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Post by zyrobs on Sept 14, 2015 2:12:09 GMT
Could be either because some pins on the cart slot are not connecting properly, or because you are using a rare early AR which only has 1mb ram, or maybe SFZ3 does not work fine on PAL machines (but I never checked that and I don't recall anyone mentioning that it doesn't).
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Post by zyrobs on Sept 14, 2015 2:10:21 GMT
If you frequently use the disc swap trick to play burned games, then it's bound to damage your system after a while. Only if you are very rough on the system, and even then it is most likely just the tray getting too low and/or the laser giving out (which happens normally over time anyway).
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Post by zyrobs on Sept 8, 2015 0:10:46 GMT
You'd need to replace the damaged disc, not replace the laser (and you should try calibrating the laser first before completely replacing it).
But it is cheaper to get a modchip and burning a backup instead, then you won't have to worry about your originals being/getting damaged.
You can also use some applications to do an error check on your CD to see how damaged it really is. Nero Discspeed is a good choice. Just remember that PC CD drives are much more modern and powerful than the one in your Saturn.
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Post by zyrobs on Sept 7, 2015 23:20:34 GMT
A stronger laser may skip less, but there's a point where the damage is so extensive that the data on the disc is simply beyond being readable (or even destroyed). I've had similar problems - discs being unreadable on certain tracks - even back in the 90s, let alone today. It's a common thing, and not all that surprising given the automatic disc scratching devices the games shipped in here in Europe.
It makes digital drive replacements (SD Loaders) all the more important and sought after.
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Post by zyrobs on Sept 7, 2015 21:23:41 GMT
The disc is unreadable at the location where that music track is skipping. This can be caused either by damage to the disc, or a weak laser (or, both).
edit: typo
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Post by zyrobs on Aug 31, 2015 20:57:20 GMT
What CD-R do you use ? Please make sure that they are quality one and burned slowly, i.e. 4x speed. The "burn at the slowest speed" advice is a hang-over from the early days of consumer CD burners, which used different technology and different chemicals on the CDRs. On modern burners (ie. anything after ~2002), burning too slow is detrimental. You want to burn at usually around the middle speed your drive can do, for the best results. And CDR quality makes very small difference, if your machine gives wildly different results on one brand of media, then it most likely has problems reading original discs too, and needs the laser recalibrated. I had a modded Saturn that I used to play some games (that I now own), such as Guardian Heroes, Legend of Oasis, Albert Odyssey, and Panzer Dragoon Saga. It would play them fine for a while, but then it would go back to the BIOs menu, crashing the game. It was very infuriating, I had to hope that I could reach a save point before then. I have since switched back to my original (unmodded) Model 1, and have had zero trouble. I am pretty sure that it was crashing because of the laser having to do more work to read CD-Rs. Case, it would only take like 15-20 minutes usually, but on my Model 1, I played through Sonic 2/3&K in one sitting. So yeah, it's probably the laser. I believe that I remember testing my legit discs on the modded unit, and it acted the same way, the laser was most likely on its way out even on legit discs by that point, since I kept trying with CD-Rs so frequently.. The only time reading errors drop you back into the BIOS is when it tries and fails to read something for a very long time, like almost a minute long, and you'd see/hear the effects of that much earlier (such as the audio tracks getting choppy or cut off for a long while). For random resets out of the blue, I'd blame the power supply. Those things are old, need to be recapped, the PWM chip on them is known to overheat, etc. I've seen many model 2s, and have at least one, which randomly resets/crashes a lot, and only becomes "stable" after running for an hour or so.
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Post by zyrobs on Aug 31, 2015 0:19:12 GMT
Like I said in the other topic, the blown parts are the fuse and the varistor. Those are the only two things you need to replace.
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Post by zyrobs on Aug 30, 2015 21:15:49 GMT
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Post by zyrobs on Aug 26, 2015 17:55:18 GMT
The Playstation can rotate/scale sprites exactly the same as the Saturn. You give it the 4 corners of the sprite, and the texture coordinates, and it will plot it into the framebuffer. Only difference is that the Saturn drew the sprite "line by line" (which wasted speed and caused transparency artifacts), while the Playstation GPU internally broke down the quadrangle to two triangles and rendered it as that.
However both of these were handled by the VDP1 and PS1 GPU internally, so they had no impact on CPU speed whatsoever. Rotation was only done in the CPU for computing the 4 corners where you wanted the sprite to be drawn at, which was negligible on both systems.
The PS1 GPU is actually way stronger at doing sprites than the Saturn, due to being so much faster and capable of doing many more effects, including better transparency modes, better shading, higher colour counts, etc. That's what Castlevania leveraged very heavily. I also used the lowest possible screen resolution, so it had more space in memory for sprites, since on the PS1, you use the VRAM for the framebuffer, while the Saturn has them separate. This is important because this resolution mode was 256x224, while the lowest resolution on the Saturn is 320x224, so everything had to be stretched out... part of the reason why the graphics look crap. It also mixed in 3d backgrounds and nonstop transparency effects, which were bread and butter on the PS1.
Only reason why the Saturn was a better 2d machine was because it included a second graphics chip for doing arcade-style tiled backgrounds with old school special effects (like line scroll). This chip had its own extra memory too. On the Playstation, you had to brute force the backgrounds as sprites as well, which wasn't really difficult, but it used a significant portion of the memory, and doing special effects on it wasn't as simple. That's why, for example, Darius Gaiden had less psychedelic backgrounds on the PS1.
The VDP2 however actually hindered a few things like transparency and shading, due to the way the two chips shared data between each other. This also made porting Castlevania much more difficult. If the team did a better job, then they could've made the game look much better, say, as good as Silhouette Mirage or Cotton Boomerang. But still not as good as on the Playstation.
But the whole "Playstation was bad at 2d because it drew flat polygons" thing? That's just a myth.
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Post by zyrobs on Aug 24, 2015 2:27:50 GMT
Since when does a bit of slowdown in a game make a game horrible? Metal is definitly worth getting on the Saturn. Tons of fun and the slowdown which is minimal (usually on some of the boss fights) does not detract from the gameplay or experience. If anything it heightens the sheer explosive mayhem unfolding, in a positive way. So needless to say I disagree with Zyrobs. It doesn't have a "bit" of slowdown. It has constant, non-stop slowdown. Everywhere but on the beginning of the first few missions, the game slows down to a crawl. It basically runs at half speed for nearly the entirety of the game. If you've never played the original version then you may not be bothered about it, but I can 1CC the game in the arcade, so the Saturn port is just awful in comparison.
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Post by zyrobs on Aug 24, 2015 0:05:43 GMT
Again: HST-0001 is the box. The one that the console comes in. The package, the controllers, the manuals, etc. HST-3200 is just the console inside that package.
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Post by zyrobs on Aug 23, 2015 23:41:41 GMT
Personally, Metal Slug is higher on my list, and I don't have any Rockman/Megaman games yet. You can skip on the Saturn port of Metal Slug. Holy crap is it horrible. Slowdown non-stop, and no, it's not the Action Replays fault. Funny thing about the PS1 needing to do polygons even for 2D... People don't mention this much anymore, but if you check out gaming magazines from the months leading up to the PS1 launch, there were actually a few rumors that the PS1 couldn't do 2D well, just as there were rumors that the Saturn couldn't do 3D well. The Saturn and Playstation actually do 2d the exact same way, and the PS1 is actually faster and more powerful at doing so. The Saturn only did 2d games better because it had a dedicated background processor with extra memory, plus it got the RAM expansions later on.
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Post by zyrobs on Aug 23, 2015 21:10:31 GMT
HST-0001 is the box, HST-3200 is the console inside.
There is no downside to getting earlier Saturns.
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Post by zyrobs on Aug 22, 2015 18:05:25 GMT
Let's say a lucky 13 pounds, this includes shipping.
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Post by zyrobs on Aug 22, 2015 16:33:50 GMT
I live in central Europe, so it is unlikely that I could repair it for you.
edit: but, I have a spare 100V PSU that would fit in your machine.
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