Fact or Fiction and the Sega Saturn
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- Опубликовано: 5 окт 2024
- The first of a potentially huge series of videos about what's going on with the Sega Saturn hardware, games, and peripherals.
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Episode Notes:
1. I used a mix of SSF and Mednafen for most of the games here. This is the first video I have ever used emulation of the Sega Saturn. I did this exclusively for the content involved.
2. Music:
Opening Commentary - Magic Knight Rayearth - Tower
Transparencies - Astal Into Darkness - Akira's Theme
RAM Cartridges - Shining Force III Main Theme
Video CD Card - Gungriffon Track 3
Model 1 vs Model 2 - Panzer Dragoon - Flight
Saturn Emulation - Dragon Force - Relaxation
FRAM Mods - Sega Rally
Retro-bit Controllers - Virtua Cop - Arms Black Market
ST-V Titan - Shienryu - Stage 5
End Commentary - Sega Rally Track 1
3. I wish I had a way to capture screen grabs from the Saturn that haven't been upscaled. Running my systems through the Framemeister pretty much destroys the small differences I talk about here. Well, except the jail bars in most instances.
4. I own an original Sega ST-V Titan Arcade board with 8 games and 2 multi carts. It's such a great piece of arcade history.
5. I actually use my "Model 2" Saturn mentioned in this video for capturing because the jail bars are much less pronounced than my launch Japanese Sega Saturn using RGB.
6. Professor Abrasive's Patreon for the Satiator:
/ prof_abrasive
7. Mednafen has a front end called MedSat that makes using it much easier for Saturn games.
8. Be weary about purchasing Video CD Cards. Some of them appear to be region locked.
9. I learned something in the making of this video. Seems that VDP1 had multiple function of transparencies, and actually did the shield I showed in Sonic R, not VDP2. I had always assumed it was a 2D overlay aided by VDP2. I double checked this in emulation by disabling VDP2 entirely, and the effect stayed. Definitely a product of VDP1.
Check the description for some interesting notes about the episode.
What’s the name of the track used at the start of the vid whilst you were talking?
I typically put music info in the description. Check it out for more info.
oh-
Subscribed today to your channel. I'm a Sega Fan for sure.
What was last game that come out for Saturn?
Sega should recognize this guy as a living Sega museum. He should get at least a shirt or something.
"I created a Sega museum and RUclips channel, and all I got was this lousy T-shirt"
SEGA is a near useless company. Anyone dedicating their time to covering anything dealing with this FAILURE company, deserves.. NOTHING😂🤣😆
@@NB-1 I'm very familiar with SEGA's former status and their rank and file. Anything relevant and noteworthy they ever accomplished, was a lifetime ago. I have no respect for them as a developer. They're useless and utterly incompetent. The Yakuza games are their only saving grace, otherwise they'd burn in the hell of mediocrity😂🤣😆
@@shinbakihanma2749 Shut the fuck up nerd, Nagoshi is still the best developer working today, sonic mania just came out in 2017, fuck off with the cringe and extreme hyperbole post. Coming in to shit on Sega Lord X just cause he likes Sega is some of the cringiest fuck boy shit ive ever seen
@@ImmaDoWhatIWant when did he ever shat on Sega Lord X? He was just saying that without Yakuza sega would be nothing.
Love this channel, I’m 41 now and lived the Saturn and Dreamcast days in my teens/early 20’s. Great times.
I was a Genesis-Saturn-Dreamcast kid. I was just a little guy though, born in 1990.
"I straight up told they were full of shit and moved on." BEST LINE EVER.
6:51 This footage of X-Men vs. Street Fighter is amazing! I had no idea the Saturn could do stuff like this. Technically this is the Saturn along with the 4 MB RAM expansion cart. Still, it's the Saturn hardware actually drawing these huge and detailed characters, and these effects that require redrawing the entire screen very quickly. Just seeing this footage, you'd guess it was a Dreamcast or PS2 port of the arcade game. It's amazing to think this is running on hardware released in late 1994 (for the original Saturn release).
Glad I found this channel. As a die hard Sega Saturn fan I can say loud and clear... SEGA4LIFE
The Saturn is a POWERHOUSE
Indeed!!! Saturn could even be considered 64bits.
N64 says hi
i’m somewhat of a big fan of the Saturn as well.
*Had this happen on a stream of mine once when playing Sega Saturn games* "The Saturn can't do transparencies!"
*Pop in Mega Man X4 first level, run 10 steps forward into the tunnel* So, what do you call this then?
"Uh......"
Ken Williams X4 is so much more fun on Saturn
Exactly, Saturn was an awesome system that could totally do transparencies with the best of them.
The Saturn was a beast, only the developers where lazy. I love my Sega saturn collection. My favorite Sega console ever.
@@PhilBaxter that's what these narrow minded fanboys don't want to understand. You out it 100% why ps1 was lead platform...
@@PhilBaxter Or if Sega had at least produced good dev tools for the Saturn at the start. It might have mitigated the issue
Nah Sega shit the bed 94-95 and undone all there good work with the Mega Drive. Isn't there own fault. Love my Saturn but it wasn't the Devs fault it was bad business decisions between SOJ and SOA
@@dtester the tools were vastly improved by 1996ish. Saturn had a great 1996, then Bernie Stolar murdered it the next year.
@@Thor-Orion So true! Still it would have been nice if they were able to get good tools out by day one. Some devs had the chops and some didn't and really needed that.
I love the Japanese grey Saturn,please Sega make a mini Saturn!
Please Analogue, make a Saturn FPGA
@Gene Bone fan translations as a basis. Pretty sure they wouldn't mind c;
I love my white Saturn with large, circular buttons.
Since im a younger retrogamer, ive had a hard time getting hardware so the strides being made in sega emulation are impressive and helpful. Great footage here also
I want to reiterate a request/suggestion that someone posted on your last video, asking for the name of the games to be on screen when you're showing them. However I'm grateful in this case as in trying to find out about the last game I've discovered the Power Instinct series, which seems to have miraculously passed me by, but is definitely something I'm gonna check out!
Cheers again Sega dude!
*it wasn't your last video, it was one from July last year!
The request still stands though, cheers 🥂
Oh, I also forgot to mention that this was a good vid bud, very interesting and informative. More videos like this would be cool if you have the right subjects to do them on, I'm sure you could probably do a similar thing for all the Sega hardware (and probably some software), as there are generally loads of ignorant comments about most subjects, even if they haven't been left on your vids or directed at you.
Cheers again again!
I try to most of the time. This video was actually problematic. I kept getting errors on the final cut in audio and graphics overlays. I didn't know where the issue was so I edited it down until it would render out correctly. I just went with what I had at that point.
@@SegaLordX, I probably only notice when there's a game that I really like the look of but have no idea what it is - this time it was Groove on Fight! Man I'm going to have to try those series of games out.
Cheers again again again!
@@SegaLordX, oh yeah, aren't video editing programs a pain in the arse when they, seemingly randomly, start playing up on things that usually work as expected!
Not only is SLX's voice and presentation getting better every video... he keeps putting distance between himself and the other YT "stars" with his intense knowledge, production values, notes, carefully edited and thought out segments, informative details on hardware, honest opinions, and willingness to take the gloves off when it's needed. I love several other retro gamers videos, but none compare to SLX to be honest; even the best of the others are, to be kind, pretty toothless, and higher on churning out a million videos per hour versus actually putting in the work like SLX. You rock, man!!!
He puts effort into his videos and still makes a lot of them.
this is very informative and fun. thank My Sega Lord.I also want Fact or Fiction and the Dreamcast.
I was skeptical on getting myself a Sega Saturn due to its failure in 94. But man i was so wrong. I felt in love with it, the games, hardware, everything
People in the 90s were blindfolded!
Yup, it's a fantastic system. Younreally need to get into Japanese imports though to get the most out of it.
@@alritedave I burned a lot. I use Pseudo Saturn Kai
@@Ziimbiian I buy originals. I like having the real thing! :P
I may be the only person on the planet who gets nostalgic about GunGriffon. I haven't heard that music in years.
I went on an import craze during the Saturn days. So I got to experience the 2nd and 3rd parts of Shining Force 3. X-men vs Street Fighter. All the Capcom collections. Several RPG's. The MPEG adapter. The 4mb ram cartridge.
Sega Lord X you did another great video on your favorite Sega system covering everything except...the Saturn Netlink. This gets overlooked alot and was a great asset to video gaming. I had it when I owned the Saturn and this is what introduced me to the Internet as at that time I had no clue what the Internet was. Only a hand few of games supported it but I had great time playing others online and thought that Sega should of given the Netlink feature a serious push in their marketing department. I you have the Netlink or have experience with it in the past please do a video on it.
The presentation of this video reminds me of the technicalities explained by Next Generation magazine. Surprisingly, it heavily favored Saturn over other magazines.
So did its sister magazine, Game Players! Those were great mags.
@@Sega_Dreams They were both geared toward hardcore gamers. Hardcore gamers tended to prefer the Saturn. Sad that the general public didn't.
Next Generation magazine was great. It was sort of the moment I realized I'm more interested in following the twists and turns of the gaming industry, the business and technology side, the personalities involved... than I am necessarily interested in actually playing the games. Although don't get me wrong games are p dope too!
I think what might be perceived as a pro-Saturn bias on the part of Next Generation, is partly just a reflection of the Saturn's improved stature in Japan relative to the US. Next Generation probably puts a lot more weight on big releases on the Saturn than does the average gamer in 1996 in America. Friends and I were mostly paying attention to games on the PSX. In a detail largely lost to history, the PlayStation was called the PSX in the mid to late 90's. Nobody called it the PS1 until after the PS2 was released. Geez, listen to me... "Back in my day..."
Great breakdown. Saturn emulation is great now. Ive been playing most of these games on emulation now. I played through around 60 more saturn games since I got the newer emulation focused PC in 2017. Prior to that , on my old machine, saturn wasnt even available. I only owned a few games when I got the system in the USA, long ago. It was basically dead by that point and I got it used. These videos are great as I still have alot to explore on the console.
TheConsole Killer Mednafen (Beetle Saturn) core is getting better and better. Compatibility is already at 9x%, and it's getting close to what Genesis Plus GX is for Genesis - the point of emulation being *better* than original hardware in everything.
@@shadowflash705 Nice. I mostly use Retroarch to emulate saturn now but I have a few other emulators on the machine just in case one doesnt work with certain games. That rarely occurs on saturn though, if ever. I like retroarch since its fast to configure controllers and save and load states. Its great to see emulation evolve though. That was the reason I ended up selling all my old consoles and switching over to emulation.
@@NB-1 Definately reccomend checking it out. I recently beat God Hand on Hard with no issues on PSXE emulator. Thats a real precise game, so I dont think youll have any issues if youre using the right emulator and settings. Between PS2 and Saturn Ive probably played through over 100 games since I got them emulated in 2017. I havent updated some of the emulators so they may be even further improved, but have not had issues with games that were compatible. Occasionally a game doesnt run on the PS2 emulator but its rare. Everything seems to work on the Saturn emulator Im using, Retroarch, but I do switch emulators anytime I have compatibility issues.
@@NB-1 No problem. I know how that can be. I go through alot of extreme modes and games and Ive done some lag tests by feel. When I upgraded from a plasma to an OLED tv I noticed a big difference on the OLED in terms of imperceptible latency. Only in game mode though. I tested this by beating Mike Tyson's Punchout legit for the first time on the TV and emulator. When switching off game mode accidentally one time, I got demolished. Metal Storm on expert mode is brutally precise and I tested that as well as games like Gun.Smoke for the arcade on MAME. Certain old games and shooters are great input lag tests. You may be more sensitive to it if you focus more on old twitch shooters though, so you may want to tweak some settings, as you said.
0:14 I thought you were wearing a King Tut headdress! 😂 Seriously, love the channel, brother! ❤️
Yeah, I can see it. The chair does look like that.
Hee hee, I thought at first it was a pirate hat...
Is that a green screen effect?
I've been working on creating an incredibly in depth gaming channel that includes hard to get interviews, gameplay footage, commentary, history, etc... all in an interesting and fun format but every time I watch your videos I just think, "Damn... how can I top this? This guy has literally done the things I want to do but to a level I'm not sure I can beat". Anyway, just commenting to say that I'm a long time listener/first time caller and I think your work is outstanding and inspirational. I really admire your passion and hope to someday match your talent and passion in this area.
fascinating console. I finished the space under my TV set..but I am thinking of getting a Saturn to keep company to the Dreamcast, its such a gorgeous machine.
Cheers from Brazil man! dude i came across your channel ´cos some days ago i finally bought my first SS, (that´s only because the console here costs a freaking lot of money), and i got to know a lot of good stuff about the system thanks to you.
TBH i i never ever played on a Saturn, even though i saw the machine release on a magazine in early 95, the Saturn was oficially released here the same year but the PSX and n64 dominated the market and i did the choice for the sony console.
i´m very anxious about the coming of my machine, i´m a little worried cos our mail sucks and the waiting is killing me but what is to wait some days more when you already waited for nearly 25 years? the Saturn was always a wish of mine and i´m certain it won´t disappoint me!
I missed out on so much gaming stuff in the 90s. I probably played or owned less than 10 Genesis games, got a Saturn when the system was pretty much dead, and only played, maybe, six N64 games.
Great Video! I bought a Sega Satunr back in the day for Xmen vs street Fighter and Marvel Super Heroes vs Street Fighter. I still have the 4 meg ram cartridge and play the heck out of both of them. My Saturn controllers are starting to wear, so thanks for the segment on the controllers.
Another awesome video! Keep it up. I would be interested in a full episode about emulation.
Me too, especially with Saturn stuff becoming more and more expensive, and a Saturn Mini being but a distant dream.
Thanks for the clarification on transparencies! I knew the Saturn could do it, but was unaware of the VDP1 vs. VDP2 differences in that regard. Also, I was unaware of the FRAM mods/upgrades. I'll have to look into that. I'm definitely looking forward to Professor Abrasive's VCD slot solution.
I would stick with the Action Replay Plus cartridge for the Sega Saturn.
The Sega Saturn is perhaps my favorite underdog console with a lot of hidden gems as well as dream from fighting and racing games.
My Macbook Pro from mid-2009 has OpenEmu runs most Saturn games like a champ. I can only imagine what it'll be like once I get a new laptop and/or tower.
vidlink ur playing on a mac?
Good luck getting full speed on that system
The best way to save your games is the floppy disk, high capacity and never lose your saves, but it is pretty expensive nowadays.
The next solution is pseudo saturn, a cartridge that saves into a sd card and even directly during the game, the bad thing is the loading time for saving or loading the backup ( sometimes more than 30 seconds)
You have a soothing voice, like aloe vera being applied onto skin on a hot day. Some RUclips presenters voices can be whiney or nasaly or just plain right anno3, but your presentation is always top notch man, great work
James Roa
When I first started watching his videos (ones where he just did voice over) I thought whoever ran the channel had hired him just to narrate.
Wtf. Aloe vera on skin on a hot day... Just wtf.
Most RUclips gaming channels are too obnoxious and act like their target audience is 8 year olds with ADHD and a cocaine and sugar addiction.
Excellent and very informative episode. Keep up the good work, mate!
crazy how the dreamcast emulation was out years before the saturn
The Dreamcast sh4 specs were released as open source so it's emulation didn't need almost reverse engineering, just sticking to the open standard, and the Power VR chip was stock, not customised, so their ABI were known and could be emulated just as easy. Not without caveats, as with any emulation but good enough.
Saturn hardware on the other hand was closed, and required every bit of reverse engineering, even 16 bit console emulation isn't perfect currently, yet, there we are
Best video of this kind that I have seen. I was tired of hearing all of the misinformation, while knowing better.
Keep it up!!
Worth noting that the complex Saturn hardware had to do with its development. The first design of the Saturn in development had only one SH-1 cpu and one VDP. When the big Sega boss got wind of the specs of the Sony PlayStation (and it's focus on 3D gaming), he was furious at his Sega design team. The team was given less than a year to beef up the horsepower of the system for primarily 3D games. This meant they demoted the SH-1 processor to just a CD-ROM controller chip. They bolted on two SH-2 processors, but they weren't able to access the memory/bus at the same time. They also added in VDP2 (background graphics) and some more RAM for it. It was thought that the two SH-2 chips would be powerful enough for calculating coordinates in 3 dimensions. It was hard to impliment because programmers had to really use the 2kb of CPU cache effectively. The originally designed Saturn was a 2D powerhouse for sure... probably twice as much (or more) than Neo-Geo for 2D workloads. But Sega got blindsided by Sony's emphasis on 3D games. They realized they designed an awesome console for the 2D gaming era, but had to upgrade it hastily for better 3D. Also, because of the rushed nature of the early/surprise console launch, the software/drivers/libraries were under-baked... making for a ho-hum launch. IMHO, if the Saturn could play all MegaDrive/Genesis games (SegaCD would have been nice too), and was $299 (like Sony PS), and packaged in Panzer Dragoon, Sega would have done a LOT better against Sony. Also, bringing over many awesome Japanese Saturn titles would have helped too. Finally, not having an AWESOME 3D Sonic game hurt them too... not to mention the mistrust they earn with the whole 32X crap. Ok, I'm done.
Gene Bone maybe so, but in terms of the video game market (business wise) Sony stomped on Sega with the PS, and effectively ended the life of the Dreamcast with the PS2. I like Sega better, but that’s the hard reality of what happened in the marketplace at that time. I love Saturn and Dreamcast both BTW.
What a cool concept for a video! Very fun to watch and definitely addresses things I've been long wondering about.
Since you mention it, that's a great future video topic: the Titan library and it's Saturn counterparts; comparison & gameplay!
That'd be a heck of an undertaking. The Saturn received many games from the ST-V. I could do the more popular ones, though.
I was playing Saturn games on a Core 2 Duo based laptop back in 2011 using SSF. While there were sometimes minor issues with sound or graphics, most games I played were still completely playable and came very close to original hardware. Anyone who thinks Saturn emulation is still what it was in the mid-late 00s hasn't been paying attention.
Excellent, excellent video. The transparencies issue is very clearly explained. There is no channel on RUclips that shows the Saturn the love and respect it deserves like your content do. Great stuff. I'd love to see more episodes on the same subject.
Great information, I always learn something from your videos, every time. Watched this after work, what a great Friday! I'm gonna play some Gen/Saturn/DC for this 3-day-weekend :)
The Saturn has the cleanest RGB output of any other system. This didn't surprise me that much given how bright and vivid the Genesis RGB was. The SNES always looked good but it seemed Nintendo favored a softer look.
Have you already talk about Dezaemon project developped on ps1 and finalized on Saturn,very interesting to developp new games on SS,full of programming possibilities.
I have tested almost all available games to download for the memory cartridge, and they are really original for some, with graphics effects of the original intros, there are betas, but some games well finished. This is one of the rare game / maker that allows to develop on this console. If we could extend the memory capacity of the cartridge, we could make longer games, and richer graphically I guess. Via the grafted cartridge port on the motherboard that has a good transfer rate, without latency. And take advantage of the 5 gpu's of the machine.
This project is the largest ever conceived at this time, 3 years of development, vast project, much more than a software creation. One of the few games also taking advantage of 2D capabilities more evolved than ps1 at this level, and who actually demonstrates factually.
Great episode Sega Lord!. You know, the Sega Saturn is capable of doing transparencies like a microwave is capable of cooking a turkey. Yes, you can cook turkey in a microwave, but it is just way too much work to do so, and there are like 5 people on earth that are capable of doing it.
i havent owned a saturn since the turn of the millennium, but this channel has me looking for one to re-acquire and mod now. thanks for spreading the sega love.
Excellent Video SLX! The video was very informative and entertaining. I suggest you do a similar segment for the rest of the sega hardware library. (including arcade boards)
Damn, it’s good to finally see your face. I love your videos. We’re at about the same station in life…it’s good to see a guy like me on here.
Incidentally, where do you source your music? I love the soundtrack, especially your credits music.
Great stuff, all the best from one of your fans from Scotland
Something I can confirm is there were a number of early model 2 saturns that didn't display the image as good as the model 1 does. I thought that model 2 I got back in the late 90's might have been damaged but the other ones I checked out also had that same bad image quality and I ended up getting another model 1 instead.
Bro I am digging that ride the tiger Akira theme in the background
mind blowned when you said almost all the games in this video is from a Saturn emulator, i would have never guessed lol
I love this channel. It deserves more views.
Another high quality video as usual! I’d definitely like to see more videos like this in the future. Good stuff!
Very informative! Please make a part 2. I also enjoy the detailed tech explanations. Please keep doing it!
Am I the only one who imagines hearing "♪LoRRrd X♫" after the opening "♪SAY-GAH♫" in the intro?
Uhm...yes you are
I got my first Saturn emulator last week and it’s all I’ve been playing ,I currently have 3 dirty dwarves, Panzer Dragoon zwei, and guardian hero’s all downloaded on my coolpad Legacy and everything runs perfect only problem I’m having is the save states don’t work but other than that the built in Saturn memory works so everything is still playable
A note about emulation: RetroArch is generally the standard these days as far as frontends go, allowing unified settings and input/hotkey mapping, an assortment of fantastic shaders and overlays, and a ton of community support. Mednafen has been ported to RA as the Beetle Saturn core. It may not have the best launcher UI compared to something like Launchbox or Hyperspin, but those work great with RA as well to get all the benefits of both.
When I was a middle school kid I was saving my paper route money for a new system. I was considering Sega Saturn, PlayStation, or N64. I decided as soon as I got enough money it was going to be a Saturn. I would play Virtua Cop on a Saturn console at Blockbuster and I was blown away by how fun it was.
Before I saved up the money, I was surprised by my dad with a PlayStation for my birthday. I was pumped about getting it. I played Crash Bandicoot and got super into it.
Months later I finally saved up the money and thought I’ll buy a Saturn and set it up in my sisters room. I was never a video game connoisseur. I was pretty ignorant to the ins and outs. When I went to the Electronics Boutique at my local mall with cash in hand, I said I’ll take a Sega Saturn. They said are you sure you want to do that? They explained a lot of their Saturn buyers came back unhappy. This was the same Electronics Boutique staff who told me Genesis was superior to Super Nintendo in every way so I was shocked at the time. I bought the N64 which ended up being my favorite system of all time. By far. The whole thing is still crazy to me. My initial impression of Saturn was so high I never thought it could fall so hard. It reminds me a lot of WCW. I never thought that wrestling company could collapse.
This is the best video about Sega Saturn ever. Hey, Dragon Force is my favorite Saturn Game. I recently bought a used system just because I wanted so much to play this great game again. I always struggled to emulate Saturn!
Gene Bone what are your favorites?
Man I LOVE your intro bro! Arguably one of the top 5 in all of RUclips. No doubt 👊🏿
I really like your Saturn videos man. I think you're one of the only people out there that genuinely loves the Saturn more than I do. I have two Saturns and one is modded. I have a pretty decent game collection too, but man you have a really nice Saturn collection. I dig all the different models you have.
Stuff I learned from this video:
The STV is to Saturn what the Namco System 11 is the the PlayStation.
The Saturn's internal storage is a joke.
Saturn Emulation is finally "there". Time to get downloading.
Sega Lord X needs a pope hat for future videos.
isnt funny that on 2019 theres still debate whether emulation is feasable? I remember in the late 90s a Pentium-133 or AMD K6-166 could fully emulate PSX either through software or accelerated with Direct X 3 capable graphic card (S3 Virge, Matrox Mystique or ATI RageII) in Win95.
and if you were rich enough to own a Pentium-200Mhz and a 3DFX Voodoo emulation was more or less 1:1
@@nng1979 I had a Voodoo 2 SLI setup back then. There wasn't a game I couldn't run.
I was grateful for getting the RAM cart, so I can play the imports. Also been enjoying your channel and gave it a sub
I really love your content man. I never owned a Saturn, was a PSX guy back in the day as we could only afford one in the house. I like a lot of the games and always wanted clock works knights. Keep up the excellent work man.
The pity about the Prof Abrasive's Patreon, is that you can't donate enough to pre-order the card itself. As it's currently the only alternative to the Phoebe CD drive emulator, this also means we're going to have to wait a very long time until it sees full release.
Awesome to see the love you have for the Saturn! Very informative, great video series. Looking forward to seeing more in the future. Keep up the awesome work!
If I'm not mistaken, there are a few mistakes in the video regarding transparency:
Sonic R's shields are not drawn by VDP2 but indeed by VDP1. How it achieves this transparency effect is by not actually doing real transparency, instead using an "average" effect (average of the shield pixel color and the other pixel drawn by VDP1 at the same X/Y coordinate from the other sprite/polygon, such as Sonic or the 3D track, I believe the SNES used the same trick of averaging colors for transparency effects). The problem with this method is that it can only average colors between VDP1 sprites/polys, so it will appear solid when in front of a VDP2 background. This can be seen in Sonic R if you go off track and run on VDP2's infinite plane used as a ground. Also, this average effect does not allow for 256 transparency values like a real alpha channel.
As for Burning Ranger's, again if I'm not mistaken, there's a catch: the fire is computed by VDP1 as sprites but then sent to VDP2's memory and displayed by VDP2, with its full transparency features. But there are, again, caveats: first, it's resource-intensive and requires working in lower resolution (and indeed Burning Ranger's fire sprites are very lo-res). Second, it needs to be displayed as a "foreground layer" to be seen on top of the 3D environment, but it requires very tricky work to not display, say, through walls, since the VDP2 can only be behind or in front of the whole VDP1 scene, and is not "Z-buffer-aware" so to speak. Burning Rangers thus has a ton of invisible "trigger zones" which will trigger on and off the display of fire to create the illusion of being Z-aware, but it's easy to have the fire appear through the walls by abusing the trigger zones and camera angles.
These hacks allowed smart developpers to work around the Saturn's limitation, but what a pain in the ass... I really wonder how Sega let such a design flaw slip, when they wanted so much to build a 2D powerhouse.
Yeah, I discussed this with another person in the comments already and added it to the description. I tested VDP1 and VDP2 on/off functionality(via emulation) after he brought up the same question about the shield in Sonic R. It is indeed drawn by VDP1.
Sega wanted a powerhouse 2D with more 3D polygons than the ps1. Thus, making the system designed very flawed when it comes to the 3D section.
I loved the Saturn and still have one. It was the ps3 of its day. I honestly think at the metal it was a little more powerful then the PlayStation, but it was too darn complicated. I also wonder what could have been if the two cpus were better able to communicate between one another instead of rotating or stalling commands. I bet FPU performance would have went way up if both SH2s could have been used in conjunction.
Lots about Saturn really has to do with efficiency. Breaking the CPU into 2 areas that weren't truly in parallel, and the graphics system into multiple areas with different feature sets/functions, really made things harder than they needed to be. Saturn development was started all the way back in 1992 though, which means that Sega likely had a nearly finish console ready to deal with the 3DO and Jaguar in 1993. Of course, PS1 changed everything a bit later, forcing Sega to make changes that just complicated the hell out of everything.
Another great video, you're really killing it lately man!
Fascinating stuff, I have always been intrigued by the crazy complicated Saturn design.
Thanks for adding the music titles! It was because of this, i learned the awesomeness of the Space Harrier theme. Youre doing great!!
SEGA even sent out a vhs promotional video to current Sega owners for the Saturn. I still have it.
Awesome vid, man! Legitimately one of the most in-depth breakdowns for the Saturn I've seen, yet. Guides and reviews of the Saturn are nice, but your went the extra mile!
Great vid. I found the emulator info particularly helpful!
I thought so too! I might finally play some of those hard to afford games! And I can finally replace my stolen Panzer Dragoon Saga :O
@@ShinobiWan1 Stolen PDS? Aww man, my heart breaks for you. :(
Very fascinating info. I would like to see future videos like this. Thank you, as always, for such great content.
I love Sega (Genesis/Saturn/Dreamcast repruhzent) and I've watched several of your videos. But I wasn't ready to subscribe, until I saw that you had a beard. Thanks!
Great videos man :)
What a great video. You totally outdid my expectations, which were very high.
I kinda like mesh transparencies. The true transparncy effetcs on Saturn, Playstation, snes are sometimes too beautiful so to say. They attract too much attention making them look out-of-place.
Interesting tid bit is that MArvel Super Heroes runs without/1M/3M modes. So that isin 3 different modes. I think this is the only game that has 3 modes. I hope I am correct about that one as that is just burned into my brains somehow. (or not if I'm wrong)
Never noticed any differences in mt 60hz modded PAL and Japanese Saturns. But testing is knowing I guess. I can't imagine that there is a bad version. It's Sega!
I'm supporting that Saturn hack project
Interesting that Saturn emulation runs on old hardware now. I remember a time where expensive pc's were needed.
I find myself requesting a part 2 of probably about every video you make. This is no exception.
So SEGA literally left the back door open and only recently hackers are starting to use that port?
Why did it take so long?
19:03 huh. I'd only seen that plane before in war thunder. It's a lot of fun to play if not a bit quirkly in its handling. Potent cannon also once you get used to the firing pattern
15:49 I'm glad you stopped on Dragon Force and just let it play for a while. I was sooo into that game as a teenager, so hearing the theme again gave me such a nostalgia rush.
I am only a casual Sega fan but I have enjoyed all your recent videos. I think the quality has improved in the last 6 months
That is a dope chair, thanks again for coming back!
The Sega Saturn does not use the NV1, the hardware inside the console predates that chip by quite some time. But, they both make use of quadratic texture mapping.
The NV1 came out a bit early in the 3D acceleration era, around late 1995 and there was not a lot of competition at the time and no Direct3D, so there was lot of experimentation going on. SEGA was looking into porting some of their arcade and Saturn games over to the PC and they figured they might as well support that NV1 chip, since it was probably a little easier to port things over and also because CPUs were still quite slow. Also, they were in pretty good terms with Nvidia, but more on that later. The Nvidia NV1 probably found its way mostly in Pentium 90, 100 and 133 machines, so you can imagine just how slow some of the games ported would run using software rendering on these CPUs.
The NV1 didn't catch on, Direct3D became a thing and did not support the way that card worked, so everyone kind of moved on. SEGA ended up releasing a lot of Direct3D patches for their games and sometimes even newer versions all together. All things considered, I think most of their ports at the time are pretty lousy, especially Daytona USA, Sega Rally and Sega Touring Car Championship. Sega Rally 2 is a shining example, it's pretty much arcade perfect.
Interestingly, as I said earlier, SEGA was in very good terms with Nvidia at the time (1993-1995) which was a brand new company back then. In recent years it has been revealed that they were collaborating on a few projects, one of which was a hardware prototype that was supposed to be released instead of the Saturn, featuring the Nvidia NV2 chip and using cartridges as storage, as direct competition to the Nintendo 64 (then Ultra 64). Negotiations fell through, because this was being worked in the US and Japan was the division that made most of the important decisions. They still worked together with the NV1 ports on Windows, but when that chip failed, Nvidia scrapped the NV2 and moved on to the NV3 which was named the Riva128
This was a great episode! Thank you very much! I was wondering if you knew about the scarcity of the derby stallion Saturn console? The translucent one without the “this is cool” on the front. I don’t see many of them…?
I enjoy all your videos brother. Only regret is not discovering your channel earlier!
You do remind me of a young Master Gabriel from SF3 though. Maybe an idea for a future episode ha ha.
Thank you for putting your tracklist in the description.
GREAT episode. Really like your in depth explanation of the Saturn hardware and how it works. Excellent video as always brother!!
I loved that you showed Ultraman in this video.
Love SEGA Lord X!!! Love SEGA Saturn, as I am an owner of a model 1 and 2 + many games. Always love content on the SEGA Saturn and loved this. Made things much clearer for me as a late entry to SEGA Saturn ownership. By far my favourite console because of the awesome import game library ( especially shooter 'em' ups ). Knew about it as a kid but everybody craped on the Saturn so never bothered to have a look in but what a mistake that was. Love the Saturn, love to know any content on it. Great stuff SEGA Lord X! Love your show. 👍
I loved Virtua Fighter 2 on my Saturn, one of the closest home to arcade ports of the time, we all just wanted that real arcade feel at home!
Another point with the FRAM mod is that it only replaces the Save Game memory. System settings like clock and language are still lost if the battery dies, because those settings are stored in the System Management Peripheral Controller chip (IC9) and not the save game ram (IC8).
Always with the great content. I love learning more about this system. It’s very special little gem
I think this video is my favorite ao far. Or at least in the top 3. So many good informations
It would be interesting if you will talk about the development software kits and how sega later on tryed to make it easier to for devs to make conversions from an platform to the saturn, but using quadralic to triagle polygons,would be definitely an interesting topic.
My biggest issue with the Sega Saturn is the dither mesh. It wasn't so noticable back then on an older TV, but now sticks out so bad I've had to get PS1 versions. I still own one and respect what it can do when properly programmed.
Huh. You could get an older TV then.
Wow. Super interesting and informative! Especially for someone like me who never had a Saturn or any Sega consoles during their original life cycles.
Great video. Informative, especially on the motherboards.
Just wanted to express my thoughts... especially the info on transparency...it really helped me understand this machine much more!
One of your best, and most important videos yet! Keep em coming!!!
I have a serious fondness and appreciation for the Sega Saturn. It was a great system with so many cool games. Unfortunately the best ones are very hard to find or too expensive. 😭
Hope you do more vids like this. This was really REALLY informative!
Retrobit could make 3D Pad Controller alternative, because its prices on ebay are too high. Standard controllers still work well after 20-25 years, they are very solid build and still cheap. Saturn is maybe the most interesting machine of past years, because of its extraordinary hardware and solid base of games. I love 2D fighters on this system :) One problem is lot of untraslated Japanese games, including fighting games (yes, fighting games needs also translation). Saturn need more english translations!