Snail's Sega Saturn emulator: GiriGiri is one of the best Saturn emulators out there. It shows quite impressive screens of commercial games, even though speed isn't always at 100%. Originally created for the Japanese version of Windows 98, this emu didn't work on US systems. It started out as a free developers tool, but in its final release, went commercial. The project is now discontinued, in a way. Sega hired the GiriGiri team to further develop the emu for their saturn games service at http://cyberdisc.zaq.ne.jp/ a site now long gone. Shortly after the commercial release, Gavionne released a hack that made it so you no longer had to register GiriGiri. This hack spread very fast over the internet, and this enraged Sega. Further development of the emulator has been very problemmatic. 1. The documentation of the source has been destroyed. 2. It has been coded for the Jap Win OS 3. Sega encrypted the program 4. Gavionne encrypted the program 5. Almost no hardware schematics/docs exist on the Saturn About a year after "Gav" cracked the emu, Cyberdisc released a patch to get the emu to run under WinXP US. Roughly, one more year later, MiC, Chris, Den, Max, Dai and Fehmi created a US frontend and loader that included several tools. Later updates and testing by Lockshaw13 and Barnito would provide gamelist compatability and further distribution of the emulator. That brings us to my dabbling with the emu. While I've made several emus and have vastly improved on many, for the reasons listed above, this emu has been a bear to get any improvements working. What has changed? Partial decryption and decompiling. I have included what dissassembly code I could manage. Further XP patching and optimisation. Font patch. Corrupt disk track 1 handling. Loading time improved. Overall resources improved. Code updates. Library updates. Added tools. Updated documentation. Removed 4.28 Mb of old/useless files. Updated the configuration tool. Updated the Audio Conversion Library (It is not for sound output, but rather reading in the sounds... I do not know if this will actually help sound output quality but it will make loading an image faster.) More Jap to US translation has been done to make the need of foreign fonts less of a must. What has not changed... Gamelist database compatablity. Testing shows that this updated package still works under Win2K. Performance under Win2K showed little to no improvement. Performance under WinXP showed better rates and resource usage. Information of the LOADER- pertaining to- ++ "Give me tools" It extract satconv.exe, gentoc.exe and iso2raw files. DO NOT DO THIS!!! The archive contains newer versions then what this feature will produce. PROGRAM OPTIONS: +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++ TAB 'General' +++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ++ "CD-ROM drive select" Select drive where SEGA SATURN CD is located. ++ "Fullscreen resolution" Allow to choose resolution of fullscreen mode of GiriGiri Saturn. ++ "Auto choose BIN \ CUE region" If you check this option Loader will automaticly choose region of CUE/BIN image, you don't have to worry about this ;)) ++ "Auto choose CD-ROM region" If you check this option, guess what will happen ;), Loader will automaticly choose region of SEGA SATURN CD in selected CD-ROM drive, very usefull thing. ++ "Force Region" If this option will be selected, Loader will change region of CUE/BIN image to selected in "Region options" combobox. ++ "RUN CD"; Runs game in selected CD-ROM drive. ++ "RUN CUE/BIN"; Allows you to run CD images in format CUE/BIN (plik *.cue + *.bin). This format is used for instance by CDRWIN or ISOBUSTER. It must be raw 2352 byte sector image. You can use CDRWIN or ISOBUSTER to make this images. If you have game without music (only ISO file, no WAVE; or when you select option "PROCESS ONLY ISO" ), after using option's "Create CUE+ BIN ( 2352 ) form ISO + WAVE" form tab "Mem/Key/CUE" so created image can be use with "RUN CUE/BIN". If you have game with music (ISO file + WAVE file's), created image must be use with Damone Tool ( or with another program eg. Alcohol120% ). ++ "RUN LAST CUE/BIN"; It just runs last used cd image for witch path's are write in file 'base.ini'. While using this options program DO NOT check region of image and set it up automaticly. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++ TAB "Mem/Key/CUE" +++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ++ "Clear Saturn memory now" Allows to clean ram of emu of saturn. If you use save/load games it's sometimes usefull. ++ "Clear Saturn memory automaticly" It clean ram of emu fo saturn before every use of emu. ++ "Configure 1st player keyboard" Guess what it does ;)))) ++ "Configure 1st player joypad" And what does this, this DOSEN'T WORK for now. ++ "Enable 2nd player" Allows to play secend player. ++ "Configure 2nd player keyboard" Same as with 1st player :P ++ "Create CUE from ISO + WAVE" It makes same thing as "SEGA CUE MAKER". It create CUE file that must be used with DAEMON TOOL. Loader dosen't convert ISO/2048 to RAW/2352 format. If you make CUE from ISO+WAVE, you don't have to delete MP3 files if they are in the same directory as ISO and WAVE, because Loader automaticly ommit them. ++ "Create CUE+ BIN ( 2352 ) form ISO + WAVE" CUE generally file created in that way MUST be used with DEMONE TOOL. CAUTION - Loader convert files ISO/2048 to RAW/2352, there must be enought free space for it. If you have game without music (only ISO file, no WAVE; or when you select option "PROCESS ONLY ISO" ), after using option's "Create CUE+ BIN ( 2352 ) form ISO + WAVE" created image can be use with "RUN CUE/BIN". If you create CUE+BIN from ISO+WAVE you don't have to delete MP3 files if they are in the same directory as ISO and WAVE, because Loader automaticly ommit them. ++ "Process ONLY ISO" If yo don't have Daemon Tool's ( or something like this) and you want to play in game ( without music ) toogle this option and use "Create CUE+ BIN ( 2352 ) form ISO + WAVE" option and created CUE file use with option "RUN CUE/BIN". +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++ TAB "Info/Tool" +++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ++ "Sega Saturn CD-ROM game info" Informations about Sega Saturn CD . ++ "Give me tools" It extract satconv.exe, gentoc.exe and iso2raw files. DO NOT DO THIS!!! The archive contains newer versions then what this feature will produce. ++ "SEGA SATURN ISO/CUE Info" Informations about Sega Saturn CD images in formats: ISO, CUE/BIN, CUE/ISO. ++ "Set GiriGiri Directory" It allows to choose where 'GiriGiri Saturn' is located. Loader dosen't have to be in sane directory as emu( file 'gsaturn.exe' ). Just select file location of this file and Loader will write it to "win.ini" file, thanks to that Loader will be always able to execute emu, wherever it is located. Of course Loader can be located in same directory as emu. ++ "Reset config" Reset configuration of "GiriGiri Saturn". +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++ TAB "About" +++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Thanks to people, things that I used, dedication. *********************************** *********************************** *********************************** +++ Another thing Loader uses 3 programs : satconv.exe, gentoc.exe and iso2raw, that was not develop by me, but by other people ( I hope that they do not kill me for useing theirs programs). You found some bugs write: loader_bugs2@wp.pl. ---------- ---------- 13:22 2003-09-01 Copyright MiC 2003. -------------- Dedicated to my fantastic girlfriend Carol, who is my only inspiration .... I love YOU.