| smbhax [sys=SAT; cat=Hardware; reg=J] |
| | | I finally broke down and ordered a Saturn off eBay because it's got the nuttiest version of a golf game set in hell (see entry 2041).
This Saturn is Japanese, and the CD drive is busted--but it comes with one of those Saroo carts that I just found out can dump the Saturn BIOS, which means I could actually rip Saturn games and run them in an emulator all nice and legal, which is what I want.
Apparently the best emulator for Saturn https://emulation.gametechwiki.com/index.php/Sega_Saturn_emulators is Mednafen (see entry 1537).
I thought maybe there would be a few other games I might want to pick up but some googling and video watching hasn't turned up anything, so hey, neat, don't have to spend any more money. ]_]
I suppose I'll probably find something eventually.
Probably not Shinobi Legions or Fighters Megamix--or even Virtua Fighter Remix.
Dang lack of impulse control. ; D |
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| | | The Saroo dumps like this, in theory...: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqvn9YKVwsA
Text write-ups of the procedure: https://github.com/tpunix/SAROO/issues/214 |
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| | | The Saturn controller doesn't have a Select button, but it does have six face buttons (and two shoulder buttons) which is looking like making it a little annoying to adapt to a DualSense with its mere four face buttons. ; D
~ ~ ~
No shortage of wacky stuff on Saturn.
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| | | | A (as well as C in Hyper Golf) are select, B is back/cancel. |
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| | | | Oh but you can reassign it in Hyper Golf. ; ) |
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| | | | And no not even gonna get Battle Monsters or Street Fighter: Real Battle on Film. : P |
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| | | | OKAY I'll get Remix. Not VF2 though, that's all interlaced. ; P |
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| | | | Except of course I accidentally ordered an (unlabelled) XBAND version of Remix, which doesn't run in Mednafen, at least unless you're emulating media card and modem somehow, maybe. |
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| | | Google overview says you need a "hacked" version of the Remix XBAND rom for Mednafen. 'p' Anyway the seller accepted my cancellation--hopefully they update their listing and note that it is a largely incompatible version!
I'd gone for that sealed one because I couldn't find a 100% seller saying they'd actually tested the game. LOTS of 'em, but nobody saying tested. Does nobody actually have a Saturn these days? 'p' Anyway I found a sealed non-XBAND one for oh close to $40 shipped, could'a got a nice-looking but not "tested" one for $10, darn my paranoia. |
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| | | | The black screen menu with two "xRAM" options that comes up when first running a game is asking if you want to save to "main body" RAM or "cartridge" RAM. |
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| | | Saturn has two CPUs, and two graphics co-processors--one for sprites/polygons, one for backgrounds.
"For example, Virtua Fighter used one CPU for each character, while Nights used one CPU for 3D environments and the other for 2D objects."
Also Saturn's 3D is quadrilaterals rather than triangles! = o
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_Saturn#Technical_specifications |
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| | | | The Saroo Cart came out in 2023 ( https://www.segasaturnshiro.com/saturn-community-projects/saturn-ode-comparison-chart/ ), making it apparently still the most recent Saturn "ODE" (Optical Drive Emulator), and the only one that just plugs into the cartridge slot. |
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| | | The Saturn was way more popular in Japan than in the States--and then DC was just the opposite (and previously, MD/GEN was the opposite too). Hm well I read various reasons for that downturn but they don't really explain why that hadn't happened before. I wonder if it was Saturn's powerhouse 2D helping hit the sweet spot for Japan both for consumers and developers at the time.
But then also VF2 was huge for Saturn--but VF3tb on DC, while leading the launch titles, didn't come anywhere near to VF2's sales. Okay wait VF(1) was a pack-in in Japan; VF2 wasn't (but was in the US), but the pack-in for its prequel could have helped. 3tb was not a pack-in on DC. Also maybe others were catching up by 3tb, like Tekken. Ah yeah Tekken 3 was out in '97. Ah. |
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| | | Oh yeah and 3tb (see entry 1387) was ported by Genki, not Sega themselves, and had some issues, like gap-ridden character shadows and no VS mode--later fixed for the US release--and just didn't look super-cutting edge (like say Namco's Soul Calibur on DC--entry 1612--DID).
Man Sega really dropped the ball there. If they'd done tweaked-up 3tb pack-in for DC, maybe things could'a been different. But I suppose they had their own problems by then and just couldn't manage it; the Saturn's poor performance in the US and general ongoing downturn of arcades couldn't have been helping.
So anyway, they didn't manage to bring that Sega software hotness for DC quite like they had for Saturn. |
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| | | | ^ I got myself confused over the DC half-gen thing there--certainly Tekken 3 was out by then, it was previous gen, where it would already have been slicing into VF2's pie something fierce. Not to mention a host of smaller PS1--and arcade--3D fighting games. I mean, Toshinden alone in '95 had already made Sega sweat. |
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| | | | Saturn Japan launch was Nov 22 95, PS1 was Dec 3. Toshinden came out Jan 1st. |
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| | | Okay well March '97 was Tekken 3 in the arcade--didn't come to PS1 until 26 March 1998. DC Japan launch was November 27, 1998. Wikipedia: "In Japan, the game sold over 1 million copies on its first day of release. [...] According to Weekly Famitsu, Japan bought 1.13 million units of Tekken 3 during the first half of 1998, which made it the country's third-best-selling game for the period."
So if you're someone in Japan who might've been interested in 3tb, would you fork over the dough for a somewhat dull port of that, and a whole 'nother console--or would you just stick with Tekken 3, and figure you could hold out for Sony's fabulous-sounding Emotion engine PS2? |
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| | | From https://github.com/tpunix/SAROO/issues/214 , the process to dump the BIOS with Saroo is:
1) Put this in the [global] section of the saroo cfg:
M_6002348=C706D105
M_600234C=E720E608
M_6002350=E5FF6403
M_6002354=53134728
M_6002358=4628432B
M_600235C=47180009
M_6002360=02000F00
M_6002364=2F534152
M_6002368=4F4F2F42
M_600236C=494F532F
M_6002370=42494F53
M_6002374=2E42494E
M_6002378=00000000
2) On the SD that will go in the Saroo, create folder where the BIOS will get dumped: /SAROO/BIOS/
3) With the updated SD card in the Saroo and the Saroo in the Saturn, launch a game from the Saroo--this executes the assembly code you pasted into the cfg and dumps the BIOS into the folder you created, as BIOS.BIN
4) Copy the dumped BIOS into the appropriate folder for the emulator of your choice and rename BIOS.BIN to the filename your emulator expects for your Saturn's region. |
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| | | Oh the Saroo cfg is saroocfg.txt. ; )
It worked. : )
It's a J 1.01 BIOS--renamed to sega_101.bin for Mednafen (Mednafen tells you what file is missing--ie the BIOS--when you try to launch a game). |
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| | | | X-Men: Children of Atom is likely difficulty-solved like the PS1 version (and unlike the impossible arcade version in MARVEL vs. CAPCOM Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics - see entry 1951) but it's very flashy so I think I can let that one be. |
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| | | Re: the US launch, I suppose it might've been tough to tell from these E3 1995 trailers that the PS1's 3D was mostly double the resolution and higher poly:
so maybe what made the impact WAS the other guy getting on at the end of that PS presentation and just saying $299, which undercut Sega's price by $100. Sega had just announced they'd jumped the launch date by 5 months--Wikipedia says this was mandated by Sega Japan--and had already shipped Saturns to retailers. But their launch had just 6 games and they only managed to rush two more out before Sony's launch with 12 games and the much lower price tag.
From MobyGames:
Saturn US launch titles
Clockwork Knight
Daytona USA
Panzer Dragoon
Pebble Beach Golf Links
Virtua Fighter
Worldwide Soccer: SEGA International Victory Goal Edition
PS1 US Launch titles
Battle Arena Toshinden
ESPN Espn2 Extreme Games
Kileak: The DNA Imperative
NBA Jam Tournament Edition
Power Serve 3D Tennis
Rayman
Ridge Racer
Street Fighter: The Movie
The Raiden Project
Total Eclipse
Had I been paying attention to consoles at the time and somehow had the cash--I was going into my senior year of college, had an Amiga (and Doom on my friends' PCs) and no I didn't really have money ; D--I might've still been more interested in the Saturn line-up since I'd seen VF in the arcade and most of those PS1 titles just SOUND horrible.
But anyway launch shenanigans aside what would've made the difference in the bigger picture would'a been a) more games on PS1, b) PS1 was significantly cheaper (instead of dropping their price immediately--which I suppose retailer agreements might've made difficult, I dunno--Saturn HAD to drop their price that first X-Mas, ouch), and c) Saturn 3D looked like ass. |
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| | | According to http://www.davidgamizjimenez.com/inpositivegames/sega-saturn-al-limite-ii/ , the Saturn games running in its horizontal hi-res mode--only 4 without interlacing (two fighting games and two sports games ; D: VF1, Remix, NBA Live 98, WL Soccer 98):
All the game VDP1 Hi-Res >> VDP2 Normal:
- Virtua Fighter 1 (1995) → 704×256 Non-Interlaced
- Virtua Fighter 1 Remix (1995) → 703×255 >> 704×256 Non-Interlaced
- NBA Live 98 (1997) → 639×239 >> 640×240 Non-Interlaced
- Battle Arena Toshinden URA (1996) → Fighting game, menus in SD. 703×255 >> 704×256 Double interlaced
- World League Soccer 98 (1998) → 640×255 >> 640×256 Non-Interlaced
The whole game VDP1 Hi-Res 2x "Y" Resolution >> VDP2 Hi-Res:
- Virtua Fighter 2 (1995) → 703×511 >> 704×256 Double interlaced
- Decathlete / Athlete King (1996) → 703×479 >> 704×240 Double interlaced
- Virtua Fighter Kids (1996) → 703×511 >> 704×256 Double interlaced
- Vatlva Taikenban (1996) → No System Clipping >> 640×224 Double interlaced
- Dead or Alive (1997) → 703×479 >> 704×240 Double interlaced
- Digital Dance Mix Vol.1 Namie Amuro (1997) → 703×479 >> 704×240 Double interlaced
- Winter Heat (1998) → 703×479 >> 704×240 Double interlaced |
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| | | | Ach yeah VF2 single-player doesn't seem to be any easier on Saturn, even on "Easy" difficulty. So that could'a been driving players over to Tekken even before Tekken 3. |
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| | | | AutomaticTiger pointed out that possibly one thing that helped the Saturn in Japan was filling niches like visual novels and shooting games left by the demise of the PC Engine. |
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| | | | Oh right link for that: https://selectbutton.net/t/videogame-things-you-think-about-a-lot-lot-lot-lot/15363/2029 |
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| | | Hm yeah and Nintendo wouldn't take too much stuff aimed at older demographics, I suppose, and Sony was possibly less interested in 2D stuff? (Although they put out a fair amount of 2D stuff in Japan so maybe that isn't super-applicable to this; I suppose the no-2D thing was more Sony's American arm, according to vaguely remembered legend.)
(Then again didn't you have to do sprites as textures on polygons or something for PS1? Anyway I wonder if straight 2D was maybe slightly easier for developers on Saturn. Less hardware limited at any rate, probably.)
(Oh yeah like Capcom's series of Vampire ports was on PS1 and Saturn but the PS1 series ran way late because of porting difficulties. And on Saturn a developer could throw stuff on a RAM cart instead of having to nerf it down to fit on the stock console hardware.) |
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| | | | (And I suppose by the next gen Sony's PS2 could do 2D just fine--if maybe not quite as sharp as DC, but often with better loading times--so Sega no longer had the clear advantage there.) |
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| | | | Blade_Wolf_Chaos pointed out https://selectbutton.net/t/videogame-things-you-think-about-a-lot-lot-lot-lot/15363/2038 that in Japan, VF2 for Saturn (1.7m units https://vgsales.fandom.com/wiki/Sega_Saturn#Japan ) outsold Tekken 3 for PS1 (1.4m units https://vgsales.fandom.com/wiki/PlayStation#Japan ). |
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| | | Tekken 3 overall was 8.3 million, so it WAS big, but not so much in Japan.
I'd been thinking that okay VF was big for the Saturn in Japan but even if you, say, took away VF2's 1.7m number from the Saturn's Japanese unit sales it still would've been their highest selling console ever in Japan (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_game_consoles_by_region#Japan)--but I suppose console sales don't work that simply; VF1 sold 1:1 with the console at launch in Japan (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtua_Fighter_(video_game)#Ports), for instance (where it wasn't a pack-in, unlike in the States), so that would have helped establish the console on a firm footing for future success there. |
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| | | | The CD ring photos are from the disc for Digital Pinball: Last Gladiators (entry 2063). |
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| | | | ^ That horizontal hi-res game list didn't include the full hi-res games, ie hi-res both horizontally and vertically (interlaced)--like Digital Pinball: Last Gladiators. Dang I came across a list of them--like 5-7 games?--earlier and now I can't find it. |
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