SSF (emulator)
Encyclopedia
SSF is a Sega Saturn
emulator
for Windows
systems using DirectX
9.0c or higher. The current version claims near-complete implementation of the Saturn hardware, and can also emulate the Saturn-based Sega Titan Video arcade hardware. As with most emulators, CDs
or disc image
s are not included and must be provided by the user.
The Saturn's BIOS
file is not included with SSF. Though most games can run without it, the BIOS is recommended for better compatibility, and needed for tasks such as management of the Saturn's internal memory, or setting the system clock (without Christmas Nights).
SSF does not have any in-built support for loading disk image
s; in order for games to be run they must either be mounted by a 3rd-party program (such as Alcohol 120% or Daemon Tools
) or by use of genuine Saturn discs placed in the host computer's optical drive.
, instead consisting of a single ZIP file
that contains a folder with the emulator and all required files, along with folders for backups, screenshot
s and save states
. Recently upgraded to version 0.12
The emulator can run in full screen, with or without scanline
s. The display resolution
, full screen or otherwise, is fixed at 640x480 (twice the Saturn's usual 320x240, although it is rendered with double-sized pixels so the resolution is technically the same). Games using 352x240 resolution are likewise enlarged to 704x480. In fullscreen mode, the emulator uses the available resolution mode closest to the emulated one; thus, widescreen games running in fullscreen may display improperly without the use of custom resolutions. Other than toggling Vsync on or off and an option to use DirectDraw
, no video options exist, as SSF emulates games entirely through software rendering
.
A DirectX
9-compatible graphics card
and a minimum of 256 MB of RAM are required for the emulator to run. A Pentium 4 at 3 GHz or higher, an AMD Athlon rated at 3000+ or higher, any Core2, or any AMD Phenom are required for games to run at proper speed. If the processor is not fast enough, the emulator will, depending on settings in the options, either do a frame skip for full speed (resulting in choppy animation), or will render all the frames (resulting in slow-motion gameplay). SSF can emulate the hardware parts of the Saturn using numerous threads, thus taking advantage of multi-core CPUs.
Sega Saturn
The is a 32-bit fifth-generation video game console that was first released by Sega on November 22, 1994 in Japan, May 11, 1995 in North America, and July 8, 1995 in Europe...
emulator
Video game console emulator
A video game console emulator is a program that allows a computer or modern console to emulate a different video game console's behavior. Emulators are most often used to play older video games on personal computers and modern video game consoles, but they are also used to play games translated...
for Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
systems using DirectX
DirectX
Microsoft DirectX is a collection of application programming interfaces for handling tasks related to multimedia, especially game programming and video, on Microsoft platforms. Originally, the names of these APIs all began with Direct, such as Direct3D, DirectDraw, DirectMusic, DirectPlay,...
9.0c or higher. The current version claims near-complete implementation of the Saturn hardware, and can also emulate the Saturn-based Sega Titan Video arcade hardware. As with most emulators, CDs
Compact Disc
The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...
or disc image
Disk image
A disk image is a single file or storage device containing the complete contents and structure representing a data storage medium or device, such as a hard drive, tape drive, floppy disk, CD/DVD/BD, or USB flash drive, although an image of an optical disc may be referred to as an optical disc image...
s are not included and must be provided by the user.
The Saturn's BIOS
BIOS
In IBM PC compatible computers, the basic input/output system , also known as the System BIOS or ROM BIOS , is a de facto standard defining a firmware interface....
file is not included with SSF. Though most games can run without it, the BIOS is recommended for better compatibility, and needed for tasks such as management of the Saturn's internal memory, or setting the system clock (without Christmas Nights).
SSF does not have any in-built support for loading disk image
Disk image
A disk image is a single file or storage device containing the complete contents and structure representing a data storage medium or device, such as a hard drive, tape drive, floppy disk, CD/DVD/BD, or USB flash drive, although an image of an optical disc may be referred to as an optical disc image...
s; in order for games to be run they must either be mounted by a 3rd-party program (such as Alcohol 120% or Daemon Tools
Daemon Tools
Daemon Tools is a disk image emulator and optical disc authoring program for Microsoft Windows. Daemon Tools was originally a furtherance in the development of another program, Generic SafeDisc emulator, and incorporated all of its features. The program claims to be able to defeat most copy...
) or by use of genuine Saturn discs placed in the host computer's optical drive.
Overview
SSF does not come with a software installerInstallation (computer programs)
Installation of a program is the act of putting the program onto a computer system so that it can be executed....
, instead consisting of a single ZIP file
ZIP (file format)
Zip is a file format used for data compression and archiving. A zip file contains one or more files that have been compressed, to reduce file size, or stored as is...
that contains a folder with the emulator and all required files, along with folders for backups, screenshot
Screenshot
A screenshot , screen capture , screen dump, screengrab , or print screen is an image taken by a computer to record the visible items displayed on the monitor, television, or another visual output device...
s and save states
Saved game
A saved game is a piece of digitally stored information about the progress of a player in a video game. This saved game can be reloaded later, so the player can continue where he or she had stopped...
. Recently upgraded to version 0.12
The emulator can run in full screen, with or without scanline
Scan line
A scan line or scanline is one line, or row, in a raster scanning pattern, such as a line of video on a cathode ray tube display of a television set or computer monitor....
s. The display resolution
Display resolution
The display resolution of a digital television or display device is the number of distinct pixels in each dimension that can be displayed. It can be an ambiguous term especially as the displayed resolution is controlled by all different factors in cathode ray tube , flat panel or projection...
, full screen or otherwise, is fixed at 640x480 (twice the Saturn's usual 320x240, although it is rendered with double-sized pixels so the resolution is technically the same). Games using 352x240 resolution are likewise enlarged to 704x480. In fullscreen mode, the emulator uses the available resolution mode closest to the emulated one; thus, widescreen games running in fullscreen may display improperly without the use of custom resolutions. Other than toggling Vsync on or off and an option to use DirectDraw
DirectDraw
DirectDraw is part of Microsoft's DirectX API. DirectDraw is used to render graphics in applications where top performance is important. DirectDraw also allows applications to run fullscreen or embedded in a window such as most other MS Windows applications. DirectDraw uses hardware acceleration if...
, no video options exist, as SSF emulates games entirely through software rendering
Software rendering
In the context of rendering , software rendering refers to a rendering process that is unaided by any specialized graphics hardware, such as a graphics card. The rendering takes place entirely in the CPU...
.
A DirectX
DirectX
Microsoft DirectX is a collection of application programming interfaces for handling tasks related to multimedia, especially game programming and video, on Microsoft platforms. Originally, the names of these APIs all began with Direct, such as Direct3D, DirectDraw, DirectMusic, DirectPlay,...
9-compatible graphics card
Video card
A video card, Graphics Card, or Graphics adapter is an expansion card which generates output images to a display. Most video cards offer various functions such as accelerated rendering of 3D scenes and 2D graphics, MPEG-2/MPEG-4 decoding, TV output, or the ability to connect multiple monitors...
and a minimum of 256 MB of RAM are required for the emulator to run. A Pentium 4 at 3 GHz or higher, an AMD Athlon rated at 3000+ or higher, any Core2, or any AMD Phenom are required for games to run at proper speed. If the processor is not fast enough, the emulator will, depending on settings in the options, either do a frame skip for full speed (resulting in choppy animation), or will render all the frames (resulting in slow-motion gameplay). SSF can emulate the hardware parts of the Saturn using numerous threads, thus taking advantage of multi-core CPUs.
Emulation status
| Saturn Component | Emulation Accuracy |
|---|---|
| 2x SuperH2 SuperH SuperH is a 32-bit reduced instruction set computer instruction set architecture developed by Hitachi. It is implemented by microcontrollers and microprocessors for embedded systems.... processors |
100% |
| 68EC000 sound microprocessor Microprocessor A microprocessor incorporates the functions of a computer's central processing unit on a single integrated circuit, or at most a few integrated circuits. It is a multipurpose, programmable device that accepts digital data as input, processes it according to instructions stored in its memory, and... |
100% |
| VDP1 display processor | 95% |
| VDP2 background display processor | 95% |
| Saturn Control Unit (SCU) | 100% |
| System Manager & Peripheral Control MCU Microcontroller A microcontroller is a small computer on a single integrated circuit containing a processor core, memory, and programmable input/output peripherals. Program memory in the form of NOR flash or OTP ROM is also often included on chip, as well as a typically small amount of RAM... |
100% |
| Custom Sound Processor (DSP Digital signal processor A digital signal processor is a specialized microprocessor with an architecture optimized for the fast operational needs of digital signal processing.-Typical characteristics:... ) |
95% |
| Saturn CD drive RISC Reduced instruction set computer Reduced instruction set computing, or RISC , is a CPU design strategy based on the insight that simplified instructions can provide higher performance if this simplicity enables much faster execution of each instruction. A computer based on this strategy is a reduced instruction set computer... processor |
85% |
System requirements
| Processor Microprocessor A microprocessor incorporates the functions of a computer's central processing unit on a single integrated circuit, or at most a few integrated circuits. It is a multipurpose, programmable device that accepts digital data as input, processes it according to instructions stored in its memory, and... |
SSF requires the processor to have the SSE2 SSE2 SSE2, Streaming SIMD Extensions 2, is one of the Intel SIMD processor supplementary instruction sets first introduced by Intel with the initial version of the Pentium 4 in 2001. It extends the earlier SSE instruction set, and is intended to fully supplant MMX. Intel extended SSE2 to create SSE3... instruction set, so a Pentium 4 Pentium 4 Pentium 4 was a line of single-core desktop and laptop central processing units , introduced by Intel on November 20, 2000 and shipped through August 8, 2008. They had a 7th-generation x86 microarchitecture, called NetBurst, which was the company's first all-new design since the introduction of the... , Pentium M Pentium M The Pentium M brand refers to a family of mobile single-core x86 microprocessors introduced in March 2003 , and forming a part of the Intel Carmel notebook platform under the then new Centrino brand... , Opteron Opteron Opteron is AMD's x86 server and workstation processor line, and was the first processor which supported the AMD64 instruction set architecture . It was released on April 22, 2003 with the SledgeHammer core and was intended to compete in the server and workstation markets, particularly in the same... , Athlon 64 Athlon 64 The Athlon 64 is an eighth-generation, AMD64-architecture microprocessor produced by AMD, released on September 23, 2003. It is the third processor to bear the name Athlon, and the immediate successor to the Athlon XP... , Sempron Sempron Sempron has been the marketing name used by AMD for several different budget desktop CPUs, using several different technologies and CPU socket formats. The Sempron replaced the AMD Duron processor and competes against Intel's Celeron series of processors... (64bit), Turion 64 or better are necessary to run it. |
| RAM | At least 256 MB Megabyte The megabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information storage or transmission with two different values depending on context: bytes generally for computer memory; and one million bytes generally for computer storage. The IEEE Standards Board has decided that "Mega will mean 1 000... (512 MB dual-channel RAM Dual-channel architecture Multi-channel architecture is a technology that increases the transfer speed of data between the RAM and the memory controller by adding more channels of communication between them. Theoretically this multiplies the data rate by exactly the number of channels present. Dual-channel memory employs... or more recommended) |
| Video Video card A video card, Graphics Card, or Graphics adapter is an expansion card which generates output images to a display. Most video cards offer various functions such as accelerated rendering of 3D scenes and 2D graphics, MPEG-2/MPEG-4 decoding, TV output, or the ability to connect multiple monitors... / Sound Sound card A sound card is an internal computer expansion card that facilitates the input and output of audio signals to and from a computer under control of computer programs. The term sound card is also applied to external audio interfaces that use software to generate sound, as opposed to using hardware... |
Must be compatible with DirectX DirectX Microsoft DirectX is a collection of application programming interfaces for handling tasks related to multimedia, especially game programming and video, on Microsoft platforms. Originally, the names of these APIs all began with Direct, such as Direct3D, DirectDraw, DirectMusic, DirectPlay,... 9.0c |
| Operating System Operating system An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system... |
Windows 2000 Windows 2000 Windows 2000 is a line of operating systems produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, business desktops, laptops, and servers. Windows 2000 was released to manufacturing on 15 December 1999 and launched to retail on 17 February 2000. It is the successor to Windows NT 4.0, and is the... , XP Windows XP Windows XP is an operating system produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops and media centers. First released to computer manufacturers on August 24, 2001, it is the second most popular version of Windows, based on installed user base... , Vista Windows Vista Windows Vista is an operating system released in several variations developed by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablet PCs, and media center PCs... , or 7 |
| BIOS BIOS In IBM PC compatible computers, the basic input/output system , also known as the System BIOS or ROM BIOS , is a de facto standard defining a firmware interface.... |
Not needed but recommended for management of system settings and better overall compatibility |