help with finding a sega saturn emulator and sonic 3d blast

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JoeSafdia

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Hello, I'm hoping you can help me out with finding a Sega Saturn emulator so I can play Sonic 3D Blast for the first time since I owned it on my actual Sega Saturn 20 years ago.

I keep trying to download emulators, but either the sites don't seem to host working links anymore, or the application within just does nothing but give me error messages. The only that seemed to load the emulation program itself was Satourne, but it didn't actually DO anything. It just loaded the UI with the play and stop buttons and all that.

I've also downloaded the Sonic 3D Blast Saturn rom from two different sources. Both times, I just get a bin and a cue file that's six times larger than the actual emulator. From my experience with SNES emulation (just Super Metroid), that doesn't seem right.

I've looked online for help, but no one seems to have a good answer. Everything I hear is super complicated, and I'm not really good with this stuff. I don't know how to "adjust my binary cores" or whatever. I just want to play a Sonic game from my childhood.

Can anyone point me in the direction an easy to use emulator and rom for the Sega Saturn and Sonic 3D Blast (Saturn version)? I'll be most grateful.
 
Solution
Spike
@JoeSafdia Follow this if you still couldn't play:

1. Download pre-requisites
Extract, Run installer, once complete close and delete both the .zip and installer.

2. Download bizhawk 2.1
Extract zip to a folder.

3. Download Bios files
Download both zip, Copy both .zip

4. Open bizhawk (EmuHawk.exe)
Click Config > Firmware > click "Open firmware folder"
Paste both .zip there, extract both .zip there, should look like this:
1firmware.png

5. Click "Scan". Scroll down until Saturn, should look like this:
firm2.png

6. Download "Sonic 3D Blast (USA).7z"
Extract it with 7-zip

7. Right click it "extract here".
You will get a folder "Sonic 3D Blast (USA)" with a bunch .bin and a single .cue file...
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Retro Gaming Library said:
Says the guy who's subtext is "I hate my parents" try not to project your infantile fantasies of murdering your parents on to me because I don't like Mednafen you complete fruit loop. You sound like you need child services at your door.
(y)


Oh well the bit I would constitute as being defensive is when you said that I was being hostile towards you when I was pointing out Mednafen is not easy to use in relation to other things said in the thread. You're right, it's not intuitive at all, it's quite difficult to use. Sorry you feel uncomfortable because of the way I express myself.
Post automatically merged:


Thats what I was getting as well for a long time. Then when I finally got a game running the sound was messed up.

Seriously guys, maybe if you just let go of Mednafen for whatever weird reason we could have guided this guy to an emulator that actually works easily and doesn't require so much messing around in the first place. It's trash. The topic is emulating Sega Saturn. Theres absolutely nothing off key about criticising Mednafen especially when it doesn't work for the people who want to play games right now.
Click to expand...
You gotta chill man.
This isn't even your thread and OP can't get proper support cos you are fighting everyone who's trying to help.
Just because something doesn't work for you doesn't mean it's shit.
I suggest you make your own thread to get help if you still need it.
 
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Retro Gaming Library said:
Says the guy who's subtext is "I hate my parents" try not to project your infantile fantasies of murdering your parents on to me because I don't like Mednafen you complete fruit loop. You sound like you need child services at your door.
(y)


Oh well the bit I would constitute as being defensive is when you said that I was being hostile towards you when I was pointing out Mednafen is not easy to use in relation to other things said in the thread. You're right, it's not intuitive at all, it's quite difficult to use. Sorry you feel uncomfortable because of the way I express myself.
Post automatically merged:


Thats what I was getting as well for a long time. Then when I finally got a game running the sound was messed up.

Seriously guys, maybe if you just let go of Mednafen for whatever weird reason we could have guided this guy to an emulator that actually works easily and doesn't require so much messing around in the first place. It's trash. The topic is emulating Sega Saturn. Theres absolutely nothing off key about criticising Mednafen especially when it doesn't work for the people who want to play games right now.
Click to expand...
Rule #1, dude: "Be respectful of other people and their opinions".
 
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Retro Gaming Library said:
Well I did give step by step instructions to every part of the installation and launching the program then identified "missing Vulkan dl.1" as a DirectX / GPU driver issue but you know what, I've done enough work tonight, only to be patronised by everyone here so I'll do you all a favour apparently and won't help any further. Good luck. Hope you all have a nice evening.
Click to expand...

I know about as much about that as I do about "downloading the bios" or whatever and don't want to mess around with the specs of my computer, which otherwise works perfectly fine, to try to get working an emulator I'm not confident will work (based on the track record so far of things I've attempted) just to play one game.
Post automatically merged:

Waffles said:
I know it's not ideal, but do you have an Android tablet ready? I have had great success emulating the console that way.
Click to expand...

I don't have a tablet of any kind.
 
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JustLooking123 said:
Okay.
Is your rom a saturn game? What's its format? is it zipped?

Also can you test drag and drop with something smaller? like a nes, genesis or gba game?
Click to expand...

I only have a Saturn game. Sonic 3D Blast. I unzipped it and just have the BIN (which is what I dragged and dropped at your request) and the CUE.
 
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ATenderLad said:
Oh, you start CD games with the .Cue file, it just needs to be in the same folder as the .Bin.
Click to expand...

When I try to use the CUE file, it tells me the BIN file is potentially unsafe as it contains a colon and a backslash.

Should I try to use a CHD file? I just downloaded one.

Actually, I just tried the CHD file. Same result as the BIN file.
 
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this is strange! do you have an active anti-virus or something?
anyway, we can test something:
rename the bin file to "sonic.txt"
open the ,cue file with notepad, and change the bin filename there to "sonic.txt" too.
then open the cue with mednafen again.
 
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JustLooking123 said:
this is strange! do you have an active anti-virus or something?
anyway, we can test something:
rename the bin file to "sonic.txt"
open the ,cue file with notepad, and change the bin filename there to "sonic.txt" too.
then open the cue with mednafen again.
Click to expand...

No change. It gives the same error messages as before, except with the file name being "sonic.txt".
Post automatically merged:

ATenderLad said:
Well, I just tried the Sonic 3D Blast here on the Repo.

View attachment 20302

No issues with that one, game started normally.

View attachment 20303
Click to expand...

Link so I can make sure I download the exact same file as you?

Edit: Never mind. I'm downloading it now.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
i'm sorry for asking so much, but can you write the error message exactly?

Also, there's a file in mednafen folder called "stdout.txt"
can you either upload it or copy paste its content here?
 
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JoeSafdia said:
Hello, I'm hoping you can help me out with finding a Sega Saturn emulator so I can play Sonic 3D Blast for the first time since I owned it on my actual Sega Saturn 20 years ago.

I keep trying to download emulators, but either the sites don't seem to host working links anymore, or the application within just does nothing but give me error messages. The only that seemed to load the emulation program itself was Satourne, but it didn't actually DO anything. It just loaded the UI with the play and stop buttons and all that.

I've also downloaded the Sonic 3D Blast Saturn rom from two different sources. Both times, I just get a bin and a cue file that's six times larger than the actual emulator. From my experience with SNES emulation (just Super Metroid), that doesn't seem right.

I've looked online for help, but no one seems to have a good answer. Everything I hear is super complicated, and I'm not really good with this stuff. I don't know how to "adjust my binary cores" or whatever. I just want to play a Sonic game from my childhood.

Can anyone point me in the direction an easy to use emulator and rom for the Sega Saturn and Sonic 3D Blast (Saturn version)? I'll be most grateful.
Click to expand...
Ok and i know for a Fact on this. Batocera has a Damn good Saturn Emulator. you will need the BIOS, but all of the Saturn games, i have tried, work Perfectly with it.

And you can run it from a usb/External HDD.
https://batocera.org/
and it has a Simple how to
https://wiki.batocera.org/systems:saturn
You can even upscale it, and smooth the graphics if you like
videogame3.gif
 
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