I'm planning to put together an in-depth video tutorial on Saturn emulation in either January or February, but I'll try to give you the crash course here:
What you'll definitely need:
-
SSF (0.12 beta R4 or R3)
- BIOS files (search for "SS - BIOS V1.01.bin")
- A virtual drive that can mount CUE files (Virtual CloneDrive cannot do this)
What you may need:
-
Legacy DirectX files, specifically DirectX 9c.
-
NVIDIA Inspector (For AMD GPUs RadeonPro or RadeonMod maybe?)
Getting Started:
1. Unzip SSF into a folder somewhere on your hard drive.
2. Create a folder within this folder and label it "BIOS." Place whatever BIOS files you have within it.
3. Install your virtual drive. Do NOT mount any games yet.
4. If you're on a laptop, set SSF.exe and SSFa.exe to run using your GPU. Right click each program, mouse over "Run with graphics processor," and select "Change default graphics processor." Select your GPU. (Note: SSF doesn't take advantage of any sort of hardware acceleration, so it runs off integrated graphics just fine. But it can still offload some minor tasks on the GPU for a small performance gain.)
5. If you have a USB game controller that you'd like to use, ensure that it is plugged in and working BEFORE launching the emulator.
6. If your CPU supports AVX, launch SSFa.exe. If not, launch SSF.exe.
Configuration:
If you've followed my instructions to this point, you've now launched SSF without mounting a game. In this state, you can configure the emulator so it applies the same settings to every game when initially launched. If a game is loaded, you will only be configuring settings for that particular game. Now click "Options" from the dropdown menu and select "Options." You're now within the "Peripheral" tab.
Peripheral Tab:
Saturn BIOS - Click the browse button and select "SS - BIOS V1.01.bin."
CD Drive - Select your virtual drive.
Cartridge - Select "none." Change this later when playing titles that utilize the 1M and 4M RAM expansions.
Area Code - I like to have this set to "Japan" by default since most of the system's library never got a worldwide release. You will need to change this later if you use a disc image from a different region. (Note: Whenever possible, I recommend you avoid using PAL disc images. The emulator can handle them just fine, but if the game wasn't PAL optimized, it will run slower.)
Screen Tab:
Scanline - Personal preference. I don't like the look of fake scanlines, so I usually keep this disabled.
Auto Field Skip - Combines frame limiting and frame skip. Limiting keeps the emulator from running too fast. Frame skip causes the emulator to drop frames in order to improve performance on weaker PCs. If you have a good CPU, you want to DISABLE this.
Enforce Aspect Ratio (Window/Fullscreen) - Attempts to squash the screen into a 4:3 aspect ratio, only it's not successful at doing so most of the time. You'll want to leave these options DISABLED
most of the time. However, there are a few Sega-produced games that run at an internal resolution of 16:10 that EAR will correctly squish to a perfect 4:3. Sometimes 16:10 appears to be correct though, like in the case of Clockwork Knight and Clockwork Knight 2. You can tell because all objects in the game that are intended to be perfectly square or circular are indeed perfectly square or circular when running in 16:10. Other 16:10 games like Panzer Dragoon Zwei are intended to be squished. You can tell by enabling the 16:9 widescreen mode, and then comparing it to how the games looks when squished to 4:3. I could show this off with screenshots, but I don't feel like doing so right now, heh.
Wide Screen (16:9) - The vast majority of the time, you're going to want to keep it DISABLED. There are only a handful of games which have a proper widescreen mode option.
VSynch Wait (Window/Fullscreen) - Here's where things get tricky... Vsync matches the emulator's refresh rate to your monitor's. There are some positive and negative aspects to this. On the positive side, this prevents screen tearing and basically acts a frame limiter if you're not using Auto Field Skip. On the negative side, it introduces VERY noticeable input lag. Personally, I find input lag to be worse than screen tearing, so I prefer to leave this option DISABLED. Unfortunately, if you chose to disable Auto Field Skip like I recommended, this will cause the emulator to run at hyper speed. The emulator does have an option called "Scanline Base Timing," which is intended to limit game speed, closely mimicking how an actual Saturn would perform, but I've found this doesn't work correctly for a lot of games and results in a stuttering mess. Fortunately, if you have an NVIDIA GPU, you can use NVIDIA Inspector's frame rate limiter to cap the emulator's frame rate at 60fps, thereby solving the problem.
Fixed Window & Fullscreen Resolution - These options lock the emulator into one single resolution. Many Saturn games switch resolutions (usually between menus and the game proper). Enabling this feature will cause either squashing or stretching when resolution changes occurs. Best to keep it DISABLED.
Bilinear Filtering - The only other filter you get in this emulator aside from scanlines, bilinear filtering applies a soft blur over your games in an attempt to make them look closer to how they would on a CRT. It's up to you whether you enable or disable this feature. Personally, I like nice sharp pixels, so I leave it disabled.
Stretch Screen & Full Screen - Together, these option increase the horizontal and vertical dimensions of games to ensure they fill the entire top and bottom of the screen. This does not alter the aspect ratio, so I'd recommend that you ENABLE both of them.
Full Screen Display - Choose your GPU.
Sound Tab:
"Linear Filtering" and "Double Precision" enabled.
Controller Tab:
Under "Port 1" "Player 1 A," select the type of Saturn controller you'd like to mimic. Most of the options should be self explanatory except for perhaps "Control Pad," which is your standard digital-only Saturn controller, and "Multi Controller," which is the Japanese name for the 3D analog pad. Click the "Redefine" button to map your buttons. When you get to turbo inputs, just keep pressing escape. You can define turbo input later for individual games.
Controller (Rapid) Tab:
This is where you enable/disable turbo functions and adjust their timing. Since we're just doing baseline configuration right now, leave this alone.
EZ Setting Tab:
This tab automatically configures settings for the four "Program" tabs. Under "Full Compatibility (Very Slow)," click the "Set" button. (Note: Some games like Daytona USA: Circuit Edition and Spiritual Assassin Taromaru run better when this tab is set to "Highest Compatibility" instead. I think it has to do w/ whether SH2 Cache is enabled or not. "Highest" disables SH2 Cache.)
Program 1 Tab:
Thanks to "EZ Settings," most of the options in the "Program" tabs should now be automatically configured. You'll want to leave most of these options as they are, but you can still enable a few more.
Flip Thread / VDP1 Draw Thread / CD Block Thread / DSP Thread - Designed to take advantage of multithreading in many modern CPUs. You can try enabling them, but I've never noticed any appreciable gains. (Note: In the past, enabling VDP1 Draw Thread was NOT recommended. I don't know if this has changed, so I would still advise against it.)
Scanline Base Timing - I explained what this is
supposed to do in the section about Vsync. Give it a shot if you like, but if you notice frames being dropped, keep it DISABLED.
Program 2 Tab:
Leave it as is.
Program 3 Tab:
Check Sprite Priority - Pretty sure this options verifies whether sprites are appearing on the correct layer. ENABLE it.
VDP2 RAM Write Timing - Some sources say that enabling this option can help reduce input lag, but I've never noticed a difference. Then again, I'm not as sensitive to input lag as some people are.
Program 4:
Mesh Translucent - Pixel dithering becomes a true transparency. Wonderful feature! ENABLE it.
Deinterlace (Very Slow) - Eliminates terrible-looking interlacing issues. ENABLE.
Loading Games:
1. Press the "OK" button to exit options.
2. Not necessary, but press Alt+Enter to go toggle into fullscreen mode. Next time you launch the emulator, it will start in fullscreen.
3. Press "Esc" to close the emulator.
4. Mount your disc image. Make sure you're mounting the file with the SMALLER file size (ie: CUE, MDS, CCD, etc).
5. Launch SSF.
6. If you have to adjust the region or enter in custom settings for the controller, enter the "Options" menu and do so. You must restart the emulator after making any settings changes. The changes you made will be linked to this game and this game only.
Helpful Shortcuts:
Alt+Enter - Toggles window/fullscreen
Esc - Exits the emulator
F1 - Opens virtual CD drive door
F2 - Cloes virtual CD drive door
F4 - Hard reset
F6 - Toggles sound on/off
F7 - Load state
Shift+F7 - Save state
F8 - Screenshot
This was all thrown together in about an hour, so forgive me if there are any omissions. I do think I hit upon all the major stuff though.
