyone else can test that when they have the time, please do

[celest lake]

i can look later today

[celest lake]

yeah I don't have it in my old rips

my brain worms don't like that the dat file lists them as "missing" rather than "mia"

[wide glacier]

wonder what the origin is if it's not anywhere online

[ripe valley]

Darius Gaiden Rev A was never shared by MadRoms.
The known files are extracted from the already known regular release.

He never shares his dumps, but references them at Redump anyway.

[celest lake]

There is a wings game too that I assume is a similar situation

[wide glacier]

that's... rather annoying

[ripe valley]

Same dumper, he maintains the Satakore site and do some photos for it, but never shares the dumps with the general public

[wide glacier]

love that

[celest lake]

Imagine lording bin dumps of game revisions over people

[ripe valley]

Some of them do the same with the PS1, PSP and PS2 collections, some Korean collector.

[celest lake]

Fucking video games, my dudes

[wide glacier]

"my copy of this game no one cares about will lose value if i dump it"

[ripe valley]

I'm not angry, just dealing with them since 25-30 years, even before all these preservation groups.

Sometimes, the dumps slip through a crack years after.

Generally there are also the biggest alpha and beta releases providers, so we must do some 'politics' with them.

Another example was Ganbare Goemon Rev A on the N64, a Japanese collector have it, but never shared it (fear of the local laws and having a game sought by many others).

[wide glacier]

i mean, the best thing to do in that case is to just not publicly announce you own the game, and share it under a pseudonym

[wise brook]

so a bug-fix version?

[ripe valley]

Yes.

But I don't know the details, sadly.

[wise brook]

i wonder how small the cartridge production run was for it to not yet be out in the open?

or maybe it never made it to retail

[ripe valley]

It made retail, but very small late-production batch.

[wise brook]

i bet it’s lost to Konami and Nintendo until it gets dumped. we know their old virtual console games used community dumps

[ripe valley]

You need to search for a "A" stamp on the back of the cartridge and a "-1" mark after the serial number on the front.

I'm not in Japan anymore for searching trough all the junk piles and second-hand item shops.

And almost everyone don't care since ages.

I took my retirement on all of that since at least 5 years, and I'm more useful on projects like here.

(Gotta go for at least 8-10 days, but I will read that section sometimes.)

Good luck everyone.

[celest lake]

A sys update? does that mean...what I think it means? Are we getting a new stable?

[burnt matrix]

pins updated!

[ancient surge]

So just a system update?

[celest lake]

so far

[hallow fossil]

Quick aside, does the STV core need an entry in Mike's yc doc now it has been split from the Saturn core?

[celest lake]

mike added it

it's in a PR

[marble laurel]

some cleanup also but no fixes or new feature

[celest lake]

https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Main_MiSTer/pull/1040

[timber marlin]

So I've been going through the unstable core builds to find out when the issue of vertical shakes in doa on my setup first occur. Every build from Saturn_DualSDRAM_unstable_20250807_12536d onwards will cause it to happen. Perhaps my setup does not like one of the changes being made in that build. Since nobody else have reported the issue, it's likely just one that pertains to mine. It only affects that one game, so a non issue.

[hallow fossil]

It is very likely nobody who frequents here has played those games recently and noticed the change

[celest lake]

I’ll test on some other setups. Ypbpr is finicky under perfect circumstances, and direct video is far from a perfect circumstance

[floral saddle]

Didn't hear any audio issues on bin/cue with dual ram, captured a junk frame in the training ending sequence.

Appears just before this sprite zoom.

And the difficulty is ROUGH lol, training mode with easy CPU setting and stages 3 and 4 took tons of attempts!

[obsidian herald]

Should I avoid Direct Video? I mostly do HDMI but I do have a Tink4k and have done a little DV (over HDMI) but haven’t gone deep with it yet.

[celest lake]

DV into the tink is an ideal situation. What happyowl is doing is converting DV to ypbpr and then going into a crt.

[split heart]

where can the changelogs be read?

[celest lake]

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

[burnt matrix]

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

oh he beat me

fml

[split heart]

Thanks

Even on single RAM build, the Saturn core has been working well

[burnt matrix]

yes, dual ram only benefis s very small hamdful of games

[glossy steppe]

Unfortunately, NiGHTS and Burning Rangers is among them

That's like if the N64 core had dual ram but that only benefited Mario64, Goldeneye, and Mario Kart

[strong osprey]

how big are the benefits for those games

[glossy steppe]

Avoids a lot of slowdowns not present on real hardware, turbo mode can help but can cause glitches

Also we still don't have analog triggers support

[burnt matrix]

doesnt burning rangers have a lot of slowdown already

[glossy steppe]

I am not saying it eliminates it, but there is a lot more on single-ram without turbo mode

NiGHTS was slowing down a LOT

[burnt matrix]

I never did play nights on the core for any serious length of time

[ripe valley]

NiGHTS and Burning Rangers are slowing down heavily on the original system too.

[strong osprey]

im sure someone has looked into the slowdown differences on those games

so we can confirm wether or not this is baseless dual ram propaganda

[ripe valley]

For the fighters games, I'm sure. For Grandia too.

The other games, it should be checked case per case.

[safe trail]

For any collectors in Japan, they are legitimately afraid of breaking the law and having repercussions

[hearty marten]

I thought Nights was fine the last time I played - does this mean it now performs worse on recent cores with single ram?

[green swift]

Don’t worry gang. Just replace your DE10s with DE25s and the Saturn slowdown problem is solved.

[burnt matrix]

what do you mean

[safe trail]

I mean that it is against the law in Japan (as it is here), and people desperately want to avoid even being traceable. Because even if copyright holders don't press charges or file a claim, some people will go out of their way to publicize the fact that you have broken the law, and even an accusation puts you at a disadvantage, and others will avoid doing any sort of business with you.

[burnt matrix]

Oh yeah that makes sense but what is it in response to?

[safe trail]

Here, the only risk that people seem to perceive is that of direct conflict in a court of law, and even then, they seem to shrug it off because restitution is based on "damages", which may seem to be small for old things.

[safe trail]

Earlier in the day, there was discussion about certain people (at least one in Korea; another may or may not have been in Japan) ripping thier own discs, and listing the CRCs but not sharing the rips

It was several hours earlier, but I was out at the time

[burnt matrix]

No problemo! That completely makes sense. It’s one thing to download a game but it’s another thing to post it online.

[warped saddle]

the different IP laws/lack of "fair use" exceptions also creates a much more negative perception of emulation. I don't know if it is still going on now but there were people in japan that would do everything they could to prevent rare arcade pcbs from being purchased by known rom dumping groups

and I knew of one japanese streamer back in the ustream/early twitch days that had to stop because people threatened to go to his employer and tell them he was using mame to play arcade stuff

[safe trail]

YEah, that's somehow a "thing". People tattling on you. I suppose in a sense, it helps enforce social order though

[hallow fossil]

I don't understand the mentality of people doing that, how does it benefit someone from trying to stop emulation of old arcade boards and destroy the life of someone who does?

[warped saddle]

like ignoring normal internet shittiness, if you are raised in an environment where IP protection is very strong and there is no concept of fair use, emulation is easily viewed as outright theft

[safe trail]

Just like, once upon a time, people knew that if they were acting like jerks in public, somebody would punch them in the face. That doesn't happen anymore (because of overall litigiousness and lack of ability of self-reflection).

So now there appears to be no "normal" recourse.

In a way, Japan is trying to be a self-policing society

[warped saddle]

like even today the dev of Earthion seemed semi-taken aback that the roms ended up on the internet. those old heads just don't even consider that someone would just DO THAT

[safe trail]

I mean, I'm sure he expected somebody to revel in the technical ability to crack it - he just didn't expect anybody to share it

(many of the "old guard" from the 80s did the cracking themselves. They just never talked about it)

[warped saddle]

yeah, the "DO THAT" part is the sharing. partially due to the risk of arrest/suing but also the doing something "wrong" so openly in public.

what's funny is even with all this japan had a very strong music piracy/file sharing culture in the mid 2000s/2010s

[safe trail]

Also, the act of giving something to strangers, that was illegal in the first place

[warped saddle]

like so bad at least one band wrote a song asking people to stop uploading shit to winny

[safe trail]

Yeah, winny was a cultural event

[hallow fossil]

The Earthion thing was a bit of a mess, they made a Mega Drive game... But you have to play it on a PC or modern console. They offered no way to play it on an actual Mega Drive, save for way down the road an expensive LRG cart. Of course the ROM would be dumped and shared and bootlegs would appear on AliExpress

[warped saddle]

yes, but the 'of course it would be dumped' is the difference in perception here

well 'and shared' I guess is the difference

[safe trail]

I think anybody would expect "of course, somebody will work on hacking it".

Whether or not you expect them to succeed within days is the second question mark

But then sharing is a different matter

And I feel that peoples' behaviours on this vary country by country, based on enforcement

[warped saddle]

enforcement and social pressure

[safe trail]

I mean, perhaps at opposite ends of the spectrum would be Japan and Brazil

[rotund steeple]

They used the wrong partner for that. LRG is always the wrong one for that matter. And beta testing on customers isn't what retro game fans expect.

[warped saddle]

one of my favorite japanese social pressure examples was there was once a company called INH that put out dvds of game superplays (mostly shmups). a bit after that there was a site that hosted superplay videos of arcade stuff, mostly shmups. NONE of the stuff uploaded was rips of INHs dvds, most of it was self-recorded by players

INH asked them to shut the website down because "you are harming us" and THEY DID

[safe trail]

Well, you can disagree on methods, but most people would still agree that sharing an actively-sold game is bad.

[rotund steeple]

This would happen anyway, no matter what. They even release cheap 2.99 smartphone games.

[safe trail]

Oh yeah, I've heard that "harming a business" is a valid complaint in Japan. But most people will push back on that one.

(except that many people are afraid of going to court at all)

[warped saddle]

this isn't an argument of 'it happens no matter what'. this is the observation that it's not as blatant in some cultures and thus it influences business decisions sometimes

[safe trail]

Doesn't make it right.

From inside of Japan, it's sometimes easy to believe that an extreme opoosite doesn't exist.

[rotund steeple]

Morals isn't my point. They could have made some extra money by selling the rom separately, like Bitmap Bureau usually does.

[safe trail]

But that's a business decision, and they chose this way

You can be upset, but that's how it is

[warped saddle]

and from their perspective the mistake will be doing a global release

[rotund steeple]

But then Yuzo shouldn't brag on X about it. I thought his post about "stop pirating our game. It hurts us financially" was a bit naive.

[safe trail]

And that could be a justified opinion

[warped saddle]

that's going to be the take away. 'if I'd released this to only japan, none of this would have happened'

[safe trail]

Yes and no. Any mature adult would conclude that poor financials would imply no future effort.

The statement implies that he knew it would be pirated, but he expected it to have a small - rather than large - impact

[rotund steeple]

Or better sales strategies. I personally think they gave it to LRG because they didn't want to do it themself. It is what it is.

A retro game will never have a big impact on the fractioned game market. Selling it to a wider audience through modern main stream platforms won't raise the sales. The Steam sales weren't that good.

[safe trail]

People invest time and money based on their beliefs. They wanted to see if it was financially viable

And believed it could be

[rotund steeple]

Well, the Mega Drive is already a bigger platform. Check, what they sell on modern 8/16bit computer games. It's nothing, you can't make money with it. So, mostly half professional made games will be produced in the retro scene. Beside the free homebrew games.

[safe trail]

That's why they sold on PC first

[rotund steeple]

They should have done the real carts, digital downloads and modern platform sales at the same time.

[safe trail]

Yeah, but I guess they thought there might be bugs, so didn't want a recall on carts

And indeed, there were

...Because that's how developers write things these days.

(and testers test)

[rotund steeple]

As i said. Retro gamer usually don't expect to do the beta testing. It's very odd. But i get why they did it. But a release 6 months later wouldn't have hurt anybody. Unless they needed the money immediately.

[warped saddle]

and if they're released the carts with bugs people would have been just as angry. you can't win in this scenario at all

[rotund steeple]

And for the bugs: Actually the small Rom ingame bugs weren't that bad. But the bugs on the PC environment were ugly (GUI, controls).

I played the steam version 2-3x but then switched to the rom. It was so much better.

[next bronze]

Bitwave did the emulation. They are usually good with input lag, but their menus in their Toaplan games have been notoriously buggy.

[rotund steeple]

First Earthion steam version had even more blantant bugs. The joypad detection didn't work all the time, and the configs weren't saved properly.

[burnt matrix]

They should’ve released on consoles first and not have included the rom, rather source port it to the platforms with some form of wrapper.

Says me with zero knowledge of how easy that is to do for a two man team.

lol

[rotund steeple]

No, they advertised it from day one as a Mega Drive game. So, emulation was the only way on modern platforms.

[burnt matrix]

Yeah and it will come out as an Mega Drive game, but including it as a rom file with barely there copy protection meant it was distributed day one.

[rotund steeple]

Ego vs money. Money won.

[burnt matrix]

I don’t know what you mean but if that means Earthion is a cool game then hell yeah it is lol

[rotund steeple]

It is. An uncopyable PC version would have meant extra money and time.

[burnt matrix]

I dunno, they probably did the best they could. I think it’s literally just two dudes.

Easier to release on PC where there isn’t a lot of passing platform verifications and the payments for the process.

[rotund steeple]

That's usually the case for most productions on older systems. Well Bitmap Bureau might have 2-3 people more.

[burnt matrix]

yeah it’s a different world for me, really cool though

[rotund steeple]

I'm really keen on their new T2 game in October. I hope it's financially successful.

[wide glacier]

thanks for testing! i noticed that garbage frame too; interesting that dual ram doesn't suffer from the audio stutter though

[ancient surge]

I don't remember seeing this broken frame when playing Puyo Puyo 2 on original hardware.

[wide glacier]

me neither, definitely a core thing

[ancient surge]

Granted it's been a long time since I played the SEGA Saturn version on original hardware, but I played it enough to know that shouldn't happen.

[wide glacier]

has anyone tested gale racer? still can't get it to boot

[tawny forge]

Sega Saturn: an impossible core? 🤔

[visual grove]

I did what probably a lot of people did, bought it on steam and then acquired the rom so I can play on mister/genesis. That being said I still have yet to do so! 😜

[lofty spire]

Saturn does what Nintendon't. come second in sales of its generation (in japan)

[wise brook]

woo, i missed the “justify not paying Yuzo Koshiro for his work” hogwash

got an hour or two to look at Saturn games

any current game bugs folks want verification on?

[wide glacier]

gale racer isn't booting on my end, would be nice if you could test that out

[wise brook]

on it

i’ve got latest unstable main and core

[wide glacier]

the last tests i did were before the new unstable came out this morning. i'll update to that shortly

[wise brook]

1st try, no issues

[wide glacier]

sweet, i just updated to the new unstable from this morning, and it works fine here too

whatever srg updated must've fixed it. thanks for testing!

[wise brook]

oh wow, c1994

this was an early title

[wide glacier]

huh you're right, didn't realize how early this came out

original arcade release was 1990, surprised they didn't bring it to the 32X lol

[floral saddle]

Where exactly did you hear the stutter? I could have missed it.

[wide glacier]

it was very noticeable, happens whenever new graphics were loaded in the cutscene

probably 3 or 4 times total

[floral saddle]

My monitor speakers are poor but sure I would have noticed that. Let me try one more time tomorrow but might be worth you trying to get a video if you can, think it's probably worth separating the two issues, frame and audio on github.

[wise brook]

what the next game to look at, one of the Puyo Puyo?

[wide glacier]

yes, puyo puyo tsuu some glitched graphics and stuttering audio during the ending of easy mode (maybe other cutscenes as well, haven't looked yet). might be worth documenting them as seperate issues, as @floral saddle said, but i'll try on the newest core first just to see if anything has changed

[floral saddle]

Will try and find some hardware footage for the frame issue too, just in case.

[ripe valley]

Is it possible to capture the two issues on video for srg320, please ?

I had 5 mins before leaving, so I opened two issue tickets, but we will need some footage on video for confirmation (and a possible comparison with some real system).

Can I leave these tasks to you while I am gone ?

[glossy steppe]

From my understanding Japan's laws about these kinds of things are very strict, and their court and jail systems pretty harsh. I think there was a guy tossed in jail for hacking Pokemon saves

[burnt matrix]

lol there was it’s nuts

[left hollow]

That's unsurprising

But still crazy

[wide glacier]

finished a game of normal mode puyo puyo tsuu (even managed to reach masked satan, by some miracle). ending cutscene looked okay, but there was definitely an audio glitch or two

[wide glacier]

cavenoire managed to capture the glitched frame earlier today

i don't know if it's accurate, but i will test easy mode on my SAROO and see if the glitched frame occurs

[ripe valley]

We need a video.

An isolated frame is much difficult for understanding the issue.

[wide glacier]

i unfortunately don't have a good way to record/capture video, but i'll see what i can do

[floral saddle]

Video added to github with a description for srg320, can't see it on youtube footage.

Also don't now if you get notifications on all github comments but noticed a regression on shining force 3 so left a comment and screenshot for that too on the closed ticket.

[ripe valley]

I saw it, and srg320 too, the other day.

But I can't do anything in the next few days/weeks, and I need to rest. I was just checking that everything was in order before leaving and that communications regarding the recent issues discovered had been made.

[wise brook]

fuck this fucking game

stage 3 is brutal

what the actual fuck

[burnt matrix]

We should get a new stable release asap

[timber marlin]

An update to the issue of doa shaking on my setup. I connected the same chain (direct video with dac and adapter) to an ossc to a flat panel instead of my crt tv. I can't spot any shaking on the flat panel so it seems to suggest my crt tv doesn't like the video signal from 20250807 onwards.

[warped saddle]

you don't get to decide that

[burnt matrix]

[wide glacier]

lol, yeah, puyo can be tough. i only know a few basic chain setups but it carries me far enough

okay, this is interesting. i tested puyo puyo tsuu on my SAROO and there were no glitched graphics, however there was stutter in the audio. i also found a video of the game from (what i believe is) real hardware, and there's definitely stutter here too https://youtu.be/sB6f20O5Wkk?t=479

@ripe valley this is similar to the issue astal is having, right? maybe it's the same thing?

[ripe valley]

Please add the video on the sound issue ticket.

[wide glacier]

added!

[tribal burrow]

I am late to the party but on Twitter I saw someone ask if the rom would be sold digitally and Koshiro san responded they had no plans to do that.
Then immediately after a Japanese netizen said something like “How could you even suggest that. Selling it digitally means the foreigners will upload it to the piracy sites within 24 hours”
“Well that’s gonna happen anyway so giving people an option to purchase the rom digitally would actually lead to MORE sales, but it’s Koshiro san’s game so it’s his decision”

So yeah I can say anecdotally the attitude toward piracy in JP is still very negative and those who do it don’t talk about it openly. You won’t get a big public figure like Frank Cifaldi saying “just go ahead and pirate old stuff guys” on a podcast etc.

So yeah the MiSTer users in Japan, at least what I’ve seen, will say that the best way to do things is to make sure to turn off all the bios getter and rom getter stuff and dump your own roms. (Not sure how they get around the bios problem)

To play Earthion on mister or an Everdrive I guess this is the way to go, unless the cart ends up being encrypted or something.
Japanese cops are scary and breaking the law is really not considered being worth the risk I think is the impression I get.

[wide glacier]

there are methods to dump bios files from original consoles, but it's a lot of extra work just to say "i acquired this legally"

as much as i appreciate and enjoy japanese culture, they are very behind the times in some regards, and this is one of them

[safe trail]

The way they get around it, is to make sure that any source they received it from was untraceable, and to own all of the equipment required to have ripped it themselves. So, alibi

And I don't think it's the cops they're worried about - it's the backlash from society after some self-appointment "enforcement" person calls them out

[tribal burrow]

Right, there’s always a chance the cops could choose to make an example out of someone. But having all the gear for a solid alibi is probably what everyone does. I’ve never personally met anybody who pirated stuff.
I also am super super cautious and don’t do anything illegal in Japan.
But yet, rental CD and DVD culture is huge here still and it’s totally legal to rip those for your personal collection as long as you don’t upload it.

Like how you will be pulled over and fined for riding your bike with AirPods on but you’re allowed to watch TV while driving for some reason. It is a mystery

And yeah I haven’t looked but I assume earthion was dumped already. I guess de-encrypting the Steam version is probably the best “moral” way to go but even in Japan that would be frowned upon since you are bypassing the encryption.
With the self appointed enforcement ppl, aka silly internet incels more than likely , honestly the best policy is just not to engage in any of that online discourse and keep quiet.

[safe trail]

Nah, they're not necessarily the angry dispossessed internet people that you think. Could be anybody. They genuinely get angry when anybody does the wrong thing (because they work hard to do the tright thing, and don't want to see anybody else benefit unfairly)

It's not a "not my business" culture, and these aren't "I'll make it my business" people. Rather, "it's everybody's business to protect the public morals"

[tribal burrow]

I would argue against that but we’d be getting too far astray from the point of the channel

[hearty marten]

For a second I thought I was in the N64 channel 😉

[tribal burrow]

lol

[ripe valley]

srg320 is now able to contact other key people to continue the project.
Without needing my help to interface between them.

[wise brook]

fantastic news

[ripe valley]

Thus, the timing is perfect, allowing me to step back from the project after a couple of intense years.
I'm no longer needed & that's perfect too.

My health isn't keeping up right now, so I'm going to rest a bit and do other useful things for the next weeks.

[wide glacier]

thank you for all that you've done zet, stay healthy

[wise brook]

you helped make this emulation masterpiece happen and i love you for it

[hearty marten]

🫡

[burnt matrix]

Where is the stable release

[wide glacier]

under there

[burnt matrix]

underwear

[wide glacier]

owned

[burnt matrix]

[celest lake]

ligma stable

[green jacinth]

just updated and have latest unstable stvs on my mister, batman arcae now gives error on cart. is this known or just me?

other games work

[burnt matrix]

Double check you don’t have another STV core on there

Also double check you have latest MRAs

[green jacinth]

will do