Actually the little search light stations don’t count as a requirement for 100%. When I did my 100% run I only shot a few so I can confirm this. Now you do have to be sure to shoot every little cargo box on the Imperial ships scattered throughout the base, but you probably already knew that.
[quote=“Gehpnaet”]That’s clearly photoshopped, Shadow.
Btw, do you guys reckon a 2nd generation Macbook Pro is powerful enough to run PDS via emulation? Is a good graphic card a requirement to run things smoothly?[/quote]
Considering you did not post any hardware specs… do not know?
But, my Intel Code Duo 1.8Ghz manages fine with SSF emulation, well, as fine as you get with SSF emulation.
SSF is still far from being 100%.
[quote=“Chizzles”]
[quote=“Gehpnaet”]That’s clearly photoshopped, Shadow.
Btw, do you guys reckon a 2nd generation Macbook Pro is powerful enough to run PDS via emulation? Is a good graphic card a requirement to run things smoothly?[/quote]
Considering you did not post any hardware specs… do not know?
But, my Intel Code Duo 1.8Ghz manages fine with SSF emulation, well, as fine as you get with SSF emulation.
SSF is still far from being 100%.[/quote]
-2.16 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo
-1.5 GB RAM
-ATI RADEON X1600
What exactly do you mean by “far from being 100%”? And is SSF the best emulator option right now?
Games still have slowdown, mess up at parts, weird glitches etc.
There are other emulators such as Cassini and Giri Giri, however they have their own problems although do run a few games better than SSF.
While we’re on this subject, PDS ran fine on my machine apart from the documented problem of the green roof in the Gigra cave.
PD1 and 2 ran fine too.
I have the “hook back up library” option enabled on my SSF. Does anyone know where I can find the save files? They’re not in the normal folders.
They should be in the \Backup\InternalBackup folder.
That folder is empty, but I can still load the saves in SSF.
[quote=“Chizzles”]Games still have slowdown, mess up at parts, weird glitches etc.
There are other emulators such as Cassini and Giri Giri, however they have their own problems although do run a few games better than SSF.[/quote]
Most of the game problems happen because people are trying to run isos from the “popular” rom sites, 99% of those being broken to begin with. One particular example I recall is Silhouette Mirage, the iso/mp3 crap that everybody reposts on forums does not run even on a saturn (or runs but with a ton of graphic glitches), the actual game files are corrupted - people chalk it up to emulation problem. A good quality rip however, works from beginning to end without any issues at all.
I’ve checked good, verified rips of nearly all PAL titles and over 80% of them run without any problems at all, and another 10% run but with major glitches. The amount of games that didnt even boot were maybe 20 at max, and a bunch of games on demo discs (this was out of almost 300 tested games).
Which disc / what location can I find this, it’s been a while since I played PDS.
The only other PDS related problem I know of was a glitched ground if you look around in the excavation site, but even that was fixed in a recent version of SSF - the same may have happened for that Gigra Cave too, if it used te vdp2 rbg0. I think, apart from a few sound effects, the game runs perfect on SSF with the latest version. Maybe Gregorius is the only part that doesnt look perfect, I’m not sure, I don’t have a savegame where the place is accessible without hours of flying around.
any core 2 duo should run it fine at max speed, even at highest compatibility options (which slow it down a lot). My old athlon x2 3800+ was slowing down at a lot of games, in particular in high resolution titles like the intro in cotton boomerang or every 3d fighter. My core 2 6550 runs some games at 200+ fps if I turn off frame limiting though.
videocard doesnt matter, ssf is software-only emulation, it only uses your CPU. It only runs on windows though, not macs.
[quote=“rorirub”]
any core 2 duo should run it fine at max speed, even at highest compatibility options (which slow it down a lot). My old athlon x2 3800+ was slowing down at a lot of games, in particular in high resolution titles like the intro in cotton boomerang or every 3d fighter. My core 2 6550 runs some games at 200+ fps if I turn off frame limiting though.
videocard doesnt matter, ssf is software-only emulation, it only uses your CPU. It only runs on windows though, not macs.[/quote]
Thanks. Yeah, I know, I would have to install Windows XP (or is Vista better in anyway for the purpose of emulation?) with Boot Camp. Didn’t know there was no hardware acceleraton.
[quote=“rorirub”]
[quote=“Chizzles”]Games still have slowdown, mess up at parts, weird glitches etc.
There are other emulators such as Cassini and Giri Giri, however they have their own problems although do run a few games better than SSF.[/quote]
Most of the game problems happen because people are trying to run isos from the “popular” rom sites, 99% of those being broken to begin with. One particular example I recall is Silhouette Mirage, the iso/mp3 crap that everybody reposts on forums does not run even on a saturn (or runs but with a ton of graphic glitches), the actual game files are corrupted - people chalk it up to emulation problem. [/quote]
I do not play rips, and it is possible to see glitching on most titles, even if they are tiny ones that you would not normally notice if not intentionally looking.
SSF does not support interlaced video properly, this is a major let down, as some of the best titles on the system use interlaced video.
The difference between “good” and “perfect” emulation is quite big 
XP is fine for SSF. It’ll use less memory and disk space than Vista, so you might as well go with it if your sole purpose of installing Windows is for Saturn emulation.
[quote=“rorirub”]
Which disc / what location can I find this, it’s been a while since I played PDS.
The only other PDS related problem I know of was a glitched ground if you look around in the excavation site, but even that was fixed in a recent version of SSF - the same may have happened for that Gigra Cave too, if it used te vdp2 rbg0. I think, apart from a few sound effects, the game runs perfect on SSF with the latest version. Maybe Gregorius is the only part that doesnt look perfect, I’m not sure, I don’t have a savegame where the place is accessible without hours of flying around.[/quote]
The Gigra cave is after the desert on disc 1. So not too far into the game. Though come to think of it I had the sound issues aswell - sort’ve a jerky voice issue in some cutscenes.
I was using SSF 009 beta 2, which was the latest version at the time (beta 3 is now out).
set compatibility mode to Very high, otherwise the “emulated” saturn runs at only halfspeed, causing lotta issues especially like the ones you mentioned.
also, rip your original disc to a RAW disc image with subcodes (I recommend cdrwin), and use that from a mounted virtual drive. It was noted by the ssf author at one point that running games straight from an original disc can cause issues, since a PC cd drive can’t do the accurate timing the Saturn cd drive did - this is not an issue with a virtual drive. One example I remember is Nights crashing before you enter the boss level on the Pioneer DVR series of dvd burners.
It does support interlaced video properly, thats why games appear interlaced when in high-resolution. I think you meant that SSF does not support de-interlacing (it does, but its very broken, slow, and disabled at this point - check some of the versions in resourcehacker or something like that).
If you want to see unsupported interlaced graphics, compare the 2p splitscreen mode in Sonic 2 between Gens and Kega Fusion. Gens doesnt support it, Kega Fusion does (and deinterlaces it too).
yeah, ssf is not perfect, but its closer than any other emulator, especially when compared to that hacked piece of shit cassini (even the original Girigiri-gav was only decent at best, and it relied on pergame hacks, cassini just added more pergame hacks through the ini files and installed spyware as a bonus).
[quote=“Shadow”]The Gigra cave is after the desert on disc 1. So not too far into the game. Though come to think of it I had the sound issues aswell - sort’ve a jerky voice issue in some cutscenes.
I was using SSF 009 beta 2, which was the latest version at the time (beta 3 is now out).[/quote]
Is that the underground flying oasis boss-thing? I didn’t remember glitches in that part, though I was running the emu at maxed compatibility mode. The jerky sound did happen but I chalked that up to the fact that my old system couldnt run it fullspeed (just barely under, which is enough to cause desyncs in audio).
I found the following glitches in PDS, using the SSF alpha R11
Excavation site: Minor texture glitch when approaching the destroyed entrance.
Garil Desert: The Green Roof, as previously mentioned.
Georgius: The floor texture glitch noticeably rotates in order to produce the cyclone effect seen below the Shelcoof.
Sestren: Produces a glitch identical to one found in NiGHTS. Some pixels on the left side of the screen fluxuate.
SSF is far from perfect, especially when running games like Virtua Fighter 2 but right now it’s the most versatile emulator and least convoluted one since you don’t have to worry about plugins.
With regards to deinterlacing, there is no need for the emulator to perform deinterlacing.
A much more efficient way is just to not interlace the graphics in the first place.
ePSXe for example, renders the games at whatever you set the display refresh to.
Although it would seem that the SSF team are going for 100% emulation of the Saturn rather than an emulator that has bells and whistles, however a dynamic resolution would be very nice.
When trying to play the Saturn version of OutRun, the music seems to randomly get stuck. Afterburner dies on its arse.
[quote=“Chizzles”]With regards to deinterlacing, there is no need for the emulator to perform deinterlacing.
A much more efficient way is just to not interlace the graphics in the first place.
ePSXe for example, renders the games at whatever you set the display refresh to.[/quote]
You are confusing things. The console itself updates the screen in an interlaced matter - with real, accurate emulation, you will get interlaced graphics because the saturn video hardware sends out interlaced graphics.
epsxe uses the so called “HLE” method, it does not emulate the psx video hardware, it just uses directx as if it was the psx video hardware. So it can display any kind of resolution, since the video performance is dependant on your computer, not the emulated psx gpu. This is only accurate if the “emulated” hardware is similar to the PC hardware. The Saturn however is very far away from PC hardware, the HLE method would require a ton of per-game hacked-in support, and even then it would be heavily disorted (triangles vs quads, etc).
So the only way to get accurate saturn emulation is the software method… where you get interlaced graphics because thats how the saturn works in its high resolution mode.
Even if you could set your own resolution in SSF, it would just stretch the image like MAME (you can do this to a limited degree though, press + on the numeric pad in windowed mode).
Ah right, what kind of deinterlacing will SSF used when it is enabled then?
I hope it’s not bob deinterlacing… I want my nice high resolution. 
One that didn’t work. Get one of the older versions (it was completely removed 0.09 alpha-ish, I think), and un-hide the option with resourcehacker.
The Saturn used a dual framebuffer system for high-res polygons, even lines were updated from one framebuffer, odd lines were updated from the other one - I have absolutely no idea how you could get it working while preserving both the framerate and the resolution, without some heavy tinkering that could break the whole interaction between the VDP1 (sprite/polygon engine) and VDP2 (background engine, the image generated by VDP1 is copied to framebuffer and handled as one extra background by the VDP2).
Maybe with some external filter - using pixelshaders for this could be a possibility, so it doesnt eat cpu power.
For the longest time, it felt like the last time I played this game was only 2-3 years ago. But this was the last time I played it, six and a half years ago. When was the last time everyone else played Saga??
(Side note: Oldest thread revival ever… 2343 days…)
I usually play it once a year. Although, I skipped last year…I guess I know what I’m playing this year!