Saturn Optical Drive Emulator

I doubt it, to be honest. There were two separate pieces of information needed to be able to boot CDs on the Dreamcast -the first was how to scramble the boot code to reverse the scatter-loading the boot ROM does - this could have been done either by disassembling the tools in the SDK or by disassembling the boot ROM in the console. Either is about the same amount of work.

The second part was working out how to reactivate the GD-ROM drive after control was transferred to the loaded binary - and that was not documented in any publicly available source, and could only have been deduced from examining the behavior of the boot ROM. So the people developing this would have to have pulled apart the boot ROM anyway - and anyone that was good enough at analyzing code to figure out that the ROM integrity test was what was unlocking the drive would have no problem figuring out the scatter loading.

Of course, I don't know - maybe they did use the code in the SDK to save some time - but I don't believe they needed it - because they managed to solve a more complicated problem without any hints at all.

 

Head spinning

Where was it even remotely stated by jhl that he was working on a Saturn Plug and Play?

 

AFAIK, nowhere. But if it's written on internet, that must be true

 

That confusion comes from the fact that utopia did have access to SDKs, and their spinning deer is basically the teapot demo.

But the first persons that did Selfboots (homebrew), Skywalker from Hitmen and Randy Linden, didn't have SDKs.

 

Were there any variations of the deer? I've always wondered. Something more SEGA related would've been cool.

 

I think supporting USB period would be the best. People could use a HDD, thumb drive, etc.

I personally think a HDD would be pointless with so much cheap flash USB media around but I don't see why it wouldn't support it the same as a thumb drive.

 

Well it's news to me that Sega are in talks with me, guess I should check my email more often or something.

Nothing to report - life is hammering me flat at the moment - but I'll have time to do the final PCB pretty soon

 

That's good. Gonna be sweet to have that mod available. The mod that's as easy to install as inserting a game cartridge in a game slot.

 

Maybe they're just fans or your work and follow it eagerly.

 

The suggestion I gave don't remove the use of USB external HDDs. Contrariwise... It adds more storage options, and turns the board friendly to customizations.

In my case, I would love to replace the Optical Drive to put an internal HDD closed inside the Sega Saturn (or even have an internal HDD and an USB port at the same time). With this, I can have only the Sega Saturn with all the library inside this very same system, and with no need to keep an external device connected all the time.

Well... I just gave this suggestion because I don't knew if the Satisfier have the hability to change internal routines or not.

If the device can't do this, it could be better if the Satisfier could have an option to backup/restore save data from the internal memory and backup cartridge to the storage device. A custom memory manager to do it could be added at the Satisfier's loader. I call it "Plan B".

Sad thing...

By the way, there's some new about THIS PROJECT OF YOURS?

 

This "Plan B" should be feasible.
But for games using large save data (typically RPGs), memory cartridge is recommended if you want to store several saves at once.

Hehe, yes
I released Saturn's Gamer's Cartridge (pictures here) last June, in the same time as Pseudo Saturn Kai.
It doesn't plays games from SD card/USB/whatever, but does in-game save support to SD card (by intercepting save routines, as you described in your post), which is great help for people who want to play RPGs, racing games (to store ghost data), or want to dump and share save data with emulator and/or friends.

(Please check my homepage, or PM me if you want to order a cart)

 

In fact, I was talking about the SD card socket connected to the Saturn's second pad connector, which is perfect to backup data from my official Backup cartridge...

But I'm very interested in your Gamer's Cartridge. But I must wait a little before to get it because of my actual "investment conditions"...

 

I'm surprised to find somebody remembering (and interested !) in this old project (for thoses who don't know what it was about, it looked like this and allowed to dump cartridges to SD card via second pad)

I didn't continued this project, because it "only" allows to dump save data, and requires to sacrifice a Saturn pad.
Instead, I plan to add cartridge dump feature on Gamer's Cartridge : this is possible by dumping cartridge data little by little to internal memory, then to Gamer's Cartridge's SD card.
This requires to reboot Saturn, swap memory cartridge and Gamer's Cartridge several times (less than memory cartridge capacity / 32KB times), and to perform swap trick when booting with memory cartridge inserted, but after that, saves would be usable on Gamer's Cartridge.

What do you think about that solution ? Any suggestion welcome


When using a Satisfier, it would be possible to dump memory cartridge more easily (no need to swap cartridge or to do swap trick), but since Satisfier won't be able to intercept save library routines, a memory cartridge (official or Gamer's) will be needed for the games requiring one.

OK

 

The "Only" between quotation marks means there's a possibility to overcome this limitation with a deeper analysis? Don't give me hopes...

The best option to overcome the problem of copying huge save data from a cartridge to another without to resort the Floppy Disk Drive (yes... THERE'S SOME PEOPLE who got the FDD for this end), like the replay data of Sega Rally or Fantasy Zone (did you saw how huge is the replay data file of Fantasy Zone? It freezes the game for a good amount of time just to create the file) is to get some way to create a multi-volume compressed file. For example, if a save file takes 630 blocks, it can be splitted into a set of 7 files, where each file can take a max of 100 blocks for each file. This is not an original idea, once the ROCKIN'-B'S SAVE GAME MANAGER have this feature.

I think it is the same thoughts of yours, but with different words...

The only problem is about using it with a non-modded Saturn, who need to do a Swap Trick to use the software with an official cartridge. Some users can't be confortable to change cartridges while the console is turned on. In that case, the option to use the Satisfier to do it is the better choice for non-modded Saturn users.

When I gave the suggestions about the Satisfier intercept the save library routines, it was an "if" suggestion, once I did knew if it as possible or not. By the way, the Gamer's Cartridge have the ability to intercept the routines of the Ext. Port and emulate the presence of the Floppy Disk Drive?

Back to the topic... I can have a lot of brainstorms to create suggestions about what features could be included at the Satisfier and the compatible loaders... I hope the final board can offer the option to customize the storage options as I suggested at the previows page. I would love to have a laptop HDD permanently installed inside my Saturn to store permanent data, together with a removable storage option to add new games and export/import saves.

By the way, there's some info about the Satisfier's data transfer?

 

I just stumbled across this video on You tube, if and when this becomes available i will buy it 100%.
You alone have saved the fate of everybody's Sega Saturn's. Thank you for getting this far!.

 

Sorry, no hopes
Cartridge allows to boot from custom code, while second pad project doesn't allows it, second pad project may bring incompatibilities with some games, and also will be obsolete when Satisfier will be released.
And what's more important : it requires the cable from a Saturn pad, which is bad because I like preservation of vintage console artifacts

Wow, I didn't know people are buying FDD (usually 200 bucks on ebay/etc !) just for that oO
Yes, my solution uses a "multi-volume compressed file", and that's an honor to have my programs compared with Rockin'B's

Unfortunately yes.
It would be relatively simple to use if the console is modchipped, but in the other cases, it's tedious (when used with plain Saturn + swap trick), or useless (when used with Satisfier).

Virtual Memory Cart hack intercepts everything addressed to backup library, including FDD stuff.
FDD is currently not supported in Gamer's cartridge : that's not difficult to add, but that's not really useful because Virtual Memory Cartridge capacity (= SD card capacity) is usually larger than FDD's.

What do you mean by "info" ? If you want source code in order to access Satisfier's data, everything is detailed on jhl's github page (especially in satisfier.c/h files).

 

So sad. I was waiting if this project could overcome the limitation of "it "only" allows to dump save data" to "it can backup/restore save data". But, as you said, it "will be obsolete when Satisfier will be released".

And about sacrifice a Saturn pad... I have a lot of extra generic 3rd party Saturn pads as good as a s**t. So, no problem for me to sacrifice them!!

Please, don't make it sounds like you are undervalue yourself!! Your work is so good as the Rockin'B's, or any other passionate Sega Saturn developer who show they works to the public and make it available to them... Keep going!!

Let's leave it as it is now, and let's just wait the Satisfier be released first!!

For now, I'm just interested to know the data transfer rate to compare with the optical drive data transfer. I'm just interested if the Satisfier will offer faster load data than the optical drive, like COMPARING THE GDEMU WITH THE GD-ROM... With this, I can have hopes if I can play Sonic 3D Blast without that long loading times, or if I can play CRIME WAVE without that constant in-game hiccups because of the in-game loadings. I think we will know when the Satisfier be released.

In other words, that's mean I can't "unlock" the Floppy Disk icon in PANZER DRAGOON SAGA using the Gamer's Cartridge for now...





QUESTION TIME #1: The Gamer's Cartridge have extra RAM (1Mb and 4Mb) to make compatible games works with this very same cartridge, with no need to change cartridges just to run compatible games?

QUESTION TIME #2: The Gamer's Cartridge have the hability to load ROM data to their memory, and make possible to play games who asks ROMs cartridges, like The King of Fighters' 95 and Ultraman: Hikari No Kyojin Densetsu?

BRAINSTORM TIME: It's possible to the Gamer's Cartridge works combined with the Satisfier's loader and intercept the save routines to create an individual internal (and external) save file for each loaded game to store at the Gamer's Cartridge's SD card? Example: Load Sonic Jam from Satisfier's loader, and Gamer's Cartridge check the choice, and swap the destination of the internal (or/and external) memory of this particular game to the SD card.

 

Ah, of course it would be possible to backup/restore save data, that's just a matter of writing appropriate software for this
My memory cartridges were half dumped (yes, I'm stupid ), so I still need to make a thing in order re-dump them, but I won't hide you that I'm no longer very interested in using second pad for SD card stuff.

Thank you

(I'm not involved in Satisfier development, so I may be wrong, but) Satisfier will as fast or faster than Rhea/Phoebe:
- Rhea/Phoebe is fast because CD seeks are done instantly, and this will be the same for Satisfier
- Satisfier can load data faster than real CDROM, while Rhea/Phoebe can't do this. This is because Rhea/Phoebe emulates CD-ROM, hence suffers from transfer speed limitations inherent to CD-ROM, while Satisfier emulates CD block (basically, CD-ROM + SH-1), whose interface with SH-2 doesn't have such speed limitation.

Okay, I will add a cartridge/floppy selection in Pseudo Saturn Kai's settings. Allowing both cartridge and floppy in the same time is a bit hard to add, and doesn't brings anything special (because several game prompt where to save on startup), so enabling both at once won't be supported.
But, games incomptible with CWX loader (such as Panzer Dragoon Saga) are currently not supported by Virtual Memory Cartridge, so this won't display the floppy icon :/

No : Extra RAM makes board significantly more complex to design/assemble/debug/etc, so I focused Gamer's Cartridge on Backup Memory Cartridge features, hence didn't added the extra RAM.

No, for the same reason as question #1.

> intercept the save routines to create an individual internal (and external) save file for each loaded game to store at the Gamer's Cartridge's SD card?

I'm not sure if I understood well, but Virtual Memory Cartridge saves (stored in SD card) are saved separately (one save = one file), and a text file with game informations is created for each save files too.

Working together with Satisfier shouldn't be a problem, since Satisfier's API is/will be open source

 

So what is a satisfier anyway? Some kinda sex toy?

 

An open source sex toy