Dreamcast-Talk.com

It would be, but given the complexity of the Saturn hardware, I doubt the DC could emulate it properly, even if there were a decent Saturn emulator.

I mean, this is a system that couldn't properly take advantage of the hardware in its first dev kit.

The fact that the Saturn has two main CPUs and additional secondary CPUs means that the DC isn't powerful enough to emulate it with only one SH4. It can easily take an order of magnitude more power to emulate an old system on a new one, and the DC isn't that big of a step ahead of the Saturn.

scaryred24 wrote:2. Yes but it runs at 10% of 1 frame per second. The team over at Yabause made a tech demo running Saturn games on the Dreamcast but was never to be fully functional any time soon.

Ouch. That statement hurts a lot.

It's not anywhere near that slow. During FMVs, it tends to run a lot slower than normal, but even FMVs get around 2.5-3FPS. Heck, there are some parts of games that actually run at 10 or more FPS. I'd know, as I'm the one that ported Yabause to the Dreamcast in the first place.

So, yes, it's true that it's nowhere near playable, it's not nearly as bad as 1/10th of 1 FPS.

Without getting too much into technical stuff, there's some interesting optimizations that could be taken with emulating the Saturn on the Dreamcast. CPU-wise, the Saturn's main CPUs are both Hitachi SuperH 2 processors, whereas the Dreamcast is a SuperH 4. The SH4 can actually run SH2 code, but there are other complications that make that a much more difficult task than just straight up running the code (multiple CPUs, difference in endianness, different memory map, completely different hardware beyond the CPU, etc). In addition to that, the Saturn's VDP1 (one of its two video chips) is actually fairly easy to map onto the Dreamcast's PowerVR GPU. The problem, of course, comes in dealing with the other video chip in the Saturn, which is much more similar to the old-style graphics hardware older consoles like the Genesis and the SNES. In addition, the Saturn's sound chip, the SCSP, is kinda like the older brother of the Dreamcast's sound chip, the AICA. Both were made by Yamaha, and are extremely similar in their operation. Heck, both of them pretty much have the same DSP on-chip.

So, there's interesting optimizations that could be done to speed up emulation of the Saturn on the Dreamcast, but you'd really need someone who's very experienced in both pieces of hardware to even have a shot at it. Plus, you'd be designing your emulator from the ground up with no real guarantee it'd ever be full speed. Simply put, emulating the Saturn is a huge PITA, and there's really not many people who have even bothered with it on the PC, much less on a platform where everything would realistically have to be in hand-optimized assembly to get it up to snuff.

BlueCrab wrote:

scaryred24 wrote:2. Yes but it runs at 10% of 1 frame per second. The team over at Yabause made a tech demo running Saturn games on the Dreamcast but was never to be fully functional any time soon.

Ouch. That statement hurts a lot.

It's not anywhere near that slow. During FMVs, it tends to run a lot slower than normal, but even FMVs get around 2.5-3FPS. Heck, there are some parts of games that actually run at 10 or more FPS. I'd know, as I'm the one that ported Yabause to the Dreamcast in the first place.

So, yes, it's true that it's nowhere near playable, it's not nearly as bad as 1/10th of 1 FPS.

Without getting too much into technical stuff, there's some interesting optimizations that could be taken with emulating the Saturn on the Dreamcast. CPU-wise, the Saturn's main CPUs are both Hitachi SuperH 2 processors, whereas the Dreamcast is a SuperH 4. The SH4 can actually run SH2 code, but there are other complications that make that a much more difficult task than just straight up running the code (multiple CPUs, difference in endianness, different memory map, completely different hardware beyond the CPU, etc). In addition to that, the Saturn's VDP1 (one of its two video chips) is actually fairly easy to map onto the Dreamcast's PowerVR GPU. The problem, of course, comes in dealing with the other video chip in the Saturn, which is much more similar to the old-style graphics hardware older consoles like the Genesis and the SNES. In addition, the Saturn's sound chip, the SCSP, is kinda like the older brother of the Dreamcast's sound chip, the AICA. Both were made by Yamaha, and are extremely similar in their operation. Heck, both of them pretty much have the same DSP on-chip.

So, there's interesting optimizations that could be done to speed up emulation of the Saturn on the Dreamcast, but you'd really need someone who's very experienced in both pieces of hardware to even have a shot at it. Plus, you'd be designing your emulator from the ground up with no real guarantee it'd ever be full speed. Simply put, emulating the Saturn is a huge PITA, and there's really not many people who have even bothered with it on the PC, much less on a platform where everything would realistically have to be in hand-optimized assembly to get it up to snuff.

I'm sorry about that. I apologize for the lack of a proper answer to the question. I thought I could retain my memory for one without looking it up first. I also should of known that you were involved in that port.

There are a few Bleem Shmups made by psyko that work that were also on Saturn.

scaryred24 wrote:I'm sorry about that. I apologize for the lack of a proper answer to the question. I thought I could retain my memory for one without looking it up first. I also should of known that you were involved in that port.

It's all good. I don't take offense to it. You were right on one thing though, I've often said it is basically like a bit of tech demo.

Another hurdle is the the fact the Dreamcast has two fewer face buttons than the Saturn making some games which use all 6 buttons plus triggers complicated.

You could map the D-pad buttons for the Z and C button or the triggers. Depends on the game.

BlueCrab wrote:

scaryred24 wrote:2. Yes but it runs at 10% of 1 frame per second. The team over at Yabause made a tech demo running Saturn games on the Dreamcast but was never to be fully functional any time soon.

Ouch. That statement hurts a lot.

It's not anywhere near that slow. During FMVs, it tends to run a lot slower than normal, but even FMVs get around 2.5-3FPS. Heck, there are some parts of games that actually run at 10 or more FPS. I'd know, as I'm the one that ported Yabause to the Dreamcast in the first place.

So, yes, it's true that it's nowhere near playable, it's not nearly as bad as 1/10th of 1 FPS.

Without getting too much into technical stuff, there's some interesting optimizations that could be taken with emulating the Saturn on the Dreamcast. CPU-wise, the Saturn's main CPUs are both Hitachi SuperH 2 processors, whereas the Dreamcast is a SuperH 4. The SH4 can actually run SH2 code, but there are other complications that make that a much more difficult task than just straight up running the code (multiple CPUs, difference in endianness, different memory map, completely different hardware beyond the CPU, etc). In addition to that, the Saturn's VDP1 (one of its two video chips) is actually fairly easy to map onto the Dreamcast's PowerVR GPU. The problem, of course, comes in dealing with the other video chip in the Saturn, which is much more similar to the old-style graphics hardware older consoles like the Genesis and the SNES. In addition, the Saturn's sound chip, the SCSP, is kinda like the older brother of the Dreamcast's sound chip, the AICA. Both were made by Yamaha, and are extremely similar in their operation. Heck, both of them pretty much have the same DSP on-chip.

So, there's interesting optimizations that could be done to speed up emulation of the Saturn on the Dreamcast, but you'd really need someone who's very experienced in both pieces of hardware to even have a shot at it. Plus, you'd be designing your emulator from the ground up with no real guarantee it'd ever be full speed. Simply put, emulating the Saturn is a huge PITA, and there's really not many people who have even bothered with it on the PC, much less on a platform where everything would realistically have to be in hand-optimized assembly to get it up to snuff.

That really interessting to read you talking about comparing Saturn and Dreamcast hardwares! As time goes, people having such knowledge would become rarer. I would be really happy to play Saturn games on Dreamcast one day. I dont know why... something in me is telling me that would be great. Probably, it will never happen. Saturn are selling around 100 US$ on ebay. I suggest you to get one before price raise. 50% of listed Saturn on ebay are not working anymore, so dont loose your time if you want to try it. It wont always be possible even if SD loader will extend the time a little.

So possible new info on this idea ? would be sweet to somehow convert/port saturn stuff to dreamcast