Sega Saturn Emulation?

[Shock-Socks]

I've been searching for a while and i can't find anyone who is working on a Sega Saturn emulator for the pandora. my guess would be that if the pandora can emulate dreamcast, then it should be able to emulate the Saturn as well. does any one know if someone is working on a Saturn emulator, and if it's not possible on the pandora, can someone please explain why?

 

[PoisonedV]

won't happen any time soon. it's a slapped together, complicated device.

 

[Exophase]

I've been searching for a while and i can't find anyone who is working on a Sega Saturn emulator for the pandora. my guess would be that if the pandora can emulate dreamcast, then it should be able to emulate the Saturn as well. does any one know if someone is working on a Saturn emulator, and if it's not possible on the pandora, can someone please explain why?

Roughly speaking, Saturn is harder to emulate than Dreamcast. Not to say that Dreamcast isn't hard too, it's just not as hard. A very optimized Saturn emulator may (possibly) not require as much CPU power to emulate but it'd still be more work/require more headache, skill, and luck that not a lot of people are really up to.

 

[Critical_Impact]

I can imagine this might be why

Processors

* Two Hitachi SuperH-2 7604 32-bit RISC processors at 28.63 MHz (25 MIPS)—each has 4 kB on-chip cache, of which 2 kB can alternatively be used as directly addressable Scratchpad RAM
* SH-1 32-bit RISC processor (controlling the CD-ROM)
* Custom VDP 1 32-bit video display processor (running at 7.1590 MHz on NTSC Systems, 6.7116 MHz for PAL Systems)
* Custom VDP 2 32-bit video display processor (running at 7.1590 MHz on NTSC Systems, 6.7116 MHz for PAL Systems)
* Custom System Control Unit (SCU) with DSP for geometry processing and DMA controller (running at 14.3 MHz)
* Motorola 68EC000 sound controller (running at 11.3 MHz / 1.5 MIPS)
* Yamaha FH1 DSP sound processor, "Saturn Custom Sound Processor" (SCSP), running at 22.6 MHz
* Hitachi 4-bit MCU, "System Manager & Peripheral Control" (SMPC)

Memory

* 1 MB SDRAM as work RAM for both SH-2 CPUs (faster)
* 1 MB DRAM as work RAM for both SH-2 CPUs (slower)
* 512K VDP1 SDRAM for 3D graphics (Texture data for polygon/sprites and drawing command lists)
* 2x 256K VDP1 SDRAM for 3D graphcis (Two framebuffers for double-buffered polygon/sprite rendering)
* 512K VDP2 SDRAM for 2D graphics (Texture data for the background layers and display lists)
* 4 KB VDP2 SRAM for color palette data and rotation coefficient data (local, on-chip SRAM)
* 512 KB DRAM for sound. (Multiplexed as sound CPU work RAM, SCSP DSP RAM, and SCSP wavetable RAM)
* 512 KB DRAM as work RAM for the CD-ROM subsystem's SH-1 CPU
* 32 KB SRAM with battery back-up for data retention.
* 512 KB Mask ROM for the SH-2 BIOS

Emulating something with that many processors aint as easy as switching on a kitchen light :lol:

 

[Paradox]

Silhouette Mirage + Radiant Silvergun on my handheld gaming device? Pretty please.

 

[x68000]

You can play Silhouette Mirage on the PSX so that will be available (although not quite as good as the Saturn original)

 

[Paradox]

You can play Silhouette Mirage on the PSX so that will be available (although not quite as good as the Saturn original)

But what abought NiGHTS!

 

[fusion_power]

You can play Silhouette Mirage on the PSX so that will be available (although not quite as good as the Saturn original)

And if there is a good (and fast!)MAME port for the Pandora, maybe we can also play Radiant Silvergun this way. At least onto my PC it runs quite well.
I don't know it exactly but AFAIK there isn't even an full-Speed Saturn Emulator for PC so it's very unlikeley to have a usable Emulator onto the Pandora.
However, a Pandora Homebrew-Version of "Saturn-Bomberman" with up to 10 Players would be very nice.

 

[x68000]

You can play Silhouette Mirage on the PSX so that will be available (although not quite as good as the Saturn original)

But what abought NiGHTS!

There is a nice version out for the PS2 - You probably have as much chance of seeing it on a PS2 emu as you will on a Saturn one

As for Radiant Silvergun, last time i checked, it was laggy and bug ridden through MAME, as are all ST-V arcade titles.

 

[christo930]

I can imagine this might be why

Processors

* Two Hitachi SuperH-2 7604 32-bit RISC processors at 28.63 MHz (25 MIPS)—each has 4 kB on-chip cache, of which 2 kB can alternatively be used as directly addressable Scratchpad RAM
* SH-1 32-bit RISC processor (controlling the CD-ROM)
* Custom VDP 1 32-bit video display processor (running at 7.1590 MHz on NTSC Systems, 6.7116 MHz for PAL Systems)
* Custom VDP 2 32-bit video display processor (running at 7.1590 MHz on NTSC Systems, 6.7116 MHz for PAL Systems)
* Custom System Control Unit (SCU) with DSP for geometry processing and DMA controller (running at 14.3 MHz)
* Motorola 68EC000 sound controller (running at 11.3 MHz / 1.5 MIPS)
* Yamaha FH1 DSP sound processor, "Saturn Custom Sound Processor" (SCSP), running at 22.6 MHz
* Hitachi 4-bit MCU, "System Manager & Peripheral Control" (SMPC)

Memory

* 1 MB SDRAM as work RAM for both SH-2 CPUs (faster)
* 1 MB DRAM as work RAM for both SH-2 CPUs (slower)
* 512K VDP1 SDRAM for 3D graphics (Texture data for polygon/sprites and drawing command lists)
* 2x 256K VDP1 SDRAM for 3D graphcis (Two framebuffers for double-buffered polygon/sprite rendering)
* 512K VDP2 SDRAM for 2D graphics (Texture data for the background layers and display lists)
* 4 KB VDP2 SRAM for color palette data and rotation coefficient data (local, on-chip SRAM)
* 512 KB DRAM for sound. (Multiplexed as sound CPU work RAM, SCSP DSP RAM, and SCSP wavetable RAM)
* 512 KB DRAM as work RAM for the CD-ROM subsystem's SH-1 CPU
* 32 KB SRAM with battery back-up for data retention.
* 512 KB Mask ROM for the SH-2 BIOS

Emulating something with that many processors aint as easy as switching on a kitchen light :lol:

Sega made the same mistake with Saturn as it did with 32x in this regard. The dreamcast was a pretty well made system and had great games, I don't why they dropped at the time they did. It was the first 3d system with decent graphics (in my opinion).

Chris

 

[Gein07]

I know the chances are greater of the moon landing on my head, but I sincerely hope that at some point in the Pandora's life cycle someone can hash out a saturn emulator. The thought of having guardian heroes, radiant silvergun, panzer dragoon saga, and others on a portable platform would simply be the greatest thing ever.

 

[SirAileron]

I don't think I'd ever be able to separate myself from my pandora should I be able to play Radiant Silvergun, Guardian Heroes, Panzer Dragoon Saga, and Grandia on it.

I mean, with everything else added, that's basically a portable childhood reliving machine combined with a work station of awesomeness.

 

[darkstorm classic]

Grandia would be available on the psx emulator anyway. And with the added bonus of being in english.

 

[neko]

I know the chances are greater of the moon landing on my head, but I sincerely hope that at some point in the Pandora's life cycle someone can hash our a saturn emulator. The thought of having guardian heroes, radiant silvergun, panzer dragoon saga, and others on a portable platform would simply be the greatest thing ever.

I'm sure someone will compile Yabuse. It's been done on PSP already. Whether it will run at a usable speed is an open question.

 

[MonkeyChops]

...The dreamcast was a pretty well made system and had great games, I don't why they dropped at the time they did....

Bootdisks

 

[rabidpoobear]

...The dreamcast was a pretty well made system and had great games, I don't why they dropped at the time they did....

Bootdisks

In that case Wii and 360 should go ahead and cancel their consoles too.

 

[#1 GameMaster]

The only game that I would like to play from the Saturn would be Nights now as far as Dreamcast I have a couple such as Skies of Arcadia(one of my favorite RPGs ) and a couple other games.

 

[WizardStan]

...The dreamcast was a pretty well made system and had great games, I don't why they dropped at the time they did....

Bootdisks

In that case Wii and 360 should go ahead and cancel their consoles too.

The Dreamcast used custom CDs that were more costly to produce, more prone to damage, and did nothing to stop pirates.
The Wii and XBox use standard DVDs that can be printed anywhere with consistent quality, and also do nothing to stop pirates, but at least they're not paying too much extra to do nothing to stop pirates.
(I'm gonna stop talking before I turn this into another anti-DRM thread. Sorry.)

 

[rabidpoobear]

...The dreamcast was a pretty well made system and had great games, I don't why they dropped at the time they did....

Bootdisks

In that case Wii and 360 should go ahead and cancel their consoles too.

The Dreamcast used custom CDs that were more costly to produce, more prone to damage, and did nothing to stop pirates.

The N64 did this too, but they called them "cartridges".

 

[Exophase]

The Dreamcast used custom CDs that were more costly to produce, more prone to damage, and did nothing to stop pirates.
The Wii and XBox use standard DVDs that can be printed anywhere with consistent quality, and also do nothing to stop pirates, but at least they're not paying too much extra to do nothing to stop pirates.
(I'm gonna stop talking before I turn this into another anti-DRM thread. Sorry.)

Wii and XBox360 don't run unsigned media out of the box, Dreamcast basically did, and from plain old CDs at that. It makes a huge difference when anyone with a CD-burner can pirate from day 1, as opposed to waiting for and buying/installing a modchip or some other kind of exploit. Sega probably didn't think the games would so easily go from GD-ROM to CD-ROM so much of the time.

N64 probably had very little pirated software ran on the consoles themselves and instead saw most of its piracy from people running ROMs on emulators.