Interview d'A-Dac : émulateur Sega Saturn PC-Saturn

Voici une interview d'A-Dac, développeur sur PC-Saturn, un émulateur Sega Saturn.

The first question is about you. Could you present yourself please, where do you come from, your name, age, job, hobbies etc.?

My name is Matt Wolff, I live in Iowa (USA). I am 21 and work as a Computer Tech.
I enjoy learning (good 1 huh), Car audio, and of course playing on my computer :)

What's your PC configuration?

K6-3 450, 160m ram, 16g HD Voodoo Banchee, Sound Blaster Live!, Hitachi DVD, Sony 8/4/32 Burner, Win98, (95/NT4/2000 available for testing)

Did you buy a console?

Yep, I bought a Saturn not to long after it came out. I also have a Master System! (somewhere)

What is your favorite Sega Saturn/any support game?

My favorite Saturn game would have to be Panzer Dragoon II, Dragon Force close behind.

How did you know about emu scene?

About 4-5 years ago when I saw some Master System roms, and I though, COOL! Then I found Massage, and it went off from there.

When did you plan to develop PC-Saturn?

A few years ago when there were emulator for everything but Saturn.

Does it your first project?

Yes, first of this size and complication.

PC-Saturn is making its great return in the emu scene. Why the project was stopped?

It stopped when I haden't made much progress in quite awhile, also people always wanting roms, and how to get the BIOS file.

And how do you have to decide to take again the project?

Why did I start it back up? Mainly from seeing Project Hyperion, and growing persistence
in PC-Saturn to at least half that!

As a matter of fact, while we're on the subject, what do you thing about all project : -SSF-, Hyperion, A-Satun etc.

Can't really say that I have tried SSF, have yet to get A-Saturn to do much besides debug, and Hyperion is really impressive, yet very slow at the moment, but good things come to those who wait, and I look forward to seeing how it progresses.

Where are you looking for documentation on Sega Saturn, How people could help you? Do you need some help?

Well, I have pretty much all that there is available outside from being a certified Saturn developer. If someonw did have a document they feel would be useful, or is rare they could contact me at falconpcs@hotmail.com

What is the most difficult to develop a Sega Saturn emu ?

That would probably be implementing all 8 cpus and getting them running at their full speed.

•Two Hitachi SH2 32-bit RISC @ 28.6MHz
•One Hitachi SH1 32-bit RISC
•VDP 1 video display processor
•VDP 2 video display processor
•System Control Unit (SCU)
•Motorola 68EC000 sound processor
•SCSP sound processor

What will you present us with your Saturn Developers Network ?

That will be for anyone who wishes to develop software/emulators, what ever for the Saturn. It will contain technical documents, source code, utilities, etc.

Will you release the source-code of PC-Saturn?

Maybe at some time, but not right now.

A lot of people are waiting for a Sega Saturn emu that running commercial games ... What is your opinion about future Sega Saturn emu ?

I think that there will be one sometime, but most likely not for a few years.

Why do you think saturn emulation is so far behind Sony Playstation and Nintendo 64 emulation?

Probably from lack of interest from a majority of gamers, personally I think that the Saturn is far better than the Playstation, and the 64 is a good system, but most games seem to have the same blocky polygon graphics (sorry, my opinion)

Right now, the old version is PC-Saturn 32-bit v0.06 01/25/99 (Download), Will have a very forthcoming version ? Is there a date for a release ?

 Yes, version 0.1a will be out real soon, hopefully around the end of May.

What will there be moreover?

Pretty much it will have the same emulation implementation, it just contains MUCH cleaner code, and the gui is much nicer. I look back on previous versions a think "crap" :)

Progression :

•Master SH2 90%
•Slave SH2 20%
•SH1 15%
•SCU 5%
•SMPC 3%
•VDP1 0%
•VDP2 0%
•SCSP 0%
•68EC000 0%
•CD-ROM 5%
•Memory 40%


What is your favorite emulators?

Well, I like most of them, Nesticle, Genecyst, Zsnes, Callus, NeoRage, Meka, all my choice emus.

Which console/computer would you like to be emulated?

Is there one that hasn't?! Personally I would like to see one for the Saturn.

Anything else you want to tell us?

If you want to play your favorite console game, don't bother emu programmers, or beg for roms, support the authors by buying it.

That's precisely what one should have said (my opinion). Btw, What is deathbyte.pionet.net/~a-dac/?

Mirror site and future home of The Saturn Developers Network!

I have a question from TyRaNiD : why have you changed your nick ?

I dunno, I seem to like it better, more original

Thx man, that was cool.

Micromania