The State of Sega Saturn Homebrew

[Chilly Willy]

Did you ever find workable replacements? Without the official libs, could you just use the Lapetus SDK for new homebrew?

I've switched to libyaul. That's being actively worked on, so I'm helping improve it. You can actually do a homebrew that runs from the CD on it, but you can't yet load files from the CD (just the app itself). That's being worked on. It has support for the ram carts, which is needed for a number of ports.

It's very close to having enough for general homebrew. It's certainly far enough along for certain things (where you don't need to load other files).

[djcc]

I've switched to libyaul. That's being actively worked on, so I'm helping improve it. You can actually do a homebrew that runs from the CD on it, but you can't yet load files from the CD (just the app itself). That's being worked on. It has support for the ram carts, which is needed for a number of ports.

It's very close to having enough for general homebrew. It's certainly far enough along for certain things (where you don't need to load other files).

I want to clone myself so that I can find the time to try it out.

[Moirai]

And SSF is far from perfect, even though it is the best emulator at this point. I know a lot of 2D Fighters have cracked out speed issues.

Many games do work perfectly though. Such as Panzer Dragoon Saga, Panzer Dragoon Zwei, Assault Suit Leynos 2, Astal, NiGHTS, Radiant Silvergun, Burning Rangers, and Daytona USA. (those are the ones that i've tried, and they work just as good as they do on a real Saturn)

in some cases, SSF can even reduce slowdown. I noticed this a few times in Radiant Silverfun.

The only game I had trouble running was Virtua Fighter Kids. That one was really slow at times

[Saturn Fan]

How the hell do you even get the Emu running? I downloaded it from the webpage. Still in japanese or something though. I just get an error message. "????CD???".

[Chilly Willy]

I run yabause - it's easier to get working... at least it was for me. Be careful about using OpenGL acceleration - you'll lose some effects. It does better at accurately emulating the video if you use software rendering, if a bit slower.

When I want to try something on actual hardware, I either burn a CDR or use a USB dev cart found here:
http://segaxtreme.net/community/topi...-cart-project/

[Moirai]

How the hell do you even get the Emu running? I downloaded it from the webpage. Still in japanese or something though. I just get an error message. "????CD???".

never had that issue with SSF...
it seemed to "just work" for me. (with the exception of having to tweak the settings and stuff, of course)

[MrSega]

If there's still any way to homebrew Saturn, I would love to see someone attempt to convert that 2008 Sonic fan game "Sonic Robo Blast 2" unto CD-ROM.

https://www.srb2.org/


This game shoulda existed in 1996. It would have been a snap to program on Saturn's main single frame buffer since it uses the "Doom Legacy" engine and wouldn't have required alot of Bus memory to run since it would only required Sprite Rendering, few textured polygons and smooth Rotation which could also be achieved by slowing down the VDP1's SCU Bus. It's also designed with few backgrounds so it wouldn't have been difficult to develop at all.

[Drakon]

usb dev cart? Like...a flash cart that plays a cdrom iso?

I run yabause - it's easier to get working... at least it was for me. Be careful about using OpenGL acceleration - you'll lose some effects. It does better at accurately emulating the video if you use software rendering, if a bit slower.

When I want to try something on actual hardware, I either burn a CDR or use a USB dev cart found here:
http://segaxtreme.net/community/topi...-cart-project/

[Chilly Willy]

If there's still any way to homebrew Saturn, I would love to see someone attempt to convert that 2008 Sonic fan game "Sonic Robo Blast 2" unto CD-ROM.

https://www.srb2.org/


This game shoulda existed in 1996. It would have been a snap to program on Saturn's main single frame buffer since it uses the "Doom Legacy" engine and wouldn't have required alot of Bus memory to run since it would only required Sprite Rendering, few textured polygons and smooth Rotation which could also be achieved by slowing down the VDP1's SCU Bus. It's also designed with few backgrounds so it wouldn't have been difficult to develop at all.

That's one of the things I want to try porting once libyaul improves a little more. It'll require the 4M ram cart, of course.

usb dev cart? Like...a flash cart that plays a cdrom iso?

No. All it does is load an executable to ram across USB from a PC and run it.

[Drakon]

Yeah reading the specs it's obviously too small for an iso....darn...

No. All it does is load an executable to ram across USB from a PC and run it.

[MrSega]

That's one of the things I want to try porting once libyaul improves a little more. It'll require the 4M ram cart, of course.



No. All it does is load an executable to ram across USB from a PC and run it.

That sounds exciting, can't wait!

Also, is there a way to emulate Sonic CD using Saturn Emulation?

[Moirai]

That sounds exciting, can't wait!

Also, is there a way to emulate Sonic CD using Saturn Emulation?

Probably not emulate, but porting is almost certainly possible.

[TrekkiesUnite118]

Probably not emulate, but porting is almost certainly possible.

You could probably hack one of the ports in Sonic Jam to turn it into Sonic CD.

[MrSega]

Probably not emulate, but porting is almost certainly possible.

That sounds like it would be easier to do.

Sonic Team didn't feature Sonic CD on Sonic Jam simply because it would have required an extra Disc and would have upped the unit price of the IP.

[Chilly Willy]

Sonic CD on the Saturn? Sounds like an interesting idea. I'll have to think about that.