Sega Saturn Core in Development

[Marcellus]

„ Oh, their laptops last ages! Iphone... Well that's another thing”
Eeee? I have IPhone 8 Plus and no reason to buy new one. iPad 8gen is working fine too.

[retrodroid]

We can't be throwing away our money for each new hardware upgrade

LOL Tell Apple that.

Oh, their laptops last ages! Iphone... Well that's another thing

iPhone last forever too. SW support for like 7 + years generally. People have to complain when they change the connector type every 15 years or so. The outrage! lol.

[Chris23235]

Audio on the latest nightly build (20240217) seems to be louder then before but I get cracking noises on both dual ram (2.9) and single ram builds while it was fine before. Can anybody confirm this (tried Daytone USA and Exhumed).

[rhester72]

I let Daytona USA run through the demo loop twice and didn't hear any audio abnormalities.

It is indeed louder by intention (see "fix output levels"):

https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Saturn_ ... fc640b901a

[Armakuni]

The new test build has louder audio but has also broken Outrun, The road is present but nothing else

[16Bittt]

Why aren’t these new updates added to update_all?
There have been a few updates during past few weeks..yet we're stuck with the old beta core with many issues..
not everyone has the time to manually add cores and unstable versions of Mister, etc.

[Chris23235]

I let Daytona USA run through the demo loop twice and didn't hear any audio abnormalities.

It is indeed louder by intention (see "fix output levels"):

https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Saturn_ ... fc640b901a

My description should have been more detailed. The Daytona demo sounds fine (mostly), there is a crack at the beginning of the music and sometimes when a speech sample is played. It is not very obvious at first, but when I noticed it, it became more audible.
I hear it more clearly in Exhumed, when I flip through the menu entries, at the beginning of each sound sample it makes a very short cracking noise.

[breiztiger]

Same here sound cracking in manx tt

[SegaMan]

Same on Virtua Fighter sometimes.

---

Another Question:

Some Saturn games keep switching the resolution. In Die Hard, for example, always when changing between levels. As a result, you often see an image displayed too late and the Quicktime events are already over.

Will there be a way to prevent this in the core?

That would be great because Die Hard isn't really playable that way even though it otherwise runs very well.

[Armakuni]

Same on Virtua Fighter sometimes.

---

Another Question:

Some Saturn games keep switching the resolution. In Die Hard, for example, always when changing between levels. As a result, you often see an image displayed too late and the Quicktime events are already over.

Will there be a way to prevent this in the core?

That would be great because Die Hard isn't really playable that way even though it otherwise runs very well.

Use Vsync_Adjust=1 in the ini. This will stop the monitor resynching when the games change resolution or frequency on the fly. You can add a exception in the ini just for that core. Its caused by the monitor scaler rather than anything MiSTer related

[Armakuni]

Why aren’t these new updates added to update_all?
There have been a few updates during past few weeks..yet we're stuck with the old beta core with many issues..
not everyone has the time to manually add cores and unstable versions of Mister, etc.

They are just nightly test builds once enough issues has been solved without regression a new main will be pushed.

You dont need a unstable MiSTer Main, just the test builds which can be grabbed from Github and just FTP across, it takes mere seconds

https://github.com/MiSTer-unstable-nigh ... r/releases

[KelSolaar]

Thanks for this fantastic core. I'm working myself through the librabry.
The most obvious issue i've came across so far is the low audio in most games.
There are also stuttering sound in some games (Gran Chaser for instance).
The Daytona USA logo doesn't show properly in the game menus (tried Japanese version).
Keep up the good work!

[rhester72]

Stuttering sound isn't fixable by code, it's your RAM.

[rhester72]

The clicking may be fixed now:

https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Saturn_ ... mits/main/

EDIT: OutRun also works properly again.

[Chris23235]

The clicking may be fixed now:

https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Saturn_ ... mits/main/

EDIT: OutRun also works properly again.

Just tried Exhumed on the 20240222 nightly and sadly it's not fixed in the DualRam or the SingleRam core.

We just have to wait a little bit longer

[rhester72]

Just tried Exhumed on the 20240222 nightly and sadly it's not fixed in the DualRam or the SingleRam core.

Very interesting - confirmed. That means whatever is causing that click is something different.

Cool game, too. =)

[KennyL]

Stuttering sound isn't fixable by code, it's your RAM.

Did Sergiy say that? Would be a bummer if that's the case...

[Chris23235]

Just tried Exhumed on the 20240222 nightly and sadly it's not fixed in the DualRam or the SingleRam core.

Very interesting - confirmed. That means whatever is causing that click is something different.

Cool game, too. =)

Very cool game, discovered it recently myself because of a YT video about the Saturn core.

[rhester72]

I still can't tell the difference between unstable cores from here:

https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Saturn_ ... mits/main/

I know the hex at the end of the filename corresponds to a github commit, but when I look at the shortnames for the commits, none of the IDs ever seem to match. What am I missing?

[MadDog]

I still can't tell the difference between unstable cores from here:

https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Saturn_ ... mits/main/

I know the hex at the end of the filename corresponds to a github commit, but when I look at the shortnames for the commits, none of the IDs ever seem to match. What am I missing?

Hmm... You can find the output on the build and associate it to the commit. For instance, this commit is associated to this build.

[rhester72]

Hmm... You can find the output on the build and associate it to the commit. For instance, this commit is associated to this build.

Perfect, this is exactly what I was looking for! Thank you!

[rhester72]

Crackle in Exhumed is fixed!

[Chris23235]

Crackle in Exhumed is fixed!

Not fully fixed for me, but much improved. I still get some cracking whenever the sound is inititalised (e.g. after loading). It's very short, but audible (only tried DualSDRAM now).

[rhester72]

Not fully fixed for me, but much improved. I still get some cracking whenever the sound is inititalised (e.g. after loading). It's very short, but audible (only tried DualSDRAM now).

I was referring to the menu sounds...never heard it on load, but wasn't listening for it, either.

[Chris23235]

Not fully fixed for me, but much improved. I still get some cracking whenever the sound is inititalised (e.g. after loading). It's very short, but audible (only tried DualSDRAM now).

I was referring to the menu sounds...never heard it on load, but wasn't listening for it, either.

Yes in the menu it is fixed for me too. Not sure if the small audible cracks at certain points were in all earlier versions too. Quite possible that I just didn't noticed them before. The sound when the Saturn menu opens without a disc inserted is different too. I had a Saturn back in the day but can't recall what the sound was back then.

[rhester72]

Yes in the menu it is fixed for me too. Not sure if the small audible cracks at certain points were in all earlier versions too. Quite possible that I just didn't noticed them before. The sound when the Saturn menu opens without a disc inserted is different too. I had a Saturn back in the day but can't recall what the sound was back then.

I didn't have one back in the day, but the no-disc sound seems correct now as it previously sounded like white noise lol

[rhester72]

One thing I have noticed for the first time is how broken audio is underwater in Tomb Raider. Still, every few days, there's improvement!

[Retro-Nerd]

The last 2-3 updates (including updating the Mister Main unstable too) fixed a lot of sound issues, like CDDA crackles in many games (before every CDDA track started there was a crackle/static sound). Also tons of other games are fine now, like Elevator Action Returns.

[SegaMan]

Cant confirm that.
The latest core sounds horrible on my Mister.

Crackle Sound on Exhumed and Panzer Dragon 2.
Dont have this on older cores.

[rhester72]

Crackle Sound on Exhumed and Panzer Dragon 2.

Where in Exhumed? The menu crackle is definitely fixed.