Saturn Emulation Station

[samsonlonghair]

Some cool cats are currently devising a Sega Saturn Explorers Club and I'm going to need to cobble together a machine that is up to the task.

Back in the day, Mozgus wrote an article about SSF: A nearly perfect Saturn emulator. This article is more than a couple years old now, but it may still be useful.
http://www.racketboy.com/retro/sega/sat ... n-emulator

Here's the official system requirements accourding to Sega Retro...

Minimum system requirements

Operating system Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows XP 64-bit Edition
CPU Any CPU supporting: FPU, MMX, SSE, SSE2, TSC (P4-class or higher)
RAM 256 MB or more
Graphics card DirectX 9.0c capable, graphics card supporting Vertex Shader 3.0 and Pixel Shader 3.0
Sound DirectX 9.0c compatible, able to play 44100 Hz stereo PCM
CD drive Drive supporting MMC3 read command

...but these specs seem outdated to me. A Pentium 4 with 256 MB of RAM? That can't be right. That sounds like a fifteen-year-old machine to me.

So, let's figure this out together. What will we need to build, download, tweak, and figure out before the Explorers club starts in May?

[noiseredux]

I can't speak on minimum requirements, but I've had good like w/ SSF in the past. But that was on a machine MUCH more powerful than the one you outlined above.

At any rate, I have lots of extra parts. Hit me up if you want to work something out Sam.

[wclem]

A few questions from me:

Can I use compressed images to emulate, will any emulator load a compressed file?

Which Saturn USB stick is recommended from you all?
How should I install/setup?

I have about 300 J images, I could burn and play all of these but I really want to test first if nothing else. Some of these may need ram cart, will I be able to try these out via emulation.

These are my first question, I have many more. I really want to see open discussion on this topic.

To OP: you may want to mention that this is not a thread to discuss the rights and wrongs with emulating itself.

[fastbilly1]

Modern x86/x64 processors have all the commands that are needed to play Saturn games. You can buy a $100 windows 8 tablet, like the Dell Venue 8 pro or the tw700, and they will run most games in SSF just fine:
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=48427

So pretty much if you have a PC built in the last five years, you should not have a hardware issue. Now it has been a long time since I played with SSF so I do not know the details on settings. I was hoping to get something setup once I get my home theater PC going - pending GPU from noise.

As for controllers, I have used the official USB saturn controller, the Mayflash 3 in 1 Joybox, and a Blissbox 4 play. All work great, no issue and the adapters worked with every controller I threw at it. But you could use a modern usb fight stick with the emulator if you want a stick.

[ElkinFencer10]

So this is probably a stupid question (between this and the Dreamcast thread, I seem to ask a lot of those when it comes to Sega), but what is the best Saturn emulator? I tried looking for one years ago when I was in middle school, but they all seemed really unstable and temperamental back then. I plan to buy at least a number of the Saturn explorer whatever club games by the time 2017 rolls around, but for the cost prohibitive ones, what emulator should I download?

[mjmjr25]

I don't even know if this is an emulator or not? I know it uses your original saturn and pulls games from SD card...I think?

Sega Saturn Rhea:
http://www.videogameperfection.com/2015 ... rn-review/

[Exhuminator]

but what is the best Saturn emulator?

SSF is really the only sensible option.

http://segaretro.org/SSF

http://www.fantasyanime.com/emuhelp/emuhelp_ssf.htm

[JoeAwesome]

I don't even know if this is an emulator or not? I know it uses your original saturn and pulls games from SD card...I think?

Sega Saturn Rhea:
http://www.videogameperfection.com/2015 ... rn-review/

It emulates the optical drive to load images on your Saturn from your SD card. Not an emulator, though.

[nightrnr]

I don't even know if this is an emulator or not? I know it uses your original saturn and pulls games from SD card...I think?

Not emulation, even better. The SD device takes the place for the CD drive (although you do sacrifice loading physical discs). Otherwise, you've got it right. I guess technically the disc drive is what is emulated, but not the game itself.
For all intents and purposes, it's like an everdrive for the Saturn.
I absolutely love my Rhea. By far my favorite purchase of last year.
It's also really cool loading the few translated games on a US system without the need of a PAR+.

[samsonlonghair]

A Rhea would be fantastic, but they're only made in limited quantities. They're expensive too. I get why, and I see the value. No doubt they're worthwhile given the savings. That doesn't make me any less broke though.

I have a plan in the works for my Saturn emulation station. It's a little too early to be specific yet, but there's a PC at the goodwill for $2.49 that has caught my attention. My cheapy-sense is tingling.