r/SegaSaturn

If you watch the two versions side by side, you'll probably notice that the original Saturn version gives you a much stronger sense of speed.

Interestingly, though, the actual dimensions of the game world are very similar between the two versions. So why does the Saturn version feel faster?

The reason is the magic of the Saturn's VDP2.

In Panzer Dragoon II Zwei, the ground is rendered by the VDP2, independently from the rest of the scene. This allows the game to scroll the ground texture at roughly twice the speed of the rest of the environment.

The result is a much stronger sensation of forward movement, even though the actual game speed and dimensions are very similar.

It's kind of like Mario and Sonic on the 16-bit consoles. Both characters can be moving at comparable speeds, but Sonic's use of fast parallax scrolling makes the game feel much faster than Mario.

That's one of the really clever things about the Saturn's VDP2: it could create the illusion of speed without necessarily having to move the entire 3D scene faster.

I was cleaning out my loft and found my old sega Saturn, and a handful of games. Amongst the games we're the above two.

Both are in great condition with only some cosmetic damage to panzer dragoon sagas cardboard sleeve.

These are the UK (PAL) versions, are they actually worth anything or is it just optimists on eBay?

Just to preface, this isn’t a post about should it have been released etc, we all already know the issues around that. Although I would like to hear people’s thoughts on the game, I think it obviously wouldn’t be able to compete with Mario 64 and crash but it still could’ve been a good game if finished. Anyway back to the main point.

Every now and then I get the urge to check if any of the x-treme fan games have made any progress (usually they haven’t but you never know). But one thing that bothers me about them is how short the levels look. It takes a couple of minutes per level but that’s when they’re collecting everything and most people wouldn’t do that, so I imagine you’d blitz through them if heading straight for the goal, (I’m not saying it should be a 5-10 hour game or anything but I imagine something like 2 hours would be fine). So I was thinking of ways to lengthen them a bit and thought I’d put it here on the off chance someone making a fan game sees it.

1. have it like sonic 8 bit where the chaos emeralds (or games equivalent) are hidden in the levels to entice exploration. This might negate the need for special stages but I imagine you could also introduce another collectable for them

or even just hide the special stages entrance like 3d blast (that would probably be best).

1. in the trailers you see these bridges with loops that send sonic to another point on the map, so maybe you could make them activate by a switch that’s hidden somewhere else and make the bridge progress you to another area that’s otherwise blocked off. Not the next act but more like a little puzzle to be able to progress to the goal, again this would entice exploration more.
2. either make it so you have to destroy every enemy (like sonic 3D blast) or give an incentive to do so, I was thinking something like odd world (or the opposite I guess) where getting everyone leads to the good ending, I know the emeralds usually do this but I think it could still work and you could still use the emeralds to unlock the final boss or level or something (or have it the other way round), or this could just be something extra to do on top of that that would lead to an even better ending. You could even do it like banjo where doing everything makes the final boss easier, just something to incentivise it.

That’s some ideas that I just wanted to get off my chest lol, I’d be interested to hear anyone else’s as well, like what do you think would’ve made it a better game?

I'm using my old laptop (Intel i5-10310U, integrated UHD Graphics, 16GB system RAM) as my NAS, and RetroArch host. I play on my Google TV through Moonlight. The NAS runs Ubuntu headlessly so to run RetroArch and for Sunshine to capture, I use OpenBox on top of Xorg for a minimum desktop environment.

With no optimization, I was able to run cores for all 3rd gen (NES, PC Engine, Master System) and 4th gen consoles (Mega Drive, SNES) , and handheld consoles up to GBA, and apply CRT and dot matrix shaders.

PlayStation was the first one to hit hardware limits. With Beetle PSX HW, I had somewhat consistent frame stuttering and audio crackling even with simple titles like Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. I did a lot of debugging and realized sunshine using the Intel GPU's Render/3D engine for HEVC encoding is borderline competing with the Beetle PSX HW core's Vulkan calls. Once the laptop CPU hits the thermal wall, stuttering will start and the GPU's Render/3D engine becomes saturated. To fix it, I changed Sunshine's encoder to H.264, which only uses the GPU's Video engine. And so I was able to enjoy some Symphony of the Night.

Then as I started trying Final Fantasy VII, and Metal Gear Solid, even the H.264 streaming compromise doesn't let the two games play smoothly. FFVII has painfuly slow battle scene transition screen, and MGS has severe audio crackling during the underwater scenes in the introduction animated sequence. I exhausted all performance-first Core Options and still couldn't get it to run decently. In the end, switching to the Swan Station core solved the problem.

Then for Nintendo 64, if I use ParaLLEl as RDP and RSP plugin, audio crackling can occasionally happen during most games. I had to stick with GlideN64 and HLE for things to run smoothly. The price I pay is with the Gliden64 plugin, between 240p and 480p I can only choose either one option, unlike with ParaLLEl whereby the core can honor the individual ROM's native output resolution.

Saturn, oh Saturn is the last 5th generation console that I still can't get running. My test title is Nights into Dreams, and no matter which core I try, it won't run without stuttering and crackling.

- Yabause: the game won't even launch

- Beetle Saturn: consistenting stuttering and audio crackling

- Kronos: even worse, stutters like a helicopter

- Emir: same

- Yaba Sanshiro: the best so far, but still stutters and crackles

I spent a day troubleshooting and realize this time it's very obvious that CPU had been thermal walled (from 24W > demoted to 15W > and demoted to 7.5W as soon as the game enters the character selection screen).

I tried tinkering with thermald and even stopped thermald from running. Without thermald running, one of the CPU cores can hit 100 Celsius in less than 2 minutes, and the system firmware kicks in to cool it down to 70 and then goes up to 100 again. I thought this was very dangerous for what's supposed to be a NAS, so I gave up there.

Anyway, does my experience mean Saturn is the hardest to emulate among the 5th gen? Which my hardware and necessary overhead, do you think I can continue to attempt 6th gen consoles like PS2?

Je suis un très très gros fan de Street fighter depuis que j'ai commencé sur le IV SUPER sur ma ps3 au collège.

De ce que je sais il y'as les Virtua Fighters qui sont excellents, mais j'aimerais quelques bonnes découvertes ^^

Ps: ma saturn est Japan only !!🇯🇵

New to the Saturn scene and I was looking into the 3D controller for the Saturn. Is there any reasonably priced, aftermarket controllers that offer the 3D capabilities? The controller that use for games like NiGHTS.

And if not, are the official ones really worth the price?

I've been wanting to try out saturn games for a while now but the emulators I've tried before either have slow performance and clunky ui or its that stupid retroarch that i hate so I've decided to just directly ask you guys

So I got a Saturn a while ago. I haven't finished a game but I have started a few. I have some games on my list that I for sure wanna finish like sakura wars. I love jrpg, 2d side scrollers and platforms. I also want to start with shmup games. As for games that I suck, those are usually strategy, sports or fighting games.

Any tips of games under 8h that are not frustrating that you believe are killer Saturn games? If you had to tell someone to start with a specific game for them to get in love with the console, which one would you recommend?

I've got the rest of today and tomorrow off of work with no responsibilities. What game or games should I play? I've got a saroo, a couple of light guns and a fight stick if that helps.