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SSF Version R37 Improves Emulator’s Stability

A new version of SSF released Monday improves its emulation of the Saturn and decreases how often the program crashes.

The latest preview version of SSF, called PreviewVer_R37, as well many previous ones is available at its developer Shima’s  GitHub . All of SSF’s updates dating back to January 2021 can be downloaded from there. Shima calls each of this year’s updates “preview” versions, which are essentially betas. It doesn’t appear that a version he’s comfortable calling a full release has come out in years.

Shima announced the new version on  social media , then posted in his native Japanese about the various changes in R37. Here are those posts machine translated — with some human editing — into English:

  • Fixed a crash occurring when exiting backup management in the multiplayer screen.
  • Scripts will no longer run during BIOS startup.
  • Prevented SMEM contents from being overwritten by load data when loading a state.
  • Fixed an issue where recorded audio and video would become silent when no sound device was present.
  • Modified the SCU-DSP object cache processing. Chisato Moritaka’s “Watarase Bridge” and “Lala Sunshine” videos are now working properly. Other suspicious software remains unchanged…
  • Fixed an issue where changing emulation speed caused unstable behavior.
  • Fixed crashes that could occur when pausing, such as when opening options.
  • Due to numerous changes in emulation processing, some software may no longer function with previous settings. If you suspect issues, try modifying SH2WriteBuffer, SH2Cache and EnableICache. If that doesn’t work, try modifying SH2DMARealTransfer, SCUDMARealTransfer and SH2Strict.

Shima’s post referring to videos by Chisato Moritaka is talking about a two-disc multimedia Saturn “game” released in September 1997 that named after two of the pop singer’s singles, “Watarasebashi” and “Lala Sunshine.” It has interview videos, music videos, behind-the-scenes photos, minigames and more, and it even optionally uses the MPEG video card. (Sorry, I fell down a rabbit hole looking this thing up.)

Screenshots from “Chisato Moritaka: Watarasebashi/Lala Sunshine” running in SSF version R37.

This is the fourth update to SSF this year. SHIRO! last reported on SSF in early September after version R36 released.

SSF didn’t get an update in most of 2022 and all of 2023 before Shima uploaded a new version, R29, to his Github in January 2024. Several more updates followed through June that year before the development went quiet until April this year with version R34.

One of the oldest Saturn emulators, SSF celebrated its 25th anniversary last December. Its  first publicly available version  came out in 1999.

Despite its long development time, a lot of settings need to be tweaked to get various games running correctly. SSF’s settings are found under Option and then the several Program tabs.

Each version of SSF since R18 has included a Document folder with some HTML files that discuss the emulator’s completion and give troubleshooting tips, albeit in Japanese. Starting with R34’s setting.html, there has been a much more substantial list of settings to change to make various games work than the one found in previous versions of SSF.

“The following is a list of settings required for each software,” Shima says in setting.html by way of machine translation. “These are items to be changed from the default settings.”

The list of games in version R37 and the settings he recommends changing for each one are as follows:

  • The King of Fighters ’96: Select 1MBytesRAMCartridge
  • Taito Chase H.Q. Plus S.C.I.: Turn on CDTrack/Index
  • PriCla Daisakusen (Princess Clara’s Big Adventure): Turn on CDTrack/Index
  • Deep Fear: SH2DMARealTransfer ON, SCUDMARealTransfer
  • Last Bronx SPECIAL DISC: SH2Strict ON
  • Biohazard (Resident Evil): SH2DMARealTransfer ON
  • DonPachi: SoundThread OFF
  • Dark Savior (movie): SH2WriteBuffer OFF
  • Gal Jan: SH2DMARealTransfer ON
  • Lunar Silver Star Story (movie): SH2WriteBuffer OFF
  • Neon Genesis Evangelion 2nd Impression (movie): VDP2RAMWriteTimingRenewalAfterScanline ON
  • Machi: SH2DMARealTransfer ON
  • Waku Waku 7: SoundThread OFF, SH2WriteBuffer OFF
  • Thunderhawk II (Thunderstrike II): SH2DMARealTransfer ON
  • Phantom Thief Saint Tail: SH2DMARealTransfer ON
  • Assault Rigs: SH2WriteBuffer OFF
  • Die Hard Trilogy: SH2Cache OFF
  • Toshinden URA: SH2DMARealTansfer ON
  • Waku Waku Puyo Puyo Dungeon: SoundThread OFF
  • Baroque (movie): SH2WriteBuffer OFF
  • Idol Janshi Suchie-Pai Mecha Limited Edition Disc 3 (mahjong): VDP2RAMWriteTimingRenewalAfterScanline ON
  • Suchie-Pie Adventure Doki Doki Nightmare (mahjong): VDP2RAMWriteTimingRenewalAfterScanline ON
  • Gungriffon (movie): SplitWriteAccess ON
  • Blood Factory (Loaded): EnableICache OFF, SH2WriteBuffer OFF
  • J.League Pro Soccer Club o Tsukurou! (Let’s Create a J-League Professional Soccer Club!): SH2DMARealTansfer ON
  • The Legend of Heroes I & II Eiyuu Densetsu: SH2DMARealTansfer ON
  • The Tower: SH2WriteBuffer OFF, VDP2RAMWriteTimingRenewalAfterScanline ON
  • Konami Antiques MSX Collection Ultra Pack: SH2Cache OFF
Danthrax
 

Danthrax is a contributor to the SHIRO! Media Group, writing stories for the website when Saturn news breaks. While he was a Sega Genesis kid in the '90s, he didn't get a Saturn until 2018. It didn't take him long to fall in love with the console's library as well as the fan translation and homebrew scene. He contributed heavily to the Bulk Slash and Stellar Assault SS fan localizations, and he's helped as an editor on several other Saturn and Dreamcast fan projects such as Cotton 2, Rainbow Cotton and Sakura Wars Columns 2.
 
 
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