Is Jaguar , 3DO and Saturn emulation still garbage ?

[WCP]

Most of the early systems can be emulated just fine. Super Ninendo, Genesis, Sega CD, Neo-Geo, etc, etc. Near perfect emulation. Extremely good PS1 emulation and N64 emulation.


The Atari Jaguar, Panasonic 3DO and Sega Satun were always the exception. As somebody that hasn't been keeping up on emulation, has anything chaned in the last 10 years with these systems ?

[Satoshi_Matrix]

Not in my experience. The Jaguar 3DO and Saturn were overly complex machines to begin with, and emulation is difficult to achieve even with vastly more powerful hardware. Compounding the problem is how generally unpopular they are.

Your best bet is to seek out the original hardware and burn games to disc rather than try and emulate them. Good Old Games has some Saturn offerings but they kind of suck. Still good emulation of the Saturn must be possible as very good ports of Saturn games including Radiant Silvergun are on Xbox Live.

For now though, I'd say the answer is no, there are no good 3D0/Saturn/Jag emulators.

[Rickstilwell1]

Saturn has gotten a bit better with the newer version of SSF but the other two still don't seem very good. 4DO is laggy and FreeDO doesn't support USB joystick making it undesirable for me even if it might run better than 4DO now. The Wii and Xbox emulation of it are more like proof of concept as neither system can handle it from what I see. Either that or it's just because they haven't gotten far enough with them.

With Jaguar I haven't even looked for anything new yet. I don't think I saw USB joystick support for the one I had tried Zool 2 on. My main problem with whatever Jag emulator I used was that most roms I wanted to try wouldn't boot on it.

I'm so glad authentic 3DO's play burned games. I'd like to get another 3DO system when I can afford one so I can play Bust-A-Move 1 and some overlooked fighters & RPGs.

The main thing that sucks about the Saturn emulator is that you pretty much need to be running Daemon Tools virtual cd drive while you run it. I still haven't figured out if that is the program that ruined my laptop's memory causing it to freeze up every few minutes or if it was something else. Out of the box my laptop was fine, but I noticed those problems a little bit after running that for a while.

[BricatSegaFan]

I always thought Saturn emulation wouldn't work out any way. Correct me if I'm wrong but Saturn renders Quadrilaterals. Everything now a days renders in triangles. So wouldn't Saturn polygon games look weird? I've never emulated Saturn .

[PreZZ]

Atari Jaguar must be the worst system released ever. There is not a single game worth playing on the system, and yes i have played tempest 2000, i own it. Even if the system and games are rare and valuable, I dont get it. And jaguar cd could possibly be worse than the system itself. awful!!

[IHatedSega]

I always thought Saturn emulation wouldn't work out any way. Correct me if I'm wrong but Saturn renders Quadrilaterals. Everything now a days renders in triangles. So wouldn't Saturn polygon games look weird? I've never emulated Saturn .

They look just like they do in videos I see of them on youtube. The emulation isnt perfect over all since a ton of games dont work on SSF, but a lot of games I burned to cdr work. Radiant Silvergun is a little slow and Astal wont run, Castlevania SoTN has some static when certain graphics happen in front of sprites. Still Im very happy I can play great games that are Saturn exclusives or have superior ports on it.

I didnt go with the virtual drive route to do Saturn emulation, its not worth it to me with all the headaches involved.

Heres a list of compatibility, it doesnt list all the library, so I dont know how well other games that arent listed work.
http://lusspace.free.fr/ssf.htm

[Cloud121]

Atari Jaguar must be the worst system released ever. There is not a single game worth playing on the system, and yes i have played tempest 2000, i own it. Even if the system and games are rare and valuable, I dont get it. And jaguar cd could possibly be worse than the system itself. awful!!

Tempest 2K, Raiden, Iorn Soldier, Alien vs Predator, Doom, Wolfenstein, Zool 2, Cybermorph.

All amazing games and worth getting a Jaguar for.

[kedawa]

I didnt go with the virtual drive route to do Saturn emulation, its not worth it to me with all the headaches involved.

Right click > Mount Image

[wiggyx]

^^^ LOfuckingL!

I always thought Saturn EMU was a bitch because of its wacky piggyback processor BS that made programming for it a total PITA in the first place, not because of how it renders 3D shapes.

[Greg2600]

I think the lack of 3DO emulation is definitely affected by the minimal interest in the system. Jaguar has had a number of emu's worked on, I think the issue is that the best and brightest haven't been drawn to it because it's probably not fun to program. Virtual Jaguar (download) (http://outrage.the-crow.co.uk/builds/) emulates well, though the joystick support isn't good. All the Jag emu's run too heavy on even new PC's. Not optimized.

Saturn emulation, I find SSF pretty easy to use and configure, and I'm lazy. Virtual CloneDrive is really easy to use as well. The games that are stated to work run flawlessly on my PC, which is fairly powerful I guess. I also don't have any Saturn games, so I don't know how well the CD-Rom plugin works. There's still emulation work to be done, no question, but the Saturn has a large if albeit underground following. Especially in Japan, from where SSF is being developed from.


^^^ LOfuckingL!

I always thought Saturn EMU was a bitch because of its wacky piggyback processor BS that made programming for it a total PITA in the first place, not because of how it renders 3D shapes.

Indeed. Well programming back then was tough because SEGA's developer tools, libraries, etc. were notoriously poor. How it rendered was only a problem because it went against industry standard, which meant more work. The Saturn was very inefficient in terms of its bus and memory access, not to mention processors which were not customized for the tasks at hand. I mean, why were they using off the shelf processors in 1994? Anyway, I have to imagine the sheer hardware complexity is what has made emulation tough.

[WCP]

Atari Jaguar must be the worst system released ever. There is not a single game worth playing on the system, and yes i have played tempest 2000, i own it. Even if the system and games are rare and valuable, I dont get it. And jaguar cd could possibly be worse than the system itself. awful!!


1. Worst system ever was actually the 32X.

2. Cybermorph is actually a damn good game if you give it a fair shake. It's not a Starfox type game, it's more of a puzzle game than anything. But a VERY good puzzle game.

3. Doom is one of the best console ports ever (despite the lack of music)

4. AVP might not stand the test of time very well, but that game was pretty sensational when it was first released.

5. Raiden is a pretty decent port, with great color.

[Leo_A]

Jaguar emulation has been on the rise the past year or so after a long period of idleness. Still far away from being a legitimate replacement for the original hardware though but at least advancements are finally being made again.

And while I don't agree with some of the better game's that have been listed in defense of it, it's certainly far above the situation as portrayed by PreZZ. It's a worthwhile addition to any classic gaming collection with easily enough legitimately fun games to justify its use of shelf space.

The excellent Super Burnout alone would be enough to keep the dust off mine. Worth a few hours of playtime every few months even after all of these years.

[IHatedSega]

Right click > Mount Image

The free version of daemontools can give you a BSOD if you have a certain setting not made before installing it, and theres adware crap too you may deal with.

[Cloud121]

1. Worst system ever was actually the 32X.

Does that really count though? It was an add-on afterall. Kolibri was fantastic, and while Chaotix was love it or hate it, I loved it. Great home ports of Mortal Kombat II and NBA Jam TE. Star Wars Arcade's only home port was on the 32X, as was unarguably the best version of Virtua Racing. Also arcade perfect ports of After Burner and Space Harrier.

I am a huge 32X fanboy, and will defend it until I die.

As for "Worst console ever", why not the Pippin or CD-i?

[kedawa]

Shadow Squadron and Virtua Fighter are great as well.
I really liked the 32X and was disappointed when support was dropped.

[mailman187666]

Buy a bare bones 3do with controller and hook-ups. Mine runs my back up copies perfectly. I always loved 3do and im playing star control 2 for the first time right now.

[7th lutz]

1. Worst system ever was actually the 32X.



I don't buy that at all. Mortal Kombat 2 was a great port for its time. Virtua Fighter and Virtua Racing were great games for the 32x.Space Harrier was very good game for the 32x also. Knuckles Chaotix also was a good game to me. I am going by what I own for the 32x. The system showed potential based on the good games it had. The real problems for the 32x was Sega dropped support for the system because of the Saturn and Sega releasing the 32x a year before the Saturn got released in the states. The System was good, but the time of releasing was bad.

The Cd-i actually is worse than the 32x.

[Greg2600]

There's some Russians working on IDE replacement boards for the 3DO. However, they are not widely available, costly, and only work on certain console models. Apparently the 3DO is popular with Russians?

The Jaguar emulator I spoke of is in constant dev. by AtariAge user Shamus, so it should be getting better. There are some decent games on that system, and I really liked the audio/music on it. However, the stock controllers were among the worst ever created, and the 3D and digitized games are very dated. Last night I tried Checkered Flag, ghastly game. I wouldn't beat up anyone for owning it, but I certainly don't advise it over most systems. The CD attachment is VERY expensive.

The 32X was not the worst system ever by far. It was definitely one of the most ill advised released in history. Greatly harmed SEGA's reputation, IMO.

[IHatedSega]

The CD attachment is VERY expensive.

The 32X was not the worst system ever by far. It was definitely one of the most ill advised released in history. Greatly harmed SEGA's reputation, IMO.

And very buggy. I watched that Spoony review of the Highlander game, the damn thing closes ON the cd pretty much, wow what a design flaw.

Id say the Sega CD and that Genesis/CD combo unit was the beginning of Segas downfall, the 32X was further proof of things not right in the head, and then the Saturn Day release was the final nail in their coffin, the Dreamcast was their last chance at holding on and staying in the console business, but it was too late. If the Saturn wasnt released too soon, nd maybe the development wasnt rushed with the different 3D processors then it would have been easier to develop for, and then the release date would have happened so people would have had enough time to plan and make games for it. It would have also have lessened the PS1's awesome library since a lot of games that became PS1 exclusives were also going to have a Saturn version.

Emulation wise, Kega Fusion is amazing. Wish SSF becomes as good by the end of this decade.

Id say if we look at all consoles made then the Game.com would be the worst console besides the CD-I. If anything it has the WORST commercial ever. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dp460zM_PGA

[cholkavich]

For 3DO Ive used an emulator called 4DO, and Ive been able to play the games Ive been interested in. Its not perfect but what emulator is haha

[Cloud121]

The 32X was not the worst system ever by far. It was definitely one of the most ill advised released in history. Greatly harmed SEGA's reputation, IMO.

Between the Mega CD and 32X, I feel that the 32X was the better idea. However, its timing is what doomed it. It couldn't have been released any sooner than it was, because then everyone would have been up in arms due to the Mega CD being released just recently as well. It couldn't have been released any later (due to said Mega CD only being two years old in the States), because of the Saturn had just launched in Japan (32X launched in Japan about a month after the Saturn), and was (at the time) still a year away in the States.

Such a shame too, as it had more potential than Mega CD, and (on paper) did more with the MegaDrive hardware than the Mega CD.


Maybe I'm just blind with 32X love, but can you imagine if some games had been developed truly taking full advantage of a MegaDrive/Mega CD/32X combo? I bet it could at least match, or come close to Saturn and PSX launch titles.

[IHatedSega]

Yeah, I think it was a better idea than the CD addon too. To me they should have focused on CD technology for their next console (Saturn) when they could have really of taken advantage of the storage capabilities with 3D games. But overall the Genesis was all they needed, the CD and 32X games should just have been Saturn games cause thats what they should have been focusing on next. MY name is IHatEDSega cause I really miss them now the more I learn the history of gaming. If they had been strong during the Dreamcast era I dont think Microsoft would have entered the console market and gaming would be so much better now.

Addons it seems are just bad ideas, and console companies should just focusing on utilizing the technology for their next console.

[Hawksmoor]

When people get to talking about "worst system ever" it usually ends up reflecting their ignorance of commercially released systems. You'll hear Jaguar and 32X a lot, but no one will mention the Playdia, Pippin, Zemmix, or PC-FX. Those systems do have their merits, but I'd take the Jag or 32X's library over any of theirs any day and twice on Sunday.

[Greg2600]

When people get to talking about "worst system ever" it usually ends up reflecting their ignorance of commercially released systems. You'll hear Jaguar and 32X a lot, but no one will mention the Playdia, Pippin, Zemmix, or PC-FX. Those systems do have their merits, but I'd take the Jag or 32X's library over any of theirs any day and twice on Sunday.

Those I barely even consider systems, plus they didn't get out of Japan.

My point on the 32X being a poor decision to release by SEGA was that Nintendo proved they could put out better games than that system just by using chips in the carts. That didn't cost the home user $150-200 for a new add-on. SegaCD project was fine by me in that it got into new technology, but with the Saturn coming, Sega Japan should have just refused SOA's Mars project.

[IHatedSega]

When people get to talking about "worst system ever" it usually ends up reflecting their ignorance of commercially released systems. You'll hear Jaguar and 32X a lot, but no one will mention the Playdia, Pippin, Zemmix, or PC-FX. Those systems do have their merits, but I'd take the Jag or 32X's library over any of theirs any day and twice on Sunday.
I just dont see the point of even talking about the Pippin. And people should really only talk about consoles theyve played. If anything it just says how much those consoles were ignored than anything else.

[BlastProcessing402]

As for "Worst console ever", why not the Pippin or CD-i?

Most people probably haven't even heard of the Pippin, and if they've heard of the CDi, it's likely because of "those horrible Zelda games".

[A Black Falcon]

I know it's been mentioned, but Saturn emulation has been great for years; SSF is a very good emulator. The Jaguar and 3DO, though... yeah, both of those are much rougher. Both DO have emulators now, 4DO for the 3DO and several for the Jaguar, but those Jaguar ones particularly are iffy. A few games work great, but compatibility in any of the Jaguar emulators is poor, and there are lots of games that don't work in any of them. Still, some Jaguar games at least can be played in emulation, which is better than, say, the nonexistent state of Xbox emulation (Halo and nothing else...). As for 4DO, it's a decent emulator; 3DO emulation is better than it used to be. It still has a ways to go, but you can actually play a decent number of games in it now, which is cool.

[jb143]

I always thought Saturn emulation wouldn't work out any way. Correct me if I'm wrong but Saturn renders Quadrilaterals. Everything now a days renders in triangles. So wouldn't Saturn polygon games look weird? I've never emulated Saturn .

A quad can be rendered as 2 triangles. The emulator would simply need to take this into account. It would add a little bit of software overhead on something the Saturn does natively in hardware but I would imagine that today's machines would be more than capable to handle something like that with no problems.

[Greg2600]

A quad can be rendered as 2 triangles. The emulator would simply need to take this into account. It would add a little bit of software overhead on something the Saturn does natively in hardware but I would imagine that today's machines would be more than capable to handle something like that with no problems.

Like I said, SSF emulator seems to run really well on my PC.

[Damaniel]

Most of the early systems can be emulated just fine. Super Ninendo, Genesis, Sega CD, Neo-Geo, etc, etc. Near perfect emulation. Extremely good PS1 emulation and N64 emulation.


The Atari Jaguar, Panasonic 3DO and Sega Satun were always the exception. As somebody that hasn't been keeping up on emulation, has anything chaned in the last 10 years with these systems ?

In short, no - not really. SSF can run some Saturn stuff, but Jaguar and 3DO are still far better experiences on the actual consoles (at least as much 'better' as playing Jaguar can be... :))

Also, I tend to think that N64 emulation still kind of sucks at this point. Sure, the most common stuff works well enough, but the sheer number of graphical and sound glitches in anything not Mario or Zelda renders the whole experience a little lacking.

(Surprisingly, I find the state of both PS2 and Gamecube/Wii emulation to be quite good. I actually beat Xenoblade Chronicles and most of Final Fantasy X via emulation, mainly for the higher resolution and improved texture filtering. Both need a seriously fast PC, though.)

[IHatedSega]

In short, no - not really. SSF can run some Saturn stuff,
Also, I tend to think that N64 emulation still kind of sucks at this point. Sure, the most common stuff works well enough, but the sheer number of graphical and sound glitches in anything not Mario or Zelda renders the whole experience a little lacking.


Yeah SSF is the worst emulator I have (besides NEOPOP for NEO GEO POCKET COLOR plays games well but the sound is like my ears chewing on tin foil) I too am disappointed by N64 emulation in general, tons of bugs left no matter which plug ins I use on Project64, but itself I love more than others because of the options it has with resolution and cheats. I cant play Rogue Squadron it though >:( and Mystical Ninja has some glitchy graphics at times and I have to restart the emulator, but at least that game isnt slow as hell anymore.

[123►Genei-Jin]

SFF works great for me, and for anyone having issues with Daemon Tools there are other virtual Optical drive applications like Virtual CloneDrive, Magic ISO and most burning applications will let you create a virtual drive.

[IHatedSega]

Im just going to burn my games to CDR and play them that way. Cant buy alcohol, nero or daemon and I dont want to mess with issues or adware Ive heard of with the free versions. Im being a little too cautionary but oh well. I love how PS1 emulation has the virtual drive built in, I hear the SSF developers dont really mean for it to be for illegal emulation so they dont want to make it have a virtual drive. Hell even Sega CD emulation is done wit ha built in virtual drive with Kega Fusion and its awesome.

Heres the compatibility list.
http://lusspace.free.fr/ssf.htm

[VACRMH]

http://lusspace.free.fr/ssf.htm

That list seems out of date. There's games on there that I've had no problems with.

Saturn emulation has progressed nicely, just about every game I've thrown at it has worked well. It did take awhile to get the hang of how SSF works however.

3DO is very good as well, I use 4DO. Here's a compatibility list, that may or may not be up to date. http://wiki.fourdo.com/index.php?title=Compatibility_List The most recent version came out just after christmas.

No idea about Jaguar emulation, never bothered trying it.

[Greg2600]

Virtual clone drive is easy to config, stop moaning and use that.

[GwabShi]

That list seems out of date. There's games on there that I've had no problems with.

Saturn emulation has progressed nicely, just about every game I've thrown at it has worked well. It did take awhile to get the hang of how SSF works however.

3DO is very good as well, I use 4DO. Here's a compatibility list, that may or may not be up to date. http://wiki.fourdo.com/index.php?title=Compatibility_List The most recent version came out just after christmas.

No idea about Jaguar emulation, never bothered trying it.

List out of date. Here's a cached version of the page from the wayback machine dated Jan 2013:

http://web.archive.org/web/20130126182816/http://wiki.fourdo.com/index.php?title=Compatibility_List

So compatibility seems pretty good. I'm going to give it a try!

[TheRetroVideoGameAddict]

Tempest 2K, Raiden, Iorn Soldier, Alien vs Predator, Doom, Wolfenstein, Zool 2, Cybermorph.

All amazing games and worth getting a Jaguar for.

I love all of those those games you mentioned as well as Kasumi Ninja, Ultra Vortek, Rayman, and NBA Jam. I also really like Defender 2K and Breakout 2K.

[Neb6]

Yeah, I think it was a better idea than the CD addon too. To me they should have focused on CD technology for their next console (Saturn) when they could have really of taken advantage of the storage capabilities with 3D games. But overall the Genesis was all they needed, the CD and 32X games should just have been Saturn games cause thats what they should have been focusing on next. MY name is IHatEDSega cause I really miss them now the more I learn the history of gaming. If they had been strong during the Dreamcast era I dont think Microsoft would have entered the console market and gaming would be so much better now.

Addons it seems are just bad ideas, and console companies should just focusing on utilizing the technology for their next console.

I'm thinking that MS was paying very close attention to the Dreamcast. Placing the first XBOX next to the Dreamcast and then comparing the two (and their controllers) is a bit of an eye-opener.

As for the 32x, Space Harrier was perfect on that system. And yeah, SEGA sure have the 'too many products' thing going on for a while there.

[JSoup]

I remember reading a few months back that, with the then new PS3 hacks, modders were hoping to get a fully, 100% accurate Saturn emulator going. I recall there being a few articles and some theory chatter on modder forums, but then it all just stopped. Guessing nothing every came of it, but I was lead to believe that many of the more complicated or otherwise troubled systems will require modern systems to fully emulate in any reasonable fashion.