The History of the Sega Saturn

Sega Saturn

The Sega Saturn was released in Japan in 1994. Its development began around 1992, when the Sega Model 1 arcade game was released. The aim was to be able to run games with the same quality as this arcade game on consoles. This is when the Saturn Project began. In 1993, the CPU was developed in partnership with Hitachi, the SuperH RISC or simply SH-2, a 32-bit 28.6 MHz CPU. Also at this time, Sega of America began talks with Sony to jointly produce a 32-bit console, creator of the future PSX, and with Silicon Graphics, for a GPU for the console, creator of the RCP, the future GPU for the N64 . Neither negotiation prospered.

Sega Saturn Hardware

After that, in 1994, they partnered with Hitachi and Yahama, and created respectively the VDP1 and VDP2 video chips, the first for sprites, textures and polygons and the second for backgrounds and 3D scrolling and rotation. Combined with two SH-2 CPUs, plus an SCU math coprocessor with DSP geometry, forming a set of 5 processors to work with video. Its palette reached 16.77 million simultaneous colors. It also had a super powerful sound, with a Yamaha YMF292 ship with a Yamaha FH1 sound DSP and a 68k as a sound CPU, bringing 32 audio channels in FM, MIDI, PCM and LFO formats. It had 2MB of RAM, 1.5MB of video, 512kb of audio RAM and 512kb of ROM. And finally, a 2x speed CD-ROM driven by a 20 MHz Hitachi SH-1 processor.

Sega ST-V and 32X

Before its launch, still in 1994, Sega created the Titan Project, which gave rise to the Sega Titan Video arcade, or simply ST-V. The arcade had the exact hardware of the Sega Saturn, with the exception of the CD-ROM, as it used cartridges. This may have been a preparation for players to adapt to the future console. All of Sega's projects were named after planets and satellites, with this one being a reference to a moon of Saturn, which is quite suggestive. Before the launch of the Saturn, other projects, such as the Sega Virtual Processor, were launched on the Virtua Racing cartridge for the MD, as a cheaper way to port Model 1 games. The 32X was also launched, an add-on that worked with 3D polygons and the Saturn's SH-2 processor, also with the aim of running Model 1 ports and games with better quality at a lower cost. It was all a way to keep the 3D idea alive in case the Saturn was not launched that year.

3D Control Pad, Arcade Racer, RAM Expansion Cartridge, Pro Action Replay and NetLink

The console also had interesting accessories, such as 1 and 4MB RAM expansion cartridges, adding memory to the central hardware, video and sound for arcade games, mainly from SNK (Neo Geo) and Capcom (CPS-1 and 2). The Pro Action Replay, which allowed games from all regions (JP, USA and EU) to be played, save state (backup) and Game Shark (cheating). The NetLink, which made it possible for the first time for two players to play remotely via telephone line. In addition to the 3D Control Pad, for arcade games, and the Arcade Racer steering wheel for racing games.

Virtua Cop, Virtua Racing and Virtua Fighter

The console received some ports from Model 1, such as Virtua Racing and Virtua Fighter, and from Model 2 (released in 1993), such as Virtua Cop, Virtua Fighter 2, Daytona USA and Sega Rally Championship. The ST-V was the board with the most ports for the console, being almost re-releases, since the hardware was the same. Among the ports, we had Baku Baku Animal, Batman Forever, Golden Axe: The Duel, Final Fight Revenge, Virtua Fighter Remix, among others.

Sega Saturn Games

In addition to the ports, we had fighting games from the Street Fighter Alpha, Virtua Fighter, Darkstalker, Mortal Kombat, Samurai Shodown, Falsal Fury, KOF franchises, as well as Fighting Vipers, Marver Super Heroes and X-Men. Racing games, such as the aforementioned Daytona and Sega Rally, as well as Winning Post, and the games Nascar 98, Manx TT Super Bike, Destruction Derby, Road Rash and Hang-On GP. RPG games, such as the Dragon Force, Farland Saga, Wizardry, Langrisser and Shinning Force franchises. Shmup games, with franchises such as Darius, Panzer Dragoon, Thunder Force, Cotton, Striker 1945, Gundam Gaiden, as well as Radiant Silvergun, Batsugun, Gunbird, Sengoku Blade, Metal Slug, DonPachi and DoDonPachi. Platform games, such as Nights, Clockwork Knight, Bug and Pandemonium!. Beat'em ups, such as Techi wo Kurau II, Guardian Heroes, Nekketsu Oyako. Sports games, such as J. League, Sega Worldwide, FIFA Soccer, Victory Goal, as well as several NFL, NHL and NBA games. Anime games, such as 3X3 Eyes, Sailor Moon, Blue Seed, DBZ, Doraemon, El Hazard, Initial D, Gundam, Z-Gundam, Macross, Magic Knights Rayearth, Evangelion, Utena, Slam Dank, Tenchi Muyo, Vampire Hunter, Sakura Taisen and many others. Compared to the SNES and PC Engine, it was the console that released the most anime games in the 1990s. In addition to Resident Evil, Burning Rangers, Tomb Raider, and many others. Several Mega Drive games were also released for the console, mainly in the 13 Sega AGES collections, with games such as Alter Burner, Out Run, Phantasy Star, Castle of Illusion, Flick, QuackShot and others, as well as Sonic 1 to Knuckles in Sonic Jam and the first three versions of SF II in Street Fighter Collection, among others. And finally, PC ports, such as Doom, Quake, D, Duke Nukem 3D, Alien Trilogy, Alone In The Dark 2, Amok and others. 

All Sega Saturn Models

The console was basically released in two models: the Model 1, with large, oval buttons, and the Model 2, with small, round buttons. The other differences with the Model 1 are that the Model 2 has an internal power supply and its motherboard was revised to have a lower cost and thermal efficiency. Regarding the releases of each model, the first came out in gray and black versions, respectively in 1994 and 1995, one in Japan and the other in the US and EU. The second model came out in 1995, transparent for Japan and black for the US and EU. This transparent line allowed the internal components of the console and controller to be seen. It came out in black and green. In 1996, they released the white version of the Model 2, which became known in the West as the Japanese Saturn. In 1997, Tec-Toy, which launched the Sega Saturn in Brazil, released the Model 2 in white and transparent colors, exactly like the Japanese models.

V-Saturn and HiSaturn

Regarding third parties that were licensed to use their hardware, we had JVC, which launched the console under the name V-Saturn, with the Model 1 in 1994, in gray with a black button bar, and with the Model 2 in 1996, in gray with a black bottom base, and blue, pink and green buttons. Hitachi (Sega's partner in the creation of the console), launched the HiSaturn in 1995, a dark gray console with light pink buttons, on top of the Model 2. A second version of the console was also launched in 1995, called the HiSaturn Navi, which was a semi-portable console for playing inside cars, in addition to being used as a GPS and television. To do this, the console could be connected to an external LCD screen, or even a screen specific to the console. Its design was very different, a square console, with a square lid, with pink, purple and black buttons for the power, reset and open functions, as well as a control to change the type of wire, with the option to adjust the echo and tone for the device's karaoke function.

SamsungSaturn and Sega Saturn (Tec-Toy)

Samsung also launched the console in South Korea in 1995, using the American Model 2, simply putting the name SamsungSaturn on its base and translating some of the device's functions into Korean. Unlike Hitachi and JVC, which changed the design and even the hardware a lot, Samsung basically kept everything intact, just like Tec-Toy did in Brazil. I believe that the Korean and Brazilian companies were not licensed to modify the hardware, only launching it in locations outside Japan. The console was discontinued in 1998 with 9.26 million units sold, and despite its success, it was unable to compete with the PSX, mainly due to the rush to launch it, which prevented companies from getting to know the console's hardware enough, which was difficult to develop games for.

The History of Jaguar Emulators

The first Atari Jaguar emulator to be developed was called Jagged Project, and it managed to emulate 2 of the console's 4 chips. The project was most likely developed between 1997/98. It was close to emulating the other two, but the project was shut down without explanation. Its creator was called Sexton, and he was also known for the NES emulator, Emutator. During the same period, another project emerged, called Jag64BitEmu, created by Solex, and disappeared over time. In May 1998, Jade was created by Relicite. In May 1999, Jade and Jag64BitEmu merged, becoming Jag64. Unfortunately, this project also did not go ahead.

In May 1999, another project, Cheetah, appeared, promising to launch its beta within a month. This is another project that also did not go ahead. In the same month, a rumor also emerged about an emulator called EmuJag (or JagEmu) that would emulate the two main chips and the 68k chip. The following year, it was discovered that this was a fake news story. It was just a screenshot of a simple GUI followed by made-up information about a supported project.

Jagulator (2000)

Jagulator

Jagulator was a project created in 1997 by RealityMan. It was the only Jaguar project that was still being developed. Due to all the cancelled Jaguar projects, plus the false news about EmuJag, Reality's work began to receive suspicion, and because of this he released the alpha version of the emulator, which occurred in September 2000 for Windows. The emulator used the Motorola 68k processor emulator developed by Neill Corlett.

Jagulator (Kasumi Ninja/Iron Soldier)

Another interesting feature was the use of OpenGL as the emulator's graphics core, which was rarely used due to the low performance of computers at the time. The first version of the emulator already came with an opening demo, the BIOS. In addition, it had a different interface from other emulators. Despite being in Windows mode, it worked via command line. It had two windows, one for the game, the GUI, and another for the command line. When executing the correct commands to load the ROM, the game would load in the GUI.

Jagulator (Double Dragon V/ SuperFly DX)

Video directory settings, such as video type, window size, full screen and frameskip, as well as sound type, were made in the jagulator.ini initialization file. At the time, this release version was translated into Portuguese by Brazilian Luiz Eduardo, aka Horse. In July 2001, version 1.5.0 was released. In August 2001, version 1.5.1 was released, with support for the Jaguar CD, with download of its respective bios. This version increased speed and game compatibility, and several other functional improvements. After that, the emulator no longer receives updates.

Jagulator 1.3.1

Jagulator 1.5.1

In October 2001, the source code for the latest version of the emulator was released. At the end of 2001, SubQMod began to take care of the project that had released its source code along with its latest release. In January 2002, he posted a development image of the emulator, and promised the release of versions 1.6.0, Gamer, a practical version for those who just want to click and play their favorite games (a complaint made at the time, due to the lack of ease in loading games), and Developer, suitable for developers with a complete debugger for those interested in changing codes without the need for devices and kits for this purpose.

Jagulator 1.6.0 and Jagulator 2.0.0

These versions were never released. Sub spent almost 10 years working on the project, when he released three versions of the emulator, 2.0.0 (pre-release), 2.0.1 and 2.0.2, all in June 2011. Like the original project, it only supported games in .jag format. Now with a practical GUI, it supports loading games on cartridges and games on CDs both through the CD-ROM drive and through the binary/ISO file. There is also its own video and control configuration, as well as general configuration. After that, there are no more updates to the emulator.

Project Tempest (2002)

Project Tempest

Project Tempest (name inspired by the console shooter, Tempest 2000) was created by the Finnish Ville Linde and released in October 2002 for Windows. When it was released, it already had emulation of the 68K microprocessor and the GPU, and almost all emulation of the DSP. The sound part had not yet been implemented, and 32-bit objects and GPU were also not emulated. At the beginning, it required a Pentium III or Athlon with more than 800 MHz, 128MB of RAM and DirectX 3 or higher. In version 0.12 from October 2002, the emulator was rewritten to work with DirectX 8 and full-screen mode was added, and in version 0.20 from the same month, it began to support the joypad with the option of two controllers. In December 2002, it began to emulate sound, but only in some games and a new High Level circuit for increased speed. In version 0.45 from February 2003, it supported more games and in version 0.47 from the same month, it improved and optimized the video system.

Project Tempest (Super BurnOut)

In March 2003, video optimizations, improved sound and 3D games started to work better. In May 2003, the same version of March was released, but in SDL format and without sound. It allowed for portability to other systems, such as UNIX. It also released its source code on the same day. Another SDL version and its source code were released in the same month, and the releases in this format ended. In May 2003, a version for BeOS ported by Caz was released, called Project Tempest/SDL. In October 2003, Ville almost completely rewrote the emulator, rewrote the sound code and increased game compatibility. Of the three versions released in October, the last one, surprisingly, only supported command line. In version 0.9 from January 2004, preliminary support for CDs began, loading only .ISO files, and in version 0.92 from the same month, support for .CDI files from CD games began.

Project Tempest 0.1 and Project Tempest 0.95 (Menus)

An interesting fact. David Raingeard, the first creator of the Virtual Jaguar emulator, helped Ville with the details of supporting the CD-ROM in Project Tempest. The interesting fact is that Virtual Jaguar never emulated CDs. In addition to the additions already mentioned, the emulator also supported automatic saves in the EEPROM, which is the console's read memory, bilinear filtering that makes the graphics more blurry, a frame rate limit of 60 frames, setting the games at the correct speed, and support for 44,100 Hz sound. In February 2004, its latest version was released, totaling 17 versions released. Project Tempest was one of the first emulators to have better console gameplay. The only obstacle to its execution at the time was that in the final versions, it required a processor of more than 1 GHZ and more than 2 GHZ for sound emulation, with 128 MB of RAM and DirectX 9, a configuration that only more advanced computers used. Despite its benefits, it had several problems with sprites and game compatibility. Regarding the emulation of the 68K microprocessor, Project Tempest used the Turbo68K emulator by Bart Trzynadlowski, creator of the MD emulator, Genital in the year 2000.

Virtual Jaguar (2003)

Virtual Jaguar

The Virtual Jaguar emulator was created by Frenchman David Raingeard around November 2002. The project also had the help of James L. Hammons, known as Shamus, who was responsible for creating the emulator's source code. Its first version was released in June 2003 as source code only. It had already been tested and was able to work on Linux, FreeBSD, BeOS and Windows systems thanks to its base built in SDL. It had also developed support for joystick and frameskip. Between June and July, two private versions were created for testing and two others were released with only the source code. In these last two, 1.0.3 and 1.0.4, released in June and July respectively, the first version changed the 68k Starscream emulator to Musashi, and the second version supported compressed ROMs. It is worth remembering that none of them were executable, but they brought these changes to their code in case they ever were. After that, David gave up on the project and dedicated himself to the Potato Emulation portal created alongside Romain Tisserand in 2002 to promote and create emulation projects developed by the two.

Virtual Jaguar (WIP Version) (Supercross)

After his departure, Shamus took over the project, partnering with Niels Wagenaar, who helped him with the Windows port and created the Linux port, and Carwin Jones, known as Caz, who worked on the BeOS port but did not end up releasing it. Shamus released the first version of the emulator in August 2003 for Windows and Linux. The release version already came with sound support and a GUI, which the previous versions did not have. At the beginning, Virtual Jaguar was already able to run games such as Woldenstein 3D and Iron Soldier. In September 2003, the second version was released with support for 320 x 240 resolution, preliminary mouse support in the GUI and a fully developed DSP core (what is that?). In October 2003, the MacOS X port was released by Adam Green. The next version was released in August 2004 with OpenGL support working at 640x480 resolution and improvements to the GUI. This version ended the Linux ports. From August 2005 to September 2006, they planned version 1.1.0, and although it existed, it was never released. In May 2007, Shamus created an account on the GitHub website where he put all versions of Virtual Jaguar for download.

Virtual Jaguar (WIP Version) (Native/Fight for Life!)

Almost seven years later, in June 2011, the emulator received another update, this time with improvements in usability and compatibility with the console core, a change in the user interface and the GUI for the QT format, which is an interface that allows greater integration of APIs such as OpenGL and integration with 2D graphics, images, fonts and texts. In October 2011, another version was released. In January 2012, the emulator stopped using the 68k Musashi emulator and used a more customized version of the 68k UAE. In February 2013, a new version was released with support for gamepads (instead of joysticks) and full-screen mode. It was from this version onwards that the ports for Mac ended. The last two versions were released in October 2014. Unfortunately, the emulator never supported the CD. Regarding help for the emulator, in addition to the former creator of the emulator, David, who publicized the advances of Virtual Jaguar on his portal, he was also helped by Aaron Giles with sources for the CoJag system used in MAME, an arcade based on the Atari Jaguar and which used its same chipset. Along with CoJag also came the Starscream emulator by Neill Corlett, which was later replaced by the Musashi emulator by Karl Stenerud, and finally by UAE, a customized version of Starscream and Musashi.

Virtual Jaguar (Interface/About/Controls/Menus/Info)

Sam Lantinga also helped him with his SDL multimedia library. Regarding ports, in September 2016, Lyubomyr Lisen ports the emulator to Android. In December 2016, gameblabla creates a port of the emulator for the TI-Nspire CX super calculator, called Virtual Jaguard SDL Nspire. The same emulator developed another port of the emulator on the same date, a lightweight version of it, called Virtual Jaguar SDL, but it was never released. In January 2017, a port of the emulator called Virtual Jaguar RX (RX added to the name in November of the same year) was released by Phillip Macon, which mainly fixed bugs and structurally modernized the emulator. Six versions were released in total until August 2019. The emulator was titled version 2.1.3, that is, as a continuation of the classic project that had its last version titled 2.1.2. In 2021, this port is continued by Djipi, with some CPU and structural changes with only one version released in May 2021. A version of the emulator was also released for the GamePark GP2X handheld in 2005. In 2014, a port of the emulator for the multisystem emulator, OpenEmu, called VirtualJaguar-Core, began to be developed, but it was never released. Also in 2014, it began to be part of the multisystem emulator, LibRetro/RetroArch.

Jaggy (2003)

In July 2003, a prototype of the emulator's source code was released by Tom Walker, called Jaggy. A version of the emulator was never released, but its source code was used to help other developers. The emulator is supported by the DJGPP programming platform, the Allegro library, and the 68k processor emulator, Starscream.

Tempest 2000 (2005)

Tempest 2000

The Jaguar Tempest 2000, Tempest 2000, or simply T2K, was developed in 2005 by Dave Oldcorn (not to be confused with game developers David Oldcorn and D. Oldcorn). The first release is dated early 2005 for Windows. Versions 0.01 to 0.04 are not dated, but versions 0.03 add support for joysticks/joypads and 0.04 add sound capture. One of the first versions we can find a date for is 0.05, from September 2005. It adds screenshots and full screen mode. Version 0.06 is released in September 2006, and versions 0.04 and 0.05 are ported to Linux and MacOS respectively. After a hiatus, version 0.06b is released in February 2007.

Tempest 2000 (About/Menus)

There was also a port for the GamePark GP2X handheld in August 2007. The minimum system requirement is a 500MHz processor, with 1 GHz recommended. The 68k processor emulator is Neill Corlett's Starscream, which was also used initially in the Virtual Jaguar emulator. The emulator also uses the libPNG libraries for image manipulation, and Zlib for data compression. The Tempest 2000 never supported CD-ROM. Another interesting fact is that some games ran with problems, such as Alien vs Predator and Doom. The latest version of the emulator is an improvement on version 0.06b, titled 0.06c, for Windows only, released in November 2008. In addition, the emulator has several sound and CPU options, as well as save state support.

Other Emulators

There were also multi-emulators that ran the Atari Jaguar, such as MAME from May 2003, but not the console, but the Atari Cojag Hadware arcade, inspired by the Jaguar console. At the time, it joined MAME with the game Area 51: Maximum Force Duo, thanks to Aaron Giles. The Atari Jaguar console was emulated many years later in MAME in September 2015, starting with the game Air Cars. MAME has versions for Windows, Linux, Pandora, Android and iOS. The emulator did not run CD games from the console, only cartridge games.

Phoenix (Atari Jaguar/Wolfenstein 3D)

Jaguar is also well known for running on the Phoenix multi-emulator, an original project for the 3DO. The emulator began supporting the Atari Jaguar in May 2017, a few months after it also began emulating Master System, Game Gear and ColecoVision. Like MAME, it only emulated Jaguar cartridges.

For smartphones, there were Jaguar-specific emulators, such as IrataJaguar in June 2017 by the Phoenix project for Android.