Sega Saturn

[floral saddle]

All good for me, booted 10 times in a row, resetting to menu each time and a couple of times from cold boot. Megamix is being awkward though, sometimes runs the attract mode without issues, other times will lock up. Same for pressing start whilst an FMV is playing.

[wide glacier]

definitely deserves a pin imo. anything that gets more people talking about dezaemon is a win in my book

dezaemon plus and dezaemon kids on playstation seem to have quite a few user games available? dunno where to get them, but i've seen quite a few videos

many user games were preserved as part of dezaemon plus select 100, which i believe was a bonus disc included with dezaemon kids

[ripe valley]

BIN/CUE or CHD ? Dual or Single ?

[floral saddle]

Redump bin/cue, dual latest unstable.

[ripe valley]

I can't make it work anymore, I will test 2-3 things.

[ripe valley]

That game is super-duper sensible to seek timings and other shenanigans inside the Saturn...

I tested a new BIN/CUE version of the game on my 4 MiSTer.
Same symptom on all 4 systems.
Something regressed.

We should inform srg320 also for Fighters Megamix @floral saddle

[floral saddle]

Ok, will create a new ticket for Megamix now, think the issue is different enough from the closed one.

[floral saddle]

A long shot but don't suppose you know of any backups for the PS1 games which were listed on this site, especially these 2? Such a shame to see all the dead links and directs to sites that are no longer available. https://seesaawiki.jp/dezaemon_db/d/MECHA FORCE https://seesaawiki.jp/dezaemon_db/d/�⥰����EN���塼�ƥ�����

[wide glacier]

i was checking this site out myself earlier. a lot of the links seem to be dead 🙁

maybe some of them are on the wayback machine?

[umbral radish]

I had looked at this site a few months ago when I was initially working on that pack. So many dead links, but I never thought to try them through the Wayback Machine. I susspect though that if the files were held on Dropbox / Google Drive / or similar spaces then the Wayback Machine waon't actually have them archived, which is a shame. I feel that so many of these Dezaemon games have just been lost to time, which is why I felt it important to try to preserve what is still accessible.

And make it easy for MiSter owners who don't have the real hardware, a modded Saturn capable of running CD-R, or a ODE / Saroo, to be able to access this games. Hopefully, it will bring a few more people to the game.

[floral saddle]

Thanks @umbral radish my thinking was that dropbox stuff wouldn't be retrievable with wayback too, shame as some of this stuff is amazing, even more prototypes of stuff that would years later become full games.

[umbral radish]

All I will say at the moment is "watch this space". This project is not over. I can't say any more at the moment though.

[floral saddle]

Shigatake's site has Famicom and early PC versions still downloadable for Devil Blade which is cool. Even more glad that we have all this Saturn stuff available to play, really put into perspective just how easily this stuff disappears. https://shigatake.sakura.ne.jp/deza/deza00.html

[floral saddle]

I very much look forward to whatever you are brewing, please let us know when you can!

[wide glacier]

saroo is how i've been playing them. it's a little cumbersome, but it works. though even for the saturn version, there's some games i can't find in the save game manager, such as biometal nexus and blue blade (though i'm not sure if the former was ever finished/released)

[floral saddle]

Woah, had no idea GrandCross Renovation started life as a Deza game, the dev has a bunch of games on there, a few with pixel art by Shigatake too. What a treat this set is.

[wide glacier]

yeah! a lot of the stuff from raynex is crazy high-quality

[tacit viper]

Can a brave soul test out Battle Arena Toshinden Remix? It runs very slow on dualram core (latest official), I don't remember it being this bad on real hardware.

Hmm, nm appears to just be this specific level that runs like crap 🙂 I'll have to check it on my real saturn to compare.

[winter phoenix]

Oh no. Sergiy's first tweet in six months and it's about ... the 3DO 😆 https://x.com/srg320_/status/1977731276569301301

Sergiy Dvodnenko (@srg320_)

3DO FPGA progress update. Made some changes to the DSP. Fixed the audio in FMV. Interestingly, although the DSP focuses on sound generation, in Blade Force and Decathlon it decodes both the audio and video in the intro FMV. https://t.co/pQzC4JLEUn

X · Oct 13, 2025, 1:40 PM

[sharp forum]

Not oh no, oh yes!

[hearty marten]

https://tenor.com/view/yea-gif-9290558

[tawny forge]

That means one thing and one thing only: Saturn core is now complete! Close channel!

[hearty marten]

People keep finding bugs

[tawny forge]

Existing bugs will be etched on the silicon forever. Core is done! Deal with this!

[burnt matrix]

https://tenor.com/view/sea-sunset-gif-27286433

arrrrrg i was hoping for a smooth loop

@tawny forge sorry for being annoying about this but thanks again for selling me your extra mister pi. my buddy thinks its the greatest thing ever. just updated his last night.

he LOVES the Saturn core so much lol

he cannot understand how the core keeps improvimg because to him its perfect, he prefers it over the original hardware

[tawny forge]

I never get annoyed about hearing great experiences people have with MiSTer!!!

[warped cliff]

That's how I feel about the NES core

It's truly amazing how we keep getting closer to accuracy, even if we may never notice the improvement in accuracy

[hearty marten]

Pepperidge farms remembers

[warped cliff]

Damn it now I'm hungry

[split heart]

how do I setup the ST-V core properly so it doesn't default to the regular version?

[celest lake]

You mean the dual ram stv core?

[split heart]

yes

[warped cliff]

I'm really looking forward to the next MiSTer board, if it means we won't need separate builds for single or dual ram

[tawny forge]

I'm stopping hoarding MiSTers until the successor is launched!

Good thing is that 7 is t he number of perfection! 7 MiSTes is MORE than perfection though!

[prisma wraith]

We're currently playing Cotton 2 for our Halloween ⁠#game-challlenge this year, with dual scoreboards for the ST-V original and the unique Saturn arrange mode. Friendly single credit score challenge for anyone that's interested.

[glossy steppe]

What are these exctly? Special homebrew games or something like that?

[wide glacier]

dezaemon was a series of games for various consoles that let players create their own shmups. players could create and save their own "user games" on floppy disks in dezaemon 2 (saturn), and memory cards in dezaemon plus/dezaemon kids (playstation)

many user games have been uploaded/preserved on various websites throughout the years

unfortunately a lot of user games for the playstation versions don't seem to be readily backed up and accessible anywhere

[floral saddle]

But

Dengeki magazine demo discs are all in redump

[wide glacier]

that's true 👀

[floral saddle]

Currently saving all the PS1 stuff for plus and kids onto memory cards to create a pack, will share it somewhere once done.

[wide glacier]

looking forward to that, thanks for your efforts cavenoire

i've been on a dezaemon 2 grind lately, but i've been through just about every game in the save game manager, so i'll probably start diving into dezaemon plus soon

[glossy steppe]

Like those fighter or rpg maker games on ps1?

[floral saddle]

I "think" it should be as simple as mounting them into the second memory card slot once the game has loaded, that way they can be named to better understnd what is being loaded, then the original game save will be left as is. At least I think that is how the PS1 core works, currently just gettign the save together.

[wide glacier]

pretty much

[floral saddle]

Exactly, they had quite a following of talented devs who went onto make some really cool games that are now on Steam etc, it's a really interesting time capsule of how they got started.

[wide glacier]

tons of hidden gems in the dezaemon games. i said it yesterday, but there's a few titles that rival or even surpass the quality of full releases of the time

[floral saddle]

Yep, I too was really surprised at the average level of quality.

[celest lake]

Rename the dual ram STV unstable to ST-V_20251003.rbf and then copy it to /_Arcade/cores overwriting the core that is there

[sage minnow]

i have the first one in a large pack i'm pretty sure i found at archive, let me look it up

there are a ton of japanese games so it's possible the second one you linked to is there too

[sage minnow]

there's also a famicom dezaemon save on archive, the only one i've been able to find. what i really want are games for the 64DD version but haven't found a single one

[wide glacier]

the only famicom dezaemon save i've seen is devil blade, which i think was made to coincide with the release of devil blade reboot

i've not seen a single user game for dezaemon SFC or dezaemon 3D/DD unfortunately 🙁

[sage minnow]

there's a FC one called Super LX II on archive (i'd link it but just got warned for sending too many links)

SNES has three that were distributed via satellaview and like three more that have been found

damn, a few of the SNES ones at seesaawiki dot jp had dropbox links but they're dead now and not on archive

[wide glacier]

that site hasn't been updated in almost a decade, but someone's still paying for the url it seems

maybe there's a way to get in contact with the owner

[sage minnow]

it does have a comment box under each entry

i'll try leaving an auto translated message on the dead link ones

incidentally i found Devil Blade FC linked there (plus a hard version and a 1993 proto) and they're in "snap" format, anyone know what emu these are for?

[wide glacier]

screenshot file from an old emulator maybe

[sage minnow]

the creator's site mentions retro freak

[wide glacier]

oh that's probably it then

have you found save files of blue blade or biometal nexus for dezaemon 2? i know blue blade is out there, but i don't think it's in the save game manager

the latter i'm not sure was ever finished/released

[sage minnow]

i have one called biometal nemesis but not nexus

[wide glacier]

ah, thanks for checking

saw a few videos of it from over a decade ago. looks absolutely incredible, but i can't find much about it beyond this and an entry on seesaawiki https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Di4wj0N_IH4

i genuinely believe this might be the most impressive game ever made with the software

[sage minnow]

oh it says it's by IGK, so is Biometal Nemesis

but it does look like a different game https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtBCeyasAgU

[wide glacier]

i think nexus might be a remake of nemesis? they seem to have very similar levels

[sage minnow]

and in turn nemesis says "clone of Biometal Gust" in the description

[wide glacier]

[sage minnow]

Gust IS in the MiSTer collection

oh, as is Nemesis

Blue Blade has an entry here but i can't find a download link in the linked geocities site, it's confusing navigating these dead sites on archive with the broken japanese characters https://www.satakore.com/sega-saturn-complete-dezaemon2,,1,,1.html

[wide glacier]

yeah, i was surprised to see blue blade listed on satakore considering it's not in either of their save game manager releases

[floral saddle]

A link to those games would be amazing, thank you!

[sage minnow]

here! #1046941029296779344 message

[floral saddle]

Ah, I had seen QuakedoomNukem's videos on youtube but not their pack on archive. Wow, it looks to have all the Dengeki stuff I was looking at and a TON more, with a really good spreadsheet outlining everything available and missing. Thanks again! @wide glacier looking at his spreadsheet, Biometal Nexus and Blue Blade are both unavailable, no downloads exist.

[sage minnow]

ohh i forgot all about that spreadsheet. interestingly, i just went on another dezaemon deep dive and found another SNES game that isn't listed there http://blog.livedoor.jp/hiroomin/archives/52513445.html

it's by the madman who figured out Dezaemon's SNES port 1 communication mode and does stuff like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGKvWH4U8XE

i'll contact the maintainer on bsky to get that added

[floral saddle]

Looks like my 2 most wanted, Mecha Force and the Dezatopia proto are undumped which is a shame. Still amazing to have what is there though.

[sage minnow]

isn't Mecha Force the one here? or is there another version? https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1046941029296779344/1427461667670855835/image.png?ex=68eef2c6&is=68eda146&hm=5e64dc6d8a86fb36b433c064b7ae24fcfac44f27f7304eaf271a428b5e6697d0&

[floral saddle]

No, that one isn't in the set on archive, in fact I see GoGo Ranking Makers!! is also on the unavailable tab.

[floral saddle]

That doesn't look like QuakedoomNuke's set, I get one match for "Mecha" which is MechaHell.

[sage minnow]

yeah, there are two different sets on archive

[floral saddle]

I'm stumped, can't find the second set?

[sage minnow]

can't send more links but it's the first and last archive.org link i sent if you scroll up

[floral saddle]

Thank you so much, really appreciate it.

[sage minnow]

np, you're right that some of these aren't listed in the spreadsheet so i'll alert QDN about that pack too

[floral saddle]

That would be awesome, useful to have everything in one place if possible.

They are in PSP and PS3 save formats too, so will need converting to PS1 format before adding to his set.

[sage minnow]

saw this on the spreadsheet and it did not disappoint https://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm11959632

[ripe valley]

No mention of piracy, thanks.

[proper prism]

Oh, my bad.

I thought that's what he was asking for

[ripe valley]

Thank you.

There are talking about other spreadsheets.

[proper prism]

Sorry, I must have miosread it

*misread

[ripe valley]

No problem.

[midnight laurel]

I tried this port on the newest unstable, and there are audio glitches during the intro or during the FMV cut scenes. Gameplay however is fine.

[sage minnow]

apologies, i thought my archive links would be okay since they seemed to be only game saves and patches (but maybe i overlooked something)

[ripe valley]

It wasn't about yours, but someone else mentioned another spreadsheet that was way more risky than homebrew games for Dezaemon II.

Sorry about the confusion.

[sage minnow]

i noticed my archive links got deleted though

[warped saddle]

archive links are blanket banned here regardless of content

[sage minnow]

i see, good to know. for anyone curious, look up "Dezaemon Series User Game Saves" there (there were other scattered games, but i'm writing a lengthy comment under that one linking to everything and asking the maintainer to incorporate them into the pack)

[proper prism]

It was me. I misread the post and thought you were looking for the game itself. That was my mistake. Sorry about that, again.

[rare swan]

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/256987580263

Every PAL title..

[drowsy hull]

Ever pal title released in a mega drive style plastic case

Conpared to the default plastic case with cardboard glued on top

Well .. or not

I am too benovelent these days

[nova pasture]

Anyone know how to do the english patch for Baroque? the readme was pretty sparse and I haven't been able to get it to work

[thin snow]

If your dump has multiple .bin files like mine did, I believe I just did "cat file1.bin file2.bin ... > final.bin", verified the md5 on final.bin matched what the patch expects, then applied the patch to final.bin, checked the md5 after patching, then used the replacement .cue provided by the patch. You can rename the resulting files but make sure the contents of the .cue match your .bin

[winter phoenix]

This may help... https://www.segasaturnshiro.com/2023/07/15/english-patch-for-baroque-releases/

I've got a step-by-step guide on patching it in that story

[nova pasture]

Think this is just what i was looking for, ty!

[marble laurel]

https://x.com/playsegasaturn/status/1978447691286794439

SEGA SATURN, SHIRO! (@playsegasaturn)

There’s a new version of the 240p Test Suite for the Saturn that adds audio and controller tests! Get the details in our story:

https://t.co/RJWOgf6OJy

#sega #saturn #segasaturn #retrogaming #retrogames #videogames #セガサターン

X · Oct 15, 2025, 1:07 PM

[ripe valley]

Beta 6 was doing okay on the core when I checked some weeks ago.

I will check beta 9 later today or tomorrow.

[winter phoenix]

I wasn't sure if people here would care about the test suite so I didn't post a link to the new story, sorry

Here's a direct link https://www.segasaturnshiro.com/2025/10/15/new-beta-of-240p-test-suite-on-saturn-adds-audio-controller-tests/

[celest lake]

oh sweet

[thorn pagoda]

finally something decent to play on saturn

[glossy steppe]

A burn not even the Burning Rangers could put out

[sudden pumice]

My favorite game!!! Second only to update_all

[harsh seal]

hi everyone i wanna ask you something, recently i notice that "Die Hard Trilogy" doesn't work, either jap, europe or US, none of them all runs... so if, by chance does anyone know why... thanks once again 👍

[celest lake]

Yeah, I’m also having trouble getting it to load. But I don’t see an issue for it (seeing it on the stable and unstable core). @ripe valley I saw you had trouble with it too. Should I file it or does SRG know?

[ripe valley]

I reopened the issue ticket some days ago.

[celest lake]

oh, it must be off the first page

[ripe valley]

So srg320 should have seen it since then.

[celest lake]

oh there it is

[ripe valley]

https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Saturn_MiSTer/issues/324

[pearl harbor]

Dang, you could say it died hard.

[harsh seal]

too bad it doesn't work anymore let's hope someday everything will fine again👍

[ripe valley]

At the moment, I can launch it sometimes with a US BIOS, no second controller, no DRAM cart inserted & US region forced on the core.
And pray for the correct alignment for getting it to launch.

That game was so badly programmed, it could break if you look the disc a little bit too much. 😏

Without joking, the game is sensible to some kind on the SH-2 & SCU timings.

It is one of the most complex games to support on the system (core & emulators).

[next bronze]

At least Die Hard Arcade is still working

[celest lake]

In japan it was actually called doki doki panic

[glossy steppe]

Could it have something to do with the connected hardware?

I've had games that would not boot if I had the 3d controller plugged in

I think that was the reason for the crashing I was expirencing in Magic Knight Rayearth

By "plugged in" I meant in the UI, not through SNAC

[next bronze]

Dynamite Deka. Sequel came over here to Arcades and Dreamcast as Dynamite Cop.

[clear nova]

Am i wrong or was there hor/ver position feature previously in Saturn options? I use it frequently on other cores because my Mistercade + CRT vertical is often shifted/stretched.

[mortal mist]

No , only for stv

This option is mostly for arcade cores , no such option for psx , n64 etc.

[clear nova]

Pity. I never even tried console cores on my cabinet but Saturn i find more arcade-like.

[mortal mist]

For arcade, you set h/v for a single game; a global setting for Saturn will not work well, as there are too many dependencies on resolution.

For stv, I managed to achieve a good balance, but for Saturn, I did not achieve satisfactory results.

[twin canyon]

@burnt matrix you told me mister was a one time set and forget solution. liar.

[pearl harbor]

Your doing it wrong! The quickest way to summon Robby is to...

Pi

[hearty marten]

Somebody said pi

He’ll be here

[glossy steppe]

https://tenor.com/view/mmm-pie-pie-the-simpsons-simpsons-homer-gif-18994355

[burnt matrix]

someone said pi, I’m here

[glossy steppe]

Nananananananana Piman! ||(Or Katamari Damacy)||

[burnt matrix]

That’s out tomorrow!

[glossy steppe]

Yup (Fanatical had a sale if I pre-ordered it). The NES AVGN game releases on the same day too, though apparently the Steam version does not include a rom 🙁

[winter phoenix]

Anyone ascending the Tower of Doom in the first game of the Saturn's Dungeons & Dragons Collection can now do it with the original arcade game's audio quality thanks to a new patch! Get the details here:

https://www.segasaturnshiro.com/2025/10/24/patch-improves-dd-tower-of-doom-soundtrack-with-arcade-music/

[white tendon]

FYI, last PWM saturn core (based on the latest 251011 release) is available here : https://misterfpga.org/download/file.php?id=12442

[muted cradle]

New PWM build uploaded right now

Thanks to jokippo and ruleset

[ripe valley]

srg320 seems to have found the cause of the sprite issue on Puyo Puyo.

[tawny forge]

Is that the only bug remaining so we can get fully into 3DO?

[ripe valley]

Die Hard Trilogy still has some issues, but not everyone can reproduce them.
Some CD seek timings, and other CD Block issues for several games.

Not to mention testroms from celeriyacon.

[tawny forge]

It looks pretty much finished to me

3DO wen

[exotic crypt]

It will be finished when single sdram works for all titles

Without fast timings

[tawny forge]

It should be dual ram only. Single ram core is a hack

[exotic crypt]

Honestly I get the impression that mister devs would overall prefer to avoid dual ram if actually possible, but pragmatically it's necessary sometimes

Even if a significant portion of users all had dual sdram

Not that I know how this stuff works in depth I'm just a community member, and it may or may not ever actually be possible, but it's probably better to not consider any core complete too soon, in actual seriousness

[ancient surge]

At some point I should boot up Puyo Puyo 2 and try to beat the Expert Mode with no loses...

[flat sedge]

Core is finished when the developer decides it. But in reality cores like this are never really finished 😂

[lofty spire]

nothing's ever finished, only abandoned

[wise brook]

some people really do believe that

[glossy steppe]

I can't believe im quoting this but I guess it's oddly relevant

[wise brook]

wark91 have i ever told you how much i love the good news you bring?

[ripe valley]

🚨 Saturnday! 🚨

[marble laurel]

🙂

[white tendon]

PWM core updated with today's commits 😉 https://misterfpga.org/download/file.php?id=12451

[ripe valley]

I just hope that srg320 will find something about the Die Hard Trilogy I detect on my side since a previous core release.

I already checked my files and the external drives + tried on my 4 different MiSTer systems.

The issue is not always visible, sometimes the game launches on the first try, some others it needs 5-6 resets and/or 2-3 reboots of the core.

---

EDIT 2 : I will redo the SMPC and CD Block tests once more when I get back to home.

[rich violet]

srg320's asked for info here: https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Saturn_MiSTer/issues/477#issuecomment-3444042109

[ripe valley]

I know.

I was waiting for today's core. 😉

@wide glacier Is my current reply to srg320 is correct or did you detected something that we missed until now ?

Thanks.

[white tendon]

Weird i never had any problem with this game with my 2 MiSTers (1 original and one QMTech clone).It launches successfully everytime but i have to force the region to US beforehand otherwise it doesn't boot and states that the disc format is invalid.

[burnt matrix]

Pins updated with links to all latest RBF files and mister main.

[ripe valley]

The issue reappeared recently, about 2 versions before for me.

[white tendon]

I see. So it might be happening on some specific boards and not others as i've just tried again the game with today's core and it still loads perfectly on my side 🤔

[ripe valley]

I found something interesting.

I have only one controller declared on the core and switched as ON.
The game refuses to boot.
I switch the second controller as ON and reset the core, the game works after that.

If I save the settings and completely reboot the core, the game refuses once more, if I switch the second controller as OFF and reset the core, the game works once again.

And it works like that on my 4 MiSTer systems.

I tried an older version of the core, from 3 months ago, I don't have the issue at all, with the same game, same configuration.

EDIT : I'm not crazy. 😂

[green pebble]

This seems like a useless hack as you can just play the arcade version on MISTER. Are there any features on the Saturn version over the arcade one that would make this more interesting?

[visual grove]

always good to realize there’s a chance you aren’t crazy

[exotic crypt]

https://bsky.app/profile/eclipse.yase.world/post/3lbkomwa3w22j

「ＹＡＳＥ」 eclipse (@eclipse.yase.world)

ive never in my entire life seen plastic yellow this bad. this saturn smokes two packs a day

Reposts

379

Likes

1010

Bluesky · Nov 22, 2024, 7:11 PM

[sharp forum]

Special Edition Mustard Saturn

[visual grove]

At least the controller matches

I wonder how it was stored to accelerate the yellowing like that

[exotic crypt]

Me too

Big fan of the line on the backup cart

[ripe valley]

I need to perform once more some tests with celeriyacon and double-check with another friend on their original system.
My previous tests seem flawed.

[white tendon]

My both controllers are set to ON, SNAC set to OFF and i'm using Hitachi Hi-Saturn Bios 1.03 (don't know if it's relevant though)

[winter phoenix]

The satisfaction of playing the Saturn. Everything is better on Saturn by virtue of being on Saturn. (No, there’s no extra content as far as I know.)

[safe trail]

I kind of wonder whether the original "beige" color of most PCs starting in the 1980s was chosen in order to reduce the obviousness of tobacco staining - which was still present in offices at the start of the 1980s - but just stuck around because it was "conventional"

[ripe valley]

I was checking 2-3 things with celeriyacon on one side, with srg320 on another.
But I must stop everything right now.
Emergency call.

See you soon, and sorry.

[pearl harbor]

Saturnday on a Saturday again!? The planets align once again! 🪐

[floral saddle]

ABS yellowing was taken into consideration for the PS1.

[exotic crypt]

I played Yumimi Mix Remix this saturnday (if that's a thing now)

Funny little movie/game thing

[wise brook]

german “law” dictated what color the pc/office equipment could be. at which point producers had a choice, make two runs of cases or just appease the lowest denominator

[zealous karma]

Let me know if you want somthing tested on real saturn. I have one with the MODE ODE

[safe trail]

!?

[wise brook]

iirc Steve Jobs with his ‘Next’ company was the first to stop caring enough to start making PC’s in black

[safe trail]

Well, in North America, we had no restrictions - chaos was allowed... but beige was available and it was the cheapest choice (once clones were manufactured).

[wise brook]

yeah germany had regulations on what color office equipment could be

[safe trail]

So obviously, that's what continued for 40 years

[exotic crypt]

All office equipment should've been space grey

[safe trail]

That seems absurd - to regulate things to such a level of detail.

[wise brook]

i’m glad im not alone in thinking that

[safe trail]

"Oh that device is black, therefore it must not be office equipment"

[rotund steeple]

We have over 20.000 building regulations in Germany. So, you get the idea.

[safe trail]

Well, safety concerns make sense. Colour though ?

[sterile roost]

Maybe they should’ve done more consideration 😅

[zealous karma]

Is yellowing of plastics still a thing? I mean was there a change to plastics so that it doesnt happen any more?

[sterile roost]

They still yellow for sure

[zealous karma]

My Amiga is starting to yellow unfortunately 🙁

[rotund steeple]

Get a new black case, got one for my A1200.

[zealous karma]

I was looking at a case that was almost black but with some green tint. Looked awesome, but I just love the original look

[rotund steeple]

https://postimg.cc/PpDTRTrS

[floral saddle]

Any more consideration and you're making a smoke stained colour console from the start!

[zealous karma]

I have an Amiga 500+ and havent seen those cool colors for it

[exotic crypt]

Could be as bad as the Saturn posted earlier

[rotund steeple]

https://www.a1200.net/amiga-500-case/

[zealous karma]

Where do I get it? I see no link

[sterile roost]

It’s a feature, not a bug!

[zealous karma]

@rotund steeple Never mind I found it. THanks!

but its out of stock

[rotund steeple]

The black one is listed as "in stock". mmh

[exotic crypt]

Not to minimod, but this is the Sega Saturn channel

[zealous karma]

yep, it derailed from yellow plastics lol

[exotic crypt]

Yeah but Amiga cases are way off lol

[zealous karma]

so are Playstation to be fair

[strong osprey]

the world would be so wonderful if german law still forced our computers to be beige

[north parrot]

btw despite some people saying it, yellowing isn't just due to exposing the plasic to the sun or from smokers back in the day. I've pulled stuff out of storage that was not yellow when it went in, from a smoker free house, but came out of storage yellow a few decades later.

[rotund steeple]

It's the combination of pure darkness (stored in an attic or garage) AND heat (hot summers). Original liquid plastics looks very yellow, before they put all the other stuff in the mix (colors, plasticizer etc.)

[north parrot]

i think heat probably for sure, i live in AU and over the years we get hot days and even stuff sealed away in a closet would easily get 35c+ some years

[wise brook]

i hope they haven’t solved the problem so the ps5 can become the PisS5

[idle vortex]

‎ 🎩

🧿👄🧿 ✨
‎ 🫴

[river wing]

That page is very nice. It's incredible how much detail went into designing the consoles back then, the original PSX is beautiful and "attracts" the user to play with it. Putting, let's say, original Tekken in such a beautiful machine and play it there was truly magical.
There's simply no such magic in consoles anymore.

[wide glacier]

looks correct to me

[split heart]

I notice this on my own PS1 console

[exotic crypt]

They're all commercial products, designed to be sold as products, rationally there was never any magic in them, I get being nostalgic but let's not romanticize things that much. Aesthetically pleasing design for sure, maybe.

Modern plastics have solved some of these problems anyway

A lot goes into modern industrial design still that's not immediately obvious

[wide glacier]

i do agree to an extent but i will also say that consoles are absolutely not as interesting as they used to be

like, the architectures of the ps1 and saturn are so unique and have their own charm, but what's the difference between the xbox series and ps5? they're both essentially watered-down desktop computers

[exotic crypt]

Subjective I guess

[exotic crypt]

Also yeah, stuff has been streamlined for better or worse

[wide glacier]

every time i see an xbox game, there's nothing about it to my eyes that shouldn't be able to run on a ps5, or vice versa

[exotic crypt]

Though these days you obviously might as well just get a PC, not many exclusives that make consoles worth it

[wide glacier]

yeah, and the recent halo announcement makes that painfully apparent. consoles are just not interesting anymore

[exotic crypt]

They're pretty much all architecturely the same and don't have any unique quirks like consoles used to have, yeah

But at the same time it's was a tragedy a lot of games are locked to those pieces of hardware with those interesting quirks that need to be replicated exactly, some of them also made certain consoles extremely difficult to develop for

It's fun to look back at the past, but I don't think consoles should be unique, it will only extend the problem, but at the same time if they're not unique there's not much justification for them to exist, ideally every game worth playing would just be available in a perfectly preserved form on general purpose computers with conventional operating systems

I know that's a really dry way to look at things

I love the unique quirks of the PS1 and Saturn as someone just playing these consoles, but they're just byproducts, but I also don't see it as a failing that things aren't like that anymore, it's progress if anything

[wide glacier]

it definitely makes development easier but it's certainly less interesting

[exotic crypt]

Honestly less interesting isn't bad always

For a healthy future for this stuff it might as well be considered a good thing

Culture/art is more important than games being locked to "interesting" hardware

Ideally that should be accessible on the least interesting but good for the end user hardware + associated software stacks

[wide glacier]

for all the good it does since new game releases haven't interested me since the wii era

[exotic crypt]

I'm not just talking about new releases but availability of old titles, (and IMO there's plenty of interesting new titles if you're willing to look) consoles and arbitrary hardware differences are barriers that should be broken down, there is no reason why a title (such as halo, as mentioned) being released on more platforms should be considered a bad thing, the hardware shouldn't be interesting to arbitrarily force that title to be on only a certain family of hardware

[exotic crypt]

Tbh this is getting off-topic, so sorry for that

[river wing]

Good point. I'm using "magic" to express "charm", english is not my native language and I may have an strange way of expressing sometimes.
But that's what today's machines lack: charm. They are all big ugly boxes with unattractive shapes, they are noisy, prone to fail, fragile, expensive, badly designed and using them is a PAIN and a bad experience with constant updates, downloads and whatnot. So it wasn't only the external design, it was the experience too: I don't have a real SNES or MegaDrive at home (I have them stored far away from where I live), but I have the MiSTer and that's what I play, I don't want to lose a second playing modern stuff because it does NOT feel good to me at all.
Modern consoles are, in my view, repulsive, while the 8/16/32 bit era machines were pure fun and attractive, both externally and internally.

Anyway, consoles are dead by now. Who cares.

[ripe valley]

Interesting 'bug' on the current SMPC implementation of the core that I seem to have seen these last days.

• In The Hunt (USA) doesn't freeze anymore if you have 2 controllers connected (the game have an original game bug where you can't connect a second controller on the system, or even any controller before the title screen on early revisions of the original system);

• Shinobi-X (Japan) doesn't freeze anymore if you have 2 controllers connected (the game have an original game bug where you can't connect a second controller on the system) >>** we need to test the EU & US versions of the game** too;

• Die Hard Trilogy (US) only works with two controllers declared (reversed from previous versions since important SMPC changes last month) + US region forced (and/or US BIOS) now on the core.
  EDIT : It crashes later when accessing into the game with a DRAM cart inserted, so that original bug is present.

[wise brook]

if i get some free time today i will also test

[ripe valley]

I can't test more today, but if some people could test them too, just to make sure it can be reproduced.

[ancient surge]

A bug ironically fixing bugs in the games is pretty funny.

[ripe valley]

MiSTer wins again ?

We're talking about Trilogy, not Arcade.

[floral saddle]

Ok.

[ripe valley]

Need to check something with the FMV intro of Tokimeki Memorial - forever with you.
I see & hear some stutters on my systems, but I'm using CHD files (done myself recently).
Let's see later with original BIN/CUE files.

[ripe valley]

So, if I follow well, I need to check if it's a real game bug later on.

[ripe valley]

Thanks for the offer, I'll try a couple of things next week before anything else.

If necessary, I'll ask celeriyacon for permission to be able to privately send some of the compiled versions of the SMPC and CD Block tests to people with real hardware, to expand the pool of testers, check consistency across machine revisions & possibly compare some results.

[zealous karma]

Sure, just ping me if needed 👍🏻

[ripe valley]

Okay, Tokimeki Memorial - forever with you doesn't work well in CHD format during the FMV intro.
Only the BIN/CUE version work correctly on all my systems with USB sticks or USB HDDs.

I tried with the Fast timings option as ON/OFF (for the Single RAM systems), no change.

[burnt matrix]

Have you tried changing how the CHD is compiled?

Also was that a downloaded CHD or one you made yourself? The downloaded ones are crap.

[ripe valley]

I only do the conversion myself.

Yes, with the newer options discussed some weeks ago.

I don't always trust files DL'ed.

Especially if I don't know how they were converted.

[burnt matrix]

Ohhh, what were the newer options?

These are the ones that Zakk shared which work at higher disc read speeds: -c cdzs,cdfl -hs 9792

[ripe valley]

These ones, I didn't remembered them immediately without checking my scripts.

[burnt matrix]

Ok awesome, and also that suck. It’s all I could think of.

[mighty zephyr]

@burnt matrix i believe the single ram links in the pins are both linking to the dual ram st-v builds

[burnt matrix]

Sorry about that and thanks for catching it. It’s fixed now.

[mighty zephyr]

No problemo

[warped saddle]

I have a problem with it

[frail token]

https://console-classics.com/retrogaming/unofficial-flashback-port-brings-classic-sci-fi-game-to-sega-saturn/

[ripe valley]

Expect more SMPC changes on the core, following srg320's latest comment on Die Hard Trilogy.

[humble epoch]

I need to play through this game sometime soon. I’ve started it numerous times over the years but it’s just never grabbed me.

[frail token]

I beat it back in the day on Genesis but the controls keep me from coming back lol

[pearl harbor]

Same. I've played Flashback a bunch of times over the years, but I've never actually beaten it. I should really just sit down and give it a real go one of these days.

[elfin apex]

I've beaten it a couple times now, but I remember back when it was new renting it and getting stuck at the "second level" (after you jump down the pit with the anti-gravity belt) because you have to do the completely counterintuitive "running jump to grab the ledge" thing. It got me wondering if that was some kind of low-key anti-piracy measure.

[fallow surge]

could never get into flashback. out of this world on the other hand? excellent

the steam pc port is a great way to play it. and of course sega cd and snes

always thought it was cool this games were made by a single programmer. pushing polygons and fmv esque cut scenes on a snes

[elfin apex]

The SNES port is somewhat known for causing problems in emulators because Burger Becky had the wild idea of running the inner rendering loop code from on-chip registers. Running it from "SlowROM" (as emulator authors call it) would be too slow, and the publisher wouldn't pay for faster memory on the cartridge.

[elfin apex]

And, uh, not to be a downer or get unduly political in a non-spicy channel, but as I looked up some stuff to verify that I wasn't misremembering, I found that she apparently has a GoFundMe running because cancer is cancer and the American health care system is the American health care system. https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-rebecca-ann-heineman-fight-aggressive-cancer

[wise brook]

yeah you’re right. your comment doesn’t belong here

[humble epoch]

That’s sad. Happy to see she is close to her goal though.

[elfin apex]

Yeah, that (plus the most recent post) is heartening. But it also gets me thinking about whether it's ethically correct to take a long vacation from work and acquire some amphetamines and dive head-first into making the IIgs core really work.

[inner kayak]

it came up organically in the topic, she’s done more for emulation and preservation in recent years than I will in my lifetime, and she is incredibly friendly at GDC and other events. Not spicy, not political, and the community should know that one of our own needs some assistance.

[fallow surge]

imagine founding interplay and needing a go fund me. awful

interplay and sierra ran pc gaming for so long

[glossy steppe]

I know this is late, but I honestly thought this was a picture of some special limited-edition model until I read the post.

[white tendon]

Roberta Williams who co-founded Sierra with her husband Ken is in the same financial situation i'm afraid 😔 . She once ruled the world of PC games with the King's Quest saga and almost disappeared from the radar by the end of 90s only popping out a couple of times for collaborations with small studios.

[green swift]

👀

Can retrobrite even fix a contrast like that?

[thorn pagoda]

probably not no

maybe reduce it a bit but doing it precisely enough to end up with no visible seam? nah

[fallow oracle]

If you do it long enough IIRC it can fix the issue by making the plastic incredibly brittle, thereby crumbling to pieces and making it a non-issue

Alternatively, embrace the deep yellow look with some spraypaint, you're 50% of the way to a nice-looking gold tbh

[thorn pagoda]

or just reshell whatevers inside

[fallow oracle]

Put a sticker over it that's just a stretched-out version of the Pokemon Gold boxart

In all seriousness though yeah, you're basically looking at a reshell of...everything

[green swift]

It looks like a 50/50 vanilla and coffee ice cream bar. Kinda tasty lookin’

[wise brook]

i’ve unironically seen folks try list heavily yellowed plastics as “rare gold edition” and similar.

only gold color console i’d want to own

[green swift]

Porkchop has a sexy gold case too.

[hearty marten]

We need a solid gold MiSTer so we can lord it over the software emulation plebs

[tawny forge]

Is that from a Sega Saturn Diarrhea Edition? 🤔🤭

[drowsy hull]

In the end all can be sanded down and painted in a nice colour

[wise brook]

i’d be down for that orange-spice color apple now used on it’s iphone

[fallow surge]

no way.

[tawny forge]

Is this really true?

[winter phoenix]

The long-lost prototype of Destruction Derby 2's never-released Saturn port is now available for anyone to play — get the details and see what it looks like in my story:

https://www.segasaturnshiro.com/2025/10/27/destruction-derby-2-saturn-prototype-released/

(I don't know if this is playable on MiSTer, I haven't tried it there yet)

[small ore]

I can get it to work if I set it to None or the 6M DRAM Dev cart. 1M or 4M DRAM seems to break it. It's VERY much a prototype.

[winter phoenix]

Yeah it's rough no matter what you play it on

[white tendon]

Unfortunately that is true. Just google search for "How Sierra Was Captured, Then Killed, by a Massive Accounting Fraud" and you'll find the full story narrating how the Williams were tricked by Walter Forbes into selling their company in mid-90s and promised billions which eventually led to their bankruptcy and the loss of a fortune a few years later 😪

[celest lake]

it seems like thursday night was their night in the barrel

[mental agate]

i am having this same problem, good thing i looked here

what bios do people recommend for the saturn core?

like which region and version

[ripe valley]

Generally, I'm using a region-free modified Hi-Saturn 1.03 BIOS.

[mental agate]

thanks

[glossy steppe]

I'm just using whatever bios update_all pulled, which I assume is the one Zet-sensei mentioned

[quick sorrel]

So I have various BIOSeseses for various cores via update_all.

If I turn off the BIOS downloader because I want to use a specific Saturn BIOS, it doesn’t delete any of the BIOSeseseses does it?

[small ore]

If you use a custom bios, update_all will respect it, and not replace it. No need to turn that off, just replace whatever BIOS with your custom one.

[quick sorrel]

Oh sweet. That’s truly a great script. Thanks 🙏

[river wing]

I would like to say that, in some countries in Europe, we have had public healthcare systems for a almost a century and NO ONE is left behind when they get cancer: they get the best treatments available here, and most people survives the illness. Long live public healthcare systems!!! If someone feels "offended" by this, they are psychopaths. No sane society leaves ill people behind. In fact, a certain country that does that is rapidly becoming irrelevant.

[wise brook]

ideally all this pol spiel can be moved to a more appropriate thread

[river wing]

Maybe you should be moved to a more appropriate species, where leaving the ill behind is the norm. Ah, wait, no sentient species does that, only human psychopaths.

[wise brook]

please stay on topic, and avoid name-calling if possible

[river wing]

Who have I name-called? Are you an admin?

[warped saddle]

telling someone 'you should be moved to a more appropriate species' is a bit much.

[hallow fossil]

This is the Saturn channel, take this sort of chat elsewhere, ideally to another Discord.

[river wing]

Got it. I have nothing else to say on the matter. I said what I wanted to say.

[inner kayak]

Ken and Roberta are billionaires, so that’s a big difference

[burnt matrix]

[hearty marten]

So, about those Saturn games

[celest lake]

can't wait for this core to be released and I can finally play 3DO Saturn games

[trim nimbus]

Maybe the mister 2 will be blessed by sorg and we will get an extended development cycle with vcd support. 3do will eventually need that, so makes sense to flesh it out on the Saturn first before working on another core 🤡

[stiff latch]

I playing some games the other day using the most recent Saturn build from update_all, and I noticed some skipping during the intro FMV of Night Striker S.

A few caveats, it could just have been a poor CHD image, so I can test my redump iso and check that to be sure. Like wise, I was in the middle of refreshing the database that the remote app uses to locate games on my MiSTer, so that could have affected it too.

Hopefully it's nothing but user error, but I figured I would mention it just in case anyone else could check.

[formal barn]

I just tested Night Striker S in bin/cue format loading it via cifs_mount and the FMV intro was smooth for me. My test was also with the latest stable Saturn build.

[burnt matrix]

@stiff latch ⬆️

[glossy steppe]

So is this Ninja Striker game the only game that gives problems in CHD format without having an index 2?

[warped saddle]

there's a list of games in the pin

Night Striker is not one of them

[burnt matrix]

Sounds like a local issue to that person, either in how that CHD image was compressed or how that CHD image is being loaded.

[warped saddle]

also the fact they were running stuff in the background

[stiff latch]

Cool thanks for checking @formal barn

[ripe valley]

I had the same issue with Tokimeki Memorial ~forever with you~, it works correctly only on BIN/CUE format on the FMV intro.

The video stutters several times.
We need to check Night Strikers here, maybe it's different.

[stiff latch]

https://www.twitch.tv/xybur/clip/TardyGiftedCourgetteMingLee-OZVPSj60MerbuArE

I made a little clip of what I was talking about

I forgot I was streaming that day, so I just pulled a snippet from the skips

Ill have to try with bin/cue just to make sure that helps

[glossy steppe]

Never heard of this game, but that music does NOT match the video, it's like someone put Mario Kart music over it XD

[stiff latch]

It's a port of an arcade game from 1988

The sequel just came out after 30ish years, on steam

Called night striker gear, it's a fun game

[wide glacier]

night striker S is still the best imo

it's missing the arranged songs from the sega cd version but i think i like the arcade ost better anyway

[pearl harbor]

I just wish that Night Striker S ran at 60fps like the arcade version.

[ripe valley]

Seems to be a bad CHD conversion or something wrong with the storage device here.

A CHD file I done (and stored on a USB drive) from known BIN/CUE files works fine on my MiSTer Pi test system.
Original timings and all.

[glossy steppe]

Night Striker S? Not Night Strikers?

Totally not a confusing name

I guess it was a bad CHD, IIRC the person who mentioned the problems said they had made the CHD themselves, including using the optimized settings mentioned here

[stiff latch]

The s stands for "Saturn"

Lol

[wide glacier]

imo i don't think bugs found using chd should be reported unless the same issue is reproducible with bin/cue

[glossy steppe]

That reminds me, I still need to find a copy of Super Mario 63, and Super Mario 62, and Super Mario 61, and...

Feels like that would reduce the amount of valid reports we would get too

I had converted all of my bin/cue on my mister to chd recently because they would not have fit on it's sdcard otherwise

[wide glacier]

i've always felt that using chd is the same as using the turbo psx or n64 cores, that is to say "it's a helpful feature but use at your own risk"

[warped saddle]

it's worth knowing because it may still be a fixable issue

[elfin apex]

CHD definitely adds complexity in some ways, but BIN/CUE is also kind of married to a quirky outdated specification that was designed more for burning CDs than reading them. I wouldn't consider either of them definitive.

[safe trail]

It's not a quirky outdated specification - it's a direct representation of what's on the disc. Regardless on the actual contents of the cue file, there is only simple arithmetic to determine the actual sector to read, and directly send. CHD has a lot more transformations (and decompression) going on

[warped saddle]

my favorite is when critical data has to be represented in comments of a cue

[safe trail]

What kind of critical information ? Something like Media code which would normally be in subcode ?

[warped saddle]

sessions

[safe trail]

Oh yeah... sessions... well that complicates things. And I'm sure that CHD doesn't simplify it

[warped saddle]

it simplifies it by not supporting it!

[safe trail]

oh ok, then it does the same with subcode

[warped saddle]

to be fair CHD has an open ended system of being able to add metadata, so you COULD add it if there were agreement

chds can store subcode data fine

[safe trail]

Oh ? They couldn't do indexes last I heard. And that's encoded in subcode

[elfin apex]

My involvement with Saturn hacking predates any real attempts to reverse engineer the CD block's general operation, so I don't have that level of insight. But I've tripped over multiple things that are just kind of implicit in CUE files (pregaps...), or the corresponding processing of the commands by the drive (Super CD-ROM^2 discs having the second data track missing or magically turned into all-zero, IIRC), screwing things up.

[warped saddle]

there's a chunk at the end of each sector block that is subcode data

the problem is encoding programs need to put it there

[safe trail]

Well, that problem is being unfamiliar with the requirements of the data format; not strictly speaking a CUE file issue.

[warped saddle]

bin/cue doesn't either, they just threw some stuff that they though was important into the cue sheet

certain mame devs hold the opinion that stuff like index etc needs to just be in the actual subcode data in the chd, hence it does not support extracting the index entries from a cue

the problem with that opinion is it leads to the conclusion that every cdrom in existence needs to be re-ripped

[glossy steppe]

Doesn't it lack the ability for multisession disks, subchannel data, and many other such things?

[safe trail]

I mean, the CD format is a far more confusing standard than it needed to be... but that's the CD format itself at fault, and the fact that people oversimplified it later was mostly a result of the real format being a paid secret.

[safe trail]

Well,you name a standard that covers all of those things, because users won't be able to locate them in any format that supports all of them. And 99% of the time, those aren't all needed.

[warped saddle]

the cue format is more or less a text representation of the cd-r/rw 'cuesheet' you send to the drive. certain things are not represented in that cuesheet because it is expected the drive or program calculates them

[glossy steppe]

CCD?

[safe trail]

mm... you mean like MODE1/2048 ? You can send the cooked sectors with CUE, it just isn't normal.

(MODE1/2352)

[glossy steppe]

Wait, does CCD support multisession?

Though IIRC it's a propitery format anyway

[warped saddle]

cdi does

but again, proprietary

[elfin apex]

Strictly speaking, nobody is responsible for anything, we're all just out here trying to make shit break less, and some of us have otherwise-trivial obsessions to show for it.

[glossy steppe]

But does CDI support subchannel data?

[warped saddle]

I believe it does, yes

but, hard to say since there's no spec published

[glossy steppe]

We should just make an open format that supports everything

.... oh wait

[warped saddle]

everything you find about cdi is some hacked together code from people reversing it

[safe trail]

In any case, if you have a standard called CUE/BIN, and CHD covers most of that (but sometimes incurs some sort of unacceptable processing overhead), that doesn't imply that CHD-only issues are core issues.

[warped saddle]

mame tried that, they failed

[glossy steppe]

mame tried that? with what? CHD lacks a lot of that

[warped saddle]

the whole reason chd stagnated for so long was someone was writing a 'cdrom archival format' and basically took years upon years to get anywhere and it eventually just fell apart

they only added zstd to chd when they sort of realized that new format wasn't going to ever show up

[safe trail]

Sure. I do too. I did most of the reverse-engineeering on what PC Engine needed, so I know of the quirks you encountered.

[glossy steppe]

I am sure it's going to be finished right along RiserFS any day now

[warped saddle]

I'm not even sure if the original person working on that format still is. I'm also not sure what the main issue was

[safe trail]

But the origin of this conversation was regarding issues that show on CERTAIN CHD images, but not on CUE/BIN. And then, not on other CHD. And the result is that while issues that only appeard on CHD can be discussed, they are not core issues, since they are more likely CHD encoding parameter issues.

[glossy steppe]

There are Saturn games that you can't convert to CHD without issues though

[safe trail]

Yeah, I know. But people want to play CHD anyway.

[warped saddle]

oh hmm, th ey are still working on it

https://github.com/aaru-dps/Aaru

[elfin apex]

I think it's valid that people want CHD support to evolve on both ends, though. BIN/CUE is dead by comparison.

[glossy steppe]

Oh, it's supposed to be one format that supports EVERYTHING, not just optical disks? .... good luck

Especially getting things to support a new format at this point... many still lack CHD support

[warped saddle]

chd is at least flexible, but basically controlled by mamedev so you get that quirkiness to contend with

[elfin apex]

Whatever flaws CHD has, there are at least people we can petition to fix it.

[warped saddle]

honestly the most annoying thing is you can't add metadata to a compressed image. if you could I could just define a metadata entry for indexes and write a script and fix it for mister users and then in 2045 when mamedev adds them we'd just move to that

[glossy steppe]

2045? talk about optimistic

[warped saddle]

you could also just generate "enough" subcode data to put the indexes in there, but I think not having a readily available lookup for that is going to result in poor performance

[safe trail]

In 2045, people will wonder why there was ever compression.

I mean... remember MP3s ?

[elfin apex]

I can't claim to be normal, but I have a USB thumb drive in my car with MP3s.

That's what the 2015 model-year car's presumably years-older silicon can play.

"The past is never dead. It’s not even past."

[exotic crypt]

Tbf lossless media unless you're just storing raw WAVs and BMPs is compressed

Compression dosen't always mean a loss of data

[glossy steppe]

So do I in my 2014 car, it also still has a CD drive

[glossy steppe]

Isn't that the difference between lossy and lossless compression?

Storing of any type of software would have to be loseless after all since it's not an application will run correctly if you didn't decompress all of the data exactly as it was like you can with compressing audio or video

[burnt matrix]

Yeah, CHD is fantastic

There is literally one game I care about that doesn’t play nice with CHD. That’s an over 99.99% batting average considering all the disc games I have on my MiSTer.

[exotic crypt]

Well yeah, of course, but then somebody mentioned mp3s

Which funny enough even lossy compression has evolved tremendously since then, Opus is way more efficient than MP3 and sounds even better at lower bitrates

192kbps Opus sounds amazing

[burnt matrix]

Sounds opulent

[hearty marten]

This is the case for me too, and why I use it. We pretty much know what causes issues with chd, so it makes it easy to determine when we should/shouldn’t use it. If it were less reliable than that, I might move back, but that’s not the case 🙂

But obviously it’s always good to confirm a bug with bin/cue before reporting to a core dev

[strong osprey]

CHD is bad because its one file instead of two

two files are better

because you have a bin and a cue so its double the files

its like having 2 dollars instead of 1 dollar

[subtle tusk]

Thanks to improved compression you can have an HD video file that's barely larger than a thumbstamp RM file from 20 years ago. Improvements in storage size and computing power will enable more compression, not less.

[burnt matrix]

I do keep all my games as uncompressed bin/cues on my desktop though lol

[surreal bison]

Was the save game issue fixed in the latest core update?

[mortal mist]

Yes

[pearl harbor]

But what if you have a $2 bill and a $1 bill!? They're both one physical object each!

[subtle tusk]

The D in CHD stands for Dollars

[stiff latch]

cold hard dollars

[hearty marten]

https://tenor.com/view/money-money-money-make-it-rain-dolla-dolla-bills-dollars-cash-gif-15485267

[exotic crypt]

Why, can't you just uncompress them whenever you feel like?

[glossy steppe]

Two you say?

[strong osprey]

oh sorry i forgot that a bin/cue could be 69 times as good as chd

thats like having 69 dollars instead of 1 dollar!!

[glossy steppe]

Concidentally that's also one of the few Saturn games that you need to keep as bin/cue because it has problems as CHD

The CUE file alone is 29K...

[ancient surge]

Somehow it always comes back to Monster Slider.

[versed solar]

Is there an update all tweak one can make to auto download the Saturn dual ram core as well as the single ram core?

[burnt matrix]

No

I recommend downloading the dual core and renaming it to whatever the latest stable is.

Update won’t try to overwrite it until there’s a new stable.

[pearl harbor]

I just leave it as is. Update all won't overwrite the dual ram core.

Unless you really want only one Saturn core in the list.

[burnt matrix]

Yeah true, that’s me. Good point about just leaving it as is.

[versed solar]

I just wanna get the latest dual ram when it drops. Seems like it’s not possible with a db config update which is what I was hoping.

[burnt matrix]

Oh wait

One second

[pearl harbor]

Someone made a script for it right?

[burnt matrix]

https://github.com/ajgowans/alt-cores

To use it simply copy and paste the below to the bottom of your downloader.ini file (found at: /media/fat/downloader.ini )

db_url = https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ajgowans/alt-cores/db/db.json.zip```

oh wait wrong one lol

https://github.com/ajgowans/wip

To use it simply copy and paste the below to the bottom of your downloader.ini file (found at: /media/fat/downloader.ini )

db_url = https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ajgowans/wip/db/db.json.zip```

ok thats wrong too

lmao

[versed solar]

lol, I think I get the idea, the alt-cores is built into update all right? One just needs to add the right path and to the dual ram cores root or something like that right?

[burnt matrix]

Yeah but neither of them have the Satun dual core

[versed solar]

Ah, I see, the path is to some asset on the linked repo.

Seems like one could fork this repo and add Saturn dual ram to it though.

[burnt matrix]

I have no idea what I’m doing

[river river]

You need to put in the right downloader.ini setting for unstable nightlies

And that'll put the dual ram cores into the unstable folder

[unstable_nightlies_folder]
db_url = https://raw.githubusercontent.com/MiSTer-unstable-nightlies/Unstable_Folder_MiSTer/main/db_unstable_nightlies_folder.json

[burnt matrix]

Finally someone who knows what they’re doing

Thank you

[river river]

https://tenor.com/view/im-doing-my-part-serious-stare-gif-11979677

[umbral radish]

Just a heads up for everyone regarding all of the Saturn Dezaemon 2 save files for MiSTer that I had been working on. They are now being hosted at the following website. This website is owned by Cafe-Alpha, the creater of Pseudo Satrun Kai, and the developer of the "Dezaemon 2 Save Game Manager" for Saturn. He's onboard and happy to host these files. Here's the link.

https://ppcenter.webou.net/dz2sgm/

**Could one of the mods ( @burnt matrix ) put this somewhere useful (pinned) so that it doesn't get buried and is available for all?!

[muted cradle]

Is there a tutorial how this is used on mister?

[umbral radish]

yes, there's a video on Youtube created by "Gentlemens Pixel Club" using a script that was created prior to a change in the way the core works to enable memory card mounting. Follow that video as it also shows you how to load the saves once in game.

There is another way of loading the saves too simply by mounting the .sav file using the core's menu. if you have any issues get back to me via DM. I hope you enjoy, I spent quite a bit of time sorting these so that everyone could finally play them!

[muted cradle]

I feel like the ahmup junkie should cover that as well on his channel

[burnt matrix]

Thanks, added it to the Important Info pin - #1046941029296779344 message

[wide glacier]

he mentioned dezaemon 2 and the older save game managers in his "every saturn shmup" video, but it was just a quick overview, and it was before the mister script existed

[analog totem]

I just did it and it's pretty much just:

SETUP:

1. Download the save zip from https://ppcenter.webou.net/dz2sgm/
2. Drop the saves in /media/fat/saves/Saturn
3. Open the MiSTer core and make sure you set cartridge type to Backup and save your settings (may or may not require a core reboot...it seemed to for me)

LOADING GAMES:

1. Launch Deazemon 2
2. Select Mount Backup RAM *.SAV and select the file you want
3. In the main Dezaemon 2 menu, select Option > Load
4. On the Load menu select the top Ram option > select "Deza2 SGM (or whatever the file is named)" > Click "All" > Click "OK"
5. Green message, select the left option for Yes > Click "OK" > Click Return
6. Back on the main menu, click the green "U" to start the game

[wide glacier]

would be cool if someone made a hack of dezaemon 2 that has all the user games preloaded so you could just pick one and go

kind of like dezaemon plus select 100 on playstation

[floral saddle]

@wide glacier Pretty sure I said I was going to send you the PS1 Dezaemon files from the newly found stuff on archive once I was done. That was you wasn't it?

[wide glacier]

hmm i don't think i ever received anything

no worries though, i see it on your archive page 👀

[floral saddle]

No, pretty sure I said I would but then didn't. Still interested?

[floral saddle]

Ah cool, yeah it all got uploaded there thanks to @umbral radish

[copper furnace]

https://x.com/DerekPascarella/status/1985180344660758728

Derek Pascarella (ateam) (@DerekPascarella)

A new "Castlevania: Symphony of the Night" patch for SEGA Saturn (based on Meduza Team's v1.1 "Ultimate" patch) has been released.

This fork restores the voice acting, script, and title screen from the English PSX version.

Other changes:
• Prologue Richter missing sprites

X · Nov 3, 2025, 3:00 AM

[glossy steppe]

What is a patch? 🫳 🍷

[sharp forum]

A miserable little pile of bytes

[ripe valley]

Someone was faster for reporting it here.

[livid grotto]

Tried a few games from the Dezaemon 2 save pack. You have to mount the .sav file then manually load the save from options inside the game. So far I tried Mecha Force, The Ambition of Valkyrie, DAIOH Hurricane SP which was amazing and Grand Cross. Very cool stuff!

[analog totem]

@livid grotto yeah, it’s really neat! I know when I have some time to kill I’ll definitely be scrolling through some of those games and trying them out. There’s also a pack of saves for the PSX Dezaemon games out there and the games are launched in pretty much the same manner on the PSX core.

[livid grotto]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwl4mOafz10

[umbral radish]

@analog totem I wonder if that's the other pack I've been putting some time into? If it is my one it's still a WIP.

[analog totem]

perhaps? I found it on archive

[wide glacier]

daioh hurricane and grandcross are awesome. i also recommend areichalken and devil blade 2

[junior ridge]

Anyone had issues with snax64 recently and original saturn controllers? Mine aren't recognized for some reason with snac turned on, but the controllers will work through reflex adapt so they aren't broken or anything. Can't figure out what the issue might be. I've turned snac on, on port 1 and made sure ite was plugged into port 1 of snax64 dongle thing.

regular and 3D pad, same result

[river river]

Someone over on the MisterAddons discord will probably have some thoughts

[wise brook]

i wonder which games are most likely to be affected by these changes

if any

[ancient surge]

Does this fix the bug with Shinobi Legions and In The Hunt ironically having the second controller work?

[burnt matrix]

Ok, updating pins

Ok done

[floral saddle]

Pretty sure those issues are because of how the games are programmed, not core bugs.

[ancient surge]

The last build introduced a bug that ironically fixed that bug in Shinobi Legions and In The Hunt.

[floral saddle]

oh lol, I didn't see that.

[fluid root]

hi can we download sstest for saturn ? or is it private ?

[celest lake]

pretty sure it’s still private

[fluid root]

ok thanks

[ripe valley]

Still private.

Some possible adjustments are probably necessary and it works correctly only on NTSC systems so far.

This will be of no use to people outside of emulation development and pure reverse engineering activities.
Even interpreting the results requires very advanced knowledge of the atomic workings of each chip.

Some tests also fail on real systems depending on the revisions (SMPC) and the CD Block test does not work correctly on ODEs.

[burnt matrix]

Yeah but someone has it and they don’t. For some people that’s unacceptable.

Not anyone here fortunately!

[ripe valley]

I know. 😏

Let's be very clear, this isn't about power, possession, or anything like that.

Even for me, these tests aren't entirely useful, except for testing or verifying the possibility of having different revisions of certain chips.
These tests won't tell you if your machine still works or not (they aren't burn-in tests or for repair).

However, these tests are invaluable and vital for advancing the design of the core, as well as software emulators.
Provided you know what you're doing, how to read them, and how to interpret them.

I think that's also why their development and use are currently kept very secretive.
So that they aren't used or interpreted haphazardly.

[hearty marten]

in b4 “Saturn core is junk because it fails a test”

[lofty spire]

if it passes my test it's good. my test is as follows turn on the mister, choose the saturn core, load a game up and it runs

[hearty marten]

Pretty much my test too

Game runs and looks good to me

[ripe valley]

Die Hard Trilogy works once again correctly.
Without breaking any other SMPC sensitive games (Shinobi-X/Legions, In the Hunt, Crusader no Remorse).

[inner kayak]

oh wow, weird that these subtle timings made Die Hard go from not booting to working!

[ripe valley]

The entire Saturn system is governed by subtle timings.

[glossy steppe]

When you've got several processors that all need to be kept in sync through assembly I can see how a teensy inaccuracy in the timing of something can cause everything to break

[ripe valley]

One of the problems you can encounter when trying to simulate the Saturn, both in software and hardware, is what I call the "gateway syndrome."

If everything is slightly out of sync, you'll have programs launching without you even noticing the problems accumulating at the gateway.

But if you start trying to fix a specific chip, hundreds of things will regress elsewhere. It's like a continuous stream of bugs, and you don't even know when it will stop.

Without criticizing StrikerX3 and the emulator Ymir, this is the case in Ymir's current state, and it has already incurred enormous technological debts during the year it was created. This has forced him to rewrite entire sections or revise the original design, often at the cost of frustration, as I've read in our exchanges, as well as those of other beta testers.

To the point where it even tired him out, and he needs a break right now.

I was afraid the same thing might happen to srg320, getting so involved and focused on a single machine, or even just one chip within the machine, for weeks on end.
He was able to manage his frustration better, from an outsider's perspective.
Just as I understand that it's more than necessary to do something else, like working on previous cores or even creating the 3D0 core.

[wise brook]

i count us as very fortunate for everything with regards to SRG

and thanks to you in no small part for helping to energize the core development

i feel for the guy making Ymir, ultimately any attempt to make Saturn via anything outside of fpga is like trying to clone the Mona Lisa with crayons

[floral saddle]

Was this need to rewrite entire sections exacerbated by all the new tests being developed?

[ripe valley]

Completely.

[burnt matrix]

I am so excited for Ymir because it has a nice modern UI

[inner kayak]

definitely familiar with this "cascade" effect from ~30 years of using and contributing to emulators

[wise brook]

i just converted my laptop to Bazzite linux and put the emulator on as a curiosity. i’ll boot that up after work

[floral saddle]

It will all be worth it in the end, this period of rapid knowledge acquisition will settle at some point I'm sure.

[inner kayak]

the new thing in the equation for me is these test suites and micro-benchmarks to tighten up timing to this degree. was the test written because of discoveries from debugging Die Hard? or did the test suite give a way to rapidly test several theories about Die Hard? or were they totally unrelated?

[ripe valley]

Ymir is really promising, but I'd like StrikerX3 to take it slower, otherwise he'll end up completely exhausted and disgusted with his own creation, like when I spoke with Steve Kwok about NOVA.

I had a similar discussion years ago with Stenzek about DuckStation; they had to take a break and work on PCSX2 to clear their head.

[inner kayak]

when I was working on FreeSCI (before it was folded in to ScummVM), I wrote a suite of Sierra game engine unit tests in their own scripting language using SCI Studio, and it found all kinds of misinterpretations of the original system. still, that's a VM-level regression test and not down to opcode+bus latch timing 😉

[burnt matrix]

omg I love DuckStation and PCSX2

[wise brook]

iirc the duckstation maker was having problems with bug reports based on unofficial compiles of his emulator

[ripe valley]

I won't recount the story here; I was present on the Discord server when they discovered it.

This was the final straw that broke the camel's back.

Anyways, at least 50% of the progress or people who joined a project through emulation was pure luck in all the years I've been involved in these circles.
The right people, at the right time, in the right place.

[ripe valley]

Sorry, I didn't saw your question before.

Die Hard was a "collateral victim" of srg320's timing rewrites and refinements.

celeriyacon has been doing a lot of reverse engineering on their console, from what I understand from our recent discussions.

In the meantime, I've had some friends run the smpctest privately, and they sometimes report differences compared to the results from celeriyacon & srg320 on that part, so it will probably need some more researches in a near future.

I don't have the details on how srg320 did it, but I think he must have tested his console with this SMPC testrom and adjusted the core based on his own results.

I hope I have answered your question completely, and don't hesitate to ask me if I have misunderstood or forgotten any details.

BTW, thank you for the work done on FreeSCI, I've been thinking that name rang a bell for a while now, but I never made the direct connection.

[floral saddle]

Feels like that with that guy providing all these amazing new tests for the core, just at the right time for srg320 to implement and feed back on them.

[ripe valley]

The only thing I want us to agree on is that I'm giving you my opinion and immediate impressions; this in no way represents the discussions or interventions of the people mentioned.

We have a good overall understanding and proven, demonstrable results; let's hope this continues within MiSTer FPGA.

And thank you for your continued trust.

[warped cliff]

I am absolutely loving this core with its new updates so far

[hearty marten]

MiSTer wins always!

[glossy steppe]

I'm happy that Ymir exists. Feels like before Saturn software emulation was just in a state of random old emulators half of which were no longer updated, I was just using Bizhawk by that point because it was a mess dealing with the likes of SSF, Yabause, Kronos, and which were or were not still being updated as well as all the different features allof them had, an d evne different ways to load the game

Ymir is like a new fresh start on all of that

I love that it has the transparency feature too

(Just wish I could disable that rewind timeline that appears every time you mouse over)

[sick python]

https://nfggames.com/games/hisaturn/

[left hollow]

https://tenor.com/view/the-office-tv-television-plasma-screen-love-gif-11918862005140172269

[tiny quartz]

Love seeing my stuff linked. 😊

[sick python]

Great site!

[hearty carbon]

Did the Saturn's analog controller have analog triggers that worked on Sega Rally's later edition? Anyone know?

I feel like my brain is broken.

[thorn pagoda]

yeah

netlink edition

[hearty carbon]

I knew the 3d pad worked on Sega Rally but I couldn't find anything on the triggers

Damn. Can you run the Netlink on the Saturn?

Play a litle Duke 3d like I'm in high school again against one person in deathmatch 😄

[cobalt rune]

Hopefully in one of these upcoming unstable builds cheats gets added in

[burnt matrix]

Not many games used the analog triggers unfortunately.

[winter phoenix]

On real hardware, sure

Although if you and your opponent don’t have analog phone lines, you’ll have to jump through quite a few more hoops to play NetLink in this day and age: https://www.segasaturnshiro.com/saturn-community-projects/online-play/

[thorn pagoda]

hopefully all the old consoles with modems get some nice plug+play solution that can replace them

mainly dreamcast + saturn but i think some ps2 games also? probably others i forgot

[sacred goblet]

Hello. IS Mister FPGA and cores compatible with DE25?

[strong osprey]

not at the moment

[glass rain]

Hmm

[strong osprey]

the dreamcast has dreampi!!! (lightning strikes)

(could never get dreampi to work)

[marble laurel]

nothing is announced on DE25

[strong osprey]

my casio watch core is running swimmingly on the de25

[marble laurel]

any footage to show 😂

[strong osprey]

stay tuned

[sharp forum]

I’m waiting for the Hello World core

[celest lake]

In due time 🥁

[wise brook]

Wark!

[burnt matrix]

here's all the download links

[ripe valley]

https://tenor.com/view/cat-surprised-surprised-cat-stare-cat-stare-gif-112276495113776365

The results on the testroms.

Even better than all ODEs (SAROO, MODE, Fenrir, Satiator).

It passes all the CDB tests so far.

[rotund steeple]

Very impressive work!

[ripe valley]

EDIT : I forgot to update my last MiSTer system.

[mortal mist]

The core is in really great condition; these minor flaws do not affect the overall impression.

[ripe valley]

New try, with a full updated MiSTer system.

Pocket Fighter : the audio frame is present but even more shorter than before.
Die Hard Arcade : no change.
Astal : the audio frame stutters one time less (at least for me).

I don't think it will be a problem and won't impact the overall user experience.

Tomorrow, I'll send a MiSTer system to a trusted friend who knows the Saturn console very well so he can test it and give me his full opinion, with an outside perspective on the project.

I can request a test to several people here if you want to help.

Please test and report on Shining Force III, if you see something strange when some magic is cast during battles.

I've seen that report since some time & no news about it.

https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Saturn_MiSTer/issues/290

[floral saddle]

Just checked, no change since I updated the issue page a couple of months ago.

[ripe valley]

Okay, something to report later to srg320.

[ivory kindle]

we should set up a mister duke3d server

[sage minnow]

they just had a Duke Netlink tourney at the Saturn Shiro discord https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mRjnoxP42s

[lucid peak]

So, I was going through my old data files cleaning stuff up... and converting some isos to chds. I was getting an error on one of my bin/cues.... so I open up the cue and:

FILE "C:\DOCUMENTS AND SETTINGS\SCOTT JONES\DESKTOP\BITTORRENT ISO SHARES\SEGA SATURN USA SHARES\SEGA SATURN COLLECTION (U) DISK 4 OF 16 [BIN-CUE]\DRAGON FORCE (U)(SATURN)\DRAGON FORCE (U).BIN" BINARY
TRACK 01 MODE1/2352
INDEX 01 00:00:00
TRACK 02 AUDIO
PREGAP 00:02:00
INDEX 01 62:31:42

I have no idea who Scott Jones is, but he seems to have messed up his cue file. 😄

Mind you, I have long since bought a copy of Dragon Force and assumed it was my rip but I am no Scott Jones. 😄

[deft verge]

https://tenor.com/view/great-scott-surprised-amazed-oh-my-shocked-gif-16490502

[exotic crypt]

It'd be nice if you could do netlink over Ethernet for modern netplay stuff

I assume people use raspberry pis for this stuff, I'd wonder if it'd be possible to run this stuff on the arm side on Linux and do some sort of virtual modem bridge

I'd probably be possible to do the Linux side stuff easily, but FPGA side stuff for the netlink cart probably won't fit and that's probably the actually problematic part

[burnt matrix]

Oh phew, I was about to delete that thinking you accidentally doxxed yourself lol

[hearty marten]

Meanwhile, at Scott Jones’ house:

[mortal mist]

Fixes for Mister Main

[ripe valley]

I knew it.

The fixes from yesterday were obvious, he was working on fixing some CDs issues.

[ancient surge]

Will this fix the stuttering issues?

[ripe valley]

I'm at work right now, I can't test it right away.

But probably not.

He didn't mentioned Astal and or any other games.

[polar mountain]

The Saturn core continues its lonely ascent of Mount Perfect

The psx core is said to be frozen solid inches from the summit

The 3DO core has only been glimpsed once since leaving base camp

[mortal mist]

I tried Die Hard and Pocket Fighter , works fine

For peace of mind, I also checked Astal, but nothing changed.

[burnt matrix]

thanks for doing this. when you say no change to astal you mean theres an issue that persists?

[mortal mist]

No problem! Yes, the error still exists.

[ripe valley]

There is a small glitch when starting a specific track after releasing the bird.
The glitch isn't present on original disc, but present on several ODE systems and the core so far.

The audio issue is so minimal and so well integrated with the music that most people believe it is normal behavior of the game.

[lucid crown]

Hey guys I tried the ultimate castlevania sotn that videogameesoterica recommended this week. It slows to a chug often. Is this normal? I'm on a single ram mister btw

[polar mountain]

Have you tried the "fast timing" option?

[celest lake]

The saturn SOTN is kind of brutal all around

[pearl harbor]

I also noticed that the PS1 voices cut in and out and then get out of sync if you have the 4MB expansion enabled. If you disable that, the voices are fine.

[lucid crown]

not until you mentioned it. It does make it much better. Maybe 20-40% smoother in slow spots. Thanks for that

[pearl harbor]

The PSP voices version is completely fine on that front.

[burnt matrix]

The game on real hardware has a lot of performance issues. It’s also a fan patch that could be written for emulators so it may have issues with real hardware.

[winter phoenix]

I finally got around to writing this.

https://www.segasaturnshiro.com/2025/11/07/hacker-adds-ps1-translation-more-to-meduza-teams-symphony-of-the-night-patch/

[burnt matrix]

Basically until someone runs that game on real hardware we don’t know what “normal” is since real hardware is the benchmark that MiSTer is compared to.

[glossy steppe]

Yeah, even the main game that came with the controller, NiGHTS, did not, though, trying to use a 3D controller with it on MiSTer causes issues due to the lack of analog triggers 🙁

[glossy steppe]

Yeah, but what about a TI graphing calculator core? I need to play Drug War and Penguins like I did back in high school!

[glossy steppe]

Sounds like EXACTLY the kind of thing that Scott Jones would say >.>

[sharp forum]

I’m sure there’s more but the only one I’m aware of off the top of my head is Powerslave

[glossy steppe]

Powerslave had analog trigger support? What does it use it for?

[burnt matrix]

Strafe left/right

Pretty clever use imo

[glossy steppe]

Does the analog effect how fast you strafe or something?

[burnt matrix]

I think so, yeah

[glossy steppe]

https://tenor.com/view/bender-futurama-neat-wow-gif-5744318

[pearl harbor]

I saw some people in the forums at the "romantic" place mention that they had the same problem with the voice lines cutting in and out and getting out of sync on real hardware.

[burnt matrix]

Oh ok, that’s good to know. Sounds like it’s a patch issue then.

[wide glacier]

SOTN on saturn is a disaster and no amount of hacks/patches is going to fix it. at this point i'm just waiting for the decomp to be finished, so we can either get a fixed saturn version, or a hacked playstation version with all of the extra content

[lucid crown]

The ultimate sotn patch just oddly said in a high pitched girl voice "hiii its 7:30 o clock I'll keep you updated" I have no idea why it did this, but wtf

[lofty spire]

only so much makeup you can put on a pig

[burnt matrix]

lol so mean, it’s fiiiiiine

[lucid crown]

have you tried the new patch? It seems like every 10 minutes on the start screen it will tell you the time. It just said 7:40

freaked me out at first

[fallow surge]

decomps are incredible

there might be a day where ai becomes useful and you can script decomps potentially

cool to dream about. instead of people whispering about r0ms they whisper about exe files and to go google it wink

[ripe valley]

I've been checking the core since yesterday, and almost everything is fine.
EDIT : Some of my files were corrupted, false alarm.
Everything is fine with the testroms.

Only the issue of magic during combat in Shining Force III should be reopened in the issue log since some weeks (that's a possible regression).
No other new issue found so far.

I left one of my MiSTer systems with a friend who specializes in the Saturn console, so he could stress-test it and give me any feedback he might have over the weekend.
I need the opinion of a specialist who is external to the project.

[dusty shale]

What game?

[frail token]

oh good idea

I know a guy who is super into Saturn and I recommended MiSTer but he's flaky and never got back to me lol

[vernal sun]

This could maybe be used for networked/linked multiplayer arcade cores too. Maybe something that will come in the next mister when we have a bit more power on the arm side.

[burnt matrix]

The Symphony of the Night patch, and someone found Reddit posts about people running it on an ODE which exhibited the exact same issues. So it’s a problem with the patch.

[dusty shale]

If anyone needs any Saturn testing done for comparison's sake, I don't mind. I have a Satiator.

[muted cradle]

I guess that running the Meduza patch directly is the much saner idea.

[glossy steppe]

Don't ODEs cause differences between running a game off disk?

[dusty shale]

Only in terms of load times, to my knowledge.

[glossy steppe]

IIRC it was causing that issue with Astal to happen on ODEs but not off disk

[ripe valley]

Timings and load times after some tests on the CD Block.

No ODE could pass the CDB test we know internally.

Generally, the FIFO access timings are the cause.

[sturdy nova]

Does the Batman forever core just straight up stop working for anyone else by the third stage?

[small ore]

the arcade st-v core, or the saturn version?

[sturdy nova]

St-v

[floral saddle]

Just completed the game on the latest unstable dual ram stv build, no problems at all.

[ancient surge]

Might be outdated files.

[gentle roost]

Hi , I was wondering, how many controllers can be plugged in the same time? Is it possible to play Bomberman Saturn at 10 players?

[burnt matrix]

With USB, no. Using a SNAC adapter, yes.

I think lol

[frail token]

I believe you are correct

[hallow fossil]

I am not sure about that, does Saturn SNAC support both controller ports? I assume for ten players you would need some sort of 5 controller mumtitap on each one? Also does the hard limit on players on MiSTer not extend to SNAC?

[gentle roost]

yeah I think there is a hard limit on MiSTer

usb : up to 6 controllers but no idea if there is a limit for snac

[mortal mist]

#1046941029296779344 message

[tawny forge]

Should we still keep fast timings ALWAYS on for single RAM setups?

[radiant karma]

That is a big no according to srg320. But I haven't seen any reports of games breaking with the option enabled, maybe someone who has run into an issue can chime in.

[tawny forge]

Whoa! Doesn’t Radiant Silvergun lag anymore with that turned off?

[radiant karma]

I mean for games that do not have slowdown.

[tawny forge]

Problem with slowdowns is that I never know if the game lagged on OG lol

[burnt matrix]

pins updated

[glossy steppe]

Is that a USB limit or a total controller limit? Can you connect more through bluetooth?

[obsidian herald]

The Saturn multitap has 6 ports on it so two of them theoretically gives you 12p on real hardware. AFAIK only home brew games supported 12p though.

[glossy steppe]

AFAIK the SNAC adapters for Saturn only support one controller though, same with Genesis, not enough pins for 2

[small ore]

It's a hardcoded mister main limit, total

[glossy steppe]

Ah, odd that it's hard-coded but I can't imagine too many people would be playing more than 6 player games anyway

How many pins DOES the SNAC port support? I know most implementations use a USB 3.0 port which has 9 pins, but some use a HDMI port which has 19 pins. Does it support more than 9 pins and some are unused in the USB 3.0 port versions or are the ones that use a HDMI port just having half the pins go unused?

[warped saddle]

it's only 9 pins

[glossy steppe]

Thanks

[hearty carbon]

Some people have friends, go to parties.

It happens. I've seent it.

[glossy steppe]

... how often do people play 10 player saturn bomberman at such parties?

(Especially today over just using Jackbox)

[hearty carbon]

if someone does it once, then it's worth being an option.

[glossy steppe]

I mean, I feel ya, but it seems like the only way to do it on mister without the controller limit being removed (if it even can, I assume it was added for a reason) is to use a SNAC adapter with a 5-player multitap + 5 usb and/or bluetooth controllers

[small ore]

It's just a number to change as far as I can see
https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Main_MiSTer/blob/master/input.cpp#L37

[coarse token]

#define NUMPLAYERS 6

[warped saddle]

no, it's more than that

cores need to be changed too

[viral pebble]

In terms of official releases, Saturn has a few games that go beyond 8P. No other console or even arcade game for that matter supported more than 8P locally on the same piece of harware, making the Saturn truly unique. Here's the list:

10P
-NBA Action
-NBA Action 98
-NBA Live 97
-Saturn Bomberman

12P
-NFL Quarterback Club 96
-NFL Quarterback Club 97
-NHL 98
-NHL All-Star Hockey

[obsidian herald]

Street Racer also did 10p

Which is wild

I’ve done 7p in it and I love it but the 6 other people who were playing disagreed.

[viral pebble]

I thought Street Racer capped out at 8P?
https://segaretro.org/Street_Racer_(Saturn)

[obsidian herald]

Dang I could be wrong there

I don’t have two multi taps so haven’t been able to confirm

[viral pebble]

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/snes/588703-street-racer/boxes/72166
It says 8P on the back of the box too, but it's pretty crazy that you can do 8P split screen. I can't think of any other game that did that outside of Virtua Racing on the Nintendo Switch

[obsidian herald]

Yeah I would trust Shiro over whatever my bad memory thinks I read lol

And they say 8

[glossy steppe]

Does faceball's 16 player mode count? Though you needed 16 gameboys and copies of the game...

[trim nimbus]

And a special adapter. Was that ever released as open source?

Yep, for anyone wanting to play along at home https://github.com/Zarithya/GBLinkCableSplitter

[analog totem]

I was playing Batman Forever with a friend yesterday on the Saturn Dual Ram core and was getting badly corrupted/static-y audio later in the game starting on I think level 4 (party level with a crowd of people in the background). Was using CHD on an SSD, so I’ll have to test again using non-CHD and storing on SD

latest unstable

it corrected itself after going to the next level, though the music did drop out for a bit first (which could be normal?)

[visual grove]

I see so you trap them in this room for “the ritual”

[inner token]

A long time ago I messed with the multitaps. There was limitations #1046941029296779344 message

I added a usb multitap option which doesn't exist in the current core. also multitaps may not work with snac in the current core.(I don't have one to test)

[glossy steppe]

Hail Shigeru!

[rich violet]

Could it be made into a PR?

[winter phoenix]

That’s a Saturn-exclusive feature of the original game using the system’s internal clock.

It’s not something the Meduza Team patch added

[burnt matrix]

lol what a funny feature

[winter phoenix]

Yeah

[umbral bluff]

Hi does anyone know how to bypass the house of the dead memory check ? I've already used all the ram options in my mister but still it stucks in that screen any idea ?

[sharp forum]

Have you initialized the save ram in the Saturn BIOS screen?

[umbral bluff]

Thank you I formatted and that did the trick

[sharp forum]

awesome! yeah some games require it to be initialized and it doesn't come pre-formatted on the core

[umbral bluff]

Now I got a another question hehehe why won't shiboni legions work ? I know it was something related about the 2P controller but at least my game won't boot

idk why

[ripe valley]

Did you set the 2nd controller as OFF ?

That game only works with the first controller declared.

[umbral bluff]

Yes I did in fact I seems the last revision of the core has a bug in which even with P2 off it won't boot (did the test with an old core)

[sharp forum]

have you tried a different disc image? what format is the one you're using? .bin/.cue? .chd?

[ripe valley]

Ah, shoot, the last core version is borked with Shinobi on my side too.

I need to check with an older main MiSTer file.

Okay, it's one of the SMPC timings changes done on 2025-11-04 that regressed Shinobi on Saturn.

Good catch.

I opened a ticket to srg320.

[winter phoenix]

Any problems with In the Hunt?

[ripe valley]

No regression on that game from my test a moment ago.

[mortal mist]

https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Saturn_MiSTer/issues/484 I have no trouble getting to the menu. Game works fine

responds correctly to the start button

2p is off

Does the game not want to start at all?

[hard reef]

I’m able to get in game with this rev - this is the dualsdram build though.

[mortal mist]

Yeah i tested DS too

There is problem with single sdram

[ripe valley]

I wasn't dreaming, the game was working on my Dual RAM build the other day.

[wide glacier]

single ram woes 😔

[ripe valley]

Okay, thanks for the secondary test.

Updating the ticket right now.

[rich violet]

Seems really hard to satisfy the Saturn's timings on Single RAM 😬

[radiant karma]

Mmm, the dual ram version works as usual on shinobi legions (USA), but I have noticed I no longer need to disable the second player to play.

[wide glacier]

it's been that way for a while no?

[radiant karma]

I wonder if that is a fix on the core to accomodate for those game bug cases or just some unintended consequence.

[radiant karma]

No idea, I have always defaulted to 1 player only since there was mention on games needing the second controller disabled.

[burnt matrix]

You have to disable the second player to play. It’s a bug on original hardware too.

The pins has it listed along with Night Striker - #1046941029296779344 message

I think those are the only two games with that issue.

[radiant karma]

That's what I supossed, but currently you do not need to disable it. So there is a difference with original hardware.

[burnt matrix]

That’s funny lol

[celest lake]

SRG fixed a 20+ year old bug

30+?

probably 25+

[wide glacier]

the only games i know of that suffer this issue are shinobi, in the hunt and night striker. never encountered any others

[burnt matrix]

Ohhh in the Hunt

Ok, already listed

[wide glacier]

oh, duh lol. i was just recounting from memory, didn't know they were already in the pins

regardless, you're better off playing in the hunt on playstation 😉

[radiant karma]

Tested night striker s with player 2 enabled and works ok. Don't have in the hunt in my library though.

[burnt matrix]

No my bad, I appreciate it. I thought I didn’t have it listed when you mentioned it.

[wide glacier]

i guess srg either fixed the bug or it's a side affect of how something was programmed

[sturdy kernel]

In the hunt is problematic even on my real saturn, i don't remember exactly, but had some trouble with the controllers a long time ago

[winter phoenix]

Yeah, all these controller issues are bugs in the original games

[glossy steppe]

Isn't In The Hunt 2 player though?

[white tendon]

Latest Jokippo core available here : https://misterfpga.org/download/file.php?id=12518

[glossy steppe]

What core?

[wide glacier]

it is. i believe it can still be played by 2 players if the second controller is plugged in after the game boots

[glossy steppe]

And it funtioned like this on REAL hardware? How was that not caught in testing

[wide glacier]

it did. good question lol

[left hollow]

Because sega saturn

[glossy steppe]

Some bugs in games I have no idea how they shipped that way, reminds me of the insane "bug" in the DS version off Bubble Bobble. IIRC game is supposed to have 100 levels with a boss every 10 levels... they... forgot to program teh boss for level 30, resulting in an empty level that you can't beat XD

Carts had to be recalled XD

[wide glacier]

that's embarassing. surely it costs less to hire a few bug testers than to recall many thousands of cartridges

[burnt matrix]

He means this - https://github.com/Jokippo/MiSTer_PWM_Cores

[glossy steppe]

Oh

[muted cradle]

@latent wigeon why is that build not on https://github.com/Jokippo/MiSTer_PWM_Cores/tree/main/_ConsolePWM ?

[celest lake]

You know, I wonder if it’s worth including those in the alt-core database. @hallow fossil

[hallow fossil]

These seem to be for specific set ups, rather than useful to everyone. How many are there, and why can't what they do be incorporated in the mainline cores?

[mortal mist]

As far as I know, Sorgelig did not agree to this solution.

pwm is a solution for older io boards

[celest lake]

We could also ask @latent wigeon to add a repo and maybe theypsilon could add it to update_all (since they are along the same lines as the y/c or LLAPI cores)

[hallow fossil]

Yeah, might be best if there are a few of these and people use them for person making these to make a repo/DB and add an option to update all

[latent wigeon]

I uploaded the new build, I usually do this whenever I notice that tdelage has posted a new build on the mister forums.

and yeah, the repo could be added to update all

[thorn pagoda]

appreciate you continuing to maintain those ruleset, its basically a free upgrade for people on old IO boards

if it hadn't been invented like, right in the middle of 24bit ioboards coming out i expect it would of been merged long ago

[latent wigeon]

It is difficult to get good builds of the Saturn core with the PWM stuff added, so not adding it to every core does have some merit

[thorn pagoda]

yeah true

i wonder if you could ask to merge it but suppressed by an ifdef then we could get an automation to build it ?

[white tendon]

Those Jokippo releases (available for Saturn, PSX and N64 as well) are useful for everyone using a MiSTer on a CRT monitor through an AV/Board older than the current v9.2 which was released in march 2024. All the analog AV/Boards sold before that date were only handling 18 bits color depth video output rather than 24 bits which made the rendering of gradients on some of the titles (especially obvious in some FMV sequences) really rough and pixellated. So i would say that all in all it's useful to a good bunch of MiSTer users who bought their config before 2024 and haven't upgraded to an 9.2 AV board as well as all the owners of the QMTEch clones which are also all equiped with older 6.0 boards.

[white tendon]

Right the PWM stuff added to the code bring some changes in the resulting timings and if too much negative slack is present, some compiled cores won't even boot or boot with weird behaviour (i tried). Very tricky to get something fully accurate sometimes so i find it good that it's not applied systematically to all the cores 👍

[latent wigeon]

In my merge request I did add something like that but Sorg just wasn't interested. Back then I didn't know much about fpga stuff, so I had hoped Sorg would have some advice on how to implement something like this properly but he didn't respond further so I didn't want to press him. Also, I am still not sure why it makes the Saturn builds fail now, I tried some things but it didn't really make a difference. It seems to be fine for PSX and N64 though. Someone who studied for this stuff should probably have a look and make some changes.

[celest lake]

I think we just need to update to quartus 24. I think that is what tdelage is using, and they said it meets timing much easier there

[green swift]

What stops everyone from transitioning to 24?

[celest lake]

no free version

[small ore]

huh, weird. boots up free lite version of quartus 24

[warped saddle]

not all cores will just compile under a new version. it may take longer to build them too. basically the platform targeted a release and has seen no reason to do the work to transition

[elfin apex]

I haven't been in this long enough to have firsthand knowledge, but I seem to remember someone telling me that development effort for the actual synthesis/PnR is basically always focused on the latest generation of chips at any given time, so unless you need new HDL language features or a specific bug fix, it's rarely worth the effort/risk to upgrade.

[muted cradle]

Is sega Titan listed as a platform in the arcade organiser?

Either I am stupid or really tired

Didn't find it 🤷

[burnt matrix]

Sorta, it’s not within its own section, most of the games have MRAs made for it though

Like Virtua Fighter Kids is in there and runs on the Titan

[river river]

I think it's listed as ST-V in there somewhere maybe?

[burnt matrix]

Oh arcade organizer, my bad

[muted cradle]

Not among the Sega XXX crowd?

[glossy steppe]

Pretty sure that's not allowed on this server

[river river]

Either Sega ST-V or ST-V, my MiSTer is dead so I can't check currently

[muted cradle]

Will check tomorrow. Already too tired, I guess ..

[sudden tusk]

Checking these out RN!

[trim nimbus]

Last I checked I didn’t see them in the organizer.

[wet hull]

It should be available. I’m going to fix the automation in the repo and release it today

[burnt matrix]

Thanks dude. Your organizer is such a life saver for people.

[wet hull]

Thanks :). I've pushed update. It should be available now

[winter phoenix]

https://www.segasaturnshiro.com/2025/11/14/tests-continue-to-pay-dividends-for-saturn-mister-core-development/

[muted cradle]

@ripe valley is that list still being in use?

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/0/d/1BpCRjALSAAe4lQGfaJgoiDZu6aLFrVOLdSEJqN4EgIg/htmlview

[ripe valley]

Yes.

Just I don't have time to update it yet.

[muted cradle]

Np. Can you add the "Fast timing" information to the S-TV tab when updating it the next time?

If I remember right people agreed on 3 games. Decathlete, Radiant Silvergun und Soukygurentai?

Not sure though (that was the reason why I went back to check this list)

[burnt matrix]

Yeah ok. Die Hard Arcade isn’t good, bro

https://tenor.com/view/hold-laughter-zoom-in-try-not-to-laugh-smile-gif-17220516

[hearty carbon]

https://tenor.com/view/bart-say-the-line-gif-22118591

[pearl harbor]

It's great! ||Bro||

[hearty carbon]

I saw someone on Twitch saying that game didn't hold up and I just went to sleep because of it.

[pearl harbor]

Hearing that would make me...twitch.

[burnt matrix]

ITS AMAZING!!!!!!!!

https://tenor.com/view/kermit-gif-17172043193563962893

[winter phoenix]

You’d like it better if it had chibi characters, I know

[burnt matrix]

I would’ve honestly been so mad lol. Like we get this badass beatem up based on Die Hard and they turn it into a baby demolition derby.

[winter phoenix]

I want homebrew like that now

[pearl harbor]

Die Hard Fat Baby Edition

[next bronze]

I like the sequel too, though they went even crazier with it. Actually, that's part of why I like it.

[jagged spire]

Die Hard Arcade Kids

[ripe valley]

Partial revert of the SMPC code only for Single RAM systems.

The version with a single RAM since version 2025-11-04 doesn't allow you to play Shinobi-X/Legions anymore.
This regression really seems due to a change in the timings of the INTBACK command on the SMPC.
The Dual RAM version does not appear to be affected.

If I revert back the state of the timings for the INTBACK command, the game works once again.
The drawback : if you want to play Die Hard TRILOGY, you need to declare two controllers otherwise you will have a black screen instead of the FOX logo.

I have to leave for 10 days starting in the next few hours without access to my Discord, and srg320 seems very busy at the moment.
Not knowing when he will be available for fixing this regression more properly, I'm proposing this "workaround" version as a temporary measure until the situation with the SMPC code stabilizes once again.

[celest lake]

Thanks as always duder.

Also, do you know what he is busy with.... 👀 ?

[ripe valley]

Absolutely not.

[celest lake]

[ripe valley]

And even if I had a glimpse of knowledge, absolutely not too. 😉

[celest lake]

[glossy steppe]

Cyborgs, it's cyborgs

[ripe valley]

Always.

[white tendon]

Jokippo PWM core for single RAM has been updated accordingly : https://misterfpga.org/download/file.php?id=12532

[ivory veldt]

My autosave backup ram is greyed out on the OSD and my core isn't saving any of my games. When I check system memory it shows 0 blocks but games say the system memory is full which I have tried resetting. I have checked and am on the most recent core. Can't figure out why I can't save

[tawny forge]

Is there an updated list of games that run crappy with fast timings off in single ram?

[radiant karma]

Not a list, but if memory serves, I can name doa, fighting vipers, last bronx, radiant silvergun.

[floral saddle]

I found decathlete, nights, daytona cce benefit from fast timings too, I accidentally downladed a single ram build a couple of months ago and thought my MiSTer was busted!

[burnt matrix]

Those are new, I wonder if anyone has done comparisons to original hardware to verify first.

[hearty marten]

We need a YouTuber for this

[floral saddle]

decathlete and nights having additional slowdown with single has been mentioned a few times before. they are all clearly struggling at various points compared to running them on dual, so it's not like you even need to compare against hardware.

[burnt matrix]

Yeah true but it’s always good to do a gut check, maybe dual ram is faster when it shouldn’t be, etc.

Well I think so anyways, maybe it’s really obvious so what do I know

[floral saddle]

I honestly don't see how given dual can fulfil consistent work ram timings and free up the ddr3 for the other processes to have less chance of being bottlenecked. I just don't see how single could possibly give more accurate results in any situation tbh.

[tawny forge]

Agree with @burnt matrix here. We need some double check against real hardware and a list of games that are borked on single ram

[muted cradle]

Soukygurentai on ST-V was mentioned, wasn't it?

[wide glacier]

there's a lot of games that run slower than intended on single ram, it's absolutely not just the 3D fighters. radiant silvergun, nights and steam heart's for example, all lag in places that they do not on a real saturn

[floral saddle]

Here's another that needs fast timings, pretty sure there are a few other closed issues on github like this too. https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Saturn_MiSTer/issues/445

And another one... https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Saturn_MiSTer/issues/281

[jagged spire]

Would be cool to see a YouTube video on exactly how much they lag vs real hardware/dual ram

Unfortunately I don't have decent video capturing equipment to test myself

[glossy steppe]

Same, I think I have a Dazzle somewhere, good luck fidning it

And a stand alone capture device that ONLY captures component

[left hollow]

I have a dazzle I inherited from my grandpa and I tried using it last week and couldn't get it working on windows 10, pulled out a windows xp machine and got it working there just to find out it only does 30 fps lol

[glossy steppe]

"inherited from my grandpa" Well, I feel old. I remember magazine ads for that thing

[tawny forge]

So if so many games are broken on single sdram, doesn’t make sense to just drop support for single ram setups? 🫣

[floral saddle]

Slower than real hardware doesn't mean they are broken and you have a speed hack to help mitigate that and the majority of other issues. Dropping support for single ram setups makes no sense at all.

[glossy steppe]

Considering that like 99% of mister setups are single-ram? no

[tawny forge]

But I thought the MiSTer was all about accuracy. Having speed hacks and games not running like they are supposed to run doesn’t make MiSTer any better than RetroArch.

[safe trail]

whether it's all about accuracy depends on the author.

[small ore]

Single ram cores are also a goal

[floral saddle]

5th gen consoles have hit the limits of the DE-10. Having PS1, N64 and Saturn as compatible and accurate as they are on this hardware is remarkable and beyond what most would have thought possible some years ago. There are still inherent advantages to using an FPGA even if the accuracy of a core is not what it could be given better hardware, which in time will come.

[tawny forge]

For now, I think I will have some fun with my Raspberry Pi then!

[burnt matrix]

This is the best and most accurate Saturn emulator out there. SRG320 is a boss!