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TITAN Interviews
This interview was conducted by MGandhi from Kinox, an emu and rom-dumping site. TITAN of course thanks all of them for letting us have this interview.
"Azuco is the author of A-Saturn, one of the most advanced Saturn emulator, he's also developing an open-source x68000 emulator.
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Why start a Saturn emulator? I want reason of life. At first, I wanted start a PS emu, but, I got document ...... about SH2.... A-SATURN is also revenge for SEGA! Sometime ago, I've tried get a position CSK. (SEGA include CSK group) But I failed... hahahaha (T_T)
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Why did you choose this nick? My real name is 'AZUMA' and I like 'NAMCO', so 'AZUma'+'namCO'='AZUCO'
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What's the present status of A-Saturn? (i.e: Master CPU Emulation: 99%) I'm doing some little progress about VDP2...
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When can we expect A-Saturn running a commercial game? Oh....I don't know.
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A-Saturn already read games header? Yes, ASPI layer is already compleated. Actuary, A-SATURN cans read CD first sector.
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Do you have any access to internal Sega Documents (as there are rumours about the full blown programming documentation for the DC leaked out at one point from Sega)? Yes, I have any documents. Those documents from Sega Of America. You can get them from internet.(ex, from EPR.....) but,I don't know about the DC documents rumours....
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You also develop a x68000 emulator, is it discontinued? I start it, the reason is that a X68K emulator already exists .... EX68. But, It's not open source. I think, open source is more important than being able to play game. I released source code for japanese x68k user. But,they are only games user. Nobody have interest in AX68K, in japan. A-SATURN is an Higher priority than AX68K, but AX68K isn't discontinued...
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Do there is a chance to use the emulator with the Saturn joystick? yes. We can already use a saturn pad over a PC joypad - There's a device we call 'IF-SEGA' .... in japan. IF-SEGA has PCI & ISA card type. It cans use Saturn's joypad. Windows recognize It as a DirectX device. Actually, I used it.
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A-Saturn now, is the most updated Saturn emulator and still under development, a lot of others Saturn emulators were discontinued, comment it. Other Saturn emulator are Fake. (exclude Lucifer, PC-SATURN and SEMU)
I think, maybe shamu is very very fake. His screen shots are video capture. Reason....the pictures' resolution is strange.
Please, stop make fake saturn emu. Nobody believe that a saturn emu's realty....
- I saw the screenshot of the VDP2 (I think) and it's in Japanese, anyone dumped an American VDP2? Ah.....
Do you know ? Saturn BIOS is multi area bios. Please check, A-SATURN.ini file
[system] area_code=1 ;japanese area code area_code=2 ;north america ?
Try it!
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What are the reasons to develop A-Saturn for Windows? Windows has many user. It cans use many high performance device. It cans use large memory size. (but,A-SATURN cans run on DOS, by a little modefire)
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Saturn features an interesting shooter, is it in the to-do A-Saturn list? I like shooter, but, at first support.... Street fighter Zero (alpha) release. Reason: I love chun-Li Vampire release. Reason: I love morrigan
Second target is after burner...?
- A-Saturn some day will be an open-source emulator? oh! I'll release the source code when A-SATURN cans run game.....
Azuco Azuco's World azuco@geocities.co.jp"
This is a interview with Dave Midknight, developer of PowerSEmu and was conducted 4/12 1999. Enjoy.......... Please tell us a little about yourself. Dave: Ok, I'm 23 years old and have just completed my Airline Pilot Training. In Januar I will start to fly around europe for Austrian Airlines and my hobbies are flying, programming, reading, girls and good movies
What kind of software have you written before? Dave: Basicly, some games and software for system diagnoses!
For what systems? Dave: Mainly, for DOS and Windows, but 2 years ago I got a Apple and so same programmes are for my Apple
What is PowerSEmu for? Dave: PowerSEmu is for Windows, but I have also some plans for mac. The main core for example works about 3 times faster on my mac.
When and why did you start work on PowerSEmu? Dave: I started about 2 month ago with PowerSEmu. And why? Thats a good question. Mainly because I think that to many people work on emus for differents consoles. But no one for the saturn!! And the Saturn is one of greates consoles. I think!
Why do you think there haven't been any Saturn emulator that can play any games yet? Dave: I think, the main problem ist that you have to emulated some many diffrent cpus and you have to syncronize all cpus. I for example have a Playstation Net-Yaroze and on the PSX you have only the main cpu, with graphic cpu and sound cpu. On the saturn you have 2 main cpus, 2 graphic chips, a sound system withs own cpu and so on
What kind of progress have you done with PowerSEmu, and what are you currently working on? Dave: The two main cpus are nearly complete, just the speed must get better. The main system parts are not very far, mainly the graphic engine needs alot on work. The cdrom and sound engine has only the basics. When I run the saturn bios I get around the first 4-5 sec. of the Saturn startup screen. But because of some bugs in the graphic engine the display is corrupt. currently I'm working on the VDP1 and VDP2 graphic engine
Dave: So you are about the same level as A-saturn? I think basicly yes! But A-Saturn main cpus core ist faster ;-)
What do you think the most difficult thing in saturn emulation will be? Dave: The most difficult thing will be the sound emulation. Not the sound cpu, but the sound dsp chip. 'til now I have no idea how to emulated it.
When do you think PowerSEmu will be able to play any game? Dave: No idea? Maybe in 2 months, may be in 1 year!
Have you had any help from other saturn emu coders, like Azuco and Tyranid? Dave: Yes, Tyranid helped me with his great cd-regs doc. Thx,Tyranid! But, the main help comes from segas development docs! ;-)
Will you release the source for PowerSEmu anytime? Dave: I don't know, but may be someday, so that someone can port it to linux or so.
Do you really like games, or are you more interested in programming? If you like games, could you tell us your five favorite games ever? Dave: I think I like both the same. I like programming, but I started PowerSEmu to play my Saturn games on my PC. My favorite games: Sega Rally, Mario Kart, Monkey Island 1, Wing Commander III and Panzer Dragoon.
Do you drive as crazy as all other germans? Dave: No, I'm a pilot! I fly like crazy!!!! :-)
Anything else you would like to share with TITAN's readers? Dave: Yes, stay happy, don't ask where to get the saturn bios, and happy holidy and a happy new year!!
Interview by Tunek
Steve Snake is the creator of Kgen, ine of the best Megadrive/Genesis emus made. He has also done a lot of other cool things.............. Unfortunately, Steve dissapeared from the internet before the interview was finished, so this isn't a complete inteview. Still, we can enjoy what is here........ Please tell us a little about yourself. Like, why do you don't have a nick? Steve Snake: Umm... well, a lot of Emulator Authors don't use a "nick", do they ? I don't know what else to say.........
How did you get into the 'emulation scene'? Steve Snake: Well, I've been interrested in Emulators for as long as I can remember, and I always wanted to write one myself. I started writing a Spectrum Emulator on the Amiga back in 1987, and then a Master System/Game Gear emulator on the PC in 1993, which quickly turned into a MegaDrive/Genesis emulator. But I never really got very far - not because I couldn't, but because I lost interrest for one reason or another. More often that not, I was just too busy with my full time job as a Games Programmer.
Then, one day in 1997, I got myself a decent (at the time - a P200MMX) PC. I provided Gary Henderson (Snes9x) with some code to handle the SNES sound format, enabling him (and later others) to add sound to their SNES emulators. Now I had "the bug" all over again, and decided to start from scratch, on the first ever serious PC program I had ever written. KGen was born.
My motivation for writing KGen ? Well, first of all, my favourite machines of all time, the Spectrum, the Commodore 64, and the PC Engine had all been emulated pretty much perfectly (and I had already bought registered copies of Z80, C64S, and Magic Engine) - leaving only one machine - the Genesis. At the time there was only one I was aware of - Genem. And even on my brand new fast PC it didn't run anywhere near fast enough to be useable, and the sound was pathetic.
I knew I could get a Genesis Emulator running at full speed on my new PC. And I was pretty sure I could do the sound properly. Up until this point, nobody had ever written a realtime FM synthesizer on the PC, let alone put it in an Emulator. The author of Genem said it wasn't possible. So I set out to prove to the world that it was. Once I had my Z80 emulator working, I began with the Sound stuff. And once I had the music from Ghouls'N'Ghosts playing almost perfectly, I became more and more motivated to get this thing into a working Genesis emulator. Less than a year later, many other Emulators appeared featuring proper FM emulation. It's good to know that I motivated other people to have a go ;)
And that lead to Kgen, by many regarded as the best best Megadrive/Genesis emulator. Even Sega used it to do a compilation of old games on the PC. How did that deal happen? Steve Snake: I'd just done a major rewrite of KGen (which later became KGen98) when I got an Email from somebody at Sega of America. It was very vague just saying that they needed to talk to me. I immediately halted all production because I assumed they were not happy about my emulator. However, after months and months of hearing nothing, I went ahead and released KGen98.
Shortly afterwards they contacted me again, and it transpired that they wanted to release some Genesis games with a Windows / DirectX version of KGen. I was very relieved, and very happy to help ;)
Do you have any plans for Kgen? Like maybe release the source-code? Steve Snake: No. KGen is no more, for many reasons. I cannot release source code because of the deal with Sega. Not that I would really want to anyway, since it wouldn't benefit anybody except someone who wanted to rip it off and release it as their own. Everything in there is extremely closely tied together - I cannot even extract, say, the Z80 emulator from it because it's heavily tied to other stuff.
KGen has gone as far as it can go without a 100% rewrite. And a 100% rewrite would produce an entirely different emulator...........
Do you belive in 'open-source' or 'free' software? Steve Snake: Well, obviously I believe in free software - hence KGen ;) You know, if I'd have charged just $1 per download I'd be a rich man by now. But there you go....
Open-Source is good for things like Linux, and utilities like Compression etc.
How much cooperation is there between emulation developers? Do you help eachother out a lot, like you did with the Snes9x team? Steve Snake: Well, I can't say that anyone really helped me with KGen, but that's OK because I knew what I was doing. But I've been known to help anyone who can be bothered to ask me a question. There is some of my Code and other wisdom in DGen, and I'm sure several emulators are using my SideWinder drivers without even realising it, (e.g. ZSNES) because somebody asked me for the code, only to spread it to other authors without giving me credit.
I'm usually quite happy to offer code, information, or suggestions on various stuff. Can't speak for other emulator authors though ;)
Interview by Tunek Date: 14/01 2000
This interview was taken from top emu site Kinox. They have not given TITAN permission to use this interview, but who cares?
I. About the Interview MGandhi has interviewed TyRaNiD, author of Lucifer and Sat'On'Em, both Saturn emulators. During this interview, he talks about SEGA stuff, Saturn failures, programming tips and some exclusive news! I loved this interview because I was searching some informations about Saturn emulators, when I have stumbled into Lucifer website. Some minutes ago, TyRaNiD has joined #rareroms channel, so I have decided to interview him :) II. Thanks I want to thanks TyRaNiD, because he answered 34 questions quickly and online (through IRC). He's a very good guy, and cares our coverage!
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Introduce yourself :) Hmm, well nicks TyRaNiD. 21 years old, student and a big saturn fan :)
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When was your first contact with emulators? When I was about 16/17 [years old], a friend gave me a Sinclair Spectrum emulator with loads of roms. I loved the fact... I could play Manic Miner and all my favourite games from the past on my PC. So I've been into emus ever since.
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Do you remember the name of the emulator? I can't remember [the name] now. It's was a far time ago, I dumped it as soon as I got a preliminary snes emu which was much better.
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Were there tons of emulation sites as we can see now when you started? At the time [when it has happened], I wasn't on the net so I don't really know. The few bbs systems I visited had a fair collection of Specturm cassette dumps tho. Nothing on the scale of today however.
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And what are your favorite consoles? In no particular order: SNES/SFC, Saturn and Mega Drive [Genesis]. I would probably still say the SNES is my all time favourite console.
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Besides Lucifer, you tried to develop another emulator? I did do some work on a [SEGA]32x emulator with a few friends but that ended up falling through I did get some grafix display running. But my lack of Mega Drive emulation caused a major problem. The only other emulator was Sat'On'Em which was my DOS based Saturn emu but that progress onto Lucifer in the end.
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Do you started Lucifer because Saturn is one of your favorite consoles? To be honest I had only owned a Saturn for about 2 weeks at the time I started originally on Sat'On'Em. (about 2 years ago I think) so not really. I started it because I felt it should have been a console which had been emulated already and decided to have do it myself.
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What happened with your Saturn? I knew people with Saturns but I had never bought one myself, always just had a [Sony] Playstation. But when X-Men vs Street Fighter came out [for Saturn], I just had to get it and 2nd hand Saturns were very cheap, so my brother and I have bought one and had many happy dayz beating each other up :)
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Always when we talk about Saturn, somebody says: Saturn was a catastrophe, Playstation is much better. What do you think about it? The Saturn had many problems: Poor marketing, difficulty of programming it effectively and poor 3d support (which most ppl saw as a disadvantage). All in all it killed Saturn in many western gamers (lamers ? ) eyes. I don't think it was a failure as the Saturn has so many great gamez never released on any other system. It's just Sony had the hardware, the money and the marketing strategy to kill Saturn.
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I dont know if you heard something about it, but SEGA has announced a Saturn emulator for DC. It's a good idea? Yes, I think it's a good idea, specially after Sony problems to get PSX games running in the new Playstation 2 :) Backwards support in consoles is always a good thing. Oh, of course there is the rumour that the Saturn will get some sort of re-release which might negate the need for an emu, at least in Sega economic terms.
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DC uses WinCE, the difficulty to develope a software for it is the same as to develope for Windows? At the end of the day it is a different system and the DirectX components have been modified accordingly. I think the claim that you could port a Windows game in a week is true but it would be slow as hell. Basically I think most coders are writting closer to the hardware than DirectX allows so it would be harder to develop a good Dreamcast game as opposed to a Windows game.
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What's the current Lucifer status? Discontinued. It got pretty far but I had to cancel the project. Mainly due to pharoah [, another Lucifer coder] dissappearance without any trace. I haven't heard from him in about 6 months or so and I dont have the time to continue it on my own.
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Azuco is developing A-Saturn, a very promising Saturn emulator, are you helping him with A-Saturn? I keep in contact with Azuco fairly regularly and he gives me the latest A-Saturn source code... I look over the code and check if I can help him. He is attepting [at this moment] to port Lucifer's CD system code to A-Saturn which needs a large amount of work doing. I'm not "helping" officialy, A-Saturn code is 99% his own code.
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What is the emulator which is nearest Saturn emulation? A-Saturn or Lucifer? For a short period of time, Lucifer was leading but in the end of my emu [Lucifer, which hasn't coded for 6 months], Azuco (A-Saturn) has far surpassed where I got to. However I did have almost working CD code which A-Saturn still lacks.
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Where did you find difficulty in code your emulator? My main problem in the Saturn emulator was my attempt to synchronize many different processors at once and making it fast. However possibly the worst feature of the Saturn [to emulate] is the background gfx processor. People dont like to code the Saturn with that thing in it.
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I dont know if you know something about SEGA CD or SEGA 32x, but what's most complicated to develope an emulator? 32x, SEGA CD or Saturn? I would say Saturn. The 32x is a pretty simple piece of kit if you have a pre-existing Mega Drive emulator. I have looked into the SEGA CD and you have problems in synchronizing the two 68k processors but nothing as bad as the 8 or so chips in the Saturn.
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Zoop, the author of Meka, is working in a Genesis emulator with 32x support since a long time, but according some guys, he uses C. Do you think it will be fast? ASM isnt a better choice? ASM [Assembly] is only useful in time critical situations. There isn't point writting an entire emulator in ASM when you can do 95% of the code in 10% of the time it would take to write in asm. It will still be fast as long as all critical areas are written in optimised ASM. I'm sure Zoop knows what he is doing on that front.
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In your opinion, what will be emulated first? SEGA CD, SEGA 32x, or SEGA Saturn? I feel although there is a SEGA CD emu has already been written but never relased. I think the first one to go public would be 32x, the SEGA CD and in last last place the Saturn (unless somebody knows something about a working Saturn emu which no one else does.).
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Why are you feeling it? It's because the recently start of SEGA CD Power? [a ROM dump group headed by SAV2880] Not really, I'm just fairly confident someone has alreadly written a SEGA CD emu. I'm sure there are many emulators which have been written and never released which ppl never knew about. There does seem to be a resurrection of the SEGA CD format recently but that seems to be a running thing. As ppl have got faster internet access and also the cheap price of CD-Rs, downloading whole CDs [ISOs] have become a viable proposition.
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It will be released soon or wont be released to the public? No I heard about it about 7 or 8 months ago. However the author canned it after getting hate mail. Although I'm sure there are others waiting in the wings or currently being developed.
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Did you receive something from SEGA asking for you to stop your emulator? Nope, I've never had contact with SEGA over my emulator. I feel SEGA have more relaxed attitude to emulation than Nintendo or Sony. As far as I know they have never really bothered anyone who has emulated a SEGA machine ever. Of course, if someone starts a DC emulator right now, that would change...
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You said me some questions ago about the difficulty to sync the 68k processors. System18 uses 2 68k processors, there is any chance to use the System16 source to help the development? In the SEGA CD? It's possible but I would assume that the System18 arcade uses two processors at the same clock frequency, SEGA CD doesnt. It's quite easy to run two processors at the same speed in an emulator. Emulating the [Hitachi] sh2 system in the Saturn is not very hard as the master and slave both run concurrently. However you should take into account bus mastering for true sync.
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I dont know all about Saturn, what is the Saturn's heart? The heart of the Saturn is 2 Hitachi Super H 2 RISC processors. They run the programs. Then you have two video processors: one for backgrounds and one for sprites, a 68k for sound, a general sound processor with dsp, a slave dsp for fast math calculation, a peripheral controller for pads and such, and finally a super H 1 for the CD system (which doesn't have to directly emulated by the way). Very complex and very powerful if programmed correctly.
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What would be the minimum cfg to get a Saturn emulator running? Something pretty fast... A good Pentium 3 maybe or AMD Athlon, and about 32 MB of RAM. The trouble is the 3D acceleration of the grafix... wont be easy or impossible as it is not a real 3D machine, so no speed benefits could be gained by using it.
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What's the Bleem's secret to be reasonable fast, if it emulates a similar system? 3D acceleration, high level emulation where possible and a blatant disregard of proper windows coding practices (such as hooking routines into the kernel level or sommit like that). And of course randy [Bleem CEO] is a good programmer.
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What do you think about paid emulators? I do agree with them somewhat in principle although I wouldn't pay for one myself. However the product has to work on almost anything the user could throw at it as if it was the original machine. Which bleem blatantly doesnt.
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There is enough information about Saturn to develop the emulator, or something is still missing? I think there is enough infomation on the web if you can find it or get someone to send it to you. There are very little documentations on the web for ppl wanting to start a Saturn emu unfortunately. When I started it was very easy to find but there is no major docs which are unavailable...
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Do you use only information already available, or you request from Hitachi or another manufacturer tech docs? The docs on the [Hitachi] sh2 processor can be got straight from Hitachi website [www.hitachi.co.jp]. As for the actual special Saturn hardware, you have to get hold of the confidential SEGA documents on it which has questionable legality. The only free document available on the SEGA Saturn (isnt a sh2 doc) is the CD hardware manual which I wrote through many hours of debugging code. SEGA never produced an actual hardware document on the CD system, all the hardware except the sh2's, the 68k and the DSP, are SEGA's own design, so you need their docs for it.
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Are they (docs) easy to get? Not really. I got most of mine from the SEMU [one of the first Saturn emulators] author. I think he still sells a cd with all the docs. There are a few scattered about on a few web sites but they aren't easy to find. The best way to get them is to know someone who has them already. However I prefer not to distribute them to ppl, so if somebody email me unless he has a very good explanation why they want them.
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What is the Saturn CD drive speed? 2x
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If my CD drive is 8x (ie), the emulator will be able to run it more than 2x? It depends but as the Saturn reads data in the background then just increasing reading speed shouldnt be too great a problem as my CD code never got a complete real life test then I couldnt say for sure.
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When we can expect a working Saturn emulator? Maybe next year if we are lucky. SSF seems to be doing pretty well progress apparently (I've not got it to work at all yet) and A-Saturn might do it soon. The grafix are at least improving dramatically.
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So SSF is the current most accurate Saturn "emulator"? Really A-Saturn is the most accurate but from what Azuco has been saying, it might seriously rival for A-Saturn for the first saturn emu. As I've never had it working, (DOS4GW crashes the program at start) I have no way of determining it.
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Thanks for the interview, do you have any new or on-going project related to the emu scene? I am currently developing a Sega saturn debugger via the use of a par and PC Commlink which while not directly related to Saturn emulation could help ppl work out how the Saturn operates by allowing them to debug code on a real saturn. Its my current project.
TyRaNiD is working with Pharoah and JGL on Lucifer, and before that he had his own emu Sat'on'Em. Lucifer has not been released yet, but according to people like Azuco, it is very advanced. Anyway, on with the interview.......... Please tell us a little about yourself. TyRaNiD: Real Name : James F. Job : Student Likes : Computers beer and women :)
We have a question from Azuco: please explain your handle name. from tyrant ? or Pyramid ? TyRaNiD: It comes from a Games Workshop roleplaying board game called Warhammer 40,000. A Tyranid was a really nasty alien. I just liked the name.
So, why do you write it TyRaNiD, instead of Tyranid? [TyRaNiD] Because im difficult :P
So, why did you start work on S'O'T, and when was that? [TyRaNiD] I started it back in 1997. My brother just boaught a saturn with XMen vs SF and I really wanted to write an emu. I found a BIOS by chance and a few other emus (such as A-Saturn) and started n a dissassembler. It grew from the disasm to an actual emu over the next few weeks after that.
and that led to Lucifer....... [TyRaNiD] Yes Id been contacted by Pharoah a few times as he was trying to write his own emu. It started with a info exchange but eventually grew into Lucifer
What kind of programming/programs had you done before that? [TyRaNiD] Ive done various things. A few games.An few utilities. A paint package or two. and quite alot of failed attempts at each.
For what systems? [TyRaNiD] PC and Atari 400 / 800 / XE. Mostly DOS based. Ive only really started writing windoze code when I started Lucifer.
Is that why there hasn't been a release of that emu yet? [TyRaNiD] Sort of. Me and Pharoah spent far too long trying to code the user interface. We just couldnt get it right. Proably the UI was too ambitiuos.
How far has Lucifer come right now? When do you think there will be a release? [TyRaNiD] It has come a fair way but we still dont believe it is yet releaseable. Too many niggling problems left. We will do our best to release as soon as we believe it is ready.
How does Lucifer compare to other saturn emus, like A-saturn? <[TyRaNiD]> Hard to say. We dont have much grafix working at the moment but we do have other things which A-Saturn does not have like almost complete cd code.We are proably about equal in terms of total percentage done.
Do you cooperate a lot, Azuco and Lucifer team? [TyRaNiD] not really in the past. Ive had the odd chat with Azuco now and again but most of it has been very general infomation. nothing of note yet
How do you divide work in Lucifer? What does you, Pharoah and JGL do each? [TyRaNiD] Me and Pharoah just sort of picked and choosed what we wanted to do. I had done alot of work on the cd system so I took on that responsibility and pharoah had done more windoze programming so he has mainly been wrting the ui and porting bits of som. as for JGL he hasnt done anything yet. He is always busy and has not particapated in any great level.
What do you think is most difficult thing in saturn emulation? [TyRaNiD] VDP emulation is not very nice and the general level of power which the saturn actually has is going to be a big probelm to overcome. I feel the hardest part will end up being the syncronisation of so many processors (about 8 or 9) acting together.
Could you explain short how an emulator actually works? [TyRaNiD] Well at a basic level you take a cpu instruction from a imaginary memeory map and convert it to the native computer code. You keep a track of how many virtual instructions have been run which allows you to syncronise garfix and sound etc. The principle is very simple. The implementation is alot more difficult.
You mentioned before that the saturn is really powerful. What kind of computer do you think is necessary for full speed emulation? [TyRaNiD] Proably for most saturn games which dont use much of the saturns powers maybe a fast P3. Assumming dynamic recomilation cpu cores and HLE emulation. For the really power hungry games u could be looking at alot more manily dues to the multi processors and things like a fast dsp math processor. I do believe the saturn was more powerful than the psx it just could never show it.
Whos fault was that? Lazy coders? [TyRaNiD] more bad design on Segas part. It didnt believe it needed 3d hardware so it made it 2d only. When the psxs specs were released sega realised that theyhad made a blunder and told the designers to add some sort of 3d hardware. In the end it just didnt get the punters because of its poor 3d power as people r quite fickle. that drove the coder from ever really exploiting the power.
from Azuco: What you think about AZUCO & A-SATURN... [TyRaNiD] Well Azucos a nice enough person, and A-Saturn has progressed really far since I first saw it. It should do well if enough time and effort can be expended on it. A-Saturn at the moment is the only contender for the emu which runs the first game apart from Lucifer.
How soon do you think that will be? [TyRaNiD] Months if not a year. It wont be tommorow I can tell u that.
Why do you think saturn emulation is so far behind PS and N64 emulation? [TyRaNiD] Because there is no interest. There is the select few people who really care about the saturn but most never had a game they would even consider playing on the saturn. Also there is not as much fame to be gainined or commercial viability. Overall it died in the market and except for a select band is almost dead in the emu world.
Which are your favorite games, and do you like gaming or programming more? Fav games are any street fighter including the derivatives MSH etc. and classic shoot um ups. [TyRaNiD] Im a game player first and for most. Programming comes just behind.
Will you release the source-code of Lucifer? [TyRaNiD]And as for the source MaYbE !
Will Arsenal beat AIK in the champions league (football) [TyRaNiD] of course NOT
Anything else you want to tell us? [TyRaNiD] Just stay happy. That is the only pleasure you will get in life :P oh and stop requesting the BIOS. Please !!
Interview by Tunek Published: 27/8 1999
For those who may not know who Azuco is, he is the developer of A-saturn, the most advanced released Sega Saturn emulator. Could you please tell us a little about yourself? Azuco: Job : not programmer. (real job is secret) Age : 25 hobby : programming,game,guiter (my favarit music : AfterBurner)
explain my nickname AZUCO.... My real name is 'AZUMA'.I like 'NAMCO'. 'AZUma'+'namCO'='AZUCO'
(Azuco is from Japan, in case anyone didn't know. -Tunek)
Have you written any software before? Use EMS of dos base program by assembler. (I like assembler.) A-SATURN is first C++ & windows base program.
When and why did start your A-saturn project? Azuco: last year February ... I enter a hospital by sick. I program starting reason ,kill time.
at first,I was going to make PS emulator. but I can't got R3000 document. I got SH2 document by chance.
What are you currently working on? (For example, better VDP2 emulation.) Azuco: VDP2 layer by DirectX CD-Block Interrupt timing check Speed optimize
Which are the biggest difficulties in Saturn emulation? Azuco: Multi processer support.(SH2 master,SH2 slave,MC68K,VDP1,VDP2,SMPC,SCU,CD-Block,DPS) VDP2 support.(VDP2 is very very High performance processer) CD-Block.(nothing impliment way by windows function method .....)
When do you think A-saturn can run any game? Azuco: .....I don't know..... I have to many many implement function that can run game.
Do you think you have acces to other information that western saturn emulator developers don't have? (Like technical documents and such.) Azuco: sorry... I not enough understand mean.
We can get Saturn document is .... Sega Of America's for Saturn Developer document. Hitach SH2 document.
I don't have another document. Western saturn emulator developers can more high level emulator than A-SATURN.
Do you have a lot of contact with the other Saturn emulation developers? Azuco: No,my english is very very poor. I can't enough explain by english. but,I have a lot of technical programer's friend in Japan.
A-saturn seems to be the most advanced saturn emulator. Why do you think it is so? Do you think you work harder than other people? Azuco: Lucifer is not release binary code yet. But,I think so,Lucifer progress is most advance ... ? I have to more work harder.
Do you plan to release the sourcecode? (I you answer yes or no)Why? Azuco: Yes.If source code release , obey GPL. or I think,A-SATURN join Lucifer team.
Why did you chose windows as the development platform, instead of GNU/Linux or Macintosh? Azuco: Windows user is very many. Windows have directX (can direct drive of many type hardware) but,I like GNU spirit. I have not Mac! but,I like MC68K.
Do you really like games, or are you more interested in programming? If you like games, could you tell us your five favorite games ever? Azuco: AfterBurner (my favorite ... ?!)
CAPCOM fighting game (SFZero,VampireSaver,PocketFighter....I strong by Ken Masters)
Tomb Raider series (I expect TR4!)
ImageFight (Irem corp.Good music by FM sound genelator!)
Girl game! (in english ? Hentai game ?)
This is a question from a TITAN reader: Will you port A-saturn to Dreamcast when it is finished, and is this even possible? (Question from DCX) Azuco: I don't know Dreamcast hardware info. and Saturn is more high-performance that We think. Maybe possible emulation, but impossible same speed that real saturn.
Do you like the Macross animies? Azuco: oh!why you know that? I like macross plus. Cast in my favorite voice actress (Rika Fukami : Japanese Edition)
Anything else you would like to say? Azuco: I very glad to this interview.
I think not important Can run game. Emulator is cultuer that more academic. I only interesting Saturn hardware & emulator implementing. but, Can run game by I work hard. It is good things.
I want your opinion. Please write my web page message board. Access it here.
Interview by Tunek
Addition to A-Saturn monitor command reference
1. What is the extra switch control?
xb - when disabled (default) the breakpoints dont have effect (in other
words, dont work)
xd - when it's enabled (default) every step you will see disasmed instruction
performed by active CPU
p.s. in the information table by command "!": enabled = 1, disabled = 0
2. Change CPU commands and "p" commands (activate/inactivate cpus)
c commands need if you want to change the cpu monitor.
p commands enables/disables currently working cpu. For example - if you run the
CPU, and want to stop it just use p<number of cpu> command.
3. Breakpoints commands.
bs <address of break> - sets the breakpoint. Remember about "xb" command.
bl - lists bpoints
bl NN - clears the bpoint number NN.
>>Some addition info<<
(Maybe, most of this info will not be needed in later versions of A-Saturn.)
1. Loading custom files into A-Saturn memory.
Because, AZUCO didn't implemented something like a "Load file" command into
his emulator yet, here is only one way to do it. All you need, is to edit memory
table in a-saturn.ini file in this format: nnnn=file.abc ,where is the nnnn
memory location and file.abc name of file to be loaded. But if the wanted memory
address not listed in ini file - it can be added there manually, for example,
to load file sonic.bin into vdp2 vram you need to add the line "25e0=sonic.bin"
to the end of mem table in a-saturn.ini file. But, need to remember, that
the A-Saturn allocated 64Kb of memory blocks and the format of address in ini
file only 4 digits long (nnnn). If you want to load file into custom
memory address, you need to edit the loadable file with addition of block with
NOPs (00 09) to load the edited file into "nearest" memory location in ini file.
2. How to jumps CPUs to custom memory address.
There is no special command for jumps CPUs to custom memory locations, but
it's can be easily achieved via direct changing PC register -> r pc nnnnnnnn,
where is nnnnnnnn mem address where CPU is need to be pointed.
>>Example of using advanced features of A-Saturn (VDP2 registers)<<
It's a well known that A-Saturn have partially VDP2 support, to see how it
works you can follow the instruction from A-Saturn home page - and see the
Timer Setting gfx from bios. But if you want, you can just play with some of
vdp2 registers directly from the A-Saturn monitor, for example for "quick
visually" result try to set TV screen mode register at 25f80000:
es 25f80000 8000
Im even wrote simple useless proggy-routine which do it automatically ;-)
If you want to try it and even dont have sh2 asm at your hands then do it:
run A-Saturn, and then
el 06004000 d001d102
el 06004004 20110009
el 06004008 25f80000
es 0600400c 8000
r pc 06004000
g (or better t4 in case that there is no ending or loop)
=)
Written by Denis
Published on TITAN, http://user.tninet.se/~puc549i
Currently, there isn't to my knowledge any good Sega Saturn emulation pages. So, TyRaNiD of Lucifer and Sat'on'Em fame and I discussed a bit how such a page should be, and I didn't listen a bit and together with hobby web designer Anders Pettersson I made this site. i hope that this will be a useful site for everyone that is interested in Saturn emulation, whether or not you're an emu coder, a total beginner to the emu scene or just someome who thinks it's cool that the Saturn finally is on the brink of being at least partially emulated. this is what we will do. We will focus on emulators that are being developed. Having old emus that don't do shit won't do us or you any good. We will try our best to help out all of those who are new to saturn emulation. We will help emu coders looking for technical info, help from other coders and just help them get exposure. We will have cool features and interviews with emu coders, and maybe even some game programmers. We will try to educate every lamer so they stop being lamers and realise that you don't get everything served on a plate in the real world. And that they should have respect for people who do something for them. And we hope that a lot of people who visit this site will also contribute to it, from helping people out on the forum, making features and tipping us on news.
But the real purpose of this site is that it will somehow help the emu community so whe one day will see a Saturn emulutor that is as good as zsnes or neorage. And to all of those that say "What's the fucking point with a saturn emu page when all the emulators suck big time!?" I really don't have an good answer. The only one I have is: "Someday, when you finally play NiGHTS and Panzer Saga on your PC, you will be glad to have witnessed all the small steps that led to it."
And if you wanna know why this site is so fucking blue, it's because Anders like fucking blue.
TITAN will die. There are many reasons why, but those are not important. The important thing is that when TITAN started it was the only site focusing on Saturn emulation. Now it isn't. The only reason why TITAN got started was the fact that it was totally unique. But when that is gone, all that is left is to become 'better' than the competion. And why waste energy on that? And we all have to move forward, progress and hopefully become 'more'. But TITAN won't ever become anything it isn't already. And that's why it must die. So, no more jokes that no one got. No more references to songs. No more 'Check it out here........' Basicly, no more TITAN.
"I would like to thank everyone who helped TITAN come true. TyRaNiD, for making all the contributions to the site, and for making me make one in the first place. Anders who has done all the graphics and tought me frames. Azuco for being cool and creating A-saturn. Alucard and Ben-J for being helpful. Scarrow for releasing Hyperion. Denis for his contributions. And everyone else who has ever helped me but I am to stupid to remember. And a special thanks to the guy who fell for my Åbro joke. You gave me a smile all day!!! Take care!! -tuna (used to be known as Tunek)
"Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it." - Confucius (Probably not talking about Sega Saturn Development or Hatred)