Saturn games on Dreamcast?

[Quay Cur]

I'm not familiar with the DC or it's capabilities, but can you play Saturn games on it somehow? I just got the urge to play all the old games I used to own. I could just buy a Saturn somewhere, but the DC has much more capability.

Oh, is it easy to make copies of the Saturn games once I get them, and can an unmodded Saturn run them?

[iniquitous_beast]

There is no way to run saturn games on the Dreamcast at this time. Also, the Saturn had tough security, so only modded saturns can play backed-up games. There was a swap trick, but it was tricky and still required some light modification to the disk door. I am also pretty sure that there are no Saturn emulators currently in production for other consoles, due to the complexity of the Saturn's hardware.


In short, it is cheaper and more convenient to just buy a Saturn system and play legitimate games on it. The only exception is for those legendarily expensive Saturn gems such as PDS, SFIII, DF, GH, and AO - I don't feel like writing out their names, but if you want them, then you already know of them.

[Christuserloeser]

Well there is a Saturn emulator for Dreamcast: Yabause DC. Still it's not yet capable of really replacing a real Saturn, so yeah, maybe it's a good idea to just buy a Saturn at ebay if you really want to play the games and got the money (they're by far not as cheap as Dreamcasts last time I checked).

PS: The swap trick isn't that tricky and you don't really modify anything to get it to work.

[nate9999]

Is anybody still working on YabauseDC? Heard of it a long time ago but nothing in a while. It would be so great to hear of an update for it.

[Dull Blade]

I'm pretty sure its a guy named Blue crab that started the project. I havent saw an update for along time, and I doupt that the emulation will ever be playable. Maybe if we're lucky we'll one day get a saturn emulator to run at maybe 1 frame every 1 or 2 seconds.

[Quay Cur]

thanks for all the replies. sounds like i should just go for the real thing. I might try to pursue the playing-copied-games thing, but in all honesty I wouldn't be backing my games up and I've never been that great at finding iso files or whatever (and I'm not asking for them, I know you aren't supposed to do that on here). the real games are cheap enough, except of course the really desirable ones. I never played PDS, is it really good enough to justify over $200?

Edit: Does the Saturn have region coding? I ask just in case I find a Japanese Saturn somewhere, will it play US games and vice versa?

[Christuserloeser]

Saturn has a region lockout, yes. A modchip or Action Replay is a good thing to circumvent it.

And no game is really worth 200$.



Maybe if we're lucky we'll one day get a saturn emulator to run at maybe 1 frame every 1 or 2 seconds.

http://www.dcemu.co.uk/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=46898

[Dull Blade]

4- 8 fps perhaps this is more possible than I though. I've never got more than about 9 fps on my computer (sempron 2200+, 512ram, radeon 9250). If a new release had some sort of drastic code change and we got 15 fps, I'd deffinatly check it out, and use it.

[nate9999]

Does anyone see a new release happening for YabauseDC in the future? or is it dead?

[JKKDARK]

I've never got more than about 9 fps on my computer (sempron 2200+, 512ram, radeon 9250). If a new release had some sort of drastic code change and we got 15 fps, I'd deffinatly check it out, and use it.
Yes, you should get an Athlon 64 or something with SSE2 for good speed using SSF.


Does anyone see a new release happening for YabauseDC in the future? or is it dead?
Send a PM to Blue Crab. The last release was in December 2006, and he didn't say it was discontinued.

[Christuserloeser]

I highly doubt it's dead. BlueCrab is just pretty busy with his DCRPG project (a MMORPG supporting BBA and regular modem).

With the implementation of Fox68k's FAME and a dynarec like byte swapper for SH2 to SH4 conversion (little endian/big endian) there certainly is a good chance we might see some decent speed boost with one of the next releases. :)

[Quay Cur]

Is there a Mac version of YabauseDC?

[Christuserloeser]

I think there is: http://www.dcemu.co.uk/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=65797

[BlueCrab]

Is anybody still working on YabauseDC? Heard of it a long time ago but nothing in a while. It would be so great to hear of an update for it.People want updates eh? Well, with any luck there'll be a new version of Yabause-DC this month.

As a side note, I'm only releasing new versions when the rest of the ports release their new version (or possibly shortly there after). It helps me keep track of things, and it helps everyone else on the team do so as well.

The next version of Yabause proper is due out at the end of the month, so as I said, hopefully there'll be a new Dreamcast release then too. I won't promise any speedups or anything this time, since I haven't had nearly as much time to work on things as I would like.

[nate9999]

very very awesome news. even if improvements are very small, its good to see it still being worked on.

[Dull Blade]

very nice, the commitment to actually keep the project alive is amazing. [claps his hands]. cant wait, I'll give the new one a try when it comes out, even if there are not much speed increasments.

Yes, you should get an Athlon 64 or something with SSE2 for good speed using SSF.

yeah I need a better CPU, I remember trying a saturn emu. but that one didnt need sse2. unfortunatly I'm too poor to run a car and buy a new motherboard and cpu. If all goes well i'll just use my DC, but I suspect it will be amany year befor the DC can run saturn at a playable quality.

[nate9999]

For those interested in Saturn consoles and who live near Green Bay, WI, I spotted 2 Saturns at Goodwill (of all places) for 5 bucks a piece. Unsure of the condition, one was missing a power cord, but they both had 2 controllers (very dusty).




oh yeah, there were a few different ps1's for the same price too.

[nate9999]

I just though of an idea. Don't know if it is a good one or a dumb one though. I played a game for Nintnedo Gamecube called "Sonic Gems Collection" which featured a couple Saturn games "sonir R was one) running full speed, flawlessly. Perhaps the makers of Yabause or anyone else working on a Saturn emulator could check "sonic gems" out and see what they did to emulate it full speed.

Like i said, i dont know if that idea is dumb, but seems to me they did something very right to get Sonic R running full speed on the gamecube.

[JKKDARK]

I just though of an idea. Don't know if it is a good one or a dumb one though. I played a game for Nintnedo Gamecube called "Sonic Gems Collection" which featured a couple Saturn games "sonir R was one) running full speed, flawlessly. Perhaps the makers of Yabause or anyone else working on a Saturn emulator could check "sonic gems" out and see what they did to emulate it full speed.

Like i said, i dont know if that idea is dumb, but seems to me they did something very right to get Sonic R running full speed on the gamecube.

Sonic R is a port of the PC version

[Mr.Denny]

Is a playable speed Saturn emu even possible?.

I thought it was too hard to develop even for a PC @_@

[VampDude]

Is a playable speed Saturn emu even possible?.

I thought it was too hard to develop even for a PC @_@

Nope, although a very slow and not very accurate/stable Saturn EMU is available

[BlueCrab]

Nope, although a very slow and not very accurate/stable Saturn EMU is available

If you're talking about Yabause-DC, I've never had any stability issues with released versions (my private WIP versions, that nobody else ever sees is a different story). Also, I think Yabause at large is one of the more accurate Saturn emulators, and it grows more so with every release (heck, I remember some Saturn emulators that didn't even bother emulating the VDP2 of the Saturn).

Also, while I doubt that in any reasonable time I'd have a working, full-speed Saturn emulator for the Dreamcast, I wouldn't say its impossible.

With enough time, and enough work, it should be possible (but EXTREMELY difficult) to get a full-speed Saturn emulator going on the Dreamcast.

[OV3RFiEND]

my private WIP versions, that nobody else ever sees is a different story

sound good, please tell me more.... :)

[BlueCrab]

Well, what to say about the version on my hard drive right now....

I've mostly implemented a rather stupid cacheing system for VDP1 sprites so that when a bunch of sprites share the same texture (think the flying polygons on the bootup sequence) the texture only gets changed from the Saturn's format to a Dreamcast texture. This code is buggy at the moment, but I think I know what's wrong, after reflecting on it on my way to work this morning.

That's about all I have changed (other than the bugfixes that are going into the other ports of Yabause for the next version) that actually will be included.

[Christuserloeser]

I've mostly implemented a rather stupid cacheing system for VDP1 sprites so that when a bunch of sprites share the same texture (think the flying polygons on the bootup sequence) the texture only gets changed from the Saturn's format to a Dreamcast texture.

This sounds VERY interesting :D

[BlueCrab]

This sounds VERY interesting :D

Unfortunately, I didn't get anywhere near the speed boost I was hoping for from it. I think it only increased the speed by about 0.1 FPS :confused: ...