Saturn or emulation?

[TrevHead (TVR)]

Ive just come across a sega saturn for sale in a local vg stores window. Im wondering weather to get it. But been some1 who has no qwarms about using emulation aslong as its about as good as the original. Unfortunatly i havn't yet used a saturn emulator so i dont have a clue as to what standard the games play at.

So i thought i would ask you chaps as to how good games (mainly shmups) play on the lastest versions of saturn emulators. Are they for the most part really good? as good as nes, megadrive and playstation emulation? Cos tbh if emulation really is good then i wont bother buying the real console. (although i still might buy it for the saturn pad)

[neorichieb1971]

I can only go from what i've read on here, but I got the impression Saturn emulation was the furthest behind in terms of performance.

You need a super computer to get anywhere near the results of the real thing.

[TrevHead (TVR)]

my pc is a early dual core pentium machine and i have no troble playing ps1 games of which the saturn is of the same generation. So aslong as the emulation is sound i sould have no trouble due to having a too slow a PC

[Udderdude]

my pc is a early dual core pentium machine

The only way to really see is test a Saturn emulator for yourself, like SSF.

i have no troble playing ps1 games of which the saturn is of the same generation.

You're assuming the PS1 and Saturn are the same architecturally, and you're completely wrong. Saturn is much more complex and difficult to emulate.

[kengou]

Saturn Emulator doesn't require anything more than PSX emulators in terms of computer specs. If you have even a low-end gaming computer (like me) you can probably play it.

That said, the emulator is not great. I've found it to be hit-and-miss, with more miss than hit. Some games run perfectly, others don't run whatsoever. For my purposes, it works great, because I only use it for Radiant Silvergun which plays flawlessly. So my answer is that it depends on what games you want to play, make sure they work on SSF, and if they don't then you might consider a real one.

[Ed Oscuro]

For PlayStation I use pSX (could use a few updates but generally sound), and for Saturn I use the latest SSF, which has run Guardian Force perfectly.

[CStarFlare]

The only experience I had with Saturn emulation was with Radiant Silvergun

It started running at like 30% speed around the second stage.

Fuck Saturn emulation :/

[Udderdude]

Saturn Emulator doesn't require anything more than PSX emulators in terms of computer specs.

Definitely disagree with you here. It requires a dual core at the least.

[Khan]

well i play guardian heroes on SSF and it runs flawlessly i got 3/4 into the game and it crashed

I own a saturn and guardian heroes already but having to go into my loft and dig them out are something i wanted to avoid so I chose the emulator. Like already said its a bit hit and miss depending on the game but personally I do prefer the emulator due to less hassle.

[speedlolita]

Owning a Saturn is pretty satisfying - I have three but my JP one is my favourite - obviously.

[Bloodreign]

I play the real games I have on my Saturn, the games I don't have yet I play in SSF. SSF runs pretty well for me, but some games just don't run properly in the thing (or full screen for that matter, newer builds for me go faster in a smaller window), Bubble Symphony (which I do own), won't run with backgrounds, Liquid Kids (also own) also seems to have some graphical issues with SSF. Stuff like Parodius runs alright, but Jikkyou Oshaberi Parodius still has minor graphical issues as well, at one time not too long ago it didn't run at all in SSF.

http://www.segasaturn.org/

This is a pretty nice place to keep up with what runs in SSF and what doesn't.

[Elixir]

I would rather go with a Saturn even though I don't have any issues running the emulator on my quad core. But I would only be considering this because I have an XRGB2+.

It would really depend on your budget and situation. It's probably cheaper to get an upscaler and Saturn compared to upgrading your PC, but the games can fetch some high prices now. Really just depends on what you're going for.

[iatneH]

I think we should be getting past the days where we're talking about needing supercomputers to run Saturn emulators. Hell, my Acer 1810T (Canadian ver.) notebook runs RSG in SSF pretty much full speed and that thing's hardly a performance machine, and SSF is no sweat at all for my relatively low-budget desktop build. You can easily build a desktop with a $50 dual-core CPU that will run SSF (and anything else you want) with plenty of power to spare.

[GaijinPunch]

PSX emulation has been "good" (read, at least playable) since pre-Core days. Saturn... no way. And SSF has always been written with a rockin' CPU at it's base. The last time I tried it (a few years ago) it even required Intel, so AMD users were out. No idea if that's "fixed" or not.

[Ex-Cyber]

I think we should be getting past the days where we're talking about needing supercomputers to run Saturn emulators.

That was always an exaggeration, but it's equally silly to say that it's the same as PS1 emulation. Saturn simply has much more stuff going on that is visible to / controlled by the program(mer).

[Udderdude]

PSX emulation has been "good" (read, at least playable) since pre-Core days. Saturn... no way. And SSF has always been written with a rockin' CPU at it's base. The last time I tried it (a few years ago) it even required Intel, so AMD users were out. No idea if that's "fixed" or not.

AMD processors will work if they support the newer Intel standards.

[ED-057]

I thought SSF is supposed to run as long as you have SSE2 (so Athlon XPs are out but Athlon 64s or newer should be good). I just tried it and it bailed out with an error about xaudio though. Yabause is OK for some games on a fast machine but there are glitches and the sound is not quite accurate. If you plan on getting the actual game discs then get the Saturn to play them on.

[Mortificator]

Apparently the newer versions of SSF need DirectX 9.0c specifically, and of course Vista and Windows 7 users will normally have DirectX 10. Either use SSF 0.10 or older or try installing the 9.0c runtimes.

[null1024]

If your machine is sub 3GHz, get the Saturn, all the way.
Otherwise, your call, but I'd still say get the Saturn. I mean, real hardware is awesome.

[GaijinPunch]

I actually did try it about a year ago... w/ the frame skip on, it worked okay (which is kind of bad). Can't remember my CPU. Anyone know if SSF supports the Arcade VGA card?

[Damocles]

A few years ago I used Cassini/Giri Giri to play Blast Wind, Radiant Silvergun, and Guardian...whatever...tank game. Blast Wind ran well, but had bullet ghosting. Tank game ran almost full speed with few problems. Go with the Saturn.

[Udderdude]

Apparently the newer versions of SSF need DirectX 9.0c specifically, and of course Vista and Windows 7 users will normally have DirectX 10. Either use SSF 0.10 or older or try installing the 9.0c runtimes.

I'm able to run 0.11 on 64-bit Vista with no problems, so I don't understand where you're getting this from.

[DC906270]

Saturn emulation using SSF is pretty much spot on nowadays when tweaked right. Much better than PSX emu, at least on my laptop.

[ZOM]

Saturn emulation using SSF is pretty much spot on nowadays when tweaked right. Much better than PSX emu, at least on my laptop.

Your laptop must be very special then; I have absolutely no problems running both, ePSXe and pSX on a HT Pentium4 but with SSF... no chance having a decent speed there - it's unplayable.
Which is a pain in the ass because my real Saturn has a very strange defect (I'm guessing something on the GPU is busted)

[Mortificator]

I think the problem, in your case, is that you have a single-core processor.

Apparently the newer versions of SSF need DirectX 9.0c specifically, and of course Vista and Windows 7 users will normally have DirectX 10. Either use SSF 0.10 or older or try installing the 9.0c runtimes.

I'm able to run 0.11 on 64-bit Vista with no problems, so I don't understand where you're getting this from.

Uh, from the page I linked to in my post.

All I can tell you is that with vanilla DirectX 10 installed on this machine, SSF 0.10 would run fine, while all the 0.11 alphas would crash with an XAudio error. I then installed the DirectX 9.0c runtimes that page provided and 0.11 started working perfectly. Maybe you already had them on your machine.

[The Coop]

Back when my first Saturn finally died after years of service, I tried SSF. The 2-D games usually ran without a hitch (an occasional stutter in the sound or something, but nothing worse than that), but the 3-D one chugged pretty badly.

Thank God I've since gotten another Saturn, as my old P4 3.0 Prescott doesn't like Thunder Force V and its polygonal brethren.

[ROBOTRON]

Definitely a Saturn!

[cj iwakura]

Can't beat the real thing.

[harlequ1n]

Nothing better than the real thing mate.

[The Coop]

I'm going to concur with the folks here. Get the real thing. Emulation's fun, but having the actual system to play the games on is a much better feeling.