SSF (emulator)
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 The interface of the SSF emulator |
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| Developer: | Shima |
| Latest release: | 0.08 Alpha R2 / November 11, 2006 |
| OS: | MS Windows |
| Use: | Emulator |
| License: | freeware |
| Website: | homepage |
SSF is a Sega Saturn emulator for Windows systems using DirectX 9.0b. The current version claims near-complete implementation of the Sega Saturn hardware (not counting emulation bugs), and can emulate the Saturn based Sega Titan Video arcade hardware too. As with all emulators, CDs or disc images are not included and have to be owned separately. The BIOS is also not included; as of 0.07 Beta R3, games run without the BIOS however. The usage of BIOS files is optional but recommended for better compatibility, and needed for tasks such as management of the contents of the internal memory of the Sega Saturn, or setting the system clock.
In SSF 0.07 Beta 10, save states have been added as a new feature. Only 1 save state can be made at a time, but Shima is working on multiple save states in future versions. If the BIOS changes, a save state cannot be loaded. A save state created in a future version won't be compatible with 0.07 Beta 10.
The emulator can run in full screen, with or without scanlines. 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 upscaled to 704x480 likewise. In fullscreen mode, the emulator uses the available resolution mode closest to the emulated one, thus games using 704x480 mode will usually get small borders due to being displayed using the 720x480 resolution mode available on most modern PCs for DVD usage. However, with the addition of custom resolutions through Videocard drivers or other tools you can force the fullscreen display to 704x480. The user also has the option to toggle VSync on/off or to switch to Directdraw display should it yield better performance (note that the image rendering is done by software, therefore no image processing is done regardless of the display mode). Otherwise, there aren't any video options.
A DirectX 8-compatible graphics card and a minimum of 256 MB of RAM are required for the emulator to run, and a CPU at 3ghz or higher speed (preferably more) is needed for optimal speed; on computers with weaker CPUs, games will run slowly. The emulator can handle this in two ways depending on settings in the options: it will either do a frame skip for full speed (resulting in choppy animation), or it will show 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 such as the dual-core Athlon X2.
Pressing Backspace takes screenshots of the games, which are saved in BMP format in the Snapshot folder.
SSF requires the processor to have the SSE2 instruction set, so a Pentium 4, Opteron, Athlon 64, Pentium M or better are necessary to run it.
[edit] Minimum Specification
| Processor | Pentium 4 3.0GHz or Athlon64 3200+ |
| RAM | 256 MB RAM |
| Video | A videocard fully comaptible with DirectX 8 |
| Sound | A soundcard fully compatible with DirectX 8 |
| OS | Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows XP 64bit edition |
