Sega Saturn stopped working on Retroarch

[badboo]

Hi Everyone,

Well, I have updated Retroarch to version 1.7.xx (don't remember well), an I noted that Sega Saturn stopped work on RA and looking at the notes on Rocketlauncher, it says that the developers stopped supporting Daemon tools or whatsoever.  And I have found on reddit some people mentioning the same issue with latest RA builds, but no answer yet.

Has anyone had this issue with Sega saturn?

There is SSF but I just liked the way I had Sega saturn on RA. 

[Rowr14]

I feel like this is the issue with updating these softwares, they are unreliable at differing versions when you have everything just so.

It's always something.

Seems like the best bet is get everything right at certain versions and then just leave everything forever.

HyperSpin breaking with the latest version of windows is a good example.

I feel like I went to a lot of trouble to get everything just so for a version of mame only to find out there seems to be some bug regarding how it saves settings, so yeh looking forward to trying to tackle that.

Can you at least roll back to an earlier version of RA? Or even leave a secondary install just for saturn?

[RonSharma]

Retroarch already isn't working on iOS 11.4 on my iPhone 7.

Update: It now works fine upon an uninstall and reinstallation. 

Ron Sharma
Appvalley Tutuapp Tweakbox

[badboo]

I feel you on that!, i was happy with my sega saturn setup and now this 

i got RA 1.4 (from simply austin youtube videos) but still didnt work. I think that version is too old run it properly. 

Also i have a RA 1.6.x (to leave as an alternative emulator) but i updated the core, and i get the same black screen. I shouldnt had updated that core but i didnt know at tha point.

[progets]

You don't need DT or a virtual disc tool for RetroArch. You just need to make playlist for games with more than one disk. This will allow you to swap discs in RetroArch. I'll also mention using the old method of swapping using virtual discs caused issue with the save/load states since the save files would have different names. This isn't an issue when you use a playlist.

You can read about it here https://docs.libretro.com/library/beetle_saturn/. 

[Leonardo]

Yabuse core is dead...

[badboo]

Oh i see. I have my roms on 7z, not sure if that matters, but i will check this.

I will check your link as well. Hopefully i find a solution soon

[progets]

Just my 2 cents but anything that needs to be unzipped is old news. Who wants to wait for that? I converted anything that needs to be zipped into an emulator native compressed format. For Saturn you can use .chd which will be about the same size as .7z but doesn't need to be uncompresses to be used by RetroArch's Beetle Saturn core. This is also true for DC, PS, T16-CD, PC-FX, etc. when using other RetroArch Beetle cores.

 

The same can be done with other large games but with different file  formats that are native to their perspective emulators. PS2 and PSP can use .cso. Wii can use .wad or .wbfs. GC can use .gcz.

 

There is little need or reason to decompress files before use and/or use virtual discs in emulation these days. They add load time with every use and add complication when it's not needed.

 

This is a good thread if you have interest http://hyperspin-fe.com/forums/topic/15576-comprehensive-list-of-natively-supported-compression-formats/ Make sure you get the latest version of conversion tools. The links in the thread are dated and the newer tools will compress smaller and faster than the old versions.

 

[badboo]

hmmm good point. I think I wont saving that much on space if I keep saturn roms on 7z format anyway.  I can try one or two games on a different format, like chd, and see how they work. 

[progets]

2 hours ago, badboo said:

hmmm good point. I think I wont saving that much on space if I keep saturn roms on 7z format anyway.  I can try one or two games on a different format, like chd, and see how they work. 

You have the right idea, test a few and see what works best for you.

 

.chd files use compression just like .7z files. In some cases the compression is better and in some cases it's worse. Overall it's a total wash and you won't lose or gain any space worth mentioning but you won't have to unzip the files to use them, have save/load state issues or have to deal with .bin/.cue files after converting.

[progets]

I should also mention that since MESS and MAME were merged a few years back Saturn games in the .chd format are part of MAME's current complete Software List CHDs set. These file won't play properly in MAME but are triple checksum verified making them some of the cleanest versions available anywhere. If you don't want to rip your own games you can download these for titles you own for the best no nonsense/fake/spyware/virus roms available. They will work in Mednafen and RetroArch (Beetle Core) emulators.

[badboo]

I was trying to make this work last night and nothing. Updated to RA 1.7.3, updated the mednafen core, unzip the roms to read the .cue file directly and nothing. Not even directly from RA.

I was trying to download an old build from RA website and the oldest one the keep is 1.6.7 but no cores, so it's not use for me.

Could someone share an older mednafen (beatle) core for RA, that has not been updated? Before 1.7.X would be better.

 

[badboo]

ok, coming back with an update. I was able to make it work ... finally!!!! 

I had to download the RA 1.6.7 version from their website and then I got the cores for the sega saturn and placed them in the system folder.

I used the beetle (mednafen) core for sega saturn by dowanloading it through the same RA 1.6.7.

If I try this same thing on 1.7.x versions, doesn't work... 

well, I am glad I got it working again,  but too bad it took me some days to figured just this out. lol