Looking for a good Sega Saturn Emulator

[Cmosfm]

OK, I've had a craving to play all my Saturn games recently, but I work so much it's hard to find time to do so at home...So I figured I could grab me a nice emulator and play my disks at work.

But, I'm having trouble finding one, I hear Giri Giri works great but hell if I can't find a place to download it at!

Anyone have any idea where I can look?

[Retsudo]

http://emuasylum.com/index.php?page=emulators&system=Sega%20Saturn

[dj898]

for Saturn emulation nothing beats Girirgiriri [hack] assuming you have powerful enough rig - P4-3G to be a starting point.

I use it from time to time for testing titles I've sold on eBay and it runs most of them albeit slowly compared to the console. Haven't tried CD-R back with it but don't think it will have any problem...

one grip I have with it is lack of 1M/4M RAM support so I cannot run any of titles requiring RAM cart... no big deal as I can stick it into Saturn console.


cheers

[Cmosfm]

I'm on a Pentium 4 2.8GHz, so I doubt I'd have a problem. I've been running Doom 3 just fine. ;)

I downloaded the only version of GiriGiri I could find, which was here...

http://emu.makii.pl/pokazpliki.php3?tematy=saturn

I'll check it out this evening. :)

[dj898]

get the frontend for GiriGiri.
it makes the life helluva easier especially if yu want to run disc

cheers

[Daniel Thomas]

You might be able to find something at the EmuTalk forums. They have a Saturn section, and I think you can track down the GG hack from there. But be careful: someone basically ripped that emu off and passed it off as their own work (CAssini or something), so be careful to be specific when posting questions.

Oh, and this emulator works pretty well for a lot of games, but it's still really not up to the level of the Saturn console. You'd hope that Saturn emulation will have improved enough within the next year to close the gap, but it's still a tough nut to crack.

[EnemyZero]

Yeah saturn emu still blows...most the emu's barely run anything, and those that do still cant run the games at full speed. You'd think these pc powerhouses would be able to run these little ole 32-bit games..but ...noooooooooo.....maybe someday

[Cmosfm]

Ok, I can't find anything to work on Win Xp. If anyone knows of ANYWHERE I can get one (or if you have one you can send me) then please let me know. Shoot me a PM or something.

[Cmosfm]

Ok, well, I've got it kinda working.

Now, if I run straight from a disk, it sometimes loads but takes forever. Now, I burned my game to an image file and try to run it but I get a region error, even after I change the region in Loader and the base.ini file.

I dunno, I guess I'll fool with it some more

[Half Japanese]

I tried to do the same thing a while back and I just gave up. It's like trying to ride a bicycle made of ice cream.

[dj898]

Ok, I can't find anything to work on Win Xp. If anyone knows of ANYWHERE I can get one (or if you have one you can send me) then please let me know. Shoot me a PM or something.

there are various [hack] GiriGiri out there and some work on WinXP as missus PC is WinXP.

I will see where I got those when I got home tonight...

cheers

[evilmess]

On this page http://emu.makii.pl/pokazpliki.php3?tematy=saturn you'll find a link for Cassini v1.0 - (bin/saturn/Cassini_Lite_v10.exe), 3074 kb. Not sure if it's a live link but thats the one I use on win2k. It's basically GiriGiri with an installer, FE Loader and a worthless configurator app. But it works with a handful of games.

Go here http://www.emutalk.net/index.php? and check the "Saturn Shack" forum for other bits of info regarding GiriGiri or Cassnni. It's a pretty active forum with up to date info and solutions to problems that plague this dodgy emulator.

My advice, mess around with GiriGiri/Cassini and then move on to ePSXe. Now there is a damn fine emulator. Two words. Supports Controllers!

[kingpong]

I've never had any significant problems running Cassini, GiriGiri, or Satourne on any of the 3 XP boxes I've used. Certainly there have been problems with the emulation, problems getting games to load, etc., but in general they've always worked for me. Not the painless experience that ePSXe has always been (except for when I wanted to configure Pete's OGL2 plugin while running 640x480), but the PS1 is a laughably simple piece of hardware compared to the Saturn, so I don't mind the extra work involved in the Saturn emulators.

[dj898]

My advice, mess around with GiriGiri/Cassini and then move on to ePSXe. Now there is a damn fine emulator. Two words. Supports Controllers!

no sure what do you mean by controller but I use Xbox S controller on my WinXP and plan to get new Saturn shape pad with USB cord just releasedin Japan...

cheers

[evilmess]

When using Cassini 1.0 I haven't had any luck getting a controller to work with it and that could be because I use an old MS Sidewinder in win2K or I havent figured out how to get Cassini to recognize my controller. Also it won't run on my WIN98 MAME box until I upgrade the video card to something a bit more modern so I can't test it on that machine which is the faster of my two pc's.

I have ePSXe on the MAME box and after a couple hours configuring it to the old voodoo 3 3000 in that box I am very pleased with the way it runs. It looks better than the PS1 games on my PS2 and I use a PSOne Analog controller with a USB adapter to play the games. It loads disc's and virtual CD's without a hitch.

[Icarus Moonsight]

I'm not certain about this but I belive the Saturn had and assload of chips on the board when compared to other consoles. Authoring software to do the work of hardware is nightmarish enough when the original hardware had 2 to 4 chips. I've heard the Saturn had about 9 total! I wouldn't be surprised if the PS2/Xbox/GC had fully functional emu's before a half decent Saturn one is completed. Sega made one tough nut to crack LOL

[Daniel Thomas]

The Saturn was indeed a mess. It's largely because Sega originally designed it as the ultimate 2D machine; at least, until they got wind of what Sony was working on. Word of the PSX sent Sega scurrying to slap a bunch of hardware together, and needless to say, it's a real pain.

There are something like five main processors, including two CPU's running in parallel, a sprite processor, and a backgrounds processor. I'm probably simplifying things a bit, because this is all off the top of my head -- the VDP1, VDP2, the twin Hitachis, yada yada.

The end result was notoriously difficult for developers, and very few people were really able to make that machine work. The Playstation by contrast was a model of simplicity, and Sony was bending over backwards to help the software community, with all their software libraries and all.

As far as emulation goes, that makes it far more difficult for emus to pull of everything. That's why it's been taking forever. Emulation is an unpaid hobby, ya know. Fortunately, real breakthroughs have been made in the past year, and I think we'll finally be seeing the Saturn cracked before too long. It might take another year or so, but we'll get there.

[Cmosfm]

Well, I've been fooling with a lot of programs, and I'm thinking the "Ice Cream Bike" comment is kind of right.

Except, it's more like a "rusty bike", where as you can get it to move, but actually move fluidly without rusting up is impossible. Actually enjoying it isn't possible either.

Therefore, I give up, this is too much work to just play NiGHTS and Daytona USA at work. :o

Thanks anyways guys

[fishsandwich]

The Saturn's architecture is indeed a mess, plus those two main CPU's don't run in true parallel... they are a master/slave arrangment sharing a common data path (or something to that effect.)

The Saturn uses distorted sprites to form polygons... how's that for bizarre programming techniques?

I understand that the aborted Saturn version of Shenume was using the SOUND PROCESSOR for some of the GRAPHICS... I'm not sure how this is possible as I'm not a techie. I do know that the Yamaha sound processor in the Saturn was very high-end for the time and was quite powerful. Seems Sega was pissed about the Genesis sound compared to the SNES and decided to go all the way. Who knows what power the Saturn has hidden inside, never to be revealed. It's a pity it didn't last longer.

cheers

[Cryomancer]

Someone somewhere was working on a saturn emulation project for the Dreamcast, that would be nice.

But yeah, saturn emulation is highly unfeesable with the current tools available. You can buy, ship, mod, and be playing a real one quicker, heh.