Saturn Mega Drive Emulator

[Yakumo]

We all know that the Dreamcast has an official Mega Drive Emulator (by NEC) and a PC Engine Emulator (also by NEC) and that the Mega Drive one was hacked then released but it has sound problems, but what about the perfect Saturn emulators?

The Saturn is home to a 100% perfect Mega Drive and Master System emulator that nobody has ever touched. To my knowledge only Technosoft and Sega have used it. Technosoft used it as part of their Thunder Force Gold packs. While the first gold pack had audio problems (music was streamed from CD and sound effects didn't seem right) the second gold pack was perfect or at least 99% perfect. Sega have also used their Mega Drive emulator in for games such as Phantasy Star Collection, Mickey & Donald Sega Ages set and Sonic Jam.

What I would like to know is, is it possible for these emulators to be hacked and released as a separate disc along with normal roms much in the same way as to what happened with the Dreamcast Mega Drive emulator? I can't believe that this has never been attempted before.

Yakumo

[LocalH]

I wasn't aware that Sonic Jam was emulated. I know several people in the Sonic scene have looked at it, and they seemed to feel that the games had been ported. Of course, I haven't looked at it personally, so I don't know. Are the ROMs actually included on the disc?

Edit: Actually, as I'm digging through my discs, I find that I've got a copy of Sonic Jam that someone ripped with Nero. I'm not expecting it to function on an actual Saturn, but I'm going to search through it to see if I find any MD ROM headers.

[Calpis]

I know for sure that Phantasy Star Collection at least emulates PS1. Regarding the extracting and hacking of the emulator(s), sure it's possible... but not by anyone here

[sayin999]

The problem with getting the emu to work is the fact that it loads parts of a rom into ram, such as the way sega classics works with sega/mega cd. Belive me many attemps have been made to get the emu extracted and working but it doesnt seem to work due to the way it operates.

[ddp72984]

I thought Sega Classics Collection was re-coded with no emu whatsoever?

(hugs CDX)

[sayin999]

I thought Sega Classics Collection was re-coded with no emu whatsoever?

(hugs CDX)

well it was, but it baisicly it would load so much of the rom into the sega cd and load again for other parts, what i ment is that the sega saturn emu uses rom images that are split and programed with teh emu which reads parts of the roms to put into the saturn memory, though im curious if the disney collection based on quckshot and one of the mickey games has been hacked to see if the emu is slighty different in anyway.

[Baseley09]

If Sonic Jam is emulation, thats some of the best ive seen :rock out:

Remember each sonic game has alternate remix versions with a few extra platforms & enemies etc, were they hacked roms or reprogrammed ground up?

[Yakumo]

If Sonic Jam is emulation, thats some of the best ive seen :rock out:

Remember each sonic game has alternate remix versions with a few extra platforms & enemies etc, were they hacked roms or reprogrammed ground up?

All they'd have to do is stick each combination of the rom in to the collection.

Yakumo

[LocalH]

I looked through the disc, I didn't see any ROM headers or anything else that would lead me to believe that it's emulated. If it is emulated, then they've broken apart the binaries, and pre-generated a bunch of the music in Sonic 2 (in the SONIC12 folder, there are a bunch of AIFs that are split up in such a way as to allow them to cleanly loop). Seems to me that if it was an emulation you'd more or less just have the straight ROMs (whether encrypted or what, they'd still be around the usual file size).

I stand in my belief that the Sonic Jam versions of the games are ported, not emulated. Based on my cursory examination last night, and the collective experience of the people in the Sonic scene who have looked at it. But, I'd be happy to be proved wrong =P

[Calpis]

Sonic Jam doesn't appear to be emulated at all, otherwise the games would be better... Sonic Jam has "off" physics and sound as wella s a funky resolution.

[AntiPasta]

Jessica: "Many have tried replacing the ROM image on Phantasy Star Collection"
Paul: "They tried and failed?"
Jessica: "They tried... and died."

Guess the book and win a fart in your general direction!

(but seriously, it has been tried but crashes the program)

[LocalH]

From this thread (http://www.sws2b.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=4869&st=0&#):


Sonic Jam is definitely a port. I disassembled Sonic 1 from SH-2 myself.

So, at least in the case of Sonic Jam, there is no emulation involved (except I believe the code uses emulated m68k registers, but the actual machine language used is SH-2). To get any other ROM to work, you'd pretty much have to port it yourself, which requires a thorough and well-commented disassembly to have any chance at all of doing it. I don't know about the other Saturn games you mentioned, however.

[Calpis]

spppeeecccuuuullllaaaatttiiioooonn

[Greatsaintlouis]

We're well aware that you consider yourself to be superior to the average mortal in these sorts of things, Kyuusaku, but that's not really the sort of post that contributes anything even remotely useful to the topic at hand.

[sayin999]

sonic jam is definetly ported, many have found this out and stated it, as well its pretty obvious its ported looking at the graphics and listening to some alterted sounds.

[Divine Evolution]

Well since no one else seems to want Anti's fart I'll happily answer and proclaim my DUNE geekdom.
~Krelian

[Perkunas]

Wasn't there an official Sega Saturn emulator for pc as well? Has this emulator ever been used/hacked?

ps: I'd like Naka to leak out his primitive NES emulator for MegaDrive. :p

[Taemos]

Wasn't there an official Sega Saturn emulator for pc as well? Has this emulator ever been used/hacked?

ps: I'd like Naka to leak out his primitive NES emulator for MegaDrive. :p

I think that was GiriGiri.

[Baseley09]

sonic jam is definetly ported, many have found this out and stated it, as well its pretty obvious its ported looking at the graphics and listening to some alterted sounds.

Sonic Jam is the deffinative imo.

Tho tbh i cant tell any difference, if i play Sonic 2, its on Sonic Jam.

[Yakumo]

Hmm, ok looks as if Sonic Jam is ported but what about Phantasy Star Collection? The Mark III / Master System Phantasy Star game on that MUST be emulated. It even runs in a box to keep ther original resolution. So if That's emulated then why not the Mega Drive games as well?

Then we have Technosfot's Thunder Force Gold Packs. Now I thought that these will be emulated but after playing Thunder Force 4 I noticed that the Saturn version has no slowdown unlike the Mega Drive. There are a few odd sounding sound effects however which lead me to think emulation. Does anyone willing to take a look at Thunder Force 4 have this game? I have the original so if its of any use I could post a screen shot of the files in the dir.

Yakumo

[sayin999]

Hmm, ok looks as if Sonic Jam is ported but what about Phantasy Star Collection? The Mark III / Master System Phantasy Star game on that MUST be emulated. It even runs in a box to keep ther original resolution. So if That's emulated then why not the Mega Drive games as well?

Then we have Technosfot's Thunder Force Gold Packs. Now I thought that these will be emulated but after playing Thunder Force 4 I noticed that the Saturn version has no slowdown unlike the Mega Drive. There are a few odd sounding sound effects however which lead me to think emulation. Does anyone willing to take a look at Thunder Force 4 have this game? I have the original so if its of any use I could post a screen shot of the files in the dir.

Yakumo

Well it has been proven that the phantasy star collection has all its games emulated, but the problem lies in how the emu operates as well as the roms being split to work with the emu and the saturns ram, they have tried inserting roms and seeing if it works, but alas it does not.

[AntiPasta]

Well since no one else seems to want Anti's fart I'll happily answer and proclaim my DUNE geekdom.
~Krelian

Damn right!

*farts Westward*

[ddp72984]

about Sonic Jam...

so they are all roms? What about Sonic 1 in which they gave Sonic his STH2 dash attack?
wouldnt it been a huge pain in the ass to add that new function to an existing rom?

Thanks

[sayin999]

for one last time lets clearfy this, phantasy star emulated, thunderforce possibly, sonic jam is DEFINETLY ported.

[Anthaemia.]

The classic games of Sonic Jam are definitely not emulated, as each takes up considerably much more space on disc than the cartridge ROM files and some (but not all) of the music is in a kind of looping format. Also, there are slight graphical differences between the Saturn and MegaDrive versions. For example, the water in Sonic 3 didn't originally have a shimmering effect on its surface. Then again, it's odd how Sonic Team didn't remove the music - if #10 of the Sonic 2 sound test really is its theme - and icons for the Hidden Palace Zone, so at least you can give them a 9/10 for accuracy with these ports... unlike other companies I could think of!

[Yakumo]

Also, there are slight graphical differences between the Saturn and MegaDrive versions. For example, the water in Sonic 3 didn't originally have a shimmering effect on its surface.
This will probably shock you but the original Japanese Mega Drive version of Sonic does have the water effects but the PAL version doesn't. I have no idea why this is but I'm guessing it has something to do with the slower speed of the PAL system.

Yakumo

[Anthaemia.]

I've not actually played the Japanese version of Sonic 3 (either on a MegaDrive or through emulation), so I would never have known that rather interesting fact. My guess is that the water surface effect happened faster than a 50Hz display could keep up with, or perhaps it was removed altogether - remember how the clouds were animated for the later Japanese release of the first Sonic game and static for all other editions?

[sayin999]

it was static on other releases due to rushed development time.

[AntiPasta]

This will probably shock you but the original Japanese Mega Drive version of Sonic does have the water effects but the PAL version doesn't. I have no idea why this is but I'm guessing it has something to do with the slower speed of the PAL system.

Yakumo

Well, in fact, the 50hz version would have *more* power to do such effects... think about it, you need to do less frames per second (50 instead of 60), so you have more time per frame.

[Fonzie]

"I looked through the disc, I didn't see any ROM headers or anything else that would lead me to believe that it's emulated. "
Can be compressed. Since those games were coded in asm 68K, it is logic that they used the 68K of the sega saturn, isn't it?

"Well, in fact, the 50hz version would have *more* power to do such effects."
50hz makes the cpu virtualy more powerful (more cycles per frames).
I've heard that some games even slowdown in 60hz.

For the rpg, it can be emulated with ease since dropping 3/4 of frames isn't a problem (10fps for a rpg looks same than 60fps for 90% of gamers).

"ps: I'd like Naka to leak out his primitive NES emulator for MegaDrive. "
True, assuming how the nes cpu is weak, it is possible.
Any more info about it?

[Anthaemia.]

Wasn't it this infamous NES emulator that got Naka his first role as a lead programmer at Sega, which ultimately led to his work as the head of AM8/CS3? I can't imagine it being too exciting today (apart from for the obvious nostalgic factor), though what's more unbelievable is that I didn't realise a game running at 50Hz would require less processing power than its 60Hz counterpart - after all, it's common sense!

[sayin999]

its funny as many times as naka has mentioned it, hes never once showed, though of course it was never released due to sega being a rival and such, still it be intresting to see a prototype of this device, or better yet have him answer all the questions about the sonic beta.

[LocalH]

It's my understanding that it wasn't a "device" per se, but rather a software emulator. Naka must have found some good optimizations in order to emulate a ~1MHz NES on a ~7MHz Genesis. I wouldn't imagine it to be impossible, but I could see ROMs requiring pre-processing (perhaps he might pre-convert the NES tiles to Genesis tiles, for example).

[Fabrizo]

Wasn't there an official Sega Saturn emulator for pc as well? Has this emulator ever been used/hacked?

Yes. A couple years ago sega purchased the rights to use what at the time had been coded by fans for saturn pc emulation. They then tweaked the code to be more accurate and released it online, as well as certain saturn games which were modified slightly to work with it. A while later Gavione (I think that was his nick), along with Ex-Cyber (both from SegaXtreme) created a hacked version which would allow ripped games (through some modification tools) to run. Despite being made by sega themselfs (at least partially), the emu was not perfect, and many games had graphical and audio glitches, but it was non-the-less the best saturn emu to date. Unfortunatly, the legal issues that surrounded it soon caught up and it dissapeared from the net to one degree or another.

I still have a copy (along with some stuff I put together to make it more user-friendly). Its interesting, but far from the 'perfect' saturn emulator everyone who still likes the system seems to want.

[d_liquid]

Then we have Technosfot's Thunder Force Gold Packs. Now I thought that these will be emulated but after playing Thunder Force 4 I noticed that the Saturn version has no slowdown unlike the Mega Drive. There are a few odd sounding sound effects however which lead me to think emulation. Does anyone willing to take a look at Thunder Force 4 have this game? I have the original so if its of any use I could post a screen shot of the files in the dir.
Atleast, I know for a fact that the Goldpack editions use the SS FM synth (or perhaps an emulation of YM2612, which is unlikly though).

[Zilog Jones]

Well, in fact, the 50hz version would have *more* power to do such effects... think about it, you need to do less frames per second (50 instead of 60), so you have more time per frame.

Yeah, but on a lot of consoles the CPU is underclocked a bit when running games at 50Hz. I know the NES and C64 did this - can't remember if the MD did...

Times like this I wish I had an oscilloscope...

[LocalH]

It's not so much that they're deliberately underclocked, but on systems like that, the CPU clock is usually somehow derived from the dot clock, which of course differs between PAL and NTSC. That's the same reason that NES 2A03 and C64 SID music has a different pitch between PAL and NTSC (the 2A03 simply because the CPU and sound generation are on the same chip, the SID because it's fed with the CPU clock). Besides, the difference in the MHz count is so small, that you generally gain more on PAL from the increased number of cycles per frame, than you lose in raw cycles per second. Of course, with games that rely more on raw CPU power than cycles per frame (realtime 3D games tend to fall in this category), then you'll gain a very slight speed increase on NTSC. But, for the most part, early PAL systems can do more onscreen because they can handle more calculations before the next frame comes around. This is the main reason that the PAL C64 demo scene beats out the NTSC scene in terms of pushing the hardware.

I don't think the MD slows down on PAL, because it seems to have more separate buses (as opposed to the NES and C64 where everything is more or less on one bus, with the exception of the NES' PPU memory). I don't know exact numbers, but I'm fairly sure that the only major difference on a PAL MD is the number of frames per second, and thus the cycle count per frame.