We all know that the Dreamcast has an official Mega Drive Emulator (by NEC) and a PC Engine Emulator (also by NEC) and that the Mega Drive one was hacked then released but it has sound problems, but what about the perfect Saturn emulators? The Saturn is home to a 100% perfect Mega Drive and Master System emulator that nobody has ever touched. To my knowledge only Technosoft and Sega have used it. Technosoft used it as part of their Thunder Force Gold packs. While the first gold pack had audio problems (music was streamed from CD and sound effects didn't seem right) the second gold pack was perfect or at least 99% perfect. Sega have also used their Mega Drive emulator in for games such as Phantasy Star Collection, Mickey & Donald Sega Ages set and Sonic Jam. What I would like to know is, is it possible for these emulators to be hacked and released as a separate disc along with normal roms much in the same way as to what happened with the Dreamcast Mega Drive emulator? I can't believe that this has never been attempted before. Yakumo
I wasn't aware that Sonic Jam was emulated. I know several people in the Sonic scene have looked at it, and they seemed to feel that the games had been ported. Of course, I haven't looked at it personally, so I don't know. Are the ROMs actually included on the disc? Edit: Actually, as I'm digging through my discs, I find that I've got a copy of Sonic Jam that someone ripped with Nero. I'm not expecting it to function on an actual Saturn, but I'm going to search through it to see if I find any MD ROM headers.
I know for sure that Phantasy Star Collection at least emulates PS1. Regarding the extracting and hacking of the emulator(s), sure it's possible... but not by anyone here
The problem with getting the emu to work is the fact that it loads parts of a rom into ram, such as the way sega classics works with sega/mega cd. Belive me many attemps have been made to get the emu extracted and working but it doesnt seem to work due to the way it operates.
well it was, but it baisicly it would load so much of the rom into the sega cd and load again for other parts, what i ment is that the sega saturn emu uses rom images that are split and programed with teh emu which reads parts of the roms to put into the saturn memory, though im curious if the disney collection based on quckshot and one of the mickey games has been hacked to see if the emu is slighty different in anyway.
If Sonic Jam is emulation, thats some of the best ive seen :rock out: Remember each sonic game has alternate remix versions with a few extra platforms & enemies etc, were they hacked roms or reprogrammed ground up?
I looked through the disc, I didn't see any ROM headers or anything else that would lead me to believe that it's emulated. If it is emulated, then they've broken apart the binaries, and pre-generated a bunch of the music in Sonic 2 (in the SONIC12 folder, there are a bunch of AIFs that are split up in such a way as to allow them to cleanly loop). Seems to me that if it was an emulation you'd more or less just have the straight ROMs (whether encrypted or what, they'd still be around the usual file size). I stand in my belief that the Sonic Jam versions of the games are ported, not emulated. Based on my cursory examination last night, and the collective experience of the people in the Sonic scene who have looked at it. But, I'd be happy to be proved wrong =P
Sonic Jam doesn't appear to be emulated at all, otherwise the games would be better... Sonic Jam has "off" physics and sound as wella s a funky resolution.
Jessica: "Many have tried replacing the ROM image on Phantasy Star Collection" Paul: "They tried and failed?" Jessica: "They tried... and died." Guess the book and win a fart in your general direction! (but seriously, it has been tried but crashes the program)
From this thread: So, at least in the case of Sonic Jam, there is no emulation involved (except I believe the code uses emulated m68k registers, but the actual machine language used is SH-2). To get any other ROM to work, you'd pretty much have to port it yourself, which requires a thorough and well-commented disassembly to have any chance at all of doing it. I don't know about the other Saturn games you mentioned, however.
We're well aware that you consider yourself to be superior to the average mortal in these sorts of things, Kyuusaku, but that's not really the sort of post that contributes anything even remotely useful to the topic at hand.
sonic jam is definetly ported, many have found this out and stated it, as well its pretty obvious its ported looking at the graphics and listening to some alterted sounds.
I am the Kwizatch Haderach Well since no one else seems to want Anti's fart I'll happily answer and proclaim my DUNE geekdom. ~Krelian
Wasn't there an official Sega Saturn emulator for pc as well? Has this emulator ever been used/hacked? ps: I'd like Naka to leak out his primitive NES emulator for MegaDrive.
Sonic Jam is the deffinative imo. Tho tbh i cant tell any difference, if i play Sonic 2, its on Sonic Jam.
Hmm, ok looks as if Sonic Jam is ported but what about Phantasy Star Collection? The Mark III / Master System Phantasy Star game on that MUST be emulated. It even runs in a box to keep ther original resolution. So if That's emulated then why not the Mega Drive games as well? Then we have Technosfot's Thunder Force Gold Packs. Now I thought that these will be emulated but after playing Thunder Force 4 I noticed that the Saturn version has no slowdown unlike the Mega Drive. There are a few odd sounding sound effects however which lead me to think emulation. Does anyone willing to take a look at Thunder Force 4 have this game? I have the original so if its of any use I could post a screen shot of the files in the dir. Yakumo
