Sega Saturn

[winter phoenix]

HesRightYouKnow.jpg

[random shard]

The 3 "impossible" cores

[glossy steppe]

Now we are in Beyond The Impossible™

[midnight laurel]

we're going vegan?

[glossy steppe]

https://tenor.com/view/world-vegetarian-day-vegetarian-day-the-simpsons-level5vegan-gif-9854846

[wise brook]

https://tenor.com/view/star-wars-yoda-no-there-is-another-gif-13219422633830481682

even the GBA was considered this years back

[random shard]

Interesting, I got the mister in dec 2019 and lurked the forums in 2018,and don't remember that. It must have been right before Peip showed up with his core out of the ether

[burnt matrix]

Everyone says something is impossible until a capable programmer steps up.

[hearty marten]

It’s impossible for a capable programmer to step up

[high bramble]

Gotem!

[ancient surge]

Okay but where is the PS5 core then?

[wide glacier]

there'd be no games to play on it

[sharp forum]

Not true!! You could play PS4 games on it!

Two cores in one

[burnt matrix]

Honestly, the first couple of years owning a PS5 and XSX, the only saving grace for me was that they were better at running games than the previous generations.

Absolute shit launches lol

[strong osprey]

switch 2 in the very least has 2 whole new games

[wise brook]

Kart World is the best 3 star game

-# looses a star for lack of true battle mode and another for the wasted potential of the free-roam single player mode

[sharp forum]

Dankey Kang was great at least

[wise brook]

true

it finally delivered on the promise of video game physics that disappeared mid gen7

being able to rip a level to its bare skeleton is so awesome

[hearty marten]

They’re better now?

My PS5 is my favourite PS4

[green swift]

Honest question, becasue I'm out of the loop with modern consoles: Is there even a point to owning a PS5 or XSX other than for improving performance of the previous genereations games? Seems like they don't really have exclusives and the most desirable games are on PC outside of like that Astro game.

[wide glacier]

most of my friends who own a PS5 just use it as a "PS4 pro pro"

the PS5 has been on the market for 5 years and there's barely over a dozen exclusives for the thing. it's kind of embarassing

if you don't care about the performance boost for PS4 games, or the PS5 exclusives, i see no reason to own the console

[wise brook]

god damn i wish there was a psp core

[celest lake]

But why? Lumines remastered is on everything.

[wise brook]

PSP & DS have a lot of Saturn Vibes about them

[wide glacier]

i love the DS library but i'm not really a fan of playing them on the original hardware. software emulation via melonDS is great, but an fpga core would be superb

[hearty marten]

I’d argue no. I mean, I don’t have a PC, so current gen games are a reason for me rather than exclusives per se (although I have all 3 consoles)… but there really aren’t a huge number of current gen games worth buying

But maybe I’m underestimating the number, or modern games don’t appeal, or I dunno

The rate of releases is really gonna have to increase for me to consider a PS6 at this stage

[wide glacier]

my dream is for sony and microsoft to stop making consoles and for the next console war to be nintendo vs valve 😉

[hearty marten]

I’d rather not get into PC gaming at this stage

I don’t have the huge steam library of humble bundle games, so the steam-based stuff has no appeal from that perspective

But I do have hundreds of PS4/5 games 😅

(Only 100-200 actually)

[green swift]

Yeah I agree. People seem to want backward compatibility and PC has that in spades. I feel like Sony could have a massive win with PS6 if they implemenet BC from PS1 forward. Kids seem to be into retro so why try to punish emulator authors. Work with them. Sell some hardware and open up your online store for old games.

[hearty marten]

Give me that and a disc drive and I’d be happy

[green swift]

Same. I feel like it would be akin to when many families bought PS2s in order to have a DVD player and, well, look at that I can get some games too!

I would buy a PS6 for the BC and, well, since I have it maybe look at some PS5 and PS6 games too.

Anyway, sorry, off topic. 🙂

[sharp forum]

Sony likes to pretend that nothing before their currently sold consoles exist

[hearty marten]

They’ll sell you PSNow, or whatever it’s called

You can stream PS3 games 🤢

[sharp forum]

i refuse to believe anyone has ever actually used that feature

[hearty marten]

I tried the trial to play Killzone. It was… bad

The latency was unbearable

[high bramble]

The PS5 is worth it for Astro Bot alone. 😉

[wide glacier]

the ps5 finally gets a good game
it's mario

[high bramble]

IMO, the DualSense is what really sets the PS4 and PS5 apart, not the base hardware.

[high bramble]

I believe that people have used it... but I refuse to believe that anyone actually enjoyed it.

[jolly reef]

Is it still a controversial opinion to say that Astro Bot is better than Mario Odyssey? I love Odyssey but Astro Bot goes hard.

[high bramble]

In addition to being a superior game, it has the added bonus of excellently applied haptic feedback from a superior controller.

[cobalt rune]

Even now, this is in my opinion the worst generation of console gaming. Obviously there are some solid games and all that, but overall ... Extremely underwhelming

[hearty marten]

The own goal was supporting PS4 as cross-gen for most of the generation (even still?)

I guess the plus side of that is that hopefully more games are 60fps on PS5?

But it feels like PS4 support has held back a lot of games, or at least made it feel like less of a jump forward

[glossy steppe]

SOME PS4 games on it.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1zra3UDxpg
This game is one of many NOT on Sony's officially incompatible on the PS5 list by the way, Sony apparnetly considers this fine....

[hearty carbon]

https://tenor.com/view/where-the-hell-am-i-where-am-i-lost-in-a-field-confused-gif-11092516

https://tenor.com/view/not-today-satan-nope-stay-away-preacher-pastor-gif-14450356

[celest lake]

does anyone have a link to the saturn 240p test suite? danthrax's is dead

[glossy steppe]

There is one here but I am not sure if it's outdated

https://segaxtreme.net/threads/sega-saturn-29th-anniversary-game-competition.25411/page-2

[celest lake]

Yeah, that one is outdated

[glossy steppe]

I think thats the one I have, not aware of any other versions that were publically relessed, sorry 🙁

[hallow fossil]

This is the most recent pin in the 240p Discord, but if you are going to be digging into anything may be worth jumping into the Discord and asking if there is a newer version

[celest lake]

That’s the one. .3 is the latest beta ❤️

[winter phoenix]

Hitomi posted 0.3 beta 8 in the SegaXtreme Discord last month

Here it is:

[split heart]

do the SNAC adapters support the 3D Analog Controller

[frail heath]

They do

I have both a standalone SNAC adapter and SNAX64 hdmi dongle and both work with the 3D controller

[sharp forum]

in addition to that, SNAC is the only way to actually use analog triggers with the core. the driver for usb/bt controllers doesn't support analog triggers at the moment

[vernal sun]

This is just the state of modern computing. Most people on PC are on old 4 core CPUs and around 1060’s at best. So modern games tend to have that as a bottom threshold. Hell, up until just a couple of months ago the Switch was a least common denominator. If you have to make a game work on Switch why wouldn’t you also have a PS4 version? I don’t blame Sony at all. I’d put more of the blame on greedy PC component manufacturers and Nintendo for having such an anemic console for so long.

God bless Nintendo for keeping sub-480p alive till the mid 2020’s

[celest lake]

VGE’s mom also has a bottom threshold

[safe trail]

a bottom threshold, huh ?

[leaden dagger]

This is why Valve is inventing the Gabecube actually. There are so many people on these dogshit setups they wanted to make a clear upgrade for them with no effort

[vernal sun]

Allegedly.

[vernal sun]

Aye, I think it’s more basic than even that. Just want to have an agnostic OS that people can use to play games wherever they want. Eventually everything will be a Gabecube. They are actually doing what Microsoft says they are doing. Add in the fact that their VR headset runs on arm how long before we have Steam on our cellphones, tablets, etc? SteamOS for cellphones, ha

[leaden dagger]

I mean they had been trying the latter for a bit now because steam was running on chrome books for a period

[vernal sun]

Realllllly, didn’t know that. That’s cool. I just like how much it’s driving gaming support on Linux. Sucks for Microsoft but it’s a huge win for everyone else. I play most of my games not through Steam but still reap the benefits

Makes me wish I could trade my 3080 for a 9070 or 9070xt. Driver support with Nvidia on Linux is not the best

[left hollow]

I'm curious how well the gabecube is gonna sell, the price is either gonna make or break it. From the sounds of it, its not going to be priced the way people think it's going to be

[subtle tusk]

I've seen a lot of speculation about the price and if it ends up more than a PS5 Pro it's dead in the water.

[obsidian herald]

I’m in the minority I guess because I was so glad that the Switch got a nice long support window. I don’t need 4k ray traced graphics and haven’t really found that the modern era of video games had really wowed me. I understand there are experiences that wouldn’t exist on previous gen consoles, but I’m willing to “miss out”’in order for games to be more affordable and accessible. I’ve built gaming PCs all my life and am switching to Linux / Steam Boxes and just staying relatively low spec for the foreseeable future and staying away to non-Nintendo modern consoles. My Xbox Series X collect dust.

[left hollow]

I want a new gpu but I don't the new melty cable they come with lol. I've been fine with a 2060 super for five years at this point.

[hearty marten]

It seems fast timings is no longer sufficient to get fast bronx running at full speed on a single ram setup 🙁

VF2 seems fine though

Fighters megamix also slow

[hearty marten]

Fighting vipers too

DOA also slow. VF1, remix and kids seem fine but hard to tell

(Just in case anyone is interested)

But this is all latest stable, so maybe a bit out of date now

[wide glacier]

this just means we need a model 2 core 😉

[hearty marten]

Would be cool to know how they are on dual RAM. I might upgrade

[radiant karma]

Fast timings was never enough to get those games running at full speed. It was better than with the setting off, but never as good as dual sdram.

[winter phoenix]

The annual SegaXtreme Saturn homebrew competition is morphing into a showcase — but there will still be prizes, plus a 'zine! Here's what Emerald Nova has planned this year:

https://www.segasaturnshiro.com/2025/11/25/announcing-the-segaxtreme-sega-saturn-31st-anniversary-homebrew-showcase/

[burnt matrix]

Thanks for the heads up. Goddamn people are awesome. I love everything about this.

[winter phoenix]

Yeah I’m glad the Saturn community has this. It’s super cool

[visual grove]

Robby wants to show up and tell them all to beef it up

[burnt matrix]

I will show up to encourage them to mod Sonic Jam and use its 3D engine to build more Sonic stages.

[visual grove]

That’s just a long way to say beef it up

[wide glacier]

this is why i love you

[glossy steppe]

No, we should use the alpha engine from Sonic XTreme to make a Mario game!

[deft verge]

i never had a saturn but stuff like this always make me smile.

stuff like the cacowards for doom, the sega fangame events or be it gamejams for consoles.
old IP/consoles getting new love is always something heart warming to me

[trim nimbus]

Someone tell pandemonium to stop reviewing new Saturn games; he still has a massive backlog of old ones 😆

[celest lake]

Left field question: did we ever determine what caused crashing with DOA on dual ram systems? I know it was the 32mb chip

[mortal mist]

for me PSU

The new sdrams have a higher tolerance

[serene epoch]

The Dual RAM core wouldn’t start on mine the other day. Turned out my USB-C charger’s voltage wasn’t high enough.

[glossy steppe]

Voltage or amps? Taki recommends a 5 volt one, not one that can offer more than 5 volts, but I had brown-outs when trying to use a MT-32Pi with such AC adapters

Regardless of how much amps they output

[serene epoch]

It was voltage. 4.88V at 1.45A wasn’t enough. Replacement charger was 5.2V, same amps.

(that’s not the charger’s rating, i had a meter hooked up)

That’s within USB spec, but my Mister no likey

[hexed mountain]

Quick question regarding the ST-V core, is there any way to define buttons for the core itself instead of mra by mra?
I have a 8bitdo wired M30 that works perfectly with Saturn games, but I'd like to avoid having to define buttons for each and every ST-V game.
Or am I doing something wrong?

[hexed mountain]

Answering to myself, seems like the way it is as not all games have the same buttons number for example.
Oh well.

[celest lake]

yeah, I think that was the problem, unfortunately

The other answer (and I mean this in a matter-of-fact way, not a "how could you be so foolish" yway) is that all of those games are also just on the saturn.

However, I imagine there are differences that tickle some people's brain worms in a way that they don't tickle mine

[hexed mountain]

Fair enough ! And not sure about the differences, it's just that for most systems I do a selection of games, like what's considered in the top 10, plus games I knew from then.
Except for arcade games, where I leave update_all do it's stuff.

So basically I have more ST-V games than Saturn ones. 😄

[celest lake]

lol, that's fair

[hexed mountain]

Regarding update_all, seems it's skipping download of some files, BTW.
Like magzun.zip.
Not that I really miss it, but...

I'll have to look against what I need to fill in a report...

[celest lake]

what game is that? trying to find it

OH

that may be one of the weird ones that needs bespoke hardware to work

[hexed mountain]

Oh that would make sense.

games/mame/magzun.zip

[celest lake]

I wonder if that was one of the ones that was added early but then it was determined it needed extra hardware

I will have to look if it's included in the repo now

(after this meeting)

[hexed mountain]

That would be more a case of removing the mra than adding the rom then I guess?

I tried to add it but it failed to launch, so it's totally possible.

And well, no rush, I don't even know what this game is. 🙃

[glossy steppe]

Funny. I wish there was a way to do the opposite, to define a custom control setup per game on the Saturn core XD

[celest lake]

there is - MGL files 🙂

[small ore]

MGL files using the <setname> tag specifically https://mister-devel.github.io/MkDocs_MiSTer/advanced/mgl/#mgl-format which must be a unique name per controller setup. Games that would share a single controller setup can reuse the same setname.

[celest lake]

Ok, 11 hours later, I have your answer. It's unsupported. All of the ones in this folder are unsupported https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Saturn_MiSTer/tree/main/mra_unsupported

[robust agate]

hmmm, so i have the bios setup for the core .... catridge is on "none" should this be changhed?

i start to get a game loading and then it ends up going back to main menu

[wide glacier]

make sure you're using the most recent unstable build of the saturn core. yours is a few versions behind

[robust agate]

oh i see

sorry how do i this easily?

i see people can set updates to unstable nightlies?

[wide glacier]

best to install them manually from the #unstable-nightlies channel

can just drag and drop the unstable .rbf file into your console cores folder

[robust agate]

thanks ... what about the bios file?

[wide glacier]

which BIOS are you using? most people use the hi-saturn one since it's region-free

[robust agate]

yes, same i believe

[wide glacier]

that should be fine then

[robust agate]

and then plop sd card into mister and run saturn core?

[celest lake]

yeah,

what game is that?

[robust agate]

i tried multiple games

[wide glacier]

yes, not sure if it's recommended delete the old core first, but i would just to avoid confusion

[wide glacier]

the one he loaded in the video was super puzzle fighter II X

[celest lake]

it popped back to the menu for me too, but it loaded after I hit reset

[robust agate]

i cant read japanese but seems to be some ram issue? Im having same issue

hmmm

let me try

[celest lake]

I have cartridge set to none

[robust agate]

Tried with cartridge none or default dram 4m

I translated it using ChatGPT.

**“The system RAM backup is not yet prepared.
On the Sega Saturn’s save data management screen, please delete all records in the system RAM (initialize it).

Press any button to proceed to the multiplayer screen.”**

[wide glacier]

it's asking you to format the backup RAM

[robust agate]

is their a guide lol, i didnt know i had to do this

[wide glacier]

dunno why it's asking you to do that honestly. maybe try setting the cart type to backup

if that doesn't work then i've no idea

[robust agate]

hmmm, same error ... could it be from a bad bios? ... i remember update all wasnt retrieving the saturn bios for some reason so i had an old mister setup that i took it from

[wide glacier]

worth reacquiring a known-good BIOS dump i suppose

could try going to the memory management screen and formatting the saturn's internal memory like it's asking

[robust agate]

ok working now, trying some games ... i think there is only 1 im having issues with

[robust agate]

i think it may be the roms i have now ... some games are working while others are not ... game not recognized

i believe i got them from the same source

[robust agate]

i think i had some wrong roms in the saturn file .. should be working now

thanks

[robust agate]

verything working now, thanks

[wide glacier]

nice, glad you got it working! enjoy the saturn core

[burnt matrix]

Make sure to play the best Saturn game, Bug!

[hexed mountain]

Strange that it's downloading them anyway but that the filter is on rom download only, no?
I mean It would be the opposite I wouldn't even have noticed, but with this behavior the games appear in the list but can't be launched...

[celest lake]

It shouldn’t be downloading them anymore. When stv was first available, it grabbed all the mras, but that collection was trimmed over time, as we figured out which ones would be supported

[burnt matrix]

What’s your downloader.ini file have

[hexed mountain]

Indeed. Deleted the whole arcade folder, changed file_checking to exhaustive and launched download_all again, and it didn't redownload those mras.
Thanks!

[hexed mountain]

A huge ! list under mister without any "positive" tag so I don't miss out if something new is released, basically.
But yes, found the issue, it's just that I had those MRAs lying around that I don't remember how I installed, and update_all didn't delete them.
Everything's fine now, nice and clean. 😉

[burnt matrix]

Ok great!

[pearl harbor]

The Virtual Hydlide fanbase in shambles.

[burnt matrix]

That’s number two behind Bug!

[pearl harbor]

Better than Bug Too!? We back baby!

[ashen lion]

152 / 5,000
Hi, where can I find the latest compiled version of the Dual RAM Core for Saturn? (I understand it's available here, but I don't know where.)

Thanks

[mortal mist]

#unstable-nightlies message

[ashen lion]

Thanks, but it says I don't have access

[mortal mist]

ok change your role

mark Freeds and test builds

[ashen lion]

Thank you very much, dear.

[mortal mist]

no prob!

[wheat mason]

I'm maybe missing something but some games like Fighters Megamix play with some slowdown. Is that because of the core? or are there a combination of settings to get it to play like native?

I have a Mister Pi, if it helps

[sudden pumice]

You might try enabling “fast timing” if you are on a single ram setup. Most games are fullspeed on dual ram

[wheat mason]

I actually don't know if the Mister Pi is dual RAM. Starting to suspect it isn't tho

[sharp forum]

you would know if it is

[wide glacier]

i think if you bought any of the pre-configured packs, it'll be single RAM

some saturn games don't run at full speed on single RAM configurations. memory on the saturn core has already been optimized as much as possible to fit on the cyclone V, so it's either upgrade to dual RAM or wait for more powerful hardware

you can mitigate/eliminate it in many games by enabling the fast timings option in the core though

[lofty spire]

i mean the listings of mister pi i've seen say it's 128mb and if it was dual ram it'd be 256 right?

[wheat mason]

how would I know, for example?

[sharp forum]

it would have two sets of SDRAM connected to the board

they're sizable sticks

[wide glacier]

analog output wouldn't work either if you had dual RAM installed

[wheat mason]

I got the preassembled case. If 128mb is indeed single ram I think that's what I have

[pallid pier]

you need a video DAC for analog video with dual ram

[wide glacier]

definitely single RAM

[pallid pier]

tired of the "can't use analog video with dual ram" saying

you can

[wheat mason]

I see they sell a separate ram module. That wouldn't fit in the case by itself, right?

[wide glacier]

that's true, but you can't get analog video over the VGA output on a typical I/O board, only via the HDMI port with an external DAC

[pallid pier]

you can't have dual video output with dual ram is more approriate

[pallid pier]

some I/O boards don't have VGA, but other ports (retrocaste and misteraddons use saturn din)

[wide glacier]

yes, those are nice and a great way to have dual RAM whilst retaining analog video output. taki's mister pi uses the reference 9.2 I/O design though if i recall correctly, which uses a DB15 connector for analog video output

[vocal oar]

being someone who requires VGA and primarily plays Saturn, it's a tough spot 😄

[wide glacier]

it can indeed be a hassle

[burnt matrix]

I also keep the latest cores pinned - #1046941029296779344 message

[glossy steppe]

I think the current MiSTerPi and QMtech boards have soldered in RAM now?

[celest lake]

correct

[sharp forum]

TIL

[vocal oar]

Do you guys know why if I have scandoubler set to true in the Mister config, why the doubler would get turned off when launching the Saturn core?

[warped saddle]

saturn doesn't support scandoubler

[wide glacier]

PS1, saturn and N64 don't support the scandoubler. for those, you'll have to use the scaler and set up some custom modelines

[vocal oar]

Ahh ok thank you

[tribal needle]

It will. You'll just need to do some disassembling and reassembling to add another module.

[warped cliff]

I'm amazed by all the features on the saturn CD player

[serene epoch]

It even has a freakin rocket ship

[burnt matrix]

Yeah so what's the visual motif? I'm piloting some sort of space ship through the galaxy while I'm playing audio CDs?

[glossy steppe]

Later models of the psx had a rather intricate cd player, but it didn't have a cool spaceship motif

It was heavily customizable though, to the point where you could save the customizations to a memory card

[hearty carbon]

I love the little space ship but the visualizer in the PSX was very cool

Fun to get high and watch go.

[sudden tusk]

I predict a fresh build is dropping today !

[sudden pumice]

Gotta love playing Sega Saturn SOTN with a Playstation controller…. Makes it so much more enjoyable to me

Also Playstation with an SNES controller….

Love that MiSTer is so flexible

[wide glacier]

SNES controller works surprisingly well with many PS1 games

[lofty spire]

it's just like how you imagined it as a child

[wide glacier]

i can't give you the PS1 controller on saturn though. that's a crime

[lofty spire]

play N64 controller with all consoles as god intended

[wide glacier]

i'd rather play with that than a dualshock

[burnt matrix]

I use my N64 controller on Saturn

[wide glacier]

based

[left hollow]

What's wrong with the dualshock?

Analog sticks in the way?

[wide glacier]

i always saw the dualshock as a jack of all trades, master of none

-directional buttons are worse than the saturn's d-pad
-analog sticks are good but not as good as the gamecube's
-face buttons in a diamond configuration, but not as comfy as the SNES pad
-L and R triggers that aren't as satisfying as the dreamcast's

[sudden pumice]

Sony knew this…. Shoulda been the Nintendo Playstation

[sudden pumice]

Just for SOTN. The PS1 was the only place I ever played it so it just feels right to me

[burnt matrix]

Yeah bro, play however you want to play. Get wild n crazy with it.

[cobalt rune]

Come on Robby, you're better than that. BE A REAL MAN and use a CD-i controller for your Saturn needs! 🤡

[burnt matrix]

That’s a good idea lol

[sudden pumice]

speaking of which, limited run games had cdi controllers for sale today

in case anyone was looking for one

[glossy steppe]

The real ones play Gamecube with a Jaguar controller

https://tenor.com/view/king-of-the-hill-hank-evil-laugh-laugh-laughing-gif-5293488

[wide glacier]

i'd rather play jaguar with a gamecube controller

actually, i'd rather not play jaguar at all

[celest lake]

Your moment of zen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1J9ffRgADRU

[pearl harbor]

https://tenor.com/view/gato-moviendo-la-cabeza-gif-21584082

[cunning citrus]

He also sings the Japanese Burning Rangers intro song (Burning Hearts). So cool!

[glossy steppe]

Wings we have of shining white

[thin quest]

Japan doesn't realize it but this man is a national treasure

[ripe valley]

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

The unstable version for single RAM systems (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.

2025-12-05 : Added the recent sys module changes from Taki.

[winter phoenix]

Willy Wombat, the Japan-exclusive Saturn 3D platformer from Hudson and Westone, already had English voices ... but now, thanks to Exxistence's new patch, the menus and on-screen choices are translated, too! Get the details here:

https://www.segasaturnshiro.com/2025/12/05/english-improvement-patch-makes-willy-wombat-more-accessible-than-ever/

[cobalt rune]

The fan community does it again

The fan communities across all these old platforms have me more excited for consoles of the past than anything going on in gaming today

[winter phoenix]

yep, the community is awesome!

[small ore]

oh my god I had no idea someone was working on Cyber Doll. That's awesome!

[burnt matrix]

lol, I wonder what the Sega community will do once they finished translating every game for the Mega Drive and Saturn.

[burnt matrix]

[small ore]

Why're you side-eying me

[burnt matrix]

The name is suspect and I ain’t looking it up!

[small ore]

It's a real game I swear!

[burnt matrix]

OU SHIT it’s the game with the hilarious English intro!

My friend owns it and he put it on one day when we were playing Saturn lmao

[glossy steppe]

Could be worse, there is a game called N.U.D.E. on the original Xbox... only released in Japan. No it's not an adult game

And then on the NES...

[next bronze]

I like the names "Action in New York" and "Final Mission" better

[burnt matrix]

SCAT would’ve passed me by as a kid lol

[hearty carbon]

or through you, because you were pooping your diapers, amirite? #1327740812951289990

[idle vortex]

https://tenor.com/view/sad-funny-chuckle-laugh-tears-gif-16844823

[glossy steppe]

I definitely had no idea until years later, I remember trading it for my copy of Skate or Die. I liked the game but never got far, it was pretty hard. No continues IIRC.

Even had a very small amount of voice acting

[subtle tusk]

Ive been hoping for an english patch for Cyber Doll since I saw it in Majuular's Saturn RPG video. It has a unique futuristic cyberpunk take on RPG battles. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_900EwYcZ5s&t=1766s

[ancient surge]

The Cyber Doll intro is so unintentionally hilarious.

[glossy steppe]

You should see the intros for Funky Fantasy (IIRC it had two that play if you wait at the title screen). They were the weirdest, most confusing, most WTF intros I had seen in a game in years.

[winter phoenix]

Steam-Heart's, a shooter well known for its lewd scenes between stages, hides quite a few cheat codes that no one knew about until now! See what Bo Bayles uncovered in his latest Under the Microscope:

https://www.segasaturnshiro.com/2025/12/09/under-the-microscope-steam-hearts/

[sharp forum]

Move aside Sexy Parodius, an even sexier shmup has arrived

[glossy steppe]

Oh hey, I remember that one. Err, umm, I mean, I remember hearing about that one.

[winter phoenix]

Now you can just jump straight to the problematic parts with the visual test 😆

[glossy steppe]

There are none in the saturn version anyway, IIRC it came out just around the time SEGA banned pornographic games on the Saturn, I think there were a few that came out before

But the game just cuts to a black screen during those scenes

Though the audio is still there, but I have no idea what they're saying. Shame it's marred by being an adult game because it is a fun shmup

[winter phoenix]

The still images before the black screens are still kinda lewd. And the audio throughout is quite lewd...

[safe trail]

Interesting. This game was also out on PC Engine

[glossy steppe]

Yeah, the PC Engine IIRC is the original and uncencored... or was it something else like PC(Bunch of numbers here)?

Anyway, Saturn version is a cencored port

[winter phoenix]

maybe the PC-98 version was the uncensored one

Steam-Heart's hit the Saturn a full two years after Sega banned red-label games so it wasn't even close to when it could have been uncensored

[glossy steppe]

Yup

[safe trail]

PC-98 in 1994. PC Engine in 1996. Saturn in 1998

[ancient surge]

The Variable Geo games went through the same thing. Yeah there is still some softcore elements, but it's a far cry from the "loser gets raped" premise of the PC-98 version.

Even the OVA based on the first game didn't go that far.

[winter phoenix]

Fun fact, Sega's cutoff for red-label 18+ games was Oct. 1, 1996. Two games got in just under the wire on Sept. 27: Haunted Casino and Mahjong Yon-Shimai: Wakakusa Monogatari

[glossy steppe]

Of course it was a Mahjong game

[winter phoenix]

ofc, ofc

[pearl harbor]

PC-98 version = fully uncensored
PC Engine = partially censored
Saturn = most censored

Ahem! Or so I've heard! 👀

As a shmup though, Saturn = best version by far.

[left chasm]

An article on Grandia on Saturn got to the front page of hacker news today. Of all titles, had to be one that MiSTer struggles with 😅 (single ram)

[thorn pagoda]

that has to be one of the longest outstanding, weirdest bugs we've seen on the platform at this point

even that bug where like 4 people globally couldn't play the ff6 intro on snes got fixed eventually

[celest lake]

We know what the problem is iirc. If SRG clocks his ram way down, it would happen to him

[warped saddle]

it's hacker news, tell them to overclock the ddr3

[thorn pagoda]

yeah but why does it happen to some people at like, full ram speed, and not others

didn't one person have it on one sdcard but not another?

[warped saddle]

ram is shared, and variability in ram performance + variability in whatever linux is doing + the scaler is doing equals 'if you're on the edge already changing any part of the system changes the outcome'

[thorn pagoda]

also i think even for people where its not obviously glitchy the floor is desynced from the world in a way that doesnt happen on real hardware

[glossy steppe]

I recall someone saying that the DE-25 has 1GB of RAM that is dedicated to the FPGA and not shared with the CPU? Would that fix the issue?

[thorn pagoda]

like they dont update on the same frame as they should

[warped saddle]

yes the de25 does. I don't think anyone here can answer if it will fix the issue or not. it's also not the same type of ram

[glossy steppe]

Was the N64 the system with the fastest ram out of all the cores the Mister supports? If its at least faster than the N64's RAM should that be enough?

[warped saddle]

ram use/access patterns are too complex to just assign a 'it's faster than X' and say it is enough

[glossy steppe]

I see

Though sounds like a lot of mister's issues with cores that can't hit 100% are either FPGA speeds, LE capacity, or RAM access with the CPU also accessing the same RAM

The DE-25 sounds like it would alleviate at least the last two (Not sure if it's fpga is any faster)

[open swan]

there can be one of two ways to consider RAM faster. Is it faster to respond (latency) or is it faster at transmitting a certain amount of data (bandwidth). Usually if it's faster at the latter, it's slower at the former and vice versa.

So saying it's faster or not kinda depends on what you mean 😛

[glossy steppe]

Not sure about saturn, but from my understanding in the case of the N64 it's because it's basically competing with the CPU accessing it at the same time. I assumed it was the same with saturn

[open swan]

Yeah in that case that's like the same data lines being hammered by multiple things wanting to request from it too quickly.

That can be both a latency thing and an architecture thing. It's sometimes fixable by adding a FIFO but in a core pushing the limits it can be hard to stretch it out more with a FIFO and then that can have cascading effects on meeting timing closure too by adding a critical fifo in there

[proven mural]

Hey folks, is this game “Ninja JajamaruKun Onigiri Ninpouchou Gold” working for anyone?

It’s the only Saturn game where it doesn’t load past the menu screen

Not sure if I have a bad rip or

[ripe valley]

It worked on previous versions, but I haven't tested it again for at least a year.

[rotund steeple]

Works fine for me on the core from 06.11.2025. Just the normal redump version.

[proven mural]

Yeah it doesn’t work for me and it’s oddly the only Saturn game that doesn’t work

[rotund steeple]

Tried to copy a fresh downloaded redump image on your SD card? It actually needs no special settings to work.

[proven mural]

I’ve done that, still having the same issue, all the other games work

I tried the Ninja game in .chd and .bin/.cue format, and I’ve having the same bug where past the title screen, nothing loads

Oh well, I have an actual Saturn that’s been modded with an ODE, I’ll just play it on that if I really wanna play that, or play the PS1 port instead

[rotund steeple]

Last thing would be to delete the cfg files for Saturn on your SD card. And maybe redownload the latest test core from 06.11.

[proven mural]

I could do that!

[rotund steeple]

I use a standard Mister with Intel DE10 nano, no Mister PI. Single SD Ram.

[ripe valley]

I left a message on the issue log for Shinobi-X/Legions, with a compiled core version for the single RAM users (with a partial roll-back of the SMPC code just before 2025-11-04).
It contains the last sys module update too.

Same one as I posted here on 2025-12-05, so we could more easily access it if necessary.

[proven mural]

Same

[celest lake]

let me try. are you using the unstable or the stable core?

[white tendon]

Just tested and it works fine on both my QMTech and original MiSTer single/dual RAM with the latest unstable

[celest lake]

yeah, working ok here

[ancient surge]

Maybe a bad dump?

[celest lake]

yeah, if you can, check the CRCs: http://redump.org/disc/24247/

[proven mural]

I think unstable

I’m not sure exactly, the last mister build I have is from May 2025 if you remember from when my last RAM was faulty I had to change it

I’ll update it though

[celest lake]

i do recall. but this sounds more like a dump issue

I dunno where you are sourcing your legally compliant cd images, but it could be that they have a bad dump

[glossy steppe]

Do you have your Saturn core set to a standard controller? I had mine set to default to the 3D Pad which appeared to cause issues in some games booting or crashing

[proven mural]

Probably

I’ll get the latest unstable .rbf Saturn file and see if that works

[idle gorge]

hey fellas, for the single ram version of mister how stable are the following games:

1. Panzer Dragoon Saga
2. Shining Force 3
3. Street Fighter Zero 3

[sharp forum]

Played through all of PDS earlier this year and had no issues

[glossy steppe]

Isn't it more an issue of games having extra slowdown than less stability?

[muted cradle]

Street Fighter Zero 3 could be played on the CPS2 core as well of course

[ripe valley]

• I don't know if the magic spell issue has been resolved on Shining Force III at the moment.

All the emulators I know, as well as some of their users, have reported this kind of problem with this game in recent months, mentioning graphical corruption when using a spell. I will need someone here to check voluntarily at a later time.

• Panzer Dragoon Saga have a really small visual bug in the distant horizon during a scene (almost faint & during 2 secs max), otherwise the game is completable & really seems indistinguishable from the original hardware.

• SFZ3 works correctly & I checked some timings against a real hardware + real game disc some weeks ago.

[floral saddle]

FYI that Panzer Saga bug can appear in any battle or aerial cutscene if the camera is positioned in a certain way, it isn't just that one cutscene. I just used the example on github as it was repeatable and easily accessible from the save I had. I would have missed it if only that cutscene showed the issue!

[ripe valley]

I only saw it once, but my eyesight is really bad.

One of the rotation parameters appears to be not entirely accurate, but no one knows the actual accuracy of the calculation.

[glossy steppe]

Is there an example of that PDS bug in the github? Curious what it looks like now

[ripe valley]

https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Saturn_MiSTer/issues/359

[glossy steppe]

Thanks

[idle gorge]

i think i heard in a video shining force 3 worked near perfectly but im not sure 100%

[idle gorge]

in regards to the shining force 3 bug: https://youtu.be/VwGmIECA3ec?t=43 this vid says its fixed

[ripe valley]

"Too old."

[small ore]

That video is over a year and half old, and the Saturn core has received many substantial updates since then that may have broken it again.

[ripe valley]

There was a regression since then.

[idle gorge]

That's sad to hear, so SF3 is back to freezing during a specific spell?

ive never owned a mister but in terms of updating is it done through the device via ethernet/wifi or do i need to disconnect my micro sd each time and connect to the pc?

i mean, i have one arriving soon

[river river]

You can update it either way. Personally I think its easier over ethernet/wifi though

[idle gorge]

id rather do it that way, i hate fiddling with those micro sd cards tbh

[small ore]

significantly easier to just run the update script, and FTP over unstables if you want early updates. No need to fiddle with your storage at all outside of the device.

[river river]

If you have unstable nightlies configured in your downloader.ini you can even skip the FTP step

[ripe valley]

Not freezing, but there is a graphical issue.

Reported some weeks ago.

[idle gorge]

oh ok that's fine then

[pearl harbor]

Brings back memories. I remember helping with the spell freezing fix by opening the github issue for it and sending srg320 my save file with instructions on how to replicate it.

He got it fixed very quickly after that.

[idle gorge]

I can deal with graphical glitches, i was just worried about it freezing. Thanks for your help fixing the glitch!

my biggest excitement is being able to play on my crt and not having to deal with the god awful latency of beetle saturn. Im ordering an 8bitdo saturn pad but eventually switching to real saturn pad + snac. im just low on money this Christmas and the oem controllers were higher

[river wing]

I also love the MiSTer, but there's no god awful latency in beetle saturn: configure your system to use 120Hz + Vulkan + VRR (and disable C-STATES and DF C-STATES in the BIOS if you want smooth VRR as it's VERY sensitive to frame time deviation...) and you get no more input lag than the original system (on the same display), probably even less.

That's on GNU/Linux where it's possible to know and control what is your system doing. But if you use Windows... then.. who knows / who cares.

In any case, it's not beetle saturn's fault.

[drowsy hull]

but can you do that with only <10W?

[leaden dagger]

How can they do any of that when they said they're playing on a 60 hz CRT

No vrr
No 120 hz

[idle gorge]

well, i have a pc too with a monitor that's at least 12-hz bit id rather just play my mister on a CRT

honestly kinda tired of software emulation lately on my pc

[tight mica]

So you guys think mister is better than pc emulation?

[idle gorge]

its a very debated topic

[tight mica]

Saturn is my favorite console and my saroo is loaded with games. I'm curious as to why you think mister vs pc tends towards mister. Is pc emulation very off? I haven't followed

[wide glacier]

saturn still requires a fairly capable PC to emulate, and there's the usual variables that come with software emulation (latency, graphical and audio hiccups, etc.)

while the mister core isn't perfect, it runs on much lighter hardware, is easy to set up and output to a CRT, allows use of original peripherals, and has relatively few bugs/glitches (outside of the slowdown on single RAM configs)

[winter phoenix]

SRG320 has just done a better job emulating the Saturn's components than any software emulator dev has

[ripe valley]

I've been rather quiet these past few weeks, but I've continued my in-depth testing of the core: almost flawless performance, even compared to a SAROO board, in terms of timings and instruction precision.

However, some RAM timings aren't quite optimal based on current tests and our understanding of the system, when tested with a current single RAM build.

The fast timings option was added for this purpose; it is generally very effective, except on Fighters Megamix in particular.

For my part, I've had the honor of assisting several Saturn emulator developers in the past (SSF, Mednafen, NOVA, Kronos), helping them with beta testing and reporting any bugs we find.

In my opinion, the core is the closest thing to a true Saturn system available to date.
But my sentence could have been distorted quite recently, in an article that was misunderstood or taken up too quickly, to make a pompous, or even pretentious, headline.
Which srg320 had to deny personally, which I also didn't like when I found out about it.

Keep in mind that the console has never revealed all its secrets, and research is still ongoing or can always be improved.

[glossy steppe]

So what you're saying us that it's so accurate that it's now more accurate than real hardware! Every news site must know about this immediately!

Joking aside, I really appreciate all you've done. The progress has been amazing. Saturn emulation felt so lacking for so long

And SRG320 too of course

[ripe valley]

Celeriyacon and srg320 did 99.99% of the technical work; I was just a facilitator and an interface between them.

Just, we had some luck and passionate people, at the right place, during the right time.

The stars were correctly aligned.

Who said consigliere ? 😏

And, hell yeah, we have the Saturn now on MiSTer! 🥳

That's eff'ing great. 😁

[pearl harbor]

MiSTer wins again!

[zealous karma]

Is the core done at this point, with the remaining issues ”unfixable” with current MiSTer hardware due to RAM timings? Or are there still things that can be fixed?

[ancient surge]

I'm assuming development of the SEGA Saturn core is on a temporary hiatus, since SRG is busy researching the SNES to improve that core.

He's not exactly the transparency type, so I could easily be wrong.

[glossy steppe]

I mean, look at the recent additions that happened to the NES core. Also just a few years ago people considered Saturn, PSX, and N64 to be impossible

There is always a chance someone can find something more to improve

[ripe valley]

srg320 never said whether he had finished or not, not even to me.

[hearty marten]

Art is never finished, only abandoned

But the core is really in a great state, even on single ram

srg320 is a complete magician, and the dedication of everyone else involved in the testing, bug reports etc have made this a great way to play the system

[ripe valley]

The only problem that concerns me is that Shinobi-X/Legions does not work with the latest version of the SMPC code.
I had to revert it partially for the Single RAM build.

Must be an INTBACK command timing issue somewhere, but I don't know how to do it correctly.

And it works already with the Dual RAM build without that revert.
The testrom said that it should be correct like that.

[frail token]

So does that mean another official build soon?

[cobalt rune]

Can you ask SRG if he plans to eventually add cheat support to the Saturn core?

[glossy steppe]

https://tenor.com/view/itsart-art-gif-4621521

[ripe valley]

I will try to ask one when possible for me.

For an official build, I don't know at all if/when it could be done.
I'm also leaving for several days, rough week on some external projects & I need some rest too.

[cobalt rune]

Thank you Zet!

[hallow fossil]

32x is also missing cheat support. Not sure if Saturn or 32x cheat support is something maybe @mortal mist is interested in post fixing up PSX, or @final mantle who recently added cheats to the Jaguar core.

[cobalt rune]

32X never had a game shark so dunno if there are codes out there or not

[green swift]

Jaguar and Sega CD never had GameShark type cheat devices either, but here we are!

[ancient surge]

Makes sense, since cheating devices like GameShark and Action Replay act as bridges to modify code in the software. So hypothetically anything can use these type of cheats.

[hallow fossil]

Yeah, there are a load on gamehacking
https://gamehacking.org/system/32x

We even have a MiSTer pack set up ready to go for that one too

https://gamehacking.org/mister/

[cobalt rune]

Ah that's freaking awesome

[vocal oar]

Second ram module has arrived! It's fackin Saturn time babeee.

[wise brook]

just remember your sw0-sw3 switches

[vocal oar]

😮

thank you! I probably would have forgotten

[wise brook]

many folks put the stick in, reassemble and then aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

[vocal oar]

I hate to admit that would probably be me

you saved me a headache

[wise brook]

i’ve woke up from the worst sickness bug i’ve had in 20 years for just this purpose

[vocal oar]

lol I'm glad you're feeling better! it was meant to be

[wise brook]

the choice of switch position changes based on your IO board so consult that if you’re in any doubt

if it’s from ADDONS or retrocastle

[celest lake]

if you have a 9.2 based io board, you don’t need to flip any switches

[vocal oar]

it is a 9.2

it still has switches though

[celest lake]

there are switches, but you don’t need to flip them

the framework detects it now

so they can all be off

[vocal oar]

nice!

[haughty dove]

I have problems with my saturn save files temporarily or permanently disappearing, seemingly at random. How would I go about completely initialzing all save data from the Saturn cores in order to start fresh?

[small ore]

Your save files should absolutely not be vanishing for any reason.

Have you enabled auotsave in the OSD and are you remembering to open the OSD to actually commit the save after saving ingame? Do other cores have this issue?

Your save files should be located at /media/fat/saves/Saturn

Save files are initialized on a per title basis, possibly when you load the disc for the first time.

If you have enabled autosave and are opening the OSD to commit them and you cannot find your Saturn save files in that location, there could be something wrong with your SD card or storage device. They should not be vanishing for any reason unless you are deleting the save files.

[river river]

How do you have your games organized? You should have each game in their own folder otherwise they'll share a single save memory which will run out of space all the time, which might explain what you're seeing

[haughty dove]

I have the games in a couple different folder, for USA, Japan, and Translation.

For example, I can load Sonic R and have my save file not be there, then load the same game again and it will be there again.

Autosave is on, the problem is saves disappearing from view entirely.

I can put all the games in their own folders to see if that solves the issue.

[river river]

They need their own folder under each folder you have already

[haughty dove]

I should probably do the same for ps1 games, I guess. Have not had issues with those saves before though (other than memory cards filling up).

[mortal mist]

If you have games in the same folder, you probably have to reset the core every time to load a new game

[glossy steppe]

Yeah, the CD-based cores are intended for you to have the games in their own folders, this both creates a unique memory card for each game and resets the core when you load a game from a different folder to make it easier

[haughty dove]

Took me a while, but I’ve enfolder’d all the games.

Made backups of my old saves and gonna see if they still work later if I put them back in. Don’t wanna lose my relationship progress in Bulk Slash.

[wise brook]

understandable

[haughty dove]

I wish Sonic R didn’t have a full second of input lag.

Been a long time since I played the pc/gamecube version to see if it is any better in that aspect. It was one of the first PC games I ever had, actually.

Also, this is the only Saturn game I have that still crashes on Mister. About of 50/50 chance it crashes when retrying a race.

The spinning sonic head graphic usually does some fun things.

[wide glacier]

interesting, never seen that crash until now. have you tried fast timings?

[haughty dove]

Fast timings?

Ah, you mean on the single ram core. No, I have not. I only play on the dual ram core.

Currently on the 10.25.2025 build. There’s probably an update I can try.

[wide glacier]

would be worth a shot on the updated core

[burnt matrix]

Also try getting a new disc dump

[serene epoch]

Check your power supply too. Sonic R crashed for me and it turned out my USB charger’s voltage was sagging too low

[celest lake]

do you have general steps for this? I can poke at it later today. Is it only when retrying a race? is it a specific race?

[ripe valley]

I can't reproduce it at the moment.

But I only tested with the latest unstable Dual RAM build.

[haughty dove]

Downloaded the latest unstable dual ram core, checked my dump and its the Redump from Myrient and Internet archive, tried putting the uncondensed bin+cue files in a folder, and also tried compiling a new CHD. Gonna test out now.

Still crashing every time.

Tried unplugging snac adapter and bluetooth as well. The last time the game crashed so hard I lost video-out in the MiSter.

I load into a grand prix race as sonic, on easy difficulty with vocals set to on, no snac controller connected, press start to pause, select retry, and the game crashes on the loading screen.

I don’t know of a better source than the Redump, so I’m gonna guess it must be my power supply? I don’t know how to check for volt sagging.

[small ore]

Yup, game crashed when I tried to retry just now.

[haughty dove]

Ooh, now that’s interesting.

I’m so used to being an anomaly, lol.

[celest lake]

looking

[haughty dove]

I’m using the MiSTer FPGA IO Direct board from MiSTer Addons as well as the ram they sell.

[celest lake]

yup crashed here

[ripe valley]

OKay, I missed something.

[haughty dove]

The only other problem I have with the Saturn core is occasionally “inserting a disc” will bring me to the Saturn’s main menu and I have to Reset to get the game to actually run.

[celest lake]

Crashes on dual ram de10 build and single ram mister pi build

[haughty dove]

Oh yeah, I’m using de10 as well. Always forget that MisterPi is a thing.

[ripe valley]

Even my internal build crashed.

I will write to srg320.

[celest lake]

nice catch @haughty dove

[small ore]

3DO core delayed again

[haughty dove]

^_^

[glossy steppe]

"It is the Year 3105, rumor has is that the MiSTer 3DO core will finally start development this day..."

[haughty dove]

My first exposure to 3DO was the first Army Men game on Ps1. “Wait, these people made consoles? Well if the games were as bad as this…”

Still managed to have fun with it in multiplayer mode, though. Technically the first “deathmatch” game I ever played.

[glossy steppe]

LJN Video Art core when? 🤣

[haughty dove]

xD okay but I would kill for a SEGA Pico core, as one of like five american kids who had that growing up.

Maybe with snac you could get it playable, idk.

[ripe valley]

Nice catch indeed, srg320 is informed and an issue ticket is opened.

[haughty dove]

👍 Thanks!

[ripe valley]

For Sonic R, it seems to be either a long-standing bug, or a bug with the last changes on the Saturn on the MiSTer Main file.
All cores from 2025 can't work with the RETRY button on-screen with the last unstable Main file on my all systems.

[ripe valley]

I confirm, something broke with some changes on Main.

Now, I need to find when.

[ripe valley]

Found it.
It's a seek delay commit on Main MiSTer, dated on Jun. 29, 2025 that broke the game partially.

[mortal mist]

nice👍 good work

[hallow fossil]

Do you think this needs fixed in Main or the core?

[ripe valley]

I'm DM'ing kuba, as I need help on some tests and I don't have access on my compile environment.

Should probably need another fix on Main.

[mortal mist]

fix for Sonic R

the bug was caused by forcing a minimum seek delay for zero-distance seeks

[celest lake]

First Zet pulls SRG away from 3DO, now he is pulling Kuba away from the hyper-accurate PSX GPU....he must be stopped

[visual grove]

Saturn >>> PSX >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> 3 hours later >>>>> 3DO

[lofty spire]

Saturn does what PSDon't

[ripe valley]

I will do everything. 😏

I needed his ideas here as kuba already touched that kind of code too for the Saturn.

[burnt matrix]

Once the Saturn core is done, @ripe valley will reveal himself to be Yuji Naka, who’s been operating from his jail cell this entire time. Will his crimes ever end!?

[ripe valley]

You'll never catch me!

Oh, wait...

[wise brook]

Yuji…

so much raw programming talent

unlike that hack fraud Miyamoto

[ripe valley]

Anyway, we could all thank @mortal mist for the quick reply & fix today.

Always a pleasure to work with him.

[wise brook]

oh what have i slept thru

[wise brook]

oh neat!

[ripe valley]

We can finally sing "Can you feel the sunshine!" again with every retry on Sonic R.

We've been deprived of that for months.

[idle gorge]

hey, this is an ancient bump but im thinking of switching to linux and have some questions about this

what build of linux did you use?

[hearty marten]

arch, btw

[burnt matrix]

I use arch64

Sorry aaaaaaaaarch64

[hearty marten]

I use the MiSTer FPGA Linux distribution

Sorry, GNU/Linux

[burnt matrix]

GOONUUU

GOONUing

[idle gorge]

well, i cant switch to linux for awhile so i disabled c-states and enabled VRR at 120hz, hopefully that helps some

[hearty marten]

Or you could use your MiSTer FPGA gaming device

[outer relic]

MiSTer does what PCan't

[burnt matrix]

I don’t get it, what’s PCan’t? Is that like a pecan for programmers?

[outer relic]

Yes. It's nuts to even try...?

[idle gorge]

oh i am but my device probably wont arrive til after Christmas at this rate

[visual grove]

You know what else is nuts?

[wise brook]

deez

[visual grove]

May that call and response never die

[glossy steppe]

You never know. I was shocked when mine arrived on Christmas in the middle of the day. Who even delivers on Christmas Day?

[idle gorge]

well im waitng on a multisystem 2, im 12094 and apparently they were up to 12000 last week but idk if theyre just sending out 5 a day or what

im kind of frustrated tbh but im trying not to be too much of a brat

[leaden dagger]

its pronounced "P-Can-Tee" aka the spiciest coding language known to man....
Aaaaand that is the entirety of my shitpost budget after the day I've had

[trim nimbus]

This language was made in New York City!

[idle gorge]

mine shipped just now

[river wing]

Debian with my own Wayland compositor, called labwc + latest MESA

[graceful horizon]

so with regards to multi disc games like panzer dragoon saga, What's the naming scheme for the save files

is it for example, Panzer Dragoon Saga (USA).sav ir Panzer Dragoon Saga (USA) (Disc 1).sav

the folder directory is called Panzer Dragoon Saga (USA) in this case with all 4 discs inside of that folder

oh wth

I recovered a save file by renaming a .sav of my bios?

[ripe valley]

I think we could push the fix for Sonic R on the Main MiSTer file.
If you feel ready too @mortal mist

[hard reef]

IIRC the .sav will have the name of the folder containing the disc images

[graceful horizon]

Oddly enough i recovered older pre update savefiles by renaming a saturnbios .sav

[graceful horizon]

Yeah, it seems to be the case, but any idea if a prior core version whrre that wasnt the case?

[hard reef]

When I look in my saves folder, I can see some dated 2024 that are named after the disc image; then in 2025 named after the folder.

[warped saddle]

I want to clarify something, because I think people are making reasonable assumptions that are not true: the saturn save file name is not based on the containing directory, it is based on the filename with stuff like (Disc X) removed

[hard reef]

Thanks for the clarification. I think this comes from MkDocs suggests subfolders are used as the save name for multi disc games so I presumed this was the case for all the CD cores. Apologies
https://mister-devel.github.io/MkDocs_MiSTer/basics/cd/#multi-disc-games

[warped saddle]

saturn should follow the convention but that's not how srg wrote it so here we are

[celest lake]

@ripe valley might be something worth bringing up to SRG (if there is a way to migrate smoothly) just for consistency

it may have come up before (sorry if so)

[ripe valley]

EDIT : Sorry, I read the wrong line.

[warped saddle]

it's not hard to do, and I could do it. I never changed it because initially I didn't want to change it out from under him when he was in the middle of heavy saturn dev

but it just....stayed that way

[thorn pagoda]

that probably is worth raising at this point

[warped saddle]

like I figured his time was better spent doing core work than renaming all his disc images

[open swan]

Seems like a good time to change it then

[ripe valley]

Worth raising, yeah. I agree.

[thorn pagoda]

just to bring it into line with all the other cores

[warped saddle]

it till uses the directory for 'same game' determination

however, I'd still expect to get a bit more 'my save file disappeared' if it does change

[open swan]

Such is life. That will be a temporary pain

[celest lake]

yeah. we can pin a message to rename the file

[thorn pagoda]

or script it probably

[open swan]

I'd bet most people playing games on Saturn don't play many games with saves anyways.

[celest lake]

oh yeah good call

[thorn pagoda]

yeah i only have like, 2 saturn saves i'd even miss heh

[warped saddle]

the thing is right now if you had all your images in the Saturn/ dir, saves work

[thorn pagoda]

true

[warped saddle]

and by work I mean 'properly separate into game specific files'

[thorn pagoda]

i guess if you can make it more normal without breaking that somehow ok

i dont feel too bad if it has to break though

[celest lake]

knowing SRG, he will write it in a way where both options somehow work

[warped saddle]

it wouldn't be hard to check if the old style exists and load it if it does. thing is if you write it to the new place you end up with double copies which is annoying

[minor cipher]

that has precedent on MiSTer. after the Main change to break out .sav into .eep / .srm / .fla / .cpk, i have tons of old .sav file duplicates

for N64 ^

[silk beacon]

Hey guys, first time here...started with mister a week ago, been using saturn core and having some problemns in die hard arcade...sometimes screen flashes (black and return) during gameplay.....using in full hd on a oled G4....any advices?

[ancient surge]

Sounds like a desync caused by the resolution change. Try using one of the buffer settings in the MiSTer ini file.

[celest lake]

yeah, die hard arcade swaps resolutions iirc. As @ancient surge said, if you set vsync_adjust=0 in the ini (assuming you're not using direct video into a scaler), that should resolve it

if you're using a scaler, you'll want to use genlock / magiclock

[burnt matrix]

MiSTer is sometimes too accurate lol

[rotund steeple]

My Mister broke afte 3,5 years. But a new Pi is ordered. I feel naked now, without it. This can't happen.

[marble laurel]

how it was broken ?

[river wing]

Wow, have mine since 2018 and it's still rocking hard...

[rotund steeple]

I don't now. The DE10 Nano is probably dead. USB Hub was fine (led-wise at least), the nocturn fan was still spinning.

[marble laurel]

try to remove all daughter boards just to see if it is link to one of them

[burnt matrix]

Well, I guess he should’ve done that in the past before ordering a replacement. A link to the past,

[marble laurel]

same 2019

[rotund steeple]

Bad luck, i guess. I will check later what exactly broke.

[hallow fossil]

You sure it isn't just something like you took the SD card out and forgot to put it back?

You get a black screen if you do that

I honestly can't think of seeing anyone ever say their DE-10 Nano just broke

[ripe valley]

Two dead SD cards for me this week. Same SanDisk batch from 6 years ago.
I have some recent spares.
But never seen a broken DE10 Nano.

[hallow fossil]

They are surprisingly resilient and well built

I really can't think of anyone ever saying one just died

[green swift]

I’ve heard of some power related shenanigans killing them

But otherwise they are robust

Their fragile micro usb port is their Achilles heel.

[glossy steppe]

I feel it's better to just switch to the new system, adding checks like that which are only intended to be used one time specifically for people upgrading from an older version to a specific new one can just cause a ton of problems. It's not like the old save files would be deleted, just need to be renamed. IIRC the CD-I core recently went through this too.

[rotund steeple]

I haven't checked yet. The card seems fine. My PC can read it without issues.

Holy shit. I can't believe it. It was indeed a broken SD card. The Mister is still alive! So maybe the second partition on it was broken? I can still access the stored files from the card via Windows PC.

Is the second partition the Linux part?

Well, now i have a spare Mister for later. Can't hurt.

I get's even more embarrissing. I copied the new unstable menu to the SD and forgot to rename it properly. Strange that non of the LED are on then, that fooled me to believe it that the hardware broke. Damn stupid!

[celest lake]

we have all been there

I spent 10 minutes troubleshooting a mister that wouldn't boot

only to find the SD card that I took out of it sitting underneath it

[rotund steeple]

But you didn't bought a new one because of that. 🤣

[mortal mist]

I always wait a few days because I know that srg320 likes to do things like this on its own. If there is no response in the next few days, I will of course do it 🙂

[celest lake]

listen, we all know the rules, if you don't buy the replacement, you will never solve the original problem.

I can't find my flipper zero, so I am going to by a new flipper zero

because then I will find my flipper zero

[mortal mist]

You can never have too many new Mister's 😄

I've had my first one since 2019. Now I have four.

[rotund steeple]

That's true. But now i stop. This is the Sega Saturn channel. Before somebody gets mad

[hearty marten]

This is illegal

[celest lake]

https://tenor.com/m2Y1TJPa7o6.gif

[sharp forum]

He’s a mod so he’s allowed to have multiple misters

[rotund steeple]

Yeah, one for monday, one for tuesday....

[hearty marten]

He has multiple MiSTers way before he was orange

Even before he was blue

[thorn pagoda]

the three top leds are fpga controlled so if its not booting up to menu they wont light

[rotund steeple]

Ah, now i know. Thanks to Mister Freddo. 👍

[glossy steppe]

I would runa disk check on it, also try copying a file to it, ejecting it, and then plugging it back in to see if the file is still there. A lot of flash memory when it fails goes into a sort of read-only mode. I have had sd cards that died like that, would no longer "work" in the devices they were plugged into because the devices expect to be able to write to them, but all the data was still there

[rotund steeple]

It wasn't the card. It was a wrong named menu.rbf, menu_unstable_xxxx.rbf or something. So damn stupid. I've updated the WIP files countless times, but here i forgot to rename it.

[idle portal]

https://bsky.app/profile/snowyaria.goodorevengreat.games/post/3maej6wdsfc2l

SnowyAria (｡•̀ᴗ-)✧🏳️‍⚧️ (@snowyaria.goodorevengreat.games)

The most highly anticipated Saturn translation has arrived! Yes, Airs Adventure is out in English, just in time to liven the holidays!!

Credits:
@hitomi2500.bsky.social - Hacking
@snowyaria.goodorevengreat.games - Translation
@nichetopic.bsky.social - Graphics
@blueskyrunner.bsky.social - QA

Reposts

137

Likes

254

▶ Play video

Bluesky · Dec 19, 2025, 8:19 PM

[winter phoenix]

Happy holidays — there's a new English translation of a Saturn game to play! It's for Airs Adventure, an "it's so bad it's good" RPG. Read about the team behind the patch and where to get it in my story:

https://www.segasaturnshiro.com/2025/12/19/english-translation-patch-for-airs-adventure-is-complete/

[silk beacon]

I read elsewhere that using vsync = 2 and vrr = 2 guarantees lower input lag and makes the cores run at the correct console speeds (I saw some running at 59.80, for example)… in the end, is the best option to keep everything at 0 without FreeSync? I noticed the same issue during the PSX boot.

[celest lake]

vsync_adjust = 0 adds a frame of latency, but forces everything to 60hz and prevents desyncs. you kind of have to weight your options here

if you set zero, though, make sure you set it for both vrr and vsync

[burnt matrix]

Anyone play this in the core? Is it like so bad it’s good?

[small ore]

It's no Ancient Roman, that's for sure.... Which is always a good thing.

[thorn pagoda]

there is a romhack for diehard that will stop it changing resolutions quite as much

[river river]

Ooh https://segaxtreme.net/resources/die-hard-arcade-dynamite-deka-240p-patch-language-fix.368/

[graceful horizon]

I'm confused to why some savefiles where under the bios .bin name on the saves folder

it might be from an older version of the core dated early 2025 or somewhere around 2024

[burnt matrix]

If you beta tested the core from way back when then I’d assume any save game wackiness is a byproduct of that

[pearl harbor]

Yeah, they were in a different file format back then.

[silk beacon]

Hey guys I don’t know if I could ask for this here …. But I saw that I could create vsync and vrr settings per core using mister.ini files (desync Saturn and psx) … where I can find the names that needs to be used in mister.ini files? Tks !

[celest lake]

For Saturn specific ini stuff, just put it under a [Saturn] header. For PSX use [PSX]

[silk beacon]

Thanks! Since I don’t have issues with the other cores, I’ll try this solution instead. Should I set vsync and VRR to 0?

[celest lake]

Yeah, exactly. If you're setting vsync_adjust to zero, you want to make sure vrr_mode is also zero. There are screens where vrr_mode=2 and vsync_adjust=0 work, but more often than not, it will just result in no video. Better to play it safe

[silk beacon]

Just tested, everything perfect! Tks

[idle gorge]

im so excited, my multisystem 2 is set to arrive on the 27th and my accessories and stuff i need will all be here by the 30th. Ready to jump into Saturn

[burnt matrix]

As a recent Saturn convert, this core is incredible and the Saturn has such a wonderfully weird library with a ton of genuine classics.

[hearty carbon]

You're a weird library and genuine classic.

[cobalt rune]

The Japanese Saturn library alone is incredible. So many gems

[burnt matrix]

This is going to sound weird but I don’t think the Japanese Saturn library is good. At least not on the same level as the US library.

[rotund steeple]

If you like Arcade ports the Japanese library wins hands down.

[burnt matrix]

I disagree, I don’t think it wins hands-down

[hearty marten]

That’s a hot take

[rotund steeple]

It does. Through the sheer amount of games and the quality. Btw: PAL = 240 games, NTSC USA = 247 games, NTSC Japan = 1054 games.

[burnt matrix]

I think the Saturn Japanese library is incredible and destroys all other regions!!!

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

[hearty marten]

He got me

[burnt matrix]

It’s a level beyond!!!!!

https://tenor.com/view/segata-sanshiro-nod-yes-gif-5612081

[neon python]

https://tenor.com/view/segata-sanshiro-karate-taekwando-gif-4880719

[rotund steeple]

But US gamer never got the magic Japanese/PAL Model 2 gamepad. Only the abomination.

[burnt matrix]

I love the Cool pad so much

[cobalt rune]

That's a spicy take but I respect it

[rotund steeple]

Ah, i see the USA got the good pad later too.

[burnt matrix]

lol sorry, it’s a comedy shtick of mine

basically I say it’s not good because it’s incredible, etc

[cobalt rune]

Ah lol

[burnt matrix]

But I appreciate your honest response

[cobalt rune]

😉

[burnt matrix]

I actually do really enjoy the US library too

[cobalt rune]

Had Sega brought more of those Japanese games over here the console probanl6ly would've done better

I like the US library. It's got some great games.

Just missed opportunities

[burnt matrix]

It’s such a great system with so many varied games

[cobalt rune]

No real sonic game. No new streets of rage etc.

[rotund steeple]

NO ALEX KIDD

lol

[graceful horizon]

What's been ported is the best stuff on there but there are some bangers within the japan only library

[graceful horizon]

I don't need another sega mascot

Lagi's the best one

[hearty marten]

You know what would have saved the Saturn?

Shenmue

I dream of a Saturn prototype of that game leaking out

[tiny quartz]

I don't think Sega had a chance. Looking back we see things very differently. I was managing a game store when the saturn came out, the customers were pissed off about the 32x, my head office was pissed off that toys r us had stock and we couldn't get any from Sega. The saturn games were very niche, the Playstation quickly found a much, much larger audience.

[sharp forum]

https://tenor.com/view/futurama-professor-farnsworth-a-man-can-dream-gif-12491746995726919913

[tiny quartz]

Sega simply didn't have the money to compete, they couldn't make enough units, and Sony swamped them off the line.

[open swan]

They didn't do the whole game development sdk support stuff as well as playstation either

[tiny quartz]

But I loved the damn thing. I bought a unit from TRU with petty cash, rented it out, paid off that 500 dollar console in 3 weeks.

True! They held on to the best tools for their internal devs, by all accounts.

[open swan]

Sony went around to basically all the game dev companies and asked them what they wanted, made deals, communicated with them, etc... before they even announced the system.

[sharp forum]

Just do multiprocessor programming in SH-2 ASM it’s fine

[open swan]

Ez

[tiny quartz]

There are a host of reasons Sega could never have won. But they have the hearts and minds of all 20 of us here. ❤️

[open swan]

To be fair, doing 2d on PSX was probably annoying lol

"what do you mean there is no sprite capability?"

[tiny quartz]

Because Sony discouraged it mostly, haha

[open swan]

"it's all... Triangles??"

[tiny quartz]

Meanwhile Dreamcast "wait it's all... Quads?"

[open swan]

Oh you wanna do music? Here's an snes Apu on copious amounts of steroids

Saturn sound capabilities were epic though, wish it did better

[tiny quartz]

One of my favourite games is Necronomicon Pinball, in no small part because the sound is crisp af.

[sharp forum]

Wait I thought it was just Saturn that did quads and Dreamcast went to triangles

[left chasm]

steve_ballmer_developers.gif

[tiny quartz]

I don't know how Saturn handled it off the top of my head, but DC was quads, thanks to PowerVR

You're making me question my memory now

[hearty carbon]

I'm pretty sure Saturn was quads

I only say this because I was watching something like a few days ago that talked about it.

https://segaretro.org/Sega_Saturn

[trim nimbus]

Oops! All sprites!

[winter phoenix]

Saturn is quads

[wide glacier]

ur a quad

[winter phoenix]

fair

The Dreamcast can do tris or quads I believe

But like … everyone was just using tris at that point, I’m sure

[wide glacier]

does the dreamcast draw sprites in a traditional way or is it like the playstation where everything is just a flat 3D object

[tiny quartz]

Dreamcast was a whole generation newer than PS1.

so no, it wasn't doing it the old way.

[elfin apex]

I think Dreamcast is almost in its own category because it's based on old-school PowerVR. The rendering algorithm doesn't work quite like either typical fixed-function 3D or programmable shaders.

[sturdy dagger]

Is there still any advantages to using dual ram + dual ram core? Last time I checked was a while ago now. I recall some games like Grandia and Virtua Fighter benefiting from it.

[wise brook]

yeah, whole bunch of little things that you might not notice unless you pay attention

Decathlete is either too slow or fast if you don’t turn on or off the ram hack at the right times

lotta folks think the inaccuracy doesn’t matter if it means changing their setup tho

[sturdy dagger]

Right it's just because someone asked about the SuperStation One (Takis Mister product which is limited to single ram). They wanted a reason why you might want the Mister Pi instead.

I just wanted to clarify on the dual ram situation. As I know it isn't required. But I didn't want to give false information.

So dual ram is still good for Saturn for some under the hood fixes and optimisation?

[wise brook]

i’d prefer to say the single ram core is bottlenecked and chokes on the most precise timings.

so yeah, dual ram all the way for me

it only matters if you think the best games of the 5th gen deserve accurate emulation

[sturdy dagger]

Thank you for clarifying mate. Much appreciated. (I also run dual ram as I don't see any downside. As I will never use any sort of analog video)

[wise brook]

the superstation & multisystem infuriate me for being 90% of what i’d want from a stand-alone MiSTer

maybe when the platform and all its potential is exhausted a perfect little pcb can be manufactured with all the ram and analog output options wanted

those untapped cyclone5 pins

[idle gorge]

what's wrong with the Multisystem 2? I have one on the way

[burnt matrix]

Nothing is wrong with the Multisystem2, looks like a great device

The criticism comes from it being unable to do dual ram, that’s it.

[wise brook]

it cannot do dual ram and therefore will never* perform several key Saturn games correctly.
-# baring some miracle that exists in spite of material reality

[wise brook]

it can be the wrong device for you the end user

what’s that old Aristotle quote, “the best judge of the meal is the eater; not the chef” or something like that

[burnt matrix]

Yeah true

Just depends on what someone wants

[idle gorge]

i think i saw the games that dont do well without dualram, ill probably be ok

[hearty marten]

tbf if 2D had been easy on the PS1, I wonder if 3D would have refined itself as quickly as it did. A lot of devs might have still released 2D games

That’s not to say that everything has to be 3D, but some concentrated effort in this early years may have been a good thing

[burnt matrix]

I think so but I’m also a hypocrite as I have dual ram. I also didnt see the same issues in Grandia as others have with single sdram.

[tiny quartz]

2D was not hard on the PS1, it was officially discouraged by Sony. Lomax was an early release, so was Raiden Project. It might not have been a 2D sprite pusher like the Saturn, but making a 2D engine was not a challenge.

[hearty marten]

Well, discouraged then. Same end result

[tiny quartz]

The words have completely different meanings. 😛

3D was pushed pretty hard by any company with the money to do it. Whether or not Sony discouraged it I doubt the result would have changed at all.

[hearty marten]

[tiny quartz]

Yeah I dunno. Thinking on it, I was there when it happened. I was at CES when the PS1 was shown for the first time, with Toshinden and Ridge Racer. The games advanced in quality and technology very quickly, probably happening as fast as the tools to do it were created. It was a wild time.

[burnt matrix]

I think 2D was looked down upon in general during that console generation. Journalists and consumers certainly seemed like they wanted flashy 3D over 2D early on.

[tiny quartz]

Oh for sure. To our collective loss.

[burnt matrix]

Which makes sense, we finally have consoles that could do a good job for polygonal games. I’d want as many 3D games as possible.

[hearty marten]

^

[tiny quartz]

Yeah but do you still think that? This mentality has brought us to ruin pretty much every time. 🙁

[hearty marten]

People got it out of their system, figured out what worked and what didn’t, and now we’re better off for it

[celest lake]

Also, 3D was a very clear “next generation” thing. You want to get people who are happy with their Super Nintendo to buy the new thing? You need to show them things their Super Nintendo couldn’t do

[hearty marten]

PlayStation does what Super Nintendont

lolmode7

[celest lake]

Much easier to just show them a 3d fighter than to try to explain why these sprites are better than those sprites

[tiny quartz]

Toshinden vs Ballz: Fight!

[hearty marten]

3D was cool back at the time

A lot more of a sense of virtual worlds to explore

Rather than just moving from left to right

[wide glacier]

i would rather take a baseball bat to my ballz than play either game

[tiny quartz]

You are clearly a person of good taste and strong moral fortitude. Never stop standing up for what's correct and proper, my friend.

[trim nimbus]

Yep, and that is why Super Mario 64 is the worst game in history- it’s like the Motley Crue of video games 🤡

[idle gorge]

i remember i wasted a weekend renting BALLZ 3D

[wide glacier]

i'm so sorry

[idle gorge]

i can still remember the title music

better yet i rented the genesis version https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRyIQ_kucOs

[glossy steppe]

Yeah, at least in the US. I recall them being that way with the PS2 as well. Some 2D releases from Japan didn't release here or only as a budget title or something because of it

[glossy steppe]

It definitely was, I remember seeing a scan from a gaming magazine where they were praising Castlevania 64 while mocking Symphony of the Night for being 2D and acting like it's an abomination that it's not 3D 🤣

[wise brook]

why could japan, a nation so gimmick-loving and neophile, see thru the whole polygon hype machine when the rest could not?

[serene epoch]

The industry was a lot closer to them whereas we just kinda had suits importing what they thought would sell?

[nova hull]

When I play fighting vipers on the saturn core it runs poorly. Any tips? Is this a game that would benefit from dual sd ram? Or am I just forgetting how they run on original hardware?

[mortal mist]

Use fast timing option

For single sdram

[nova hull]

@mortal mist thanks. Yeah it helps. Would dual ram be better? For the virtual fighter engine games

[mortal mist]

I haven't compared the speeds exactly, but I think fast timing solves this problem

[pearl harbor]

It's time for everyone to get into the ring! 🎄 🌃

[glossy steppe]

I guess they like more traditional stuff? IIRC the Japanese version of DQ8 had a different battle screen that still resembled the NES titles

[sharp forum]

It had different menus that were changed for the US release but that’s it

[glossy steppe]

I thought the combat system just showed the enemies in line and didn't show your characters?

[sharp forum]

Nope, the Japanese version had the character animations

https://youtu.be/_yn7WJx-QNo

[nova hull]

Can I ask what saturn fast timing actually does?

[mortal mist]

https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Saturn_MiSTer/issues/251#issuecomment-2482401756

[nova hull]

@mortal mist you are awesome. I suck at finding github things. I'm loving my MiSTer and loving the community.

Never been so excited about new hardware. Haven't turned on a console or done any pc gaming since thay magic mister box appeared

[celest lake]

I can look in a little bit, but if someone has a chance, this may be worth testing unless someone else has done this. ```I've been playing X-Men vs Street Fighter and when I win the last fight, instead of showing the ending screens I get an illegal instruction screen. I guess it's because of my single RAM right?

I know the core is in a beta state but I want to know if this is a core problem or hardware problem.```

https://www.reddit.com/r/MiSTerFPGA/comments/1pu1k0u/saturn_core_issue/

[tacit viper]

He replied back saying a different image of his game solved the problem

[celest lake]

its one of those ones that could have been a problem because it was so deep into the game. With that said, I think Jezza has played the shit out of it so we'd probably know if it was an issue

[vocal oar]

do I still need the separate dual-ram Saturn core or does the newest standard core have that functionality?

hmm based on the pinned comment it looks like the answer is yes, I do 🙂

[celest lake]

cores can only be one or the other, not both, unfortunately

[tawny forge]

Whoa! @celest lake is now a mod! Well deserved as he's one of the best users over here! Congrats, mate! 🙂

[hearty marten]

[frail token]

https://tenor.com/view/anime-dragon-ball-vegeta-raining-rainy-night-gif-13547106884869167479

[compact marlin]

It is once again time to play Christmas knights

[wide glacier]

christmas knights

[left hollow]

https://tenor.com/view/dan-dabbing-knight-armor-dramatic-gif-14257885

[dry hinge]

Can anybody tell me what the current status of Saturn Snac is? I’m considering buying one.

Last I heard it worked with standard pads, the 3d pad and the gun… but nothing else at all?

Is that still the case?

And are there differences between the Saturn snac/snax being sold?

[wise brook]

everything works has done since summer 2023

[wise brook]

https://tenor.com/view/elf-on-the-shelf-elf-on-the-wrecking-ball-you-are-on-the-naughty-list-gif-15702051

[winter phoenix]

Merry Christmas! Sega Saturn fans got a gift from Exxistance, who released an English translation patch for Delisoba Deluxe today! Get the details in my story:

https://www.segasaturnshiro.com/2025/12/25/saturn-fans-get-christmas-gift-in-delisoba-translation-patch/

[jagged spire]

the cover sold me

[left hollow]

Saturnmas

[pearl harbor]

Very fun little game. And made by Cave!

[idle gorge]

hey, does the saturn core support the ram addon? I can't get Street Fighter Zero 3 to work, i keep getting a messasge in japanese about what i assume is the ram and i want to play it over the arcade edition due to world tour mode

nm i think i figured it out

[green swift]

Post your solution. Might help others that search the Discord. (old forum etiquette)

[idle gorge]

its in the core's menu, you can adjust the ram addon i think, id go look right this minute but im in the psx core. one sec

ok, its one of the top menu things for the saturn core, it says "catridge" and i opted for 4mb and i was able to play street fighter zero 3

[analog totem]

yeah, that game requires the ram expansion cart I think

[frail token]

What's the status of adding a database for loading roms

Cause that's a good example of where it would help

[hallow fossil]

I imagine if someone were to code it then a PR would be accepted. It would certainly be a nice QOL improvement m

[glossy steppe]

Is there any reason not to just have a 4MB RAM expansion be the default cart option?

Considering each game gets it's own internal SRAM save file there isn't really much need for automatic memory card

[wide glacier]

there's a handful of games that break with it enabled. at least, that's how it is on real hardware

[glossy steppe]

Those are all games that need a 1MB RAM or ROM cart right? Or are there others?

[wide glacier]

just the ones that need a 1MB cart iirc

[glossy steppe]

Yeah, so the 4MB option would work for every game except those? IIRC it was a very small amount of games that needed the 1MB expansion but did not work with 4MB, every other game it either works if the game supported/needed the RAM expansion or did nothing if the game did not support it. Feels like 4MB being the default makes the most sense and it could either be set manually to 1MB for those few games or have a database of just which games need it to be 1MB.

Not like having the default be a memory cart, ROM cart, or nothing would make those 1MB games work either, and makes less sense to make 1MB the default.

[ripe valley]

Some games like Die Hard Trilogy don't work with a RAM cart inserted on real hardware.

Same on the core.

[sacred plank]

does anyone experience slowdown when jumping and killing wolfs when they catch on fire castlevania symphony of the night (akumajou dracula x gekka no yasoukyoku) I swear I had no issues a few months ago I know the core is a work in progress and updates can cause regression in the core with those types of things. Also would really like to know if switching to dual ram would fix that?

[mortal mist]

https://youtu.be/eJYO1ZtKwBg?si=X1ZLtO53K8dMLTxY

From real console

There are slowdowns too

When the flame effect disappears, it returns to the correct speed. You can see this with the first wolf.

Dualsdram behave same

[sacred plank]

ah dang it, I see now core is working how it should. I grew up with the saturn but never had this game. Thanks for clearing it up for me though

[sharp forum]

Saturn version is a bit notorious for having more slowdown

[mortal mist]

https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Saturn_MiSTer/issues/475#issuecomment-3694813266

Srg320 fixed it 💪

[mortal mist]

MiSTer Main with fix for Astal

[visual grove]

Mister wins again

[green swift]

lol that’s awesome.

[ripe valley]

https://tenor.com/view/impressive-darth-vader-most-impressive-gif-1233758011459247961

[green swift]

NEW STABLE NAO!

[ripe valley]

There is an issue with Shinobi to take care off, even before thinking about a possible stable.

[ripe valley]

What branch was being issued for compiling it ?
Last unstable ? And/or does the fix for Sonic R is applied too ?

[mortal mist]

Yeah with fix for Sonic R

[ripe valley]

Great!

It's just for me, to know what subversion was used and storing it somewhere locally.

Thanks for your reply!

[peak narwhal]

Is there a place to see what software has issues with single SDRAM? is it pretty small percentage of software?

[idle gorge]

I really love Mega Man X4 but was wondering: which version is best between psx and saturn?

[floral saddle]

@warped saddle Hey, could you please confirm that what I am seeing on 480i games is because of the bob deinterlacing and not a core issue? Thanks. https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Saturn_MiSTer/issues/485

[mortal mist]

I checked Virtua Fighter 2, but I don't see anything like that in either bob or wave.

[ripe valley]

If I could do it, I will try later to reproduce the issue on Puyo Puyo during the ending sequence.

[floral saddle]

I saw it in Virtua Fighter 2 on multiple stages when something is at the top of the screen, with bob.

[mortal mist]

I don't see it, that's what I was paying attention to when testing VF2.

[floral saddle]

Tested another 10 or so 480i games, see the same thing in all of them so don't think we are looking at a core issue.

[wide glacier]

both are very close, but the saturn version edges out as the winner overall. it has shorter load times, a few extra graphical effects, and some additional musical flourishes

[glossy steppe]

How is the FMV quality? Woulden't it be lower on saturn?

(Also isn't MMX4 used as an example of Saturn's transparency effect limits compared to PSX?)

[wide glacier]

FMVs are a bit blockier but overall pretty similar. the only transparencies that take a hit are the spotlights in the introduction stage iirc

[idle gorge]

what are some really fun saturn games that run fine on 1 unit of ram and arent guardian heroes, panzer dragoon saga, shining force 3 and the holy ark

got those already

[sharp forum]

Powerslave

[idle gorge]

oh i forgot about that

thats the egyptian doom-type game right?

[sharp forum]

Yep. Has some light Metroid-style progression as well

Kinda feels like Metroid Prime before Metroid Prime

[left chasm]

sega rally championship brrrmm
baku baku animal
die hard arcade
virtua cop
nba jam te

oh mass destruction

[ripe valley]

The ending of Puyo Puyo Tsuu on Practice Mode seems better now too.
I can only hear a click sound during one of Arle's sentences : boku ga CLICK Puyo Puyo master desu.
The other stutters are fixed & one seems 'normal' just before the Yatta! shout when I compare with a SAROO, but it will be better to check against a real system, with a real disc.

That's all for now, as I'm taking a full week off from the project starting now

[idle gorge]

uhhh i tried remapping my saturn core's buttons but i dont think its working and now resetting them doesnt work

i wanted to make it so the z saber, dash and jump were a,b,c but its not letting me :\

in x4

[wide glacier]

that could be a lot of things

i'd start by loading another game or other core to make sure your controller is still working as it should

[idle gorge]

ok

yea, im trying powerslave now and it seems screwed up

is there anyway i can delete button configs on the sd card?

[wide glacier]

yeah, if you delete the saturn config file it will revert everything to default settings

[idle gorge]

ok thanks

[wide glacier]

also, excluding arcade ports, i'd recommend
-astal
-baroque
-bulk slash
-burning rangers
-choujikuu yousai macross
-clockwork knight
-dragon force
-fantastic pinball kyuutenkai
-fighters megamix
-keio flying squadron 2
-kidou senshi gundam
-legend of oasis
-magic knight rayearth
-mega man 8
-nights into dreams
-policenauts
-rayman
-road rash
-saturn bomberman
-shinobi X
-shinrei jusatsushi taromaru
-silhouette mirage
-steamgear mash
-super tempo
-thunder force V
-vatlva
among lots of others. the saturn has a very rich library

[idle gorge]

thanks!

[idle gorge]

my controls must be weird because in the silhouette mirage opening it wont let me do the parasite bomb move where you press a+b+c

when i try that on my saturn pad it just does another move

[wide glacier]

that's weird. what controller are you using?

[idle gorge]

this one

it was recommended to me by someone else and had been working well til now

[wide glacier]

that's odd. unfortunately i'm not too familiar with wireless controllers, so maybe someone else could chime in?

[idle gorge]

im using the wired connection

eventually ill just switch to an oem controller and snac but i just wanted a controller for right now anyway

[winter phoenix]

Three SNK games were programmed incorrectly. They have errors if they’re not using the 1 MB cart specifically. They are Real Bout Fatal Fury, King of Fighters ‘96 and Samurai Shodown IV

[quick sorrel]

https://download.8bitdo.com/Manual/Controller/M30/M30_Manual.pdf?20220513

IIRC one of the modes, d-input or x-input might be causing the buttons to mismatch. I think that was the cause for the M30 not working right when I got it. YMMV.

[graceful horizon]

I have the same one, what's the issue

could test it out on my mister pi if you want to later on

[burnt matrix]

Or maybe they were programmed correctly and it’s all a ploy to sell higher capacity ram carts

Think about it

[ripe valley]

No issue for me on Silhouette Mirage with some M30 controllers.
Can do a A+B+C on the tutorial.
Please check the mode on the controller eventually.

For Puyo Puyo Tsuu, no issue at all about stutter(s) with my Dual RAM system.
You can alleviate most of them with Fast timings on the Single RAM one, except during a sentence of Arle.

Some people could double-check if they want to.

That's all for me and going back to my vacation.

[celest lake]

Core’s done

[sudden tusk]

So does this fix the controller pad issue with Shinobi X ?

[green swift]

NEW STABLE NAO!

J/k it is done when it is done. 🙂

[idle gorge]

how do i switch between d and x-input on the controller?

i tried using home + up but all it did was toggle some settings about auto fire

[ripe valley]

Should be B or X (depending the mode wanted) + START pressed for some seconds when activating the controller.

It must be explained with the manual.

[idle gorge]

that's odd, lemme try again

[ripe valley]

Sorry : it was the BT manual, let's me search the 2.4G one instead, if we have the correct info with it...

Home+Up: X-input
Home+Left: Nintendo Switch
Home+Down: D-input (Genesis mini)

*On mister, X-input is recommended as it lets you map the minus button separately. *

[idle gorge]

this is weird

no matter what i press no x input

do you think having two different controllers plugged in could be effecting this

[burnt matrix]

pins updated

[green swift]

FWIW I used to own the 2.4GHz USB version of the M30 a few years ago and had issues with it. Phantom inputs and dropped inputs. These issues never occurred when the controller was wired. I ended up replacing it with the 2.4GHz DE9 version and adapting it with a Daemonbyte. I've had no issues, but you lose the shoulders when wireless since it is trying to be a Genesis controller. When wired you get independent shoulders so that's the trade off.

I see you're using the controller wired though and to my knowledge the base controller is the same between both 2.4GHz versions?

[burnt matrix]

omg me too, I don't have any issues with the bluetooth M30 though

the white Saturn one

[ripe valley]

One of the FW fixed the phantomed inputs.

[green swift]

I've been thinking about getting the BT version. Would really like to have those shoulders in wireless.

[left chasm]

I needed to do a certain mapping on the main gamepad menu for it to work well #controllers message

[idle gorge]

this is really weird, no matter everything i try its not swtiching to xinput and im wired

[analog totem]

maybe try switching modes while you aren’t plugged in and then plug it in

[idle gorge]

switching modes while unplugged from the mister?

[analog totem]

yeah

[idle gorge]

im trying to use the dongle now but its not working or pairing

[burnt matrix]

ok, got the pins updated with the latest MiSTer main that has fixes for Astal

[idle gorge]

is blue suppose to be xinput?

i got the dongle but its not pairing for some reason

[green swift]

Requires the new main MiSTer file too right?

[idle gorge]

welp in big trouble now

tried updating the 8bit do stuff on my pc and now it wont register any inputs on mister

[celest lake]

hold the right-most button on the mister when you're in the main menu

you likely have to rebind everything

[rotund steeple]

Usually not. But worth a try. Updated both, the controller and dongle?

[idle gorge]

yea, i updated both using this https://support.8bitdo.com/firmware-updater.html

[rotund steeple]

The software is pretty solid now. The update was successfull?

[idle gorge]

i think so but im not sure

i just followed the site directions

[rotund steeple]

Does the controller connect properly on the PC?

After the update