Lordmonkus

Yeah indeed, hopefully the Mednafen Saturn emulator comes along sooner rather than later and is implemented into Retroarch because with those shaders it will look amazing. But we all know that emulation development is very often anything but fast so it could be a while until we see that so for now this is the best were gonna have.

I have been messing around a little with Reshade and SSF to get somewhat of a CRT look into it since SSF has no CRT effects at all and I personally cannot stand the raw pixel look. Anyone else been toying with this at all ? Here's a screenshot of what I have so far but I am sure it can be done better. I just mashed at the settings until I got something resembling acceptable for now.

I would say download Mame 174 if you haven't already or make a separate install and toy around with it and go through the settings along with the video and tinker with the settings if you do not like the ones posted and see if you get something to your liking and then decide. I think I have about 6 different Mame installs on my hard drive right now for different testing and tinkering purposes lol.

Weird, my SSF is set to use the Japan bios and it loads both US and Japan region games without issue. Don't know if I got something done differently I am unaware of though, I don't think I am using any sort of special bios but I know I am not using the option to not use a bios.

No problem, glad it helped out. I don't know how good or bad of a 5200 emulator Kat5200 is since I never bothered to try and get it running with MESS at all. Altirra is a very good emulator and has better looking effects than the few Kat5200 has but getting it run in Launchbox was beyond my patience level for a system I really don't care about.

@Zombeaver Yeah i'm always poking around over on the shmups forums as well. I don't post there but there's lots of good reading material to be had. @Drybonz I think they made the improvements with 172 but I could be mistaken about the exact version. It used to be that you had to tinker and fiddle with the settings on a game by game basis. There was no way to get a decent consistent look across every game. Late last night I was doing some extra reading and decided to give 174 a shot with the settings from the video I posted and I was very impressed with it. I wouldn't necessarily say that it is better or worse than Lottes GLSL shader but it most certainly good enough with the added benefit of not needing to adjust for vertical and horizontal games.

A few months ago when I got back into Mame after not really playing with it for a good many years I started reading about the HLSL and GLSL shaders and at that time GLSL was by far the superior shader. Lottes CRT was and still is amazing but there is one downside to using it. You need to set the normal Lottes for horizontal oriented games and the vertical version of the shader for the vertical oriented games. As you can guess this can be quite time consuming to go through your collection and set each game. Now obviosuly one way around this is to have 2 separate installs of Mame with each set for a the 2 different orientations but that gets messy. Now I said that GLSL was superior by far and it was up until recently. With version 172 of Mame the HLSL shader has improved massively to the point it very much so rivals GLSL and Lottes with the added bonus of not needing to set each game for vertical or horizontal. HLSL simply adjusts automatically for the games orientation making life so much easier. There is still one problem with HLSL however and it is that out of the box it still look like a dogs regurgitated dinner. This can be rectified however but tinkering with it is not easy and can be a pretty big pain in the ass if you do not know what you are doing. HLSL also has the added benefit of extra tweaking to personal taste where as GLSL you are more or less locked in on what the shader gives you. I certainly do not know what I am doing but I found a great video with some settings you can copy paste into your mame.ini file. I find these settings to be just as good as Lottes GLSL shader without the hassle of setting each game for vertical or horizontal as needed. Settings: http://pastebin.com/hwF96kkG

That's unfortunate that VCD doesn't mount the cue sheets because it is the best no spyware / adware infested crap disk mounting software I have used. I will stick to using Daemon Tools Lite since it is installed and setup already without any of the adware garbage. Maybe we should email the makers of VCD and ask them to implement cue sheet mounting support. Edit: I sent them a quick email to ask them.

In Kat5200 bring up the "View" menu and set it to 3x, that should make it fill your screen while maintaining aspect ratio. Also in "View" make sure fullscreen is checked, it should launch games in fullscreen mode, for me it does anyways.

All my Saturn games are cue and bin. The game I use as my tester is Darius Gaiden which works great on SSF but Yabause plays it without sound effects and the music is amazing but when I loaded it using VCD to mount the bin it plays just fine with sound effects but no music.

Yeah loading the bin will load the game just fine but you don't get the music.

Here is a copy / paste from another thread where I helped someone getting Kat5200 up and running. First when you launch Kat5200 you should have an ugly but functional UI. Go to "Machine" then click "Bios Files" and browse for the 5200.bin. Second click "Machine" again and under "System" make sure "Atari 5200" is checked. Under "Options" setup your controls and video options to your liking. There are some NTSC filters there if you want that look but I did not like them so I left them off. In Launchbox itself I did not have to do anything extra other than the normal stuff like setting the Kat5200.exe for the Atari 5200 platform and import games. To exit your games you will have to use your "close emulator" key (key combo) 2 times. The first time will just bring up Kat5200s UI. Probably not as using MESS or Altirra but this is the only way I managed to get the 5200 emulated and loading through Launchbox.

@SagaXIV I would love to use Virtual Clone Drive over the crap that is Daemon Tools but when I tried using your bat file I get the message that VCD cannot mount the cue file. I copied your script and set my emu path to my SSF.exe and the daemon path to VCDmount.exe but still no luck.

Awesome, that worked with a small tweak. Had to change the Daemon Tools since I was using the free Lite version. @echo off set game=%1% set daemon="C:\Program Files (x86)\DAEMON Tools Lite\DTLite.exe" set emu="Path to SSF.exe" %daemon% -mount 0, %game% start /wait "" %emu% %daemon% -unmount 0

@KyaeroSaber Interesting way of doing it. I don't bother with keeping my games compressed since I have way more hard drive space than needed. I didn't come up with the way I load my Saturn games, I found it here on the forums a few months ago when I was setting my stuff up then and I am not good at writing BAT files. What would be the bat file needed to just straight load the cue like your way but without all the uncompressing which I do not need ? All my games are in their own separate folders.

I haven't spent any time with the Model 2 emulator but I recently had a poke with the Model 3 and it was super easy to set up in Launchbox. It set up like any other emulator with the addition of a "Default Command Line Parameter" value to set your resolution. -res=1600,1200 -fullscreen Is what I used for my 2560x1440 resolution monitor. The annoying part is setting up a controller since it has to be done manually in the config file.

I agree they should be separated but the PC Engine and TurboGrafx 16 are the same systems. Just like the SNES / Super Famicom and Genesis / Mega Drive are the same and have exclusives to each region.

Hmm, I've never really noticed much if any input lag using SSF. Maybe it depends on the game, I really only have a handful of games and Darius Gaiden is the most played and comparing it to Mame it feels about the same which is very responsive. I'm not using a CRT but I am using a high end low input lag Asus G-Sync gaming monitor and compared to my old run of the mill non-gaming monitor it is noticeably better. The Mednafen cores are indeed amazing and if / when the Saturn core gets done and implemented into Retroarch with Hard GPU Sync and shaders it will be awesome.

The only real options is with the use of shaders and this is really just "tricking" your eyes. This is why I use a good CRT shader.

The way I launch my Saturn games is similar to @Zombeaver but with a slight difference. First I setup Daemon Tools Lite as an emulator in Launchbox with the Default Command Line Parameters as -mount dt, 0, I then imported all my cue sheets and selected Daemon Tools as the "emulator" for Saturn games. I then created a BAT file in the same folder as ssf.exe just to keep it clean. In the bat file I have the following @echo off start /wait "" "SSF.exe" "C:\Program Files (x86)\DAEMON Tools Lite\DTLite.exe" -unmount 0 Then for each game go to the additional apps tab add an application and point it to the BAT file and check "Automatically Run After Main Application". No idea if this is better or worse than Zombeavers way but it works for me and it unmounts the disk after it is done. Hopefully the Mednafen Saturn emulator comes along nice and quickly and with great compatibility. SSF is a pain in the ass and Yabause is still way behind.

Yeah I have seen that but I still would rather 2 :) There are graphic mods out there for SS2 that does boost its looks significantly but a full blown remake would be my dream. I am hoping that Cyberpunk 2077 from CD ProjektRed fills the void of cyberpunk futuristic rpgs.

I have not had any issues with mine at all.

Hells yeah. This is a game the so desperately needs an HD remaster.

The Qanba (link) looked pretty interesting and from what I could find about it is supposed to be decent build quality for the price. I have an X-Arcade Tank stick and love it, not sure why it gets the hate that it does in some circles (maybe the older ones were bad). If I didn't have the tank stick I think I would get the Qanba. For d-pad controllers though I cannot recommend the Hori FC enough. I absolutely love it for anything that does not require an analog stick. The d-pad itself feels right and the buttons are very short throw, fairly big around and flat. I use it for emulation and on my PS3 to playing Street Fighter, Mega Man, Raiden and PacMan DX.

I think the 2 options you listed are probably the best choice for actual SNES look and feel controllers. I have no experience with the Buffalo controllers but I have a buddy who has the 8bitdo and it is very good. Another option, though they are not the SNES look and feel is the Hori Fight Commander controllers. I have one of these (link) and it is fantastic. The build quality and feel of it is great and works perfectly for SNES and Genesis games. The shape looks odd but is actually really good. There is this (https://www.amazon.com/PS4-PS3-compatible-Fighting-commander-14210671/dp/B017QORK8W/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1465403530&sr=8-2&keywords=hori+fight+commander) one with a more traditional shape though if you prefer. The d-pad and buttons on the Hori pads are as good as you are going to get, near perfection.