That Saturn emu.

InternetAddict · Post by **InternetAddict** » Sat Jul 31, 2004 5:14 pm

Hey I was just wondering did Bluecrab ever get that to run a single saturn game or just the saturb system bios and cd player screen? And is he still working on it or has he given up just curious?

Link2k4 · Post by **Link2k4** » Sat Jul 31, 2004 5:27 pm

since the saturn is really complex I would be surprised if you could get at least 15 FPS at the least.DC is powerful but not powerful enough to handle the full extent of the saturn.

Post by **BlueCrab** » Sat Jul 31, 2004 5:45 pm

InternetAddict wrote:Hey I was just wondering did Bluecrab ever get that to run a single saturn game or just the saturb system bios and cd player screen? And is he still working on it or has he given up just curious?

Here I am to answer your questions:

1. The emulator yabause (which "That Saturn emu" (yabause-dc) is a port of) does not run any games yet, just the bios. So my port doesn't run any games yet.

2. I am still working on it. One of these days I'll get around to posting a 0.0.6 binary/source release.

since the saturn is really complex I would be surprised if you could get at least 15 FPS at the least.DC is powerful but not powerful enough to handle the full extent of the saturn.

But remember, The Saturn's main/sub processors are SuperH 2 processors. The Dreamcast uses a SuperH 4. Some things will be able to be executed directly (after some byteswapping). Not sure how much this will help speed, but it should help a lot when I get that far (to writing a dynarec).

InternetAddict · Post by **InternetAddict** » Sat Jul 31, 2004 11:52 pm

ok cool, saturn I still can't believe it

sappel · Post by **sappel** » Sun Aug 01, 2004 6:20 am

I am not expecting anything higher than 1-5 FPS in a game, dont forget the 2 graphic chips the Saturn got.
If you just only get the 2D chip to work I would be damn happy

good luck on the project

Alexvrb · Post by **Alexvrb** » Sun Aug 01, 2004 12:59 pm

Err, the Saturn VPUs don't work like you think they do. You need both VPUs to get 2D games to work properly. It's not like "This is the 2D chip" and "This is the 3D chip". The chip that does sprites does polygons too.

Ian Micheal · Post by **Ian Micheal** » Sun Aug 01, 2004 1:30 pm

Saturn was just as powerfull with 3d as 2d common thought by people it was not a 3d console but it's not correct at all.

Just does not work like that it's a 3d console 2d works well because the developers knew what they were doing. 3d power was not really used as it was hard to get the most of real shame as it's quiet a powerfull machine.People allways belittling it with it's a 2d console.

Just the other day! i seen some one say! the saturn cant do transpernt grafix and effects thats a lie or miss informed. Quiet capable of doing all that and more.

Pyrite · Post by **Pyrite** » Sun Aug 01, 2004 3:04 pm

Yes it can do all that but its harder much harder than to do those on PSX.

Ian Micheal · Post by **Ian Micheal** » Sun Aug 01, 2004 3:21 pm

Still yeah much harder or did just cost to much to train the people, how to use it. Still it left people with the wrong impression of the saturn and it's a darn shame.

Over and over i say it cant do 3d or this or that. AND it Should be the programers could not learn or did not want to learn how to use dual cpus and did not want to spend the effort on geting the most out of it.

Ps2 was and is hard as well yet they bother with that. Just bad luck for sega i guess.

typoEDR · Post by **typoEDR** » Sun Aug 01, 2004 4:19 pm

It certainly wasn't the easiest thing to code for in 3D, but it certainly could do 3D, and quite well at that. The best example that always sticks in my mind is the Shenmue Saturn beta. Those screenshots and videos are still impressive for a 32-bit machine.

sappel · Post by **sappel** » Mon Aug 02, 2004 4:18 am

I was actually just pointing about 2D games, cause they are running waaaaaay faster than 3D games, 2D games get pretty good framerate on my 1Ghz system when playing it in girigiri, games like NiGHTS or Virtual On just go deadly slow.
I thought its a better idea to first focus on the 2D shit (if thats possible, I dunno how it works)

and is the yamaha sound chip of the saturn compatible with the one of the DC by the way

Alexvrb · Post by **Alexvrb** » Mon Aug 02, 2004 10:17 am

sappel wrote:I was actually just pointing about 2D games, cause they are running waaaaaay faster than 3D games, 2D games get pretty good framerate on my 1Ghz system when playing it in girigiri, games like NiGHTS or Virtual On just go deadly slow.
I thought its a better idea to first focus on the 2D poop (if thats possible, I dunno how it works)

and is the yamaha sound chip of the saturn compatible with the one of the DC by the way

2D games may not be as stressful on the hardware, but they're still hard to get emulated properly. As I said before, the chip that does sprites does polys too. The other VPU is for planes.

I have no idea how similar the audio chips are in the DC and Saturn, but I'm sure they're not "compatible". Plus the Saturn has a 68k as a part of its sound subsystem, and as I've said somewhere else, I don't know if you need accurate emulation of it for most games or not. You could always hope that the ARM (if you can figure out how to get more than its default few Mhz out of it) is fast enough to emulate an underclocked 68k via C68k or a similar optimized core. I know games like Grandia would need this, but I wouldn't hold any hopes that you'll get THAT working fully.

Ex-Cyber · Post by **Ex-Cyber** » Sat Aug 07, 2004 6:18 am

Correct background/playfield emulation will probably require software rendering, which would increase the load on the CPU. Saturn's VDP2 is an old-school arcade style playfield processor supporting per-layer hardware scrolling, palette magic, and other lovely stuff that modern 3D chips just aren't designed for. AFAIK it has no analog in any system of its generation or after (maybe PC-FX). Plus, emulating VDP1/VDP2 interactions accurately would likely be hell, although at least a few games forego taking much advantage of them since they're a pain in the ass in general.

Darth Revan · Post by **Darth Revan** » Sat Aug 07, 2004 12:24 pm

Hey, just wondering, but why didn't you port cassini? I mean, its open source, as well as it works pretty well (most good games run flawlessly). Sorry if this post is rude

frogcoin · Post by **frogcoin** » Sat Aug 07, 2004 12:27 pm

because cassini it's not a legal open source of giri giri yet.

at least that's what i heard

Post by **Quzar** » Sat Aug 07, 2004 12:33 pm

Darth Revan wrote:Hey, just wondering, but why didn't you port cassini? I mean, its open source, as well as it works pretty well (most good games run flawlessly). Sorry if this post is rude

A) It's not open source.
2) It's an illegal hack of GiriGiri
III) It is not a portable thing, designed specifically for speed on a PC.

Post by **BlueCrab** » Sat Aug 07, 2004 1:54 pm

Darth Revan wrote:Hey, just wondering, but why didn't you port cassini? I mean, its open source, as well as it works pretty well (most good games run flawlessly). Sorry if this post is rude

I'll just add to what quzar has already stated:
iv) The "source" of cassini is AFAIK a hunk of useless x86 assembler.

Post by **Quzar** » Sat Aug 07, 2004 2:04 pm

i was gonna put that under A but i figured if the person didnt know any of these things they wouldnt understand that too well...

Darth Revan · Post by **Darth Revan** » Sun Aug 08, 2004 1:06 am

Sorry =) I understand, thanks for the explanation

Post by **BlueCrab** » Sun Aug 08, 2004 1:09 am

Darth Revan wrote:Sorry =) I understand, thanks for the explanation

No problem.

That Saturn emu.

That Saturn emu.

Re: That Saturn emu.