Sega Saturn Core in Development

[16Bittt]

So which version is the latest to buy now?
sounds like I need to buy new ram..

[HK-47]

Last time I checked the latest ones are version 3.0, but any of the usual recommended vendors should be able to hook you up with whatever the latest one is.

[16Bittt]

Yes version 3.0 is the latest.
I'm going to keep waiting for a few more months though.
I did my research and found out the core is far from complete and still work in progress with many games having video/audio glitches and many don't work at all.(specially Japanese titles).

[FPGA64]

Yes version 3.0 is the latest.
I'm going to keep waiting for a few more months though.
I did my research and found out the core is far from complete and still work in progress with many games having video/audio glitches and many don't work at all.(specially Japanese titles).

That would be where you are wrong. Almost every game works. There are very few that dont and most of the reported issues are people with the bad 4 chip ram or much older 2 chip ram

[SegataSanhhiro]

I have some issues that are not mentioned in the known issues list.
Does anyone know, if they are specific to my setup or general issues, that aren't mentioned yet? Last time I ran update all was yesterday.

1. Slowdowns in several 3D fighting games. For example in Fighters Megamix, Fighting Vipers and Dead or Alive. The ones in Fighters Megamix seem to be dependent on the character. I saw several videos, where people didn't have slowdowns, but they all played with Kuma Chan. When I pick him, I also don't experience slowdowns. But when I use Honey (or Candy in the US version), there are some heavy slowdowns, also depending on the stage.
2. Some enemies in Terra Diver () don't show up, I can see their glow, but the enemies themselves are invisible.
3. Saving doesn't work, or at least not reliably. Tried both saving manually and autosave. Sometimes a saved game was loaded, but not every time. Also, when a saved game was loaded, it wasn't necessary the last one I saved. Tried it in mostly in Fighters Megamix, but other games seem to behave similarly.

[Malan]

As suggested by some people here, I updated my v2.5 SDRAM for a v3.0 and now everything works as it should, considering the state of the core which is very good but not perfect yet. So if you have some issues that others don't have, it's probably an SDRAM compatibility issue.

[scanline_samurai]

Is anyone else not able to load games from .zip files anymore? I was able to do this with an older version.

[Marcellus]

Yes „ Saving doesn't work, or at least not reliably. Tried both saving manually and autosave. Sometimes a saved game was loaded, but not every time. Also, when a saved game was loaded, it wasn't necessary the last one I saved. Tried it in mostly in Fighters Megamix, but other games seem to behave similarly.”
Bugged saving makes this core unusable for me. Sadly.

[Akuma]

Is that "Linux sync script" still running in the background ? I never turn my mister off after saving something important. I just play another game or start another core for a couple of minutes after, then I shut it down.

Saved me some headaches in the past.

[16Bittt]

Yes version 3.0 is the latest.
I'm going to keep waiting for a few more months though.
I did my research and found out the core is far from complete and still work in progress with many games having video/audio glitches and many don't work at all.(specially Japanese titles).

That would be where you are wrong. Almost every game works. There are very few that dont and most of the reported issues are people with the bad 4 chip ram or much older 2 chip ram

There are Youtube channels testing games and they mentioned the core is far from complete.for example many of the Japanese Saturn games don't work.when you say "almost every game" works,are you talking about US games?

[dshadoff]

When you watch videos like those, you should check the date of the video, and which version the person is playing/testing.
Huge leaps have been made several times in the past two weeks alone.

Of course, a core of this complexity will take some time before it is difficult to find games with issues... but it is currently easy to find games that are 100% playable. I guess it depends on which games you are likely to actually play.

[mike911]

Yes version 3.0 is the latest.
I'm going to keep waiting for a few more months though.
I did my research and found out the core is far from complete and still work in progress with many games having video/audio glitches and many don't work at all.(specially Japanese titles).

That would be where you are wrong. Almost every game works. There are very few that dont and most of the reported issues are people with the bad 4 chip ram or much older 2 chip ram

There are Youtube channels testing games and they mentioned the core is far from complete.for example many of the Japanese Saturn games don't work.when you say "almost every game" works,are you talking about US games?

All the japanese games in my library work but one. From a total of 54 japanese games. And the rest of my library, 58 usa games all work. So 1/112 not working for me. I think that would qualify as almost every game working in my case. The one game that does not work is Digital Pinball Necronomicon, and it is already listed in the github issues. But I also understand those waiting for the core to mature before purchasing new ram or upgrading to dual sdram kit. The core is not finished, so no one can know what requirements it will end up having.

[FPGA64]

Yes version 3.0 is the latest.
I'm going to keep waiting for a few more months though.
I did my research and found out the core is far from complete and still work in progress with many games having video/audio glitches and many don't work at all.(specially Japanese titles).

That would be where you are wrong. Almost every game works. There are very few that dont and most of the reported issues are people with the bad 4 chip ram or much older 2 chip ram

There are Youtube channels testing games and they mentioned the core is far from complete.for example many of the Japanese Saturn games don't work.when you say "almost every game" works,are you talking about US games?

As has been said youtube videos are not a good source of truth. They are dated very fast and you never know the HW the youtuber has. I have actually run the core, the most up to date version compiled from source. In my experience it plays almost every game. Sure there are glitches in some but not enough to distract you. The core is in active development SRG320 has worked a miracle getting it all in. The Fpga is very nearly full.

[SegataSanhhiro]

Is anyone else not able to load games from .zip files anymore? I was able to do this with an older version.

Yes, same here, only CHD or uncompressed since my last update. But I already had the .CHDs, so I just had to replace them. If you don't have the CHDs and don't want to use uncompressed or re-download, I saw there are some scripts that can convert from CHD to .bin .cue and the other way round.

https://wiki.recalbox.com/en/tutorials/ ... ion/chdman

But I haven't used it yet, so no guarantee.

[Akuma]

Better take the loss and re-download because you will never get 100% identical binaries and I think recreating the cue-sheets will prove to be a real problem. (although maybe someone here could package them up for you, that would really improve your odds, but that would still be a lot of manual labor )

[benten2000]

Is anyone else not able to load games from .zip files anymore? I was able to do this with an older version.

Yes, same here, only CHD or uncompressed since my last update. But I already had the .CHDs, so I just had to replace them. If you don't have the CHDs and don't want to use uncompressed or re-download, I saw there are some scripts that can convert from CHD to .bin .cue and the other way round.

https://wiki.recalbox.com/en/tutorials/ ... ion/chdman

But I haven't used it yet, so no guarantee.

I've used namDHC for a while now, powerful frontend for chdman. Has worked well going to chd format or extracting back.
https://github.com/umageddon/namDHC

[16Bittt]

That would be where you are wrong. Almost every game works. There are very few that dont and most of the reported issues are people with the bad 4 chip ram or much older 2 chip ram

There are Youtube channels testing games and they mentioned the core is far from complete.for example many of the Japanese Saturn games don't work.when you say "almost every game" works,are you talking about US games?

All the japanese games in my library work but one. From a total of 54 japanese games. And the rest of my library, 58 usa games all work. So 1/112 not working for me. I think that would qualify as almost every game working in my case. The one game that does not work is Digital Pinball Necronomicon, and it is already listed in the github issues. But I also understand those waiting for the core to mature before purchasing new ram or upgrading to dual sdram kit. The core is not finished, so no one can know what requirements it will end up having.

Good to know,I will give it a go this weekend myself then.

[16Bittt]

That would be where you are wrong. Almost every game works. There are very few that dont and most of the reported issues are people with the bad 4 chip ram or much older 2 chip ram

There are Youtube channels testing games and they mentioned the core is far from complete.for example many of the Japanese Saturn games don't work.when you say "almost every game" works,are you talking about US games?

As has been said youtube videos are not a good source of truth. They are dated very fast and you never know the HW the youtuber has. I have actually run the core, the most up to date version compiled from source. In my experience it plays almost every game. Sure there are glitches in some but not enough to distract you. The core is in active development SRG320 has worked a miracle getting it all in. The Fpga is very nearly full.

I watched the youtube channel (video game esoterica) and he's following the progress closely.testing the Saturn core almost on daily basis,testing each update etc and he mentioned the core is far from complete with lots of random glitches and issues etc but like I said above I'm going to test the core myself this week and see how it performs.

[FPGA64]

It all depends on His HW setup

I am running a v2.9 ram that clocks at 150 in the memtest so I have a very good ram chip

[16Bittt]

That would be where you are wrong. Almost every game works. There are very few that dont and most of the reported issues are people with the bad 4 chip ram or much older 2 chip ram

There are Youtube channels testing games and they mentioned the core is far from complete.for example many of the Japanese Saturn games don't work.when you say "almost every game" works,are you talking about US games?

All the japanese games in my library work but one. From a total of 54 japanese games. And the rest of my library, 58 usa games all work. So 1/112 not working for me. I think that would qualify as almost every game working in my case. The one game that does not work is Digital Pinball Necronomicon, and it is already listed in the github issues. But I also understand those waiting for the core to mature before purchasing new ram or upgrading to dual sdram kit. The core is not finished, so no one can know what requirements it will end up having.

well I setup the core myself for the first time and yes I can confirm even during the first 30 minutes brief test of a handful of games,some have very obvious audio issues.
for example : Virtua Fighter 2 has very poor audio / glitchy audio ,Marvel SH vs street Fighter has glitched out graphics.Xmen vs Street Fighter graphics all glitchy + freezes
so it depends on what you mean by saying games "work"..yes they work but clearly the core is far from being complete.

[FPGA64]

No one said the core was complete. Its a great core currently and can only improve. Its being developed inside a Warzone so give the dev a chance.

[16Bittt]

No one said the core was complete. Its a great core currently and can only improve. Its being developed inside a Warzone so give the dev a chance.

Sure,I know the situation of the developer etc
when people see the core available via download script they assume it's complete and expect it to work properly like other finished cores.but this core is still a beta.
that's all.

[Armakuni]

No one said the core was complete. Its a great core currently and can only improve. Its being developed inside a Warzone so give the dev a chance.

Sure,I know the situation of the developer etc
when people see the core available via download script they assume it's complete and expect it to work properly like other finished cores.but this core is still a beta.
that's all.

Most cores go public before they are finished though and its a way to speed up bug fixing

In its current state the Saturn is very good even on single SDram, of course there needs more work but its good enough to be released public

[UScr00ge]

I think it's all but confirmed now, but just to chime in .... upgrading my single 128MB ram from 2.5 to 3.0 (sourced from Mister Addons) made a ton of Saturn core issues go away. Nights now has music ... that was the first thing I tested

[rhester72]

@UScr00ge thanks for the report!

4-chip and v2.5 RAM modules are now absolutely no bueno. =)

[longnosedgoblin]

I assume the mister multisystem ram is not 2.9?? I get sound issues on most games, and no way to upgrade the RAM. Hopefully ram compatibility can be improved further.

[FPGA64]

Its a strange case as its bonded to the board and so the lines to it are longer.

Best ram for the Core is 3.0 or 2.9. They are essentially the same other than the 3.0 is easier for the fab houses to make

[charmless]

I assume the mister multisystem ram is not 2.9?? I get sound issues on most games, and no way to upgrade the RAM. Hopefully ram compatibility can be improved further.

From github "A lot of games have sound issues."

[pbsk8]

I think it's all but confirmed now, but just to chime in .... upgrading my single 128MB ram from 2.5 to 3.0 (sourced from Mister Addons) made a ton of Saturn core issues go away. Nights now has music ... that was the first thing I tested

maybe a faulty ram?

Mine is 2.5 and Nights runs with music.

[dmckean]

I think it's all but confirmed now, but just to chime in .... upgrading my single 128MB ram from 2.5 to 3.0 (sourced from Mister Addons) made a ton of Saturn core issues go away. Nights now has music ... that was the first thing I tested

maybe a faulty ram?

Mine is 2.5 and Nights runs with music.

It was discovered with memtest was created that 2.5 and earlier modules had inconsistent speeds. That's the whole reason 2.9 modules were created. So 2.5 ram modules will probably work fine for some.