Homebrew Saturn emulation using Cotton/Guardian Force testing and debug

[dragonz]

The reality is that wallpapers that combine scanlines don't work in Saturn games, and you can only see the borders, but you can't see the added scanlines. But this method does work in the NSO simulator, I will put two screenshots with the switch, you can see the effect very intuitively. One of them uses NSO's official original screen filter, and the other one is the display of the wallpaper I added the filter effect to. Hopefully, this approach may provide some ideas for improving the display of the NSO Emulator in the future.

View attachment 468114

Emulator original filter effect​

View attachment 468115

Customize the appearance of the overlay​

Post automatically merged: Oct 30, 2024

The above is the specific display effect that I tested with the NSO Emulator here.Here is another video of the Saturn game after changing the wallpaper. No scanlines can be seen in it.

View attachment 468122

The scanlines you created look amazing! It’s definitely an improvement.

I apologize for being unfamiliar with the NSO emulator—I'm not sure what that is. From the screenshots, it seems to be a GBA emulator? Also, on an unrelated note, is the screenshot of the emulated game from Golden Sun? It looks fantastic!

I really hope someone more knowledgeable than I can figure out how to implement scanlines on the Saturn. Thanks for sharing that glimmer of hope!

Post automatically merged: Oct 30, 2024

By the way - I suspect that the wallpapers on the Saturn might have negative values—perhaps somewhere in the .ini file—causing the layer to appear behind the video feed. Sometimes programmers adjust the wallpaper values by adding -1, 0, or 1 to control whether the wallpaper is in front of or behind the video. It could be worth looking into!

 

[stefanramos]

Hello everybody! New here. I am reading a lot of this thread pages to understand.
I am using now NSP v1.2 by Markus95 to create the NSP and until now everything is okay except Nights that not perform well, do you guys have a place to find INI files for the games run smoothly? If yes i would be very happy.

The second thing is where to find a nice sega saturn wallpaper that I saw in a page, i could not find the file png or jpg

3th thing: there some ways to run these tools in a Macbook? If so, somebody would help me?

Thanks in advance and greeting from Brazil!

 

[dragonz]

Hello everybody! New here. I am reading a lot of this thread pages to understand.
I am using now NSP v1.2 by Markus95 to create the NSP and until now everything is okay except Nights that not perform well, do you guys have a place to find INI files for the games run smoothly? If yes i would be very happy.

The second thing is where to find a nice sega saturn wallpaper that I saw in a page, i could not find the file png or jpg

3th thing: there some ways to run these tools in a Macbook? If so, somebody would help me?

Thanks in advance and greeting from Brazil!

You don't need any INI files for Nights (at least I didn't). However, you will need to install Sys-Click and overclock Sega Saturn games to achieve full speed performance, especially for the 3D titles. For guidance, refer to 'How to Install SYS-CLK to Overclock the Nintendo Switch.'

Regarding your other queries, I am unable to assist. For the wallpaper issue, I simply use the internal rom tools to disable them, as I prefer the black borders. Unfortunately, I don't have experience with MacBooks and cannot provide assistance on that matter.

 

[stefanramos]

You don't need any INI files for Nights (at least I didn't). However, you will need to install Sys-Click and overclock Sega Saturn games to achieve full speed performance, especially for the 3D titles. For guidance, refer to 'How to Install SYS-CLK to Overclock the Nintendo Switch.'

Regarding your other queries, I am unable to assist. For the wallpaper issue, I simply use the internal rom tools to disable them, as I prefer the black borders. Unfortunately, I don't have experience with MacBooks and cannot provide assistance on that matter.

Thanks for your help!

 

[soldiaz]

Dam this is crazy! I managed to get DIE HARD TRILOGIE to work, one of the best games ever!!!!

Can anyone help to change home screen coverart and disable left and right bars which still shows Cotton ?

This is how I did:

1. Install Cotton Boomerang Saturn Tribute[010077001526E000][US][v0] nsp
2. Create atmosphere\contents\010077001526E000 (place Config_Switch.ini and icon.jpg here !!)
3. Create atmosphere\contents\010077001526E002\romfs (put Saturn dumps here! E.g. game.cue and game.bin)
4. Rename game.cue to CottonBoomerang.cue
5. Start!

Post automatically merged: Jan 19, 2025

What if I would like to "install" 10 Saturn games? Put em all in the romfs?! How does that work?

 

[Reploid]

Dam this is crazy! I managed to get DIE HARD TRILOGIE to work, one of the best games ever!!!!

Can anyone help to change home screen coverart and disable left and right bars which still shows Cotton ?

This is how I did:

1. Install Cotton Boomerang Saturn Tribute[010077001526E000][US][v0] nsp
2. Create atmosphere\contents\010077001526E000 (place Config_Switch.ini and icon.jpg here !!)
3. Create atmosphere\contents\010077001526E002\romfs (put Saturn dumps here! E.g. game.cue and game.bin)
4. Rename game.cue to CottonBoomerang.cue
5. Start!

Post automatically merged: Jan 19, 2025

What if I would like to "install" 10 Saturn games? Put em all in the romfs?! How does that work?

I only played 2nd one, was 1st the better one?

 

[soldiaz]

What u mean?

 

[ThePanda]

Dam this is crazy! I managed to get DIE HARD TRILOGIE to work, one of the best games ever!!!!

Can anyone help to change home screen coverart and disable left and right bars which still shows Cotton ?

This is how I did:

1. Install Cotton Boomerang Saturn Tribute[010077001526E000][US][v0] nsp
2. Create atmosphere\contents\010077001526E000 (place Config_Switch.ini and icon.jpg here !!)
3. Create atmosphere\contents\010077001526E002\romfs (put Saturn dumps here! E.g. game.cue and game.bin)
4. Rename game.cue to CottonBoomerang.cue
5. Start!

Post automatically merged: Jan 19, 2025

What if I would like to "install" 10 Saturn games? Put em all in the romfs?! How does that work?

You can use CaVE to generate these games with your own custom side images and what not. It’s in public release now. One single game, not multiple in one.

Post in thread 'CaVE Database Manager - A SNES, NES, N64, Genesis Switch Online modding App'
https://gbatemp.net/threads/cave-da...witch-online-modding-app.551466/post-10563842

 

[soldiaz]

Thanks! What about wide-screen? Mentioned it is working for N64 only. Maybe working for Saturn as well?

 

[SusumuNoDS]

developer is still active, you can request the future for your needs. I think wide-screen is a hack upgrade

 

[soldiaz]

Really, still active? I searched for contact, could not find

Id like to supply translation

 

[SusumuNoDS]

city-connection.co.jp I don't know how popular this game is. But when played it doesn't crash or glitch

 

[LlamaPantz]

Hi, I'm using NS 1.2 and compile my Saturn game but it keeps saying Error.

The system says it failed to match key. It will still say "Your NSP is decrypted". When I change ID of NSP, it says "The system cannot find the file specified." It still allows me to put the Rom and Developer name. But I still keep getting the same message "The system cannot find the file specified. With 6 lines saying errror.

I put my prod.keys and the rom inside the tools folder. And to test, I put the bin and cue files for Sonic 3D Blast. I compiled it into a NSP and tried installing on my switch. And when I do, it says it installed, but won't appear on switch menu. Does anyone know how to solve this or did anyone in the past have the same issue and fix it?

 

[belary]

Hi, I just found <deep sea> in two discs , is there anly way to merge them to one nsp or how to play two disc saturn games?

 

[emcintosh]

Hi, I just found <deep sea> in two discs , is there anly way to merge them to one nsp or how to play two disc saturn games?

IIRC you back up the save, and inject disc 2 with the same title ID as you had for disc 1. Or can Checkpoint force import a save into a non-matching game? That would be more convenient as you wouldn’t need to delete disc 1 from your Switch.

 

[SusumuNoDS]

IIRC you back up the save, and inject disc 2 with the same title ID as you had for disc 1. Or can Checkpoint force import a save into a non-matching game? That would be more convenient as you wouldn’t need to delete disc 1 from your Switch.

so no need to check md5 checksum

 

[hotcofe]

IIRC 您备份保存，并注入与光盘 1 相同的标题 ID 的光盘 2。或者 Checkpoint 是否可以强制将存档导入到不匹配的游戏中？那会更方便，因为您不需要从 Switch 中删除光盘 1。

不，事实上，确实可以实现多游戏集成。需要做的就是将多个 bin 文件集成在一起，并通过 SimpleModManager 挂载剩余的 cue 文件进行替换。

 

[James West]

Hi, I am very confused about widescreen : the same game (Cotton 2) has borders in my regular Switch, like all my other games, but in my Switch OLED it went "real" widescreen, no borders with wallpaper at all ! I tried everything to reproduce that in my regular Switch, with no success... Can someone try to help me ? Thanks.

Post automatically merged: Feb 25, 2025

 

[hotcofe]

嗨，我对宽屏非常困惑：同一款游戏（Cotton 2）在我的常规 Switch 上都有边框，就像我所有的其他游戏一样，但在我的 Switch OLED 上它变成了“真正的”宽屏，根本没有壁纸边框！我尝试了一切方法在我的常规 Switch 上重现这一点，但没有成功……有人可以试着帮助我吗？谢谢。
[自动合并]1740516173[/自动合并]

The widescreen setting of the game requires modifying the config file in the "romfs" folder, changing "widescreen=0" to "widescreen=1". You can check whether there is a corresponding patch file for the game in the "contents" folder. If there is a corresponding file, just modify it as mentioned above.

 

[James West]

The widescreen setting of the game requires modifying the config file in the "romfs" folder, changing "widescreen=0" to "widescreen=1". You can check whether there is a corresponding patch file for the game in the "contents" folder. If there is a corresponding file, just modify it as mentioned above.

Thank you, I'll give it a try