Sega Saturn

[celest lake]

He’s moving at the moment (I bugged him yesterday with some Linux shit)

I think he intends to get back to it at some point

[tawny forge]

I’m designing a RetroFi module that will have 2x NeoGeo + 2x Saturn ports that I would love to see fully working on the core

Ordering the PCBs today. Should have something working in about two weeks

[winter phoenix]

New patches make a bevy of improvements to Virtua Cop 1 & 2 and House of the Dead — from unlocking bonuses right from the start to optionally removing the white flash for those using Sinden light guns, here's everything they do and where to get them:

https://www.segasaturnshiro.com/2026/02/18/patches-improve-trio-of-saturn-light-gun-classics/

[haughty dove]

Some of those have been ported, such as Fighting Vipers 2 and Virtua Figher 3TB being available in the arcade in certain Yakuza games. Project Justice also got a very recent rerelease in a Capcom collection.

[idle gorge]

im just popping to say Tactics Ogre for the Saturn is quite hard, i was expecting this coming in but yea...

[wide glacier]

good catch, though those are all emulation though no? also not really a fan of how sega hides away some of their best arcade titles in a yakuza game lol

[visual sundial]

Yeah Daytona 2 being stranded in some random Like a Dragon game is infuriating

[wide glacier]

in an ideal scenario, real discs should always be used for testing, but not only is that an extremely tall order given the price and rarity of many saturn games, but game version and drive health can be variables too. besides, i can't think of a single example where ODEs affect actual game performance performance outside of loading times, with the only exception being really extreme edge cases, like the audio stutter in astal. people still use their xstations to compare games against the PSX core, after all

[burnt matrix]

Oh well, guess they need to sit down!!

[winter phoenix]

pfft let's not follow the example of PlayStation gamers 💩 🤮

[burnt matrix]

Listen, are you even a real Saturn fan if you don’t own Panzer Dragoon Saga?

[exotic crypt]

Panzer Dragoon Saga is free if you buy it and sell it back after you're done playing it

[visual sundial]

I do actually own Panzer Dragoon Saga, not in the best condition but it’s my original copy from 1998

[burnt matrix]

My copy is my friend’s game I’ve been borrowing for like 18 years now lol

[wise brook]

i’ll try that on MiSTer with gun4ir later

removing the white flash becomes a legit accessibility feature for some users

[exotic crypt]

Panzer Dragoon Saga was the first game (besides the other two Panzer Dragoon games) that I completed on the Saturn core, first time playing it too

Honestly kind of liked that it was fairly short and confidently ends when it does

[visual sundial]

Yeah it’s exactly as long as it needs to be

[drowsy hull]

when was the last time you told him this fact?

[wide glacier]

18 years ago

[haughty dove]

I’m still “borrowing” Super Mario RPG from someone. Going on 28 years now, I think.

Tbf, they got my original copy of Kirby Super Star.

[celest lake]

At some point it’s just theft

[warped saddle]

maybe if they really loved the game they'd try to get it back

[river wing]

I'm still "borrowing" the original Saturn "Panzer Dragoon" since 1996.
The person who lend me the game is a compulsive marijuana smoker so he has probably looooong forgot by now.

[idle gorge]

its a beautiful game and im looking forward to beating it on the core

[pearl harbor]

Just like Robby with his Saturn collection!

[sharp forum]

Yes and I just let him in like a fool

His Sallad hat lured me into a false sense of security

[glossy steppe]

Should be pretty easy to recognize with that mirrored hat

[burnt matrix]

LOL this is the first thing I see after a long day of work

what the bell is tailscale is that some furry stuff

I am happy for people who like that; no judgement, but it’s not for me lol

[glossy steppe]

Apparently it's some kind of open source 2FA for IoT devices?

[sharp forum]

It’s a VPN

Usually used for remote access to other machines iirc

[river river]

You can even run it on your MiSTer if you're that way inclined...

[burnt matrix]

@warped saddle how we get this on the official distribution and running automatically for all users?

[river river]

We need to configure all the MiSTers into one huge shared Tailnet

[warped saddle]

maybe this is the future of rom distribution

[thorn pagoda]

tailscale is a really cool vpn system, i just set mine up this week, highly recommend if you want to access your home server resources from elsewhere (phones etc)

the way it can do automatic SSL is absolutely crazy

[burnt matrix]

What if, theoretically every MiSTer had tailscale installed and only I had access to them. Could I theoretically force load Quest 64 on anyone’s MiSTer remotely? Theoretically.

[thorn pagoda]

aren't most people already playing quest64? i know i am

[river river]

WIth MiSTer Remote + tailscale you absolutely could load quest 64 on all of them

[burnt matrix]

Holy shit

[visual sundial]

I wake up in cold sweats at night when I realise I'm not playing Quest 64

[haughty dove]

Red hot mister tonight

[rare garnet]

hey guys how do i need to set up files for multi disk in chd format

[mortal mist]

All CD images must be in one folder.

[sturdy dagger]

I’d also be careful of Chds for Saturn. Some games do not work as Chds

I do not know the list unfortunately

[warped saddle]

it's in the pins

[leaden dagger]

I wonder if hell ever fix controller binding for saturn because I still get asked for a coin input like it was st-v

[rich violet]

https://www.reddit.com/r/SegaSaturn/comments/1r21xe2/day_29_final_day_we_have_our_winner_the_best/

[strong osprey]

the complete sega saturn library...

[tidal marsh]

Could I use this to play nights into dreams?

[exotic crypt]

Was this a tie in controller for some game?

[tidal marsh]

Seaman special edition for ps2 I think

[exotic crypt]

Huh

[wise brook]

yeah

[exotic crypt]

That's a USB controller though

[tidal marsh]

Yea it’s weird it has usb

[wise brook]

ps2 has 2x usb1.0 ports

[tidal marsh]

Though there are usb ports on the ps2 I think?

There’s another one also

[exotic crypt]

Well yeah I just didn't think any PS2 games used USB for controllers

[wise brook]

the light guns connect via usb

[exotic crypt]

It'd likely need to be per game

[exotic crypt]

Yeah which is convenient for using them now

[wise brook]

the other port has a few names but sony called it iLink, apple called it firewire

[exotic crypt]

Oh it's probably because of the mic

[tidal marsh]

I don’t think these have analog triggers though

[exotic crypt]

You should be able to talk to Nights

[wise brook]

or the nightopians

[tidal marsh]

I guess the core doesn’t so no big deal

[wise brook]

the core does

but only via snac

[exotic crypt]

Not for USB controllers

[tidal marsh]

That doesn’t count

[exotic crypt]

Which is unfortunate

[tidal marsh]

I will simply use a seaman controller

[exotic crypt]

There needs to be more Seaman/Hey You Pikachu Em Ups

[wise brook]

you get something like that with the miitopia games

[tidal marsh]

*Where’s my analog trigger support please!

[celest lake]

I think you mean "Where is our analog trigger support, comrade?"

https://tenor.com/blSjJ.gif

[noble escarp]

Lot's of playstation 2 USB devices.
Racing wheel, mic, flightstick, train controller, trance vib, that seaman controller

[exotic crypt]

Yeah, I just haven't seen it for more conventional controllers but I guess that one has a mic built in

[noble escarp]

It does. I think it's the only reason for it to be USB

[exotic crypt]

Man I'm glad everything is USB now

[noble escarp]

Some other devices are PC devices that are compatible with PS2 games. Like the racing wheels.

[exotic crypt]

Well except display connectors and Ethernet, but even Display Port alternative mode is built into USB-C now

But for typical gaming usecases most controllers being cross platform is nice

[tight haven]

I was just curious if we're any closer to seeing cheats in the menu becoming a reality for Saturn, or if the core is still just maxed out/ no headroom?

I remember it being described that way last time I inquired

[thorn pagoda]

loading a cheat cartridge rom through the rom slot definitely doesn't work right

[rare garnet]

do rom hacks work?

[wide glacier]

general rule of thumb is that if a hack works on real hardware, it will work on a given core

only exception is N64 and that's only sometimes

[burnt matrix]

It’s like three games and two of them are mahjong

[glossy steppe]

I am going to assume this is supposed to be a joke

[burnt matrix]

maybe

[idle gorge]

is it possible to transfer saturn core saves on mister to a software emulator? Im doing an experiment

[small ore]

https://savefileconverter.com/#/mister

this may work

[idle gorge]

god bless

[visual sundial]

This is the list of known Saturn games that don’t work as CHD. Could we pin this?

#1046941029296779344 message

[celest lake]

It was pinned at some point. Do we remember why we unpinned it @burnt matrix ?

[burnt matrix]

It’s in the important info pin @visual sundial

[glossy steppe]

Feels like it gets a bit buried with everything else all being in that same pin

[glossy steppe]

IIRC that's what I used, but it can be tricky moving then between formats. I had a really REALLY old format when I pulled them off my real Saturn and had to use additinal software to even load them on that site first

[tawny forge]

@left chasm wondering if the analog shoulder buttons support you're implementing will support mapping analog stick axes to shoulder buttons?

Especially from neutral (0x7F) to max (0xFF) from the analog stick to min (0x00) to max (0xFF) to the analog shoulder

[left chasm]

I don't understand your last line, the poc is assigning an axis per each trigger (L/R)

[tawny forge]

I was thinking about the possibility of mapping X/Y axes from an analog stick to the shoulder button analog values. Like, for example, using the right analog stick axes of an analog PS1 controller as shoulder buttons (seems weird, but I’ve got an use case for it)

[noble escarp]

This would also be handy for maping a HOTAS to be used as saturn mission stick (with it's Z axis)

[harsh seal]

hi there everybody ... can someone help me i noticed i can't no longer play at "dynamite deka " on ST-V core. i get "error on cartridge" everytime i launch it. Die hard arcade works fine but why come the japanese version doesn't? thanks very much to all of you

[ripe valley]

Do you have access to the Alternative BIOS option on the OSD with that game ?

It's either an incorrect Cabinet Type, or an incorrect BIOS region.

[harsh seal]

yes but that's the same for the alt bios it's doesn't work ... that's strange though it's works fine a couple of months before

[idle gorge]

What advantages would fenrir have over mister with just one ram module?

[ripe valley]

Some games will work better, like some 3D fighting games, but otherwise, the MiSTer is much better than a Fenrir solution, in terms of accuracy in general.

The Fenrir fails all CD Block accuracy and timing tests.

[ripe valley]

The game isn't even correctly loaded on the Service Menu, I don't see the cart at all.

Maybe a MRA revision is necessary.

I don't see a fault on the core right now and other games work correctly.

[left chasm]

I guess in theory, although that code is a bit hard to follow so we'll have to test

from my mental model of it anyways

[ripe valley]

Found It!
The MRA is incorrect, some parts were copy/pasted from other MRA files and the start address mapping of fpr19114.13 is incorrect.
I could correct it manually and it work once again.
Could someone do a PR on the MRA-Alternatives Git, please ?

[tawny forge]

If you can beat input.cpp you can beat anything in life

[idle gorge]

you guys kinda convinced me, im gonna save for a dualram set

[small ore]

There was a commit after all ST-V MRAs were moved to the alternatives that fixed an issue with the interleaving field because there was a change in that behaviour in main.
All the ST-V alternate MRAs are currently broken because they never got this fix.

[small ore]

I've sent a PR to fix all the alternates

[ripe valley]

Thank you.

[pearl harbor]

Whoo, finally a fix for the ST-V alts!

Brought this up recently as well.

Would be nice if the Puzzle & Action Treasure Hunt mra was the default and not the alt mra since that's the english version of the game, and this is a game that is quite difficult to play without being able to read it.

[celest lake]

The arcade folder tries to follow mame when it comes to parents and clones. That may be why the Japanese version is in the main folder

[glossy steppe]

Does this have any known effect on games though?

(Also what about other ODEs like the Satiator or MODE? I know Saroo is way way worse)

[wide glacier]

i think the audio stutter in astal that was discovered a while back turned out to be a bug with the fenrir?

saroo is only "worse" accuracy-wise because it emulates the entire CD block and i think has to do some per-game patching, mostly to achieve the faster loads. you can edit the .cfg file to tighten up timings and fix a lot of issues though, and a new firmware update was released just a few days ago that should address glitches people were running into

[ripe valley]

They fixed several isues but opened other ones.

[glossy steppe]

I thought it has to patch most games ot even get them to boot?

Saroo I mean

[ripe valley]

Several games exhibit stuttering or slight inaccuracies in data transmission because the timings aren't being followed on the Fenrir.
No one seems to notice or complain about it.
And if I hadn't mentioned it, you wouldn't know.

Which is rather amusing, because people complain about core issues but can't seem to detect larger errors in their favorite games using a SAROO or a Fenrir ODE.

For the Satiator or MODE, I will take care of the tests at another time later in the year.

[glossy steppe]

Nice, curious how the Satiator handels it since I prefer ODEs that let me keep the disk drive

Sadly, the person making the mod for the Fenrir that let you keep the disk drive stopped selling it

Annoying that they re-designed it to make it a "lite" version that's cheaper, but didn't consider to have some option for people to keep the disk drive. The CLONES of all things on places like Aliexpress actually all come with that mod built-in for around the same price.

[ripe valley]

I know from Ced', the creator of Fenrir, that a new version should be released soon.

But I don't know the exact details yet.

[glossy steppe]

New version?

Have they said what it does?

[ripe valley]

Better DRM 😏

Ced' hasn't talked about it much, just a short message on X during May 2025. A simple message that he's going to try working on a new Fenrir and that he hopes for a proof of concept within a year.

But for the moment, he's selling his GB/GBC flashcard under the new brand name Ryuutek.

[harsh seal]

many thanks .....merci beaucoup 🇨🇵 🫶 it works thanks for everything

[jagged spire]

I think he mentioned something about the VCD port

I was on the discord for a while because I bought a fenrir lite and it simply didn't want to work, and I was not the only one having this issue

[winter phoenix]

I’d be interested in how the Satiator does with those tests

[proven mural]

Folks, I keep getting that “Initialize the RAM” for literally every Saturn game I try to boot on my mister. I have no idea why this happens

When I load the bios, am I supposed to press play, and then load the game itself?

[tawny forge]

You don't need to manually load the bios provided you have the right bios file under the right name. You might need to update main.

[dry hinge]

I don’t think I’m gonna blow anyone’s mind here but I was messing around with Last Bronx in the different Saturn cores and found some older cores where it actually runs pretty good on single ram.

I’m not an expert on the game, in fact I’m very casual and I’m purely going by feel here atm. I’d also have to compare it to the fixed timings as well to see if it’s better than those. But Im pretty sure it is.

Was just curious that if the result was positive if anyone would want like a Mra setup on archive for this game that hooks into the specific core where it works the best?

Also if anybody has any additional info on this game and the core for me that’d be super helpful.

Right now I’m on the 24.06.28 core and it feels fine with only the very occasional minor hiccup for me

But I really need to test more

I played through arcade mode as Joe and to me it seemed fine enough that it if it performed like that in the normal core I’m not sure if I’d even have taken notice of it, aside from the odd minor stutter that may or may not be part of the game on hardware. I’m a fighting game pleb so take that with a grain of salt.

[mortal mist]

It all depends on which direction we want to go, towards real hardware? We have to accept certain problems with single SDRAM. If we want to go towards inaccuracy, we can enable fast timing permanently and forget about it. Older versions played back in a less accurate way. The only problem is de10 and the limitations associated with it.

[dry hinge]

Oh I’m aware this doesn’t help development at all, I was just looking for a solution for the people that wanted to play the game on their set ups in the best way.

Gauging interest

[mortal mist]

The question is, is it really that much effort to enable the fast timing option for these games on the vf/vf2 engine? Unless we change the game every minute and do it 100 times.

[dry hinge]

I was under the impression that last Bronx in particular still didnt play well with fast timings

[mortal mist]

I'm just thinking out loud

[dry hinge]

The other games may or may not be fine, but that one is like a stutter fest

I started this out by thinking out loud myself. I’m not innately familiar with any of these games or the differences in the ram timings, nor am I developer. I’m also not aiming for accuracy, that’s a job for srg320, I’m just simply looking for an experience that people can play and enjoy with what they have.

Fighting vipers plays reasonably snappy on 24.03.23

Maybe I’ll put together a compilation of these and their respective cores and call it the “Saturn single ram copium pack”

[tawny forge]

mednafen mode wen

[hearty marten]

It plays pretty well on dual sdram

[idle gorge]

When I finally do have a dualram setup do i need to dl seperate cores?

[burnt matrix]

Yes

They’re pinned

Dual ram cores will not be automatically downloaded from update or update_all

We want to have them automatically downloaded but who knows when that functionality will be implemented.

[tawny forge]

@devout dawn might know wen

[burnt matrix]

Yeah I imagine it’s on someone’s timetable, but I don’t want to give anyone false expectations that it’ll be soon

[tawny forge]

And I believe we can drop single SDRAM since dual SDRAM is the way to go

[celest lake]

working on it right meow

[burnt matrix]

Ohhhhhhh wow

[celest lake]

I can't get the downloader entry to work yet. I pinged José about it (and possibly adding it as an option in update_all) https://github.com/TheJesusFish/Dual-Ram-Console-Cores

[tawny forge]

Best Fish ever!

[celest lake]

Maybe someone with a Large Linux Brain can figure out why this isn't doing anything [TheJesusFish/Dual-Ram-Console-Cores] db_url = https://raw.githubusercontent.com/TheJesusFish/Dual-Ram-Console-Cores/db/db.json.zip

[hearty marten]

All cores should become dual ram, even when there’s no benefit

[mortal mist]

and single sdram version should be banned 😂

[idle gorge]

they should self destruct

[manic moss]

Well there goes my MiSTer, then. 😛

[idle gorge]

same

but ill have dualram in a few months, stock depending

[manic moss]

Mine is still on the original 32MB of RAM.

F*ing hell, if I'm to get back to core development, I need to get this shit replaced.

[idle gorge]

I want to play mega man x4 on saturn but still need to adapt to the controls

feels weird going from psx

[manic moss]

I honestly prefer the Saturn version.

[idle gorge]

I prefer what ive played of the Saturn version but i struggle more doing saber dash cancel

[manic moss]

Minus downgraded transparencies and lower quality sound effects, this used to be the only version of MegaMan X4 to have proper seamless looping in the music (seamless loops were added to the PlayStation version in MegaMan X Legacy Collection), the music itself is of higher quality (full 44.1KHz rather than 37.8KHz CD-XA), some songs get slightly extended segments and the synths sound they're a bit more refined, sometimes having a slightly richer sound than on the PlayStation.

[idle gorge]

the loop of zero's theme on skylagoon is so much better

[manic moss]

That was added to the PlayStation soundtrack in MegaMan X Legacy Collection, although it loops slightly later after the last note is hit.

That said, the Saturn version's synths sound better.

[idle gorge]

isnt legacy collection with the horrible input lag

[manic moss]

I know the latency was horribly high with the PlayStation 4 version, not sure about the others.

[idle gorge]

ive seen enough posts to know it was bad for steam too

[manic moss]

🤔
I never felt like it was much of a hindrance for the PC release.

That reminds me: I need to add back the Saturn soundtrack to that version.

[idle gorge]

which X version would you say is the definitive then?

of 4

[manic moss]

Saturn.

However, I prefer to play the Japanese version. The acting in the English version just doesn't work for me.

[idle gorge]

same

[burnt matrix]

I know @sharp comet wanted some form of MiSTer ram detection to automate which version of a core you’d get. Is that even feasible? Otherwise yeah a separate repo you opt into is best.

[celest lake]

Sorg shot it down iirc. Theypsilon talked to him about it like 6 months ago?

[burnt matrix]

Oh well

[celest lake]

and it would actually be bad for me because I run a single shared core folder for all my misters

so it would pull the dual ram core and half my misters wouldn't be able to use it

[burnt matrix]

That’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make

lol

[sturdy dagger]

I think just have the dual ram cores as an optional setting to enable in Update_All. Just like the Alt cores ( like 2XPSX). Could even place the dual ram cores in the same alt folder too

[next bronze]

I like to MST3K the English version.

[tawny forge]

How do these people talk to sorg? Is that from the top of some mountain or something? 🤔

[celest lake]

facebook messenger? I think?

[tawny forge]

I would like to add him on Telegram

[ripe valley]

Sorg, on the top of the highest mountain.

Have you miserable mortals come to ask something?

[tawny forge]

Is 32MB as the second SDRAM module ok?

Ok, according to what I've just planned here, I will end up with 3 dual-SDRAM MiSTer Pis + Direct IO from Mr. Express!

The ultimate MiSter setup!

Pending another Direct IO purchase, but that's going to be next month

[burnt matrix]

Yah

[tawny forge]

Thanks!

[hearty marten]

Good

[celest lake]

How dare you

[hearty marten]

Maybe if you didn’t have 8000 MiSTers you’d be able to have dual sdram in all of them

Everyone knows you’re only allowed one

[burnt matrix]

better get your dual ram before ai comes for the misters next

[tawny forge]

AI is already fucking us up in regards to storage

Had to get a 256GB micro SD because anything over that costs an arm and leg

[ripe valley]

Whatcha gonna do?
Whatcha gonna do when they come for you?

[hearty marten]

Even MicroSDs? Wow

So glad I got dual ram before gippity bought it all

[tawny forge]

Yep

These are the most expensive memes and plagiarized art and software ever

#FuckAI

[river river]

Is there no error? Looks like the GitHub action generated the db ok
https://github.com/TheJesusFish/Dual-Ram-Console-Cores/actions/runs/22279724782/job/64448336831#step:4:1

[celest lake]

No error. Just never downloads

[river river]

It just worked for me 🙂

_Console (Dual SDRAM)/Jaguar_20251215.rbf
_Console (Dual SDRAM)/PSX_20260222.rbf
_Console (Dual SDRAM)/Saturn_20260216.rbf

Did you already have those files on your MiSTer I'm guessing?

[celest lake]

No. That’s why it’s weird. I have no idea. I have have the check set to strict too. So weird

[celest lake]

@river river is this the downloader entry you used?

[river river]

Yep! Cut & pasted it exactly into my downloader.ini

[celest lake]

worked on a different mister with the exact same downloader.ini. Theypsilon made a change a couple months back and I have found update all to be less reliable ever since. Like sometimes it just doesn't pick shit up

[river river]

weird

[celest lake]

So I think what happened was that the first commit had a .gitignore file, and the database stuff doesn't like that, so update (on the main mister) was like "yo, get this shit out of here, it's bothering me"

So then I made that change but the script didn't check the repo again?

[tawny forge]

Try nukeing the /media/fat/Scripts/.config and try again

[celest lake]

ehh, it's on the NAS now, so it's fine. But if I hit that issue again, I will try that

[glossy steppe]

https://tenor.com/view/what-am-i-fighting-for-zero-iris-mega-man-mega-man-x4-gif-11050507854088787617

[wide glacier]

saturn version is arguably the best, though you can't go wrong with either that or the playstation release. there's not nearly as much of a difference between consoles as there was with mega man 8. it is worth noting though that there's an undub + retranslation patch for the playstation version, so if you use that, you can play with the japanese voice acting and an improved english translation

controls are a non-issue since you're on mister; just use whatever pad and mappings you want. definitely avoid the classic and X legacy collections though. they have pretty terrible input latency and are just mediocre compilations overall. we already got a better X collection on playstation 2 almost two decades ago anyway

[burnt matrix]

How do you not play the game in English with those bangers lmao

I cannot imagine Mega Man 8 without DOCTAH WHYWEE

[glossy steppe]

What about the PC version?

[wide glacier]

i don't think it's all that different from the PS1 release

[idle gorge]

I just remember Bass/Forte being adult Link/Viral/Guy from Gaogaigar

so the Jap version wins

[wide glacier]

gaogaigar mentioned

[manic moss]

It's the PlayStation version with really badly downsampled music (all the way down to 22.05KHz!).

[idle gorge]

he also plays a tire monster in Gosei Sentai Dairanger

"Boss Kamikaze" if i recall correctly

[proven mural]

I get this screen for every single game…

I have no idea why

[celest lake]

when was the last time you ran update all?

[proven mural]

Maybe like a couple months ago??

[celest lake]

run it

[proven mural]

It’s running

I have the October 3rd, 2025 RBF for Saturn

but why is that almost every game I boot now has this “Initalize the ram” screen for whatever reason

[celest lake]

you need to update main

update all will do that

[hallow fossil]

There are some steps to get a DB running, will ping you

[devout dawn]

Nooo, don’t do that 🙁 If you want all the files to have an integrity check, so that filesystem corruptions show up, use file_checking = verify_integrity. And if you removed some tiny file and you want it to get reinstalled use file_checking = exhaustive. Thats unnecessary when the removed file is >= 512kb (like the vast majority is) , in that case it will be reinstalled without having to touch anything

It’s documented in downloader readme since nov release

[hearty marten]

TIL. As a person paranoid about file integrity, I’ll turn that on right away

(Personally I think it should be the default to always check)

[devout dawn]

Ugh really? Im interested in knowing more about that

[celest lake]

yeah, and then I deleted it again to test it, and no mister would grab it. I assumed I set the repo up wrong, but it was working for others

I even did verify_integrity and it wouldn’t’ pull it

I wonder if it was because it was a new directory?

new directory + I’m using CIFS. Some sort of unorthodox combo of settings. I dunno. I eventually just copied them over

[devout dawn]

It’s a bit slow, the updaters check integrity of the installed files whenever they are installed BUT, mister uses a ExFAT filesystem that in very rare occasions can get corrupted when you switch the device off in the middle of some operations. There is no way to fix that without changing the filesystem format which is not gonna happen unfortunately, so the verify_integrity is a mitigation feature more than anything

[hearty marten]

Well I periodically run md5sum -c on most of my games, so checking cores every now and then isn’t a big deal either 😅

[devout dawn]

We can troubleshoot that, if you dont mind sharing some files for me to check

[celest lake]

totally, but I dunno if I have already overwritten any files you need

also, i sent you a DM re: dual ram repo

[glossy steppe]

Would verify_integrity or exhaustive overwrite any intentionally modified bios files?

[celest lake]

yeah, because it's verifying the hash

[glossy steppe]

Hmm, dosen't seem to do anything, wonder if I am using it wrong. I know I used it before

[ocean wasp]

Tried the search function without result.
In "Dragonheart Fire & Steel" after finishing a level and saving into backup ram, then select continue game, the game freezes on black screen. Tried with us and pal version CHD. Latest stable single ram core, same with timing "fast" or " original".
However when rebooting the game and loading the save game the game loads the next level fine

Can someone verify that?

[celest lake]

try the unstable core

it may be that the bug is fixed there

[idle gorge]

whos the best newbie character in guardian heroes

[dusky delta]

Why is it that Saturn often ends up being the best port?

[exotic crypt]

[Screams in Castlevania SOTN]

[dusky delta]

Even in the case of SotN where the port was bad, the devs did put effort in

[exotic crypt]

It technically has bonus characters too

[wide glacier]

as much as i love the saturn, i'd say it only wins maybe half of the time, but it's something you have to determine on a game-by-game basis

yeah, SotN on saturn is rough. the extra content is awesome, but it's really only worth a play if you love the original game, and you can live with the comparatively terrible visuals and performance

[muted cradle]

Well, the Meduza patch rectifies a lot

[wide glacier]

it does, but many graphics were left untouched, and the performance is still pretty awful

[dusky delta]

I think when we're talking action games, yeah sure. But it's so weird that the Saturn got a lot of enhanced ports like in the case of Ogre Battle or Policenauts

[exotic crypt]

Reminds me indirectly, the Tokimeki Memorial PS1 and Saturn ports are basically in a funny translation race by happenstance

I'm almost hoping the Saturn version wins

[wide glacier]

i'd be happy with either tbh, but the saturn is the tokimeki machine to me lol

[exotic crypt]

They're pretty similar ports AFAIK

[dusky delta]

Yeah. The Saturn port is apparently slightly better though

[exotic crypt]

Yeah, I've heard

[dusky delta]

Though the PS1 is the only console to have exclusive side games

[exotic crypt]

Yeah and you basically need to reserve an entire memory card to them for voice synthesis which is nuts

[dusky delta]

Konami really goes overkill with their dating sims. Other interesting things I know:

1. One of the Arcade games has a heartbeat sensor
2. The GBC ports of Tokimeki Memorial have it so Shiori may randomly join a club you can't join because of the version you're playing
3. Love+ on the DS has a mode where you can play day-by-day

[exotic crypt]

They design dating sims like they're action games

[wide glacier]

fun fact, one of my windy cabs was actually converted from a tokimeki memorial: oshiete your heart machine. it still has provisions for the heart rate monitor and photo printer on the rear lol

[exotic crypt]

https://tenor.com/view/tell-me-more-the-simpsons-lets-have-some-coffee-gif-16623944

[sturdy dagger]

I really appreciate the charm of the Saturn’s Biohazard port. I really like how the transparency is handled for example.

[sharp forum]

My favorite custom arcade stick build ever https://vxtwitter.com/scottoland/status/1714684290938613795?s=20

Scott (@scottoland)

I made my dream arcade stick @fightstickart

vxTwitter / fixvx · Oct 18, 2023, 4:46 PM

[harsh seal]

bon mot = proper word en francais 😆 i don't remember in which episode we could see that ? Maybe early season 🇨🇵 c'est marrant de revoir ca

[ripe valley]

S05e08.

[green jacinth]

inconceivable

that's a pretty deep cut ngl, and a crazy mashup to boot

A+

[hexed mountain]

I guess it would be something like "Witty remark" in that context?

[idle gorge]

im so excited for my OEM saturn controller, said itll be here by the third

hopefully it works better than my now broke 8bitdo genesis one

[hard narwhal]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PK7B6MR_i-8
mister still the best way to play panzer dragoon !

[wide glacier]

it still rings true

[exotic crypt]

All three games work pretty well even without fast timings in single sdram builds

Fyi the uploader of that video already posted it in #share-media

[quick sorrel]

Dual RAM build Q - any size secondary module will do as long as I’ve already got a good 128MB module, yeah?

[celest lake]

yeah. I think the 32mb thing was a power issue if I remember correctly

[tawny forge]

Interesting. What was that 32mb thingie? 🤔

[celest lake]

DOA 🙂

but I think kuba mentioned that once he swapped power supplies it was fine

[quick sorrel]

Meaning the original DE10 power supply wasn’t enough for a dual ram build? Or something else?
Cuz I was thinking to pickup a 32 or 64MB module for Saturn

[mortal mist]

Nothing like that, it's just that the new sdram revisions are more stable. For example, I used a Pololu switch (MOSFET) and it caused instability with 32MB. 2.9+ handles it without any problems (has improved voltage regulation for better stability at high speeds).

After connecting the power supply directly to the de10 nano, the problem disappeared for me with 32mb or 128mb rev. 2.4/2.5

But that was my specific problem, I don't know how it is for others.

[visual sundial]

Forever Entertainment should be given a restraining order from video games

[exotic crypt]

The thing is people will buy that remake because they want to "support the series" even if they think the remake is bad

When idk all that teaches them is "you can keep remaking games without respecting the original work and people will give you a gazillion bucks"

I do think older games deserve to be like re-released and accessible to an audience that won't emulate but not always remade if they're already good (and not even if they're "bad", "bad" movies are respected in their original form by rereleases, re-scans preserve crappy SFX and it's fine)

[polar mountain]

I think they should only remake games that haven't already been made.

[visual sundial]

This is why these remakes annoy more than usual. For most people, these dire versions of the game will be the only versions they have access to. It’s a bit different if the original is easily accessible

[exotic crypt]

Yeah

Remakes are seen to "replace" the need for the original

[wise brook]

the only thing they should remake are the studios they keep sacrificing to the AI sector and quarterly earnings reports

[exotic crypt]

Why rerelease a game for the current gen if you've already released the definitive version without those crusty graphics or "aged" gameplay

[wise brook]

very rarely you get the opposite

[exotic crypt]

HD 2D now

[wise brook]

before - after

the gba port is almost a demake

[exotic crypt]

Which is less bad now I guess, it's usually 3D games that get the worst treatment

Sometimes 2D games get upscaled with the bad mame filters though

[exotic crypt]

Well no I mean 3D games are what are usually getting explicit remakes that attempt to redo the graphics because now people have started to accept low res 2D

Honestly the ideal would just be releases that run the game in their original native resolution, especially for 5th gen titles

6th gen and up tend to look a bit more graceful in native HD

[exotic crypt]

Honestly the fact that Pokémon can get old games released in their original presentation, even if ridiculously expensive is progress towards the right direction imo

[quick sorrel]

I see. So as long as the module is a 2.9+, the size should matter , right?

[quick sorrel]

*shouldn’t 🤦‍♂️

[mortal mist]

2.9+ is only 128mb

32mb is 2.2

[glossy steppe]

Oof, hey. Sure, the Panzer Dragoon 1 remake was not very good, and the Zwei remake is total trash, but surely they will get the significnatly longer and more complicated Saga remake correct ,right? .... right?

[glossy steppe]

I don't think that is a fair comparison. The GBA has many limitations, especially in being able to display the visuals of even the flash original. This was still the era in which having a game portable meant a lot of comprimises. The game was fine in it's PS2/GC/Xbox versions.

[idle gorge]

you know what im sad we never got

A gaogaigar game on saturn or even ps2

[idle gorge]

hey, i hear if you have Zwei data on Saturn you get extra content in Saga, could you elaborate on this?

[strong osprey]

the tragedy of not being able to be the KING of the BRAVE on sega saturn

[visual sundial]

It’s the opposite - It unlocks the Pandora’s Box in Zwei, which you usually have to unlock by completing the game

Which is weird because Saga came out years later

They started development around the same time though so I guess they planned ahead

[exotic crypt]

I think Saga simply shouldn't be touched, not even get a "good remake"

Anything would do it a disservice

But I also think it's original artstyle is beautiful and even painterly in moments

[glossy steppe]

I don't remember all the details but that is true. I recall you get a music box at your campsite that lets you listen to music, some thing that just displays a SEGASEGASEGA message, and I think there was some mini-quest you could do to take out some boss that apparently you never got to finish off in Zwei (or even the original) and it unlocks another form for your dragon, basically the original form in the first game, and it's the most powerful one IIRC.

I read up all this years ago, likely on GameFaqs, it shoul be documented in many places by now

[visual sundial]

It’s a top 3 game for me and my first ever RPG. Please don’t touch it 🙁

[exotic crypt]

I think (and maybe it's pretentious) remakes are simply disrespectful if you don't like the original game enough to think it needs "improved"

[glossy steppe]

Eh, I see a remake as another telling/version of the game, the original still exists

[exotic crypt]

People that want people to believe video games can be true art need to treat it like art

[glossy steppe]

I love the remake of the first RPG I played

[glossy steppe]

Also in the case of FF7 it's both a remake and a sort of stealth sequel

[exotic crypt]

It ends up being the only accessible version of the original game for a lot of people who won't emulate, and no other medium gets remakes as much as games

Oh FF7R is a rare exceptional case of doing something cool through the framing device of remake

Even if it's messy

[visual sundial]

The issue for me is that if it’s a poorly executed remake like the Forever Entertainment ones are, I’d hate it to be people’s first experience of the game
I’m not against remakes in principle

[exotic crypt]

Me either but the conversation needs to move to "what are remakes supposed to accomplish?" and I'm not sure people clamouring for them and studios demanding they go into development at the behest of developers that would rather be doing anything else are really sure

[glossy steppe]

I mean, any game good or bad can be people's first expirence of something

[exotic crypt]

I don't think remakes shouldn't ever happen but they should happen less

[glossy steppe]

If the original version was inaccessible outside of emulation then I don't see how that's a problem with a remake being accessable, it's not like the remove removed acessability

[exotic crypt]

More straight ports would be better

[glossy steppe]

There is also the blurry line of remaster and remake

Mario RPG is a remake technically, but it's closer to a remaster, it's exceedingly like the original down to like 90% of the script being the same

[exotic crypt]

Unfortunately it's hard to do something 1:1 like scanning film

[visual sundial]

I tend to agree, since for me the objective is greater access to gaming history rather than pure sales

[exotic crypt]

I can buy a bluray of an old movie and it's job is just to pull back the veil and get closer to what audiences experienced in theaters

[glossy steppe]

Seen the Phantasy Star port on Switch? Or Virtua Racer?

[exotic crypt]

Those are great ports

[glossy steppe]

A lot of those can be poor transfers that look and/or sound horrible

[exotic crypt]

M2 does fantastic work

[visual sundial]

I think remakes and the original game can coexist, the issue with something like Panzer Zwei is that it’s not very accessible to a modern audience without specific hardware

[glossy steppe]

Pretty sure Virta Racer is a remake

[exotic crypt]

Yes but I'm saying it's a little easier to do it with films

[glossy steppe]

It's running at 1080p 60fps and can do up to 8 player local co-op, no way can the original code do that, also pretty sure it was software rendering originally, it's clearly hardware rendeirng on switch

[exotic crypt]

Oh right it is, but it still attempts to be faithful and basically ship of theseus it's way to being 1:1 the original game

[glossy steppe]

that's any saturn game though

Also thank SEGA for removing all their retro games from steam and consoles recently

Even from mobile

[exotic crypt]

M2 likes to add optional features that don't change the game if you don't use them

I can't say that I entirely mind that

[visual sundial]

Yeah, which is why it’s so bothersome that Forever are doing stuff like Panzer and HotD

[glossy steppe]

Gotta love that Sonic Origins has Denuvo, because yeah, you need to put the most controversal modrn DRM on ports of 40 year old games that people had been emulating off floppy disks since the 90s

[exotic crypt]

Sega is kind of flippy floppy on PC

[glossy steppe]

That's a shit developer sadly, remakes or new games, they would have been shit

[glossy steppe]

No they're not! They never released games on floppy, and I am pretty sure they never used flippy disks ever

🙂

[exotic crypt]

They do that but then they remove Denuvo later, but they also release unencrypted ROMs, take those down, hire some guy who did a pretty good PC remake of Sonic CD, etc

[glossy steppe]

SEGA is not known to remove Denuvo, they are one of the two publishers that are infamous for keeping it.

They have only removed it like, 2-3 times ever

[exotic crypt]

They have on Mania and Puyo Puyo Tetris iirc

[glossy steppe]

And I am pretty sure one of them was because they implemented it in a very buggy manner

puyo Tetris still has the warning on Steam

Don't see it on 2 though

[exotic crypt]

I'm just agreeing that their values around this stuff seems to be messy and I'm not sure how serious they are about any of this ever

[glossy steppe]

S-E is also pretty infamous for adding it to everything, but they are very likely to remove it after a while.... except for old games

S-E even added it on FREE games

Yeah, can't have people pirating a game they can legally download for free

Yeah, SEGA either is obsessed over anti-piracy to the point they don't care about continuing to pay for denuvo well past it's effective date, or they have some old grandfathered contract that lets them use it cheap or something. IIRC they were one of the first to use it

You know, speaking of all this, a new version of the original FF7 just dropped on Steam... and GoG

[exotic crypt]

Backgrounds look bad but it's something

[glossy steppe]

I hear it was super buggy when it first dropped and was patched quickly

Not a fan of the backgrounds being so blurry though

[idle gorge]

this is a HUGE problem with tactics ogre, not one but TWO remakes, i had to scour some obscure, arcane places just to get decent info

also the demons souls remake is ugly and for all the wikis its used now lmao

[glossy steppe]

Technically, isn't Star Fox 64 a remake of the first game?

... wait, I guess that's more of a reboot

And I don't mean this:

Come to think of it, that was rebooted recently

This is starting to hurt my head

[left hollow]

https://tenor.com/view/reboot-reboot-cartoon-bob-guardian-to-mend-and-defend-shock-surprise-realize-gif-23375669

[visual grove]

There’s a lot more love for Reboot than I expected (esp around excitement about that group recovering the original masters). I watched at least a season of it when it aired and thought it was cool they made a CGI show but that the show overall was kind of crap

I do appreciate the kind of effort they are going through to preserve it though even if I’d never rewatch

[left hollow]

I only watched it on tv when I was a kid because I didn't have any other options. It's a canadian show so they likely pushed it alot more on our tv stations

[visual sundial]

We had it in UK too though I don’t remember much about it

[burnt matrix]

Apparently the Reboot PS1 game is cool according to the UK man with the wipeout YouTube visuals

[mortal mist]

I've never seen this game in my life.

[mortal mist]

I don't feel like I've lost anything 😅

[idle gorge]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D14-EJHaJIg

[ancient surge]

The whole Donkey Kong Country cartoon feels like a fever dream.

[idle gorge]

ultimate tech

MORTAAAAL KOMBAT

[dry hinge]

How do you simulate a twin stick over usb for virtual on and such? Do you put the input to dual mission?

Oh wait

I found this. This might be my answer

[dry hinge]

(For context I’m using the Sony dual flight stick with an adapter)

[winter phoenix]

any port in a storm, I guess

[winter phoenix]

yeah, the Saturn's twin stick controller is not analog at all

as that table above illustrates, each stick's direction translates to a button on the standard gamepad

the Saturn itself just sees it as a standard gamepad

[dusky delta]

It depends really. Pretty much as long as you could do art in videogames there have been rereleases with more content. The definition of "remake" isn't necessarily a clearcut one. I think if you use a purely technology-oriented definition, you could count something like Persona 4 Golden as a remake of Persona 4. They switched engines

[glossy steppe]

According to the funny bad reviews man (No, not that one, the other one) the game is horrible.

Also funny, Reboot was about the only 3D show from that era I didn't watch. I watched Beast Wars and Donkey Kong

[haughty dove]

Beast Wars is the shit!

Just rewatched all of it and Beast Machines with my husband last year. It was my favorite show growing up, but they’d never seen it before. It still hits!

Beast Machines a bit less, of course, lol. But still way better than 90% of children’s action cartoons.

[pearl harbor]

Oh yeah, Beast Wars is excellent.

[sterile stump]

https://youtu.be/E2t4MBhGAg8

[next bronze]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqKG2VtxN_o&t=6s

[next bronze]

I was watching Scooby Doo and Guess Who and he (David Kaye) voiced the Blue Falcon in the Dynomutt episode. He was alright, but BF needed more snark like the original.

and, of course, there were two Megatron actors in the episode, the other one, Frank Welker, doing triple duty as Fred, Scooby Doo, and Dynomutt.

[strong zephyr]

Question any aware of an ‘issue’ with outrun where the screen goes from bright to dark? Was even wondering if the level had a day/night cycle? I will do some more testing and do update all (i think i’m on stable but not 100% sure) but i guess first q is indeed if you lot are aware of a level doing this 😅. I did play a decent amount of md/arc/cannonball/switch outrun but def don’t remember encountering it before. Did play another game to rule out screen or general mister issues. That went fine.

[ripe valley]

Don't test with the stable, but with the last unstable version from some days ago.
There was so many changes between the last stable one, especially on the VDP chips.
Thanks.

[winter phoenix]

https://www.segasaturnshiro.com/2026/02/27/saturn-tomb-raider-2-playable-demo-out-now/

who needs the PS1 core when you can play (the first level of) Tomb Raider 2 on THE MIGHTY SEGA SATURN

[mortal mist]

Wow , great news! Thanks for sharing

[shy basin]

she surely got a few more polys on her dress...
Would have been nice to have TR ported to N64 too tho

[winter phoenix]

gotta find an N64 Tomb Raider fan who's spent the last 30 years feeling jilted

[shy basin]

even the Open Lara never got ported to N64 and that even got ported and runs on a GBA!

[mortal mist]

N64 Tomb Raider

No thanks 🤣

[winter phoenix]

RetroRaiderJohn has, uh, edited Lara's model on the Saturn version, it seems

The polygon budget has been reallocated

[exotic crypt]

That'd kind of be funny only if the environments become way worse for it to compensate

[kindred peak]

First rule of fan ports: be horny?

[winter phoenix]

TBF, this change makes her look a lot better than the pyramid boobs

is that what heavy metal does to people?

||my name is actually a reference to the 1994 PC strategy/space combat game Wing Commander Armada||

[idle gorge]

lol that scene messed me up so much as a little child

now i think its funny af

bad guy got what he deserved

it still makes me uncomfortable when murphy is "killed"

here ill post cats being silly to help you

there

[winter phoenix]

I thought that was Bug!

[idle gorge]

im a bit confused

i had a message blocked but im not sure what i said that was wrong

[celest lake]

It's collateral damage, Salamandes - not your fault

[idle gorge]

it was about a game

oh

[celest lake]

we are working on a solution. we outlawed "goon" which, as it turns out, is a part of Panzer Dragoon

[idle gorge]

LMAO

alright

[exotic crypt]

Gotta Regex

[idle gorge]

Does Zwei need fastings or am i good?

the game where you fly a avian reptilian creature featured frequently in fantasy

[celest lake]

Here is Salamandes' question for folks who know the answer: "Does Panzer Dragoon Zwei need fast timings or single ram or am I good?"

sorry again. mind our dust

[idle gorge]

or was a typo, meant "on" obv

[exotic crypt]

I was testing it

[polar mountain]

The shame... the shame of it all..

[exotic crypt]

Zwei works without fast timings fyi

I have single sdram

I've played the entire series without issues

[idle gorge]

great, cool. going to play it when my saturn controller 2 and adapter arrive

[winter phoenix]

Panzer Drag**n

[exotic crypt]

There is slowdown, I have no idea if it's accurate slowdown

Saga also works pretty good on the core

[idle gorge]

im fine with slowdown as long as its normal, i get slowdown in mega man x and that doesn't bug me. Its only when its the emulation kinda slow down where my audio starts crackling that i get annoyed

or crashes

[exotic crypt]

No flickering or crashes or major bugs on single sdram in my experience

Also if you're playing on an OLED try Zwei in widescreen mode ;)

You'll wanna stretch it with your TV's settings so it's correct

[idle gorge]

ill be playing it on my daewoo

[exotic crypt]

Use a scanline filter preset that doesn't have shadowmasks

Like Scanlines - Soft

But genuinely fantastic experience that way

[idle gorge]

i hope it looks decent on my crummy slotmask, dont have an OLED right now

i do love my daewoo though

[celest lake]

crummy slotmask?

[exotic crypt]

Well I was suggesting those settings mostly for widescreen, because you don't want to stretch the filters

[celest lake]

https://tenor.com/bD1Ad.gif

[idle gorge]

i dont really think its crummy, i love the tv i was just being silly because most people on reddit act like any crt thats not a trinitron is trash

it has component and s-vid so im happy

[exotic crypt]

There's a few other Saturn games that support wide-screen natively

I think Baroque does, and so does one of the Nights games

Wide-screen TVs were obviously less common in the CRT era and a lot of the ones that do exist are the kind of crappy HD ones so being able to experience those games on a modern screen in a way many wouldn't have is a treat

Of course plenty of games have hacks for that sort of thing but it's not the same as a game that's made for it

The Guardian Dragon fight is really cool in 16:9

Zwei's spectacle is honestly still in a class on it's own even by today's standards

[mortal mist]

best game ever!

Outstanding work!

Everything is there, every FMV.

Works great on MiSTer

What can i say... Saturn 😉

[thorn pagoda]

are they going to do the whole game?

[winter phoenix]

yes, John is working on the whole game, or at least as much of it as he can get working

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

[celest lake]

Dragoon should be safe again

Praise Azel

[winter phoenix]

yay

[warped saddle]

guess what we're rebranding

[winter phoenix]

it came out in Japan only

I ... I dunno!

[glossy steppe]

Comon, N64 fans werne't kiled THAT badly with Tomb Raider right? There's only so much hardware a game like that could have run on...

[burnt matrix]

We had Indiana Jones, way better!!!!

[shy basin]

yeah I was thinking that indy was what TR also could have been as well on N64... high res and all

al tho back in 1996 they didn't all the fancy ucode that indy used

[rich violet]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjf3cwDMKpI

🤯

This is insane 😍

[thorn pagoda]

i wonder how many rays they're actually able to cast

[burnt matrix]

Why do Saturn games look so dark

[glossy steppe]

There are no flashlights on Saturn

[burnt matrix]

Oh ok, makes sense. Thank you.

[kind bough]

earth: flashlight and gun at the same time. mars: only flashlight or gun. saturn: only gun

[celest lake]

If I am pulling up to saturn

and I see that

I'm not parking there

no sir

[burnt matrix]

Sega fans continuing to prove they are mad geniuses

Porting whole ass games to the system, implementing modern rendering techniques on 30+ year old hardware, lol

[glossy steppe]

Hey, Nintendo 64 fans are cool too! They umm, err... they put Sonic in Mario 64! And Link in Mario 64! And Megaman in Mario 64! and...

[exotic crypt]

They decompiled a big part of the relevant first-party library for the Nintendo 64 and created ports for modern platforms

[glossy steppe]

I know, was just being silly

There have been many other systems with decompiled games too. SNES, GB, PS1, PS2

... come ot think of it, are there any saturn decompilation projects?

[exotic crypt]

I think someone might be doing stuff for the Panzer Dragoon games

[exotic crypt]

Oh and not just modern platforms, you can play MK64 on the Dreamcast

[glossy steppe]

I know, I recall seeing someone make a DOS version of Mario64 that ran on a Voodoo2 card

[exotic crypt]

Yeah that stuff is impressive

I'd love to see Mario 64 running on an SGI Octane, would feel right

[glossy steppe]

Isn't someone porting it to GBA?

[exotic crypt]

Or Indigo or whatever

Mario 64 was developed on Silicone Graphics workstations

I had one in my possession a while ago

PSU died

[glossy steppe]

Was it? I know that SGI helped design the N64 hardware and that they were used in some Nintendo game development like DKC, but were they used for Mario64?

[exotic crypt]

Yes

Fans documented a lot of the software stack used for the development of the game, lots of in-house stuff, but some off the shelf stuff

There's been projects to basically reverse engineer how the assets were created too

I forgot where to find some relevant stuff because it's scattered all over the place

https://github.com/Render96/Render96Wiki/wiki/cobble_stone-(The-Texture-of-Your-Childhood) though there's fun pages like this

This page mentions that Alias/3 on SGI's Irix OS was used to source a lot of textures

[exotic crypt]

Tomb Raider was afaik, that's a Saturn game so makes it topical to the channel again

[glossy steppe]

Reminds me of how people were convinced that one sign in Mario 64 said "L is real 2401" despite that same texture being used for every sign in OOT, and people just didn't realize

[winter phoenix]

because Saturn is a mature console for mature, adult gamers

[winter phoenix]

no because all Saturn games are already on the perfect platform

[exotic crypt]

Honestly I like the "dark" look of Saturn games

It actually kind of helps set the tone of Panzer Dragoon Saga

[strong zephyr]

I hear that. Will do some more runs and indeed upgrade should it happen again. Everything else has been working fine for me so prefer stability over bleeding edge versions especially since i'd need to update mister main as well right.

[rich violet]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uW7oXPGGUW8

[burnt matrix]

And for fat babies

[kindred peak]

Magic Knight Rayearth still haunt you?

[burnt matrix]

Ok real talk

I’d be big salty

PS1 getting all these awesome looking RPGs

[kindred peak]

I'm sorry. If it helps, it's a really fun game.

[burnt matrix]

And then Working Designs comes out and goes, “here’s a game straight outta da soupa”

And everyone looks like malformed child with stunt growth problems

No offense to malformed children with stunt growth problems

[kindred peak]

As someone who at the time chose very poorly and bought a US Saturn at launch... yes. It was a tough ride being a Saturn owner in the moment.

But in retrospect it all worked out. I eventually just bought a PlayStation and enjoyed the best of both worlds as I started importing Saturn titles.

[burnt matrix]

Saturn kicks ass

[hearty marten]

The benefit of getting into the Saturn after the internet discovered it, is finding out about all the awesome games I’d never have heard of from friends or magazines

[strong osprey]

macgi knight rayearth isnt good

[hearty marten]

It’s?

[strong osprey]

it's great!

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

[burnt matrix]

It’s a neat game but I have zero connection or understanding of the source property

So it’s all just “what is even happening” the game

[kindred peak]

Weird way to tell us you didn't pay attention during the intro sequence.

3 girls are transported to a mystical realm where they wield amazing powers to help save the world. Basic, basic, basic fantasy stuff.

[exotic crypt]

I think Magical Knight Rayearth inspired Community Pom which is also pretty good (haven't played Magical Knight Rayearth)

[frail token]

Is there a line you can add to grab dual SDRAM with update_all?

[small ore]

I believe JesusFish set this up recently, can be added to downloader.ini:

db_url = https://raw.githubusercontent.com/TheJesusFish/Dual-Ram-Console-Cores/db/db.json.zip```

[frail token]

anywhere on the ini?

[small ore]

not in the middle of another block, so probably best at the end

[celest lake]

yeah, I think theypsilon is planning on adding it to update_all, but for now you can add it manually

[glossy steppe]

Where does it put the dual-ram cores? in the console folder with the others?

[frail token]

fair lol

[frail token]

Yeah it would be sweet if it was a toggle

[frail token]

Yep

[celest lake]

That’s the hope. He is traveling, though, so I dunno when it will happen

Or if. We only talked about it briefly

[frail token]

yeah I know I had mentioned it too i couldn't remember what the outcome was

[celest lake]

Well there were discussions with having them added to mister-devel officially, but sorg didn’t dig that

I dunno why we didn’t just make a repo. Hopefully I’m not angering the gods with this

But with the jag core seemingly in a similar situation to Saturn, it made sense

[river river]

It goes into its own folder called Console (Dual SDRAM)

[split heart]

https://youtu.be/bG_SoXFbmMo

[split heart]

oh wow i didn’t know about this

[celest lake]

it will be an option in update all soon

[burnt matrix]

So, anyone try this out?

[celest lake]

I don't play translations unless at least 2 people with anime avatars vet them first

[wide glacier]

it's like tomb raider if it was good

(it isn't)

[hollow vine]

I watched the first section of the video about how we should be worried about the preservation of these games like “nah, I’m not worried. Can play them all right now just about perfectly.” 🤭

[hearty marten]

Dual ram supremacy has arrived!

[radiant karma]

Is the jaguar core included in the dual ram console cores?

[celest lake]

yep

but not the absolute latest

waiting for kit to 🟢 it

[marble laurel]

https://x.com/playsegasaturn/status/2028196418112917636?s=20

SEGA SATURN, SHIRO! (@playsegasaturn)

The Sega Saturn’s audio DSP can calculate 3D graphics, as Jollyroger from the SegaXtreme server demonstrates in this video: https://t.co/VDmWKdD4Oa

X · Mar 1, 2026, 7:51 PM

[wise brook]

neat!

[idle gorge]

any saturn cores with save state support?

[mortal mist]

Nope

[wise brook]

core/s ?

there’s only ever been one core

no one else has so much as forked srg’s work

[idle gorge]

ok, i didnt know. TY.

[visual sundial]

Yeah apparently there’s just not enough space on the FPGA

It would be nice for Shining Force 3 where some of those battles can drag on and on only to die right at the end lol

[haughty dove]

I’d kill for a Genesis savestate core, but systems like Saturn don’t super-much benefit from them because save games were already an established thing.

[idle gorge]

yeah. thats actually the only reason i want SSs

the intro is long

[visual sundial]

Yeah it’s mainly strat RPGs. Shining Force as I said, but also Sakura Wars. Battles tend to be long and you gotta do it all again if you die

[idle gorge]

I have "DANTARES!" stuck in my head due to all the times ive had to replay Shining Force 3 episode 1's intro because i forgot to open the OSD after saving during the first two battles

im not gonna lie, i cheese the heck out of save state in the snes core for Fire Emblem 4 and its still hard

[ancient surge]

I always got the impression that if you need to use save states to brute force your way through a game, then the game isn't fun.

[idle gorge]

it depends i think plus im being hyperbolic and im playing badly. I think once i beat the game this way ill probably be able to do a more fair run

like, x-com games have iron man achievements but im terrible there too

well...newer x-com games

whenever i play the og X-com im saving every single round lmao

[haughty dove]

My rule for savestates is that I only use them for time-saving purposes. Am I turning off the game before a savepoint? Sure, plop down a one-time use savepoint. Am I playing a game with infinite lives/continues and I can get past one section perfectly fine but the section after that has killed me ten times? Yeah, use a savestate, why should I have to keep playing the same mastered section over and over again?

[visual sundial]

Maybe, but I’m also not a teenager anymore. I don’t really want to spend my couple of nights off work replaying the same battles

[haughty dove]

I understand, but also a huge part of the reason we like old videogames is because we DID have to struggle with them and that gave us a deeper relationship with them.

[visual grove]

You could just watch a video of someone playing through alternatively

[visual sundial]

It’s more like ‘oh it’s 1am now, I’d like to save it and go to sleep rather than play for another hour until I can save, only to die and have to do it again tomorrow’

[haughty dove]

Yeah that’s completely fair, I even said that that’s how I myself use save-states.

[frail token]

I compare it to pausing and turning off the TV

No difference

[haughty dove]

Exactly

[visual sundial]

I do get the argument about replaying being part of game design that’s fosters familiarity. I think the key is not to abuse it. But equally, ‘save scumming’ has been a thing on PCs since the 80s

Shenmue had an interesting compromise where it could save a state that would delete itself upon loading

[haughty dove]

A lot of handheld RPGs have similar mechanics.

[dusky delta]

Yeah. The one "dated" design decision in Link's Awakening DX is often how many screens you gotta go through to try for a boss fight

[jolly reef]

vagueposting: big things coming soon

[sharp comet]

please do not link retail games or copyright roms/discs

[jolly reef]

Aww I can't post a link to it but I posted here a couple year ago that we found the unreleased Prize Fighter for Sega Saturn. It is now up on Internet Archive.

It's semi-official. As official as it can be as Josh who owns the rights to these games now gave the go ahead to release it.

Runs great on hardware and the MiSTer core. Can't say the game is great. But it's nice to finally not be sitting on this.

[winter phoenix]

why now?

[jolly reef]

Coincides with the push for the remake coming out. But also Josh Fairhurst is pretty recent owner of all the Digital Pictures stuff and it's only come up recently in conversation like "hey, we should release this"

[winter phoenix]

are you the same Todd McHenry who uploaded this YouTube footage a few years ago? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Foen3xiZb_8&feature=youtu.be

[jolly reef]

Yessir

Damn, time flies. Been almost 4 years since we found it and got it booting.

[winter phoenix]

that's awesome you found it and preserved it!

[ripe valley]

This title should not pose any problems for the current Saturn core.

Saw your sentence after my reply.

That's great!

[jolly reef]

Yeah, MiSTer was the first place I tested this build. But the core was in very early public release and I didn't want to do the game a disservice when I captured it. Nick Broadway (Pandamonium) has had a copy since then and he tested it on real hardware for us and confirmed it all working there.

I'll let someone who is better at this game than me be the first to post footage of it playing on the core

[proud wave]

Hey there! I’m Nick. Happy to see this is finally getting released publicly. Thanks for making this happen. 🙂

[proud wave]

My ass was getting sore from sitting on it for this long. 😂

I almost beat it. Final boss is tough, Duke the Nuke is no joke.

[jolly reef]

Saaaaammmme

[proud wave]

If you funnel all power points into left arm and stamina, you can cheese your way through most of the game by spamming left jab.

[jolly reef]

I didn't find it. Tyler Hogle (Screaming Villains) found it I just got it all converted.

[proud wave]

Hogle is the man. (You are too.)

[brittle pecan]

what exactly is this a screenshot of?

[celest lake]

update_all

[kindred peak]

Wow. THE @proud wave.

[clear condor]

@proud wave not to geek out too much, but thanks for the Rally video! It inspired me to dump hours into a game I wouldn't have given the attention it deserved otherwise

I beat UNK's time but never really got the hang of the Stratos

[proud wave]

Oh fuck yeah! Thank you for the kind words, it really does mean a lot. And a huge congrats on beating UNK!!!!!

The Stratos is crazy. That’s a tough nut to crack, and I still struggle with it.

[clear condor]

It's so slippey slidey

[proud wave]

It has the grace of a shopping cart.

[frail token]

Dishonored basically required you to save scum to beat the game without killing anyone

All that and mine glitched out and wouldn't give me the achievement lol

[visual grove]

Yeah your long form videos are insane, love your work. The VCOP one was my favorite I think. I have no idea how you dredge up all that old footage, amazing job

[proud wave]

Thanks!! It’s a very rewarding hobby. I really lucked out with that particular episode.

The next one I’m working on is going to be large. Hope to have it out soon. 🙂

[kindred peak]

I'm really looking forward to your 4 hour epic about Battle Monsters. Truly.

[green jacinth]

does this default the STV to dual?

[celest lake]

No, only console cores. Arcade cores are too hard to make work in all setups

[burnt matrix]

FREAKING SAME I WAS SO MAD lol

[hearty marten]

Great game. Much better than other games published by Bethesda

[dusky delta]

So is Castlevania one of those games that benefits from Dual SDRam?

[sharp forum]

Afaik no. It just never ran great on Saturn

Dual RAM won’t make games run better than stock hardware, just closer to in a few cases

[dusky delta]

Yeah I know that, but like, SotN runs really badly

[sharp forum]

Yep, that’s just the Saturn port

[wise brook]

but also, real talk; it is necessarily more accurate on dual than the single ram version.
it’s just numbers and timings; the thing is more accurate and that will affect all games of the console library to a greater or lesser degree.
whether you notice or not, is all you.
whether it visibly/audibly affects the games is on you.

[sharp forum]

It does noticeably affect performance in a couple of games yeah. There’s a list somewhere but it’s only a handful at this point

[wide glacier]

the way to fix SotN is to play the playstation version instead

[sharp forum]

I think Virtua Fighter is one of the main ones

[kindred peak]

The 480i fighters (especially Dead or Alive) are the most obvious examples still.

You'll get slowdown after the first few punches in a fight on single ram

[sharp forum]

I don’t know enough about how the core functions to say why dual ram improves some games but if I had to guess it’s probably due to memory access speed/timing

[ripe valley]

The game lags more with the CHD shared on the Net.

[wide glacier]

punishment for piracy

[ripe valley]

Don't use it and use a BIN-CUE version (and not a shitty SD card/USB).

[ripe valley]

Access to H-RAM is strict on timings for some games (and that RAM is stored on the DDRAM -not the best for the latency- on the MiSTer).
If you miss the correct timings, the game lags.

Another possible delay is due to the CD block not receiving the data packet in time, as is the case with some poorly compressed CHDs, according to some tests I carried out last week.

I'm trying to explain as simply as possible, sorry if it's still too complex even so.

[dusky delta]

Is there a CHD flag which lowers the level of compression?

[ripe valley]

Yes, you can change the compression options with CHDMAN, but I don't remember the settings immediately.

[shy basin]

I though SDRAM had lower latency than the DDR3

[dusky delta]

I assume the latency is also a matter of bandwidth essentially

Something something Mario speedrunning video Bus Metaphor

[shy basin]

SDRAM is 32 wide and run at the most @130MHz while DDR3 run @400MHz(?) and is 64bit wide but takes while to get started...

[ripe valley]

Ah sorry, I wrote SDRAM instead of DDRAM...

I forgot to read my sentence before posting, sorry about that.

[hearty marten]

Uh oh, chd man himself is typing

[warped saddle]

there's probably an optimal chunk size, just like there was for psx. I need to look at the saturn code

[ripe valley]

Yeah, that's the same.

It needs an optimal chunk size.

[analog totem]

damnit you guys are gonna make my brainworms make me go back and recompress all my CHD stuff 🫡

[ripe valley]

I never remember these settings...

[warped saddle]

I'll look eventually. I kinda ignore most of the shit about saturn slowdown here because it's 99% of the time just dual sdram shitposting

[ripe valley]

I am aware of the tanking performance issues on Last Bronx and Fighting Vipers, and at the moment, even with fast timings, this cannot be fixed.

[shy basin]

I guess that if a burst i running on DDR3 for the ARM cpus then it will be even longer before you get data to the FPGA core sine it has to wait until DDR3 is free to start next burst

[ripe valley]

Right.

[warped saddle]

you're also competing with the scaler

[shy basin]

seems that also if a write is missaligned you have to read back data first to pad things before writing that back

[ripe valley]

I have to go, I've spent too much time on FPGAs and MiSTer in a single day.

[warped saddle]

I vaguely remember testing robert's ddr3 latency tester he wrote and it was hard to push the worst case latency down even with a nearly idle HPS

and on saturn I've had some decent results overclocking the ram

although that was before the major push for all the test conformance, so maybe things have changed

[shy basin]

yeah it really hurts when you need oldschool low latency access 😛
new RAM works well with cache...

well on N64 the memory is actually 9bit so the trick was to split the access on both RAMs eg store the extrabit in SDRAM which i find very clever

[ripe valley]

We need a HyperRAM.

😏

[kindred peak]

Must go faster.

[hearty marten]

Dual HyperRAM, please

[winter phoenix]

Recent homebrew advancements, new official merch, convention booths — the Saturn scene has been active, and I give you the latest in this news roundup:

https://www.segasaturnshiro.com/2026/03/03/saturn-news-roundup-homebrew-updates-retroconnection-fest-new-saturn-merch/

If you've got Vigilant Paradise, there's an update. And if you like playing In the Hunt on the Saturn core for some reason, you can add the arcade soundtrack from the PC version to it

[ripe valley]

Okay, Prize Fighter tested quite heavily on the last unstable core, so far so good.

[warped cliff]

That raytrace demo is pretty damn cool!

[winter phoenix]

Nights can become a fat baby @burnt matrix https://vxtwitter.com/donkozoid/status/2028884652270747670

donko (@donkozoid)

Important video I found

▶ Play video

vxTwitter / fixvx · Mar 3, 2026, 5:26 PM

[kindred peak]

Don't give him more reasons to besmirch our beloved sixth planet.

[glossy steppe]

Pretty sure we struggled with them because they could not fit longer games that weren't RPGs on most NES carts and they wanted to fight people just renting them XD

(Also we have a LOT more games new and old to play now than the handful of games we had on our shelves as a kid that we played over and over)

[glossy steppe]

Not that uncommon to see by the 6th gen. I have been playing through Dirge of Cerberus lately and it has such an option, I recall the Castlevania games on GBA habing that, I think Tactics Advance too. The idea of having a temp save that is basically a savestate but deletes itself upon loading so you can't use it to cheat has been around for a while, especially for portable devices where one might need to stop playing quickly while on the go.

[haughty dove]

I’m just saying that playing Donkey Kong Country 2 with only cartridge saves and/or “suspend states” is a completely different game from playing it with save-states.

[dusky delta]

I do think the important thing to keep in mind though is that these older games were often maybe one of 10 games you had back then, and you already beat 5 of them. You could bash your head at the wall because the alternative was like, stamp collecting. Now every game you play is competing with every other game you could be playing. Which, if you have a MiSTer, is a every game ever made

[glossy steppe]

I just use the settings for CHDMAN that were posted on the sticky in the PSX channel, they were optimized to be able to read the data faster, at the cost of slightly worse compression.

[glossy steppe]

I know, I was just saying that this was a thing games were employing around 6th gen, though it wasn't meant to be a permanent save you can reload more than once.

Also....

[glossy steppe]

This. Like I said, genereally we had a handful of games back then, half of which we had already beaten. So really, our options were to play a hard (or bullshit) game over and over to beat it, or touch grass XD

[glossy steppe]

Already did that once, why not do it again? XD I can easily modify my script to have a PSX and Saturn version if Zakk finds better settings for saturn games. Though I'll have to remember to not compress my games with index2+ in their cue files

[analog totem]

ha, my problem is that I did not retain the bin/cue versions I started with due to lack of storage space

[dusky delta]

I think you can reverse CHDs

./chdman extractcd -i $INPUT.chd --splitbin -o $OUTPUT.cue

[analog totem]

hmmmm

yeah I have that script

but is there any data lost? maybe it doesn’t matter?

I do know that reversing them gives you one associated bin/cue for that game even though some of those games had multiple bin files

but maybe that doesn’t make any difference

[dusky delta]

--splitbin

[analog totem]

oh that reverts it to the original bin/cue structure then I see

[dusky delta]

Yeah. It should theoretically be a functionally lossless conversion

Maybe if the cue file originally used tabs instead of spaces or something it won't preserve that

[analog totem]

oooh ok, so maybe redoing my PSX games will be way easier than I thought

here I was thinking I’d need to redownload everything

[warped saddle]

it won't recover cue file comments (which means multisession data is lost) and it won't recover indexes besides 00 and 01

[analog totem]

is that of concern for PSX games?

[warped saddle]

no

[analog totem]

nice

would it be a concern for Saturn games (minus the ones that have multiple indexes that most run bin/cue for)?

[warped saddle]

no

[analog totem]

interesting ok

it’s basically just that they aren’t truly 100% complete compared to the original bin/cue rips even though functionally it won’t make a difference

[dusky delta]

I honestly wish the chd format just included a backup of the original cue file. That would take all of what, 1KB?

[warped saddle]

the 'ultimate archive format' whoever was working on forever was supposed to do that

but you know, lol

[dusky delta]

Kinda wild that it was developed by MAME. You'd think Arcade games would have a bunch of weird quirks for how they handle CDs

[ivory kindle]

wasn't it originally just a hard drive archive format

I think it was made for HDDs, not CDs

[dusky delta]

Also, IIRC the CHD format also supports kind of a "diff" system between disks

[ivory kindle]

yeah, delta chds like parent and child sets

[dusky delta]

Yeah. Although I assume that's more for archival than for active use

[warped saddle]

the real annoying thing is you cannot add metadata to a compressed chd

[ivory kindle]

we need a new standard

CCD, compressed chunks of data

why can't the metadata sit outside the compressed portion

[warped saddle]

good question!

apparently at some point it did work but now doesn't. I dunno, there's an issue in their tracker for it but I don't think it is going anywhere

[ivory kindle]

yeah I saw the old github issue

[warped saddle]

there's enough noise about indexes and CD TEXT etc that maybe something will happen there. but cuavas still holding a hardline 'you should just put the subchannel data in there and parse it like a real system would' stance

(despite the fact that is not done for bin/cue)

[ivory kindle]

oh I love when one person rules the project with an iron fist (and immutable ideology)

though, MAME is kind of the poster child for that

[warped saddle]

and it's not universal for bin/cue. someone added support for index 02+ and multisession (I think) for some system and rbelmont merged it. but they didn't do it for chd and when the question came up cuavas answered first sooooo

[glossy steppe]

I forgot if it originally debuted with hard drive images for Killer Instinct or LaserDisc images for Cube Quest

[ivory kindle]

KI, 1999. Mame .36B10

CD-ROM came next for Area 51

[glossy steppe]

When was Cube Quest?

[ivory kindle]

says mid 2000s for cube quest

[glossy steppe]

Oh, that 1999 is when KI was added to Mame? Didn't know it was that long ago, damn, I remember when it was added. I could have sworn it was far later than that

[dusky delta]

Actually what kind of hard drive images are supported? This sort of thing could maybe be useful for DOS systems on MiSTer

[warped saddle]

writing is...complicated

[dusky delta]

Perhaps an overlay-based system?

[glossy steppe]

Yeah, I would assume this format is made for read-only considering what it's used for.

[burnt matrix]

If you have notepad++ you can do a search through all your cue files to see which ones to avoid using CHD on

I think I only had two Saturn games they had an index more than 1

But 3DO had quite a few games with an index greater than 1

[glossy steppe]

I used Everything to find those

[idle gorge]

has anyone succesfully imported Zwei data into Panzer Dragoon Saga on the mister core? I made a zwei save and then started Saga but didnt get any kind of notification

[glossy steppe]

IIRC it's something that unlocks later in Saga, I'm also not sure if you have to have gotten to a certain point in Zwei

[idle gorge]

I read a post somewhere saying you could just die somewhere and use the save but ill double check

[pearl harbor]

Did you make sure to take your Zwei save and rename it for Saga? That's what I did and it worked fine.

Actually scratch that, I forgot I did the opposite by bringing Saga's save file into Zwei to unlock the Pandora's Box stuff. But I assume doing the reverse would accomplish the same thing.

[idle gorge]

was this on a mister core or software emulator?

[pearl harbor]

On the MiSTer core.

Basically the MiSTer creates a "console save" for each game you have in a folder. And the save file is named after the game in the folder. So taking your Zwei save (or vice versa) and renaming it to match the other game's file name will have a console save that includes the save from the other game.

[idle gorge]

ok thanks

[visual sundial]

Yeah you have to rename because the games make different backups. That’s what I did

[ripe valley]

Same for the Sakura Taisen games, you can import your saves by copy them and renaming them

[idle gorge]

so i renamed my zwei save in the folder to panzer dragoon saga usa disc 1 or w/e is that enough?

do i get any kind of confirmation early on if my import worked?

i just saved at the first save spot in saga and nothing so far

[idle gorge]

do i need to do anything specific in the OSD?

something i looked up said an amount of dyne and an item would be in my inventory upon starting

but nothing has worked so far

[warped saddle]

on the saturn core you can just swap save files in the osd

like load another save file entirely

[dusky delta]

Is there a way to make other controllers work in Saturn? Any time I swap the controller design the game doesn't recognize it, even though the game supposedly supports said controller

[sharp forum]

Can you elaborate on that? Are you saying you’re like, switching it to 3D controller mode?

[wise brook]

somehow i haven’t done this yet

[idle gorge]

ok so lets say i load up panzer dragoon saga, mount backup ram and load my zwei save file?

im sorry if this is super easy and im making it complicated

[dusky delta]

Yeah. I'm trying to emulate a twin stick controller. Both in Gundam and Virtual-On, and none of the buttons do anything. Is the twin stick controller supposed to go in as player two or something?

[tawny forge]

RetroFi with a Saturn 3D pad mapping shoulder analog buttons to Right Analog Axes. Core support wen

[celest lake]

Nelson was working on it. I think life got in the way

[tawny forge]

That’s just a hacky way to get analog triggers with what we already have today framework wise

If we could map those axes to the core analog shoulders we could use analog triggers right away

Probably better to wait for Nelson to finish up his cooking though

Can almost smell it 🧑‍🍳

[drowsy hull]

Sorry

[dreamy ravine]

Quick question. I use a Dualsense with my Mister and when I play the saturn core and I switch the pad type to analog I cannot get the sticks to work. They work fine with the PSX core and the N64 core. Any idea of what I do wrong?

[haughty dove]

Dualsense is a POS on anything besides a PS5 console.

On my pc, I can’t even get the d-pad to work in-game.

[wise brook]

firmware upto date?

[haughty dove]

Yep

Steam will recognize the buttons being pressed on the mapper, but games wont use them (with or without steam being open).

[kindred peak]

https://tenor.com/view/the-big-lebowski-thats-like-your-opinion-man-gif-15076479

[idle gorge]

I haven't had issues with my dualsense edge on Steam tbh

[winter phoenix]

someone named en83 ported Celeste Classic to the Saturn: https://en83.itch.io/celeste-classic-for-sega-saturn

[mortal mist]

https://misterfpga.org/viewtopic.php?p=105196#p105196

I have a problem running this game even with fast timing. It goes through the loading screen but then freezes anyway.

Dualsdram works fine.

DonPachi (Japan)

[quick sorrel]

Verified on the unstable 20260216 core. Single RAM core, with or without fast timings. Got to the bee loading screen and froze. It got to the scores afterwards once but froze regardless.

[mortal mist]

thanks!

[ripe valley]

The game works for me on the SuperStation and the MiSTer Pi.

Same core version.

[mortal mist]

but not for 5 other people 🙂

[mortal mist]

Yeah i belive you

[ripe valley]

So, we need to search what is different.

[mortal mist]

I use only de10 nanos

Bin/cue

Micro sd card

[ripe valley]

I'm on an USB stick, Taki clones, CHD.

[mortal mist]

Works fine with dualsdram

So timings

[ripe valley]

Yeah, I saw that.

Do you the same MiSTer main file on the Single RAM ?

[mortal mist]

Yes

[ripe valley]

Do you have a second controller connected on the core ?

[mortal mist]

Single unstable 20251229 works fine for me

I think i need to build core with good timings and than see

[ripe valley]

OKay, so we could totally discard the SMPC changes.

I'm okay with your conclusion, let's see the timings during the compilation.

The game works for me on the SD card, with BIN/CUE & CHD formats.
We will see if you can have a better timing closure on your compilation.

[mortal mist]

I would never really pay attention to that because I don't use the single SDRAM version on any MiSTer. I'm just curious about the reasons 🙂

I'm not particularly interested in clones either, so I probably won't buy them just for testing purposes.

Although I felt like it for a moment, SuperStation looks great in gray 🙂

[ripe valley]

That's why we are multiple testers. 😉

[dreamy ravine]

I have zero problem using the sticks on the PSX core and the N64 core, hence I assume I am doing something wrong or there is a problem with the analog mode (Or is it only for SNAC?)

[haughty dove]

The problems are on PCs, although I also think Dualsense just feels awful for playing retro games.

[burnt matrix]

Yeah I could see that actually

[haughty dove]

Dualsense is a bad controller imo I’ve just played so much PS5 that it doesn’t bother me anymore… if I’m playing on my PS5.

It’s heavy and not particularly ergonomic and feels cheap.

Ps4 controller was so much better (except of course for how quickly they would develop drift problems).

I use a Gulikit for MiSTer if I’m not using Snac adapters, and a Series X controller for PC.

[quick sorrel]

Did you want any more specifics to my setup? Off the top I can think of: SD card loading, single RAM, CHD format, 2nd controller connected, tried with regular and fast timing, hmmm yeah

[burnt matrix]

From our friends @winter phoenix and his SHIRO! team - https://www.segasaturnshiro.com/2026/03/06/original-princess-crown-translation-team-has-abandoned-their-project/

Called it, lol

[quick sorrel]

Didn't the patch get released a while ago?

[mortal mist]

from another team , yes

[mortal mist]

@ripe valley The build doesn't matter, the game works for me when the second controller is disabled in the menu.

When it is turned on, it does not start up. Unfortunately, I do not know if it behaves the same way on a real Saturn.

I suppose not.

[thorn pagoda]

there are some games that do that on real hardware

[mortal mist]

Yes i know

But works fine with single core 20251229

Now it's not

[ripe valley]

I was right, it's a SMPC/HPS2PAD thing to check.

That's why I asked about the second controller earlier.

[small ore]

Absolutely mental. Over 10 years of blue balling and a massive huff over someone actually finishing what they eventually could not and still didn't release anything. Thank god someone saved the vestiges of their old work and got it done.

[mortal mist]

OK, it also doesn't work with core 20251229 with the second pad enabled. I didn't notice this because the change for the keyboard messed up my settings 🙂

Is this good behavior? Because on dualsdram it doesn't matter.

[ripe valley]

I never saw some documentation about an original game bug for Donpachi.

[hearty marten]

bUt TeH fOnTs!!!1

[ripe valley]

Yes, something blocks game progress if I activate the second controller before reaching stage 1.
There seems an issue with the SMPC part.
OREG? INTBACK?

I don't know, we need srg320 here on that issue.

[green swift]

I’m glad.

This is a great example of someone else being able to pick up a project and deliver a result even if a project has been “claimed”

Now if you excuse me I’ll go back to playing the Neo Geo Pocket Color core. Oh. Wait…

[dusky delta]

Remember how there were two Bangai-O fan translation projects at once, and people were just like

[green swift]

Exactly

[rotund steeple]

Works fine for me too with the latest test core. DE10 Nano board, single ram. Multi Region Bios. Pad one only enabled.

[dusky delta]

https://www.timeextension.com/news/2026/03/the-last-and-greatest-mystery-of-the-sega-saturn-has-been-revealed

[wise brook]

fucking slorp glorpers

[dusky delta]

I have to wonder why SEGA said "let's do the 32x again. That was fun"

[wise brook]

time extension answers the question; “what if journalism was piracy”

just read the Shiro article, after all, they were the ones who broke the story

[ancient surge]

Probably one of the reasons why the graphics accelerator was canned. They knew from experience that it would be more practical just to put Shenmue and Virtua Fighter 3 on the upcoming Dreamcast instead.

[winter phoenix]

My story’s got more info than theirs 😉 https://www.segasaturnshiro.com/2026/03/06/former-sega-engineer-confirms-saturn-accelerator-was-in-development/

[cobalt rune]

Very interesting

Thank god sega didnt go thru with it though, it would've flopped even worse than the 32X did

Yet, from a perspective of today...it'd be neat to see what it could've been

[burnt matrix]

Yeah, Timextension is not great.

[burnt matrix]

That’s where I first read it! Great article.

[shy basin]

yeah the SH-4 in comparison moves some serious floats 😄

[visual sundial]

What’s scary is the description of how the device works - cartridge slot, using the base hardware for overlays, 2D elements, the floor etc., is exactly how the 32X worked. They didn’t learn their lesson

[vernal sun]

I wonder how much knowledge from that failed experiment was used in the development of the Dreamcast. Often times projects like that which never see the light of day still give the teams a lot of experience they roll into the next product. Assuming there was overlap of the teams. That was a solid read.

[ancient surge]

I assume the Dreamcast was why the project was canned. They knew that they didn't want to repeat the same mistake with the 32X eating up resources that kneecapped the SEGA Saturn. That's why it never went beyond concepts.

[trim nimbus]

That sounds exactly like what the person who ran the site would say while trying to deflect suspicion!