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Mednafen Saturn Setup Tutorial


Lordmonkus

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Oh there is no doubt that SSF overall at the moment is the better emulator but keep in mind SSF has had years of development and this is just the first release of Saturn support in Mednafen. And for being the first "experimental unstable" release as the devs called it I would say its right on SSFs ass and going to surpass is very quickly.

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@DOS76 I have fixed several cue + bins with the program CDMage link.

Just load your Saturn cue in and then you can use it to test the rom for corruption and attempt to repair it. Not sure if the corruption repair actually does anything though.

Then go File > Save as and spit it back out to a different location and test it out. This may not work for all dumps though but it did fix some of mine.

If you go looking for a new dump if possible try and get a Darkwater release, those so far have been rock solid.

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Yep, just like lormonkus said. 
I've used isoburner, imported the .cue and exported as a .bin/.cue. It's just a simple conversion/correction in fact, nothing more (it takes 1 min). But the new one is working with mednafen, that's enough for me. ^_^

Edited by niglurion
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Well, I tried the new Retroarch core and it's crashing... I'm assuming I have the wrong bios setup.  If I go to "core information" to get the bios info there is none.  Does anyone know what the naming format is and if it's the same bios that's used for Yabause or SSF?

*edit*  Checked the Retroarch forums... looks like there is zero discussion on this core yet.

Edited by Drybonz
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The bios needed are the same ones the stand alone uses which are the same bios from the Mame / Mess bios.

The NA region bios should be named "mpr-17933" and the JP region bios "sega_101.bin". You can rename your SSF bios if you like, I did this at first for the stand alone emulator and they worked but I replaced them with Mame / Mess bios just because.

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Having played around with the Retroarch Mednafen Saturn core for a little bit now I wanted to give some of my first impressions.

First off I am extremely happy to see this core come out so soon after the stand alone. But as of right this moment the stand alone emulator is the better way to actually play games. The stand alone has better controller setup for the 3D analog since you can map a button for the "mode" button on the controller to toggle back and forth on the fly. Retroarchs default button mappings are a little questionable and remapping them isn't terribly difficult but does suffer from Retroarchs typical remapping confusion. While you can switch from gamepad to 3dpad in the controller config this doesn't actually seem to work, or at least not for me with an Xbox 360 controller. Putting it on 3D controller remapped start to right on the d-pad and other buttons to other d-pad directions and the analog stick still did nothing even though further down in the controller remapping it looked like it should have been set correctly. Maybe I was missing something, I don't know.

Now to the more important issues I have right now. Performance is not as good as the stand alone, there is a noticeable performance hit in a game like Nights. It is close though and will get better with time I am sure. There is also something funky with compatibility compared to the stand alone. I loaded up the game Panzer Dragoon II Zwei and it loaded just fine til I got to the start screen. As soon as I hit start it put me into the cd menu screen. I know this game works because I have played it on the stand alone emulator and even posted a video showing it.

Anyways, I am glad this is out and being worked on, this is the most important thing but for now stick to using the stand alone emulator to actually play your games.

PS: Heavy shaders really hit this emulator hard, Royale-Kurozumi drops my framerate into the mid 40s but something like Easymode-Halation is fine and looks glorious. For reference my GPU is a GTX 970.

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I have so far only found 4 games I can't load but I've only tested a few so far

Working: Albert Odyssey, Alien Trilogy, All-Star Baseball 97, Alone in the Dark 2, AMOK, Andretti Racing, Astal, Baku Baku, Bases loaded 96, Batman Forever, Battle Arena Toshinden Remix, Battle Arena Toshinden URA, Battle Monsters, Battle Stations, BattleSport, Black Dawn, Black Fire, Blast Chamber, Blazing Dragons, Blazing Heroes, Bottom of the 9th, Brain Dead 13

Non Working 3D Baseball, Area 51. Going through alphabetically trying to see what games are working.

Edited by DOS76
Added more games to the working list and removed non working games I have working now
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Ahh ok, so maybe it's my dump. Ill try and get a new one.

Edit:

I think fixed my copy of Astal by running it through IsoBuster. The dump I had was a Darkwater release and it froze at the same place in the stand alone and the RA core but after using IsoBuster on it it hasn't froze up.

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3D pad analog controller settings aren't in the core just yet but are being worked on according to a libretro dev over on /r/emulation, should be added in the next couple of days.

If you plan on using a relatively heavy shader turning on Threaded Video in the video settings looks like it is going to be a must. Even using a middle of the road shader like Easymode-Halation caused slight framerate issues and some audio static but turning on Threaded Video allows me to run Royale-Kurozumi again at a full 60 fps and I saw no perceivable input lag issues.

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More Working: Break Point Tennis, Bubble Bobble, Bug Too!, Bug, Burning Rangers (performance issues though) Bust-a-Move 2, BAM 3, Casper, Center Ring Boxing, Christmas Nights into Dreams, Clockwork Knight, Clockwork Knight 2, College Slam, Command & Conquer, Congo, Contra, Corpse Killer, Courier Crisis, Creature Shock, Crime Wave, Criticom, Croc, The Crow,

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