I was browsing the Internet today and came across some projects that I thought I would share.
Yabause (Sega Saturn emulator) yabause.org/
I tried this on my PC running XP and didn’t run very well. Still, it looks promising due to the fact that it runs on Windows, Mac, Linux, and BSD.
LXDream (Dreamcast emulator) lxdream.org
I didn’t try this, as it’s designed for Linux (although I hear it runs on Mac OS X too). It doesn’t sound like it’s as advanced as Chankast yet, but I’ll be keeping my eye on this one as well.
Neither of these emulators appear to be the best of the bunch, but I like the idea of them being open source - if the developers ever get bored of the projects, then someone else can come along and pick up from where they left off.
The projects also seem to be in active development, whereas I’m so sure that emulators like SSF are. The last updates to LXDream and Yabause were done near the end of last year, whereas the last release of Chankast came out in 2004. I’ll still be using SSF for playing Saturn games on my PC, but I’ll be keeping a close eye on the progress of Yabause.
[quote=“Heretic Agnostic”]Is there some golden age of SEGA emulation dawning?!?!?!
I’ve never tried any PC console emulators but maybe this is a sign…[/quote]
Here’s hoping.
The Master System and Megadrive emulators that are out there are almost perfect, but the Saturn and Dreamcast emulators typically leave much to be desired (due to the complexity of those systems). Saying that, SSF is very good - I’ve played through PDS disc 1 using it, and found it to be an enjoyable experience, with these notable flaws:
Speech can become out of sync/messes up at times
A few graphical glitches, such as being able to see through walls
Doesn’t work perfectly with my 360 controller (triggers don’t work).
Other than that, it’s actually a really good emulator. I wonder what the developer is planning on doing with it (his/her webpage is all in Japanese).
I’m very interested in where these projects are heading though - the fact that they’re both open source and multiplatform gives off a better feeling of long term preservation than other emulators, which is really what emulation should be all about.
For arcade games yes at least. Although for me, Daytona 2001 on the DC beats the arcade game in just about every way apart from that oldschool classic look and feel.
I guess everyone lost interest in the Saturn though. So complex that it was just more trouble than it was worth? Saturn emulation is still far from perfect sadly.
But it’s still very, very close. This was me playing Shining Force III awhile ago on one of the newer revisions of SSF that fixed the transparency issue for textures in the game: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXHwI1Zls0k)
Damn I miss the Saturn. Maybe I’ll go through its library again in a few years’ time just as soon as I have forgotten everything so I can re-experience the awesomeness as if for the first time.
SSF seems like the most capable emulator as of this moment. It’s updated rather frequently, but the changes are often too minor for me to notice. I hope it implements progressive scan functionality so I can play VF2/Fighter’s Megamix/Kids and the sound speed issues are fixed.
And I haven’t had any real problems with any of the latest releases of SSF. Most of the saturns AAA titles are completely playable with no game breaking glitches.
The issue I have is isolated to those two specific games. Whenever I put the disc in, SSF tells me “Disc Door Open” and the games won’t load. I close the disc door in the menu, but it still tells me it’s “open”.
I thought it was an issue with my disc drive, but my other discs work. Also, Zwei and Saga work great for me in ver. 0.08.
[quote=“Raizen1984”]The issue I have is isolated to those two specific games. Whenever I put the disc in, SSF tells me “Disc Door Open” and the games won’t load. I close the disc door in the menu, but it still tells me it’s “open”.
I thought it was an issue with my disc drive, but my other discs work. Also, Zwei and Saga work great for me in ver. 0.08.[/quote]
Have you tried ripping an ISO of the game? I’m not sure if that would resolve the problem, but it would be worth a shot.
I own ISOs of both games, but you can’t load them directly into SSF. The only way to use them is to mount them using a Virtual Drive, which is not an option for me, as I’m using the emulator on school computers that have administrative locks.
That’s unfortunate. Unless you can convince the school’s systems/network administrators to let you install Daemon Tools or a similar program on their computers you’re probably out of luck.
It is strange that it would work for some games, and not others.
Edit: Another option might be to install Microsoft Virtual PC or VMWare and run SSF in that - but it’s questionable how good the performance would be.