PS4 [Update v1.2] SATURN-FPKG - Convert Saturn Games into PS4 fPKGs!

Sonic X-Treme. Short GamePlay!
VIDEO

Was meant to be a Sonic game released exclusively for the Sega Saturn...but was canceled!
 

Attachments

  • 001.jpg
    001.jpg
    670.8 KB · Views: 54
  • 002.jpg
    002.jpg
    695.8 KB · Views: 50
  • 003.jpg
    003.jpg
    901.5 KB · Views: 56
  • 004.jpg
    004.jpg
    899 KB · Views: 57
  • 005.jpg
    005.jpg
    676 KB · Views: 58
  • 006.jpg
    006.jpg
    1 MB · Views: 54
Finally updated the app to v1.2!
Now supports firmwares from 5.05 and up thanks to Cyber1000 backport.
Just make sure you use a the latest Goldhen payload on those consoles that are lower than 9.00, without it it may not work..
I've edited the first post with a link to the update ;p
 
Dracula X: Nocturne in the Moonlight|Ultimate Version|SATURNtoPS4 Test

Dracula X: Nocturne in the Moonlight is the Japanese version of "Castlevania: Symphony of the Night" for Saturn. Includes playable characters Richter Belmont and Maria Renard.
 
Didn't see a listing for Panzer Dragoon Saga in the compatibility list, so I'll just leave a post here in case anyone was curious about it. I ran through all 4 discs of the game and apart from some very minor issues which I will address below, it plays fine from start to finish. I specifically played the Japanese version but I imagine performance will be consistent for other versions as well. I also didn't use any custom configs, kept everything as stock as possible, in 4:3.

The issue I encountered most was occasionally there would be a weird visual distortion, kind of like screen tearing. It doesn't last all that long and isn't all that bothersome. Most importantly it doesn't hinder gameplay. I've actually seen this issue crop up rarely with other games using the same emulator, but for whatever reason I encountered it most during PDS.

The other issue was very rare, maybe happened two or three times in all. The emulation would randomly freeze. Thankfully, the built in rewind function would allow me to step back a couple frames and redo whatever action I was doing and bypass the freeze altogether. Really random and strange but in the end it did not prevent me from making progress.

This same freezing occurs a lot when you play the game Bulk Slash, mainly you will get stuck on loading screens between levels, but if you rewind a little and try again a few times you can bypass the freeze point, though it seems like it's by pure chance. It happens so much in that game that you are encouraged to make quick save states once you are actually able to advance to the next screen.

And on the subject of quick saves, I did try it once in Panzer Dragoon Saga and it crashed the entire application. Ironically, it had been a while since I accessed a real save point too so yeah, lesson learned. Best to avoid quick save for this game.

Figured I would type this all up while it was fresh on my mind. Hopefully this information will be useful to someone.

Also, if anyone out there has managed to avoid freezing in Bulk Slash, please chime in!
 
Great stuff! I tried Death Tank Zwei and it worked!

@Jabu But there's not so much info about how to take advantage from the custom features that Saturn-FPKG offers, like for example the .INI file.

Some questions that I have and some information that I discovered by myself.

1) Guys, how should I add a SSF.INI?
Should I copy my custom config, straight from SSF Emu (rom Windows)?
Inside de SSF.INI it has references to "C:\...". This is why I'm in doubt.

2) Also how about the other custom images like the borders. What is border 1? Is it the left border? And what about 2? And 3, 4? What are their sizes?

3) The ICON for those who don't know it's a square, but the optimized size for the console is 512x152 px. The SPLASH is 16:9 so it's 1920x1080 px.

4) The guide images, the description says it's the guide 1 is the first image. Probably guide 2 and 3 are the credit images respectively and I suspect they are all 1920x1080 px too, but I don't know.

5) Can we use multiplayer (multitap) to play Bomberman (1 multitap = 6 players / 2 multitap = 1-10 players)? I assume whe have to edit the SSF.INI. That's why I'm asking how to use it. If someone tried, please post it here. I can't even test because I have only 2 dualshock 4, If I could use a dualshock 3 or a generic USB I would love it, LOL.

A good place to search

EDIT #1: I found a database of INI files optimized for each game. I think it's for Switch but maybe it works for PS4.
Go to: https://github.com/yyoossk/SegaSaturnTribute
Or: https://github.com/xenocard/SegaSaturnTribute-X/
https://github.com/xenocard/SegaSaturnTribute-X/
EDIT #2: Another good place to check for information is this thread below that had great activity in research to hack Sega Saturn Tribute:
GBAtemp.net - Saturn emulation using Cotton/Guardian Force testing and debug

I added a zip with all INIs from the github projects above, just in case for a backup, because the third one that isn't listed here, is offline. And also I will add my Death Tank Zweii INI (Which in theory can be used to play Saturn Bomberman with 10 players and other 12 players sports genre games) and a Daytona USA INI from andre_int of GBAtemp.

Best regards,
Lambada
 

Attachments

Last edited:
@Jabu I tried to replace the wallpaper (border) images [which I think they are all 1920x1080px] and also the guides without success because all I got was corrupted images (before they were big, like 1.5mb each one, then I optimized to 800-900kb each one and it didn't work neither. I just gave up, Icon and Splash is enough.

PS: By the way, the two save datas that are generated has icons from Guardian Force and Cotton 2. Also, there are two credits page from Guardian Force that are still in the generated fPKG too. It would be cool if they were gone and also be replaceable.
 
I didn't test my Death Tank INI before. So I tested some minutes ago and I found that I can control 6 players at the same time with my first dual shock and when I activate my second dual shock, it controls only 7th player.

So, I need to understand how the SSF.INI works with the Dualshocks. I don't know if every gamepad has it's own and unique raw input button number or if they are all the same no matter where are they connected as player 1 or 5 for example.

I think we may have a valueable information here, where some guys are setting up controls for a Bomberman 4 player game (it's for PC SSF but can help us identify what address corresponds to what button in the INI files).
https://hyperspin-fe.com/forums/topic/4816-sega-saturn-ssf-4-players-using-keyboard-keys/

It seems that each key has an unique number. So each input needs 9 mapped buttons (saturn controller) and we can map in SSF.ini from PS4, i think, the D-PADs + L1+R1+L2+R2+Cross+Circle+Square+Triangle+Options+L3+R3 (that's 11 buttons + 4 from the D-PAD which in total are 15 keys that can be mapped).
 
defiled said:
Didn't see a listing for Panzer Dragoon Saga in the compatibility list, so I'll just leave a post here in case anyone was curious about it. I ran through all 4 discs of the game and apart from some very minor issues which I will address below, it plays fine from start to finish. I specifically played the Japanese version but I imagine performance will be consistent for other versions as well. I also didn't use any custom configs, kept everything as stock as possible, in 4:3.

The issue I encountered most was occasionally there would be a weird visual distortion, kind of like screen tearing. It doesn't last all that long and isn't all that bothersome. Most importantly it doesn't hinder gameplay. I've actually seen this issue crop up rarely with other games using the same emulator, but for whatever reason I encountered it most during PDS.

The other issue was very rare, maybe happened two or three times in all. The emulation would randomly freeze. Thankfully, the built in rewind function would allow me to step back a couple frames and redo whatever action I was doing and bypass the freeze altogether. Really random and strange but in the end it did not prevent me from making progress.

This same freezing occurs a lot when you play the game Bulk Slash, mainly you will get stuck on loading screens between levels, but if you rewind a little and try again a few times you can bypass the freeze point, though it seems like it's by pure chance. It happens so much in that game that you are encouraged to make quick save states once you are actually able to advance to the next screen.

And on the subject of quick saves, I did try it once in Panzer Dragoon Saga and it crashed the entire application. Ironically, it had been a while since I accessed a real save point too so yeah, lesson learned. Best to avoid quick save for this game.

Figured I would type this all up while it was fresh on my mind. Hopefully this information will be useful to someone.

Also, if anyone out there has managed to avoid freezing in Bulk Slash, please chime in!
Click to expand...
How did you create this multidisc fpkg? Same question for Shining Force 3 (or other multi disc games), how to share the save game across the multiple scenarios?
Many thanks!
 
Ntino said:
How did you create this multidisc fpkg? Same question for Shining Force 3 (or other multi disc games), how to share the save game across the multiple scenarios?
Many thanks!
Click to expand...


Sorry for the late response, was traveling during this time and haven't checked the site in a while.

For PDS I just basically used the Saturn-FPKG app and made a separate PKG for each disc, giving them all the same game ID. When I'd finish one disc, I'd delete it and just install the PKG for the next one.

I was not aware of any way of making a self-contained multidisc FPKG so at the time this is just what made the most sense to me.

I don't know if there is a way to make such a multidisc, but as long as all separate PKGs share the same game ID you won't have an issue with carrying over your save between discs.
 
defiled said:
Sorry for the late response, was traveling during this time and haven't checked the site in a while.

For PDS I just basically used the Saturn-FPKG app and made a separate PKG for each disc, giving them all the same game ID. When I'd finish one disc, I'd delete it and just install the PKG for the next one.

I was not aware of any way of making a self-contained multidisc FPKG so at the time this is just what made the most sense to me.

I don't know if there is a way to make such a multidisc, but as long as all separate PKGs share the same game ID you won't have an issue with carrying over your save between discs.
Click to expand...

Thanks! Turns out, you could also use this 'trick' to use "The Rockin'-B Save Game Manager" that has some great save games available. So create your fpkg, with the rocking-b disc, place the save game in memory, delete the game, create your fpkg with your game with same ID and have fun :)
 
Ntino said:
Thanks! Turns out, you could also use this 'trick' to use "The Rockin'-B Save Game Manager" that has some great save games available. So create your fpkg, with the rocking-b disc, place the save game in memory, delete the game, create your fpkg with your game with same ID and have fun :)
Click to expand...

Funny you happen to mention that save manager, I had actually thought about doing something like that myself when playing through Saga. Don't know if you already knew, but there are some unlockable extras in Saga if it detects that you also have a Panzer Dragoon Zwei save file in the system memory.

So my thought I was I could load a Zwei save file on there either through that app, Save Game Copier (another app) or by firing up Zwei with the same game ID as Saga and just playing long enough to create a save, but I never went as far as actually testing out any of those methods. I was just happy that the emulator was stable/reliable enough to get through all 4 discs of Saga.
 
defiled said:
Funny you happen to mention that save manager, I had actually thought about doing something like that myself when playing through Saga. Don't know if you already knew, but there are some unlockable extras in Saga if it detects that you also have a Panzer Dragoon Zwei save file in the system memory.

So my thought I was I could load a Zwei save file on there either through that app, Save Game Copier (another app) or by firing up Zwei with the same game ID as Saga and just playing long enough to create a save, but I never went as far as actually testing out any of those methods. I was just happy that the emulator was stable/reliable enough to get through all 4 discs of Saga.
Click to expand...
Ah remembered something like that, i'll be sure to play some Zwei before starting Saga. Good to know that the game is playable :) Shining force 3 though... it wouldn't let me save a game (not enough save game space), the save game manager had a SF3 save game, copied it to cartridge and system. 'swapped' discs and seemed to work. however, during battles the screen would turn to black with the music still playing. if anyone has some tips or tries, let me know. maybe a custom SSF.ini inject?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Back
Top