Let’s face facts:Saturn titles are amongst the most expensive retro games around, and unless youwere keen to collect them when they were current or shortly thereafter, moneybecomes a huge factor. That said, thereare hundreds of worthwhile gameplay experiences just waiting to be played onSaturn, and there are several methods to play these games today outside oforiginal discs. Primarily this boils down to emulation + disc images, anoptical drive emulator (ODE) which replaces the Saturn’s physical CD drive witha small board that accepts SD cards instead of discs, or the most commonmethod: burning discs to play on real hardware. This article serves as acomprehensive guide on how to successfully verify, test, and burn Saturn DiscImages on Microsoft Windows Platforms.
Before we begin, weneed to acknowledge the obvious: burning discs is frowned upon by the industryas it almost always involves some level of piracy. Legally, one is onlypermitted to make copies of titles they already own. That said, with theSaturn, or any retro platform that is no longer officially supported there isno way to simply buy games in such a manner that the profits make their wayback to SEGA. Especially with the Saturn, there is no Virtual Console or PSNStore, etc. where one can buy digitally and download to play on their favoritemodern device. Gamers intent on having a more rounded Saturn experience mustresort to alternate methods of playing the games.
THIS IS IF YOUR ROM IS IN ISO FORMAT. Some Sega CD ROMs come in.BIN format. I will most likely be making a tutorial on that very soon, as they are much easi. I only managed to burn the Sega 5 in 1 CD, Game Sack SCD episode and S Showdown. I have Nero and many other burn programs like Disc Juggler, NTI and ISOs automatically turn into those program ISO's. Some SCD games I download don't even have CUE's so I'm kind of lost how to burn a small library now.
In this in-depthguide, we dive into the process of correctly burning reliable Saturn discs.
SOME THINGS YOU’LL NEED:
– A way to openarchive files. Common archive types include Zip,7Zip/7z, and Rar. On Windowssystems, we recommend 7z to handle allof these file types. It’s free and works great.
– A Hash file value checker. Any hash check program can be used; we primarily use CRC32 for our hash values.
– A Saturn Emulatorthat supports playing disc images. We normally use Yabause, but there are quite a few options available these days.
– A Burning Program.We strongly suggest CloneCD, and willeven provide Saturn disc read/burn profiles forCloneCD users. CloneCD is notfree, however it is highly reliable. We have yet to experience a bad burn usingCloneCD.
There are otheroptions of course, such as the much more popular (and free) ImgBurn. However, ImgBurn can’t burn RAW images, which means that an image has tobe altered to be burnt using ImgBurn ifthe image has Sub-Channel data in it. This limitation doesn’t really affectSaturn Games as the Saturn doesn’t specifically USE the Sub-Channel data in itsdiscs, but from a preservation standpoint, the data still exists and thereforean accurate image likely includes this data.
The originalPlayStation utilized this data often.
ImgBurn does have some limited CCD compatibility (it can handle a CCD image if there is no reference to the sub-channel data at all), but in our experience it is likely users will produce occasional bad burns, and that means your CD-R has become a handy coaster, or Frisbee. For this reason, we will keep recommending CloneCD.
– Optional: avirtual disc drive. Traditionally we use DaemonTools Lite as a virtual drive, however recent versions potentially tryto install spyware on your PC, so proceed with caution. You can also use Virtual Clone Drive from the makers of CloneCD. We use that as well, but not nearlyas often as Daemon Tools Lite as we haverun into compatibility issues with some 3rd party programs and Virtual Clone Drive.
Using a virtual discdrive allows you to “mount” a disc image as a drive which can then beused to test emulators like SSF that don’t permit the use of disc images.
– Optional, butHIGHLY recommended: CD Lens Cleaner.
Run a CD LensCleaner through your Saturn before attempting to play burns.
– Optional: Saturn Region Patcher 3.0 Gold
We do not recommend patching the region on game images. Instead, you should install a region switch or Universal BIOS, or just get an appropriate Region Lockout Bypass cart (Action Replay, Saturn Gamer’s Cart, Satellite, etc.). But, if you can’t/won’t get a cart, you can’t/won’t install a region lock bypass modification, and you INSIST on patching the region, you’ll need the tool linked below.
Please, do NOTspread region patched images around. The tool is very easy to use and regionpatched images have hashes that differ from the verified hashes at Redump, sothere’s not really any good way to ensure the patch was applied correctly or tocheck a patched image for data integrity.
– Optional: Pseudo Saturn Patcher and Compatibility List.
While Pseudo Saturn is FANTASTIC, it is not 100% compatible with every game out of the box. Some games, such as Batman Forever: The Arcade Game (US) requires a compatibility patch to allow it to work. Other games (Panzer Dragoon Zwei/Saga) *WILL* work unpatched on MOST Saturns, but you need to use the JHL loader (0.832) instead of the CWX loader (0.831). If it doesn’t work for you, use the Pseudo Saturn CDPatcher and try again. Both the patcher and the list can be found here:
THE GUIDE
We have tried towrite this guide in as much detail as possible, to ensure you have a goodexperience with burning Saturn discs.
1. Always obtain your images from verified sources, or sources that have hashes for you to review.
This can mean you make your own images, obtain them from someone who knows how to properly and accurately make the images, or check images you get against a database hash like Redump. We cannot recommend you simply go to a random ROMs website like emuparadise. The goal for those sites has little to do with data preservation or accuracy. We have seen the same image with different titles, all broken.
2. Stick with one type of image (at least until you get consistently successful results)
To start, we recommend CloneCD (CCD+IMG+SUB) to obtain burnt discs that are more closely accurate to the original disc and because it puts all tracks into a single file. Others use BIN+CUE. Redump’s images tend to be in BIN+CUE if they go public, but our goal is to maintain a CCD+IMG+SUB version of every file eventually.
Whatever you use,stick with it once you get it working. Variables and changes are a great way tointroduce uncertainty in your burns.
Once you’ve gotten afew burns done with this image type, you can consider setting up a differentburning program for different images, but follow the same steps!
3. DON’T USE “ISO+XXX” OR “YYY+MP3/WAV” IMAGES!!!
These images aresimply no good in the modern age and should be wiped from existence UNLESSthere is no other image for that game. The ISO format can’t even handle certainkinds of Saturn images at all, and MP3s are compressed so you lose dataregardless of how much it “sounds” like the original. Avoid like theplague!
4. Download and Extract Your image
Wherever you gotyour image from, it is probably in an archive format such as RAR, ZIP, or 7Z.You’ll need to use a program to extract the files from the archive. Make sureyou extract them all, and it is best to keep all the files from a singlearchive in a single folder, also separate from any other files.
Picture 3 shows aBIN+CUE image in 7z.
Picture 4 shows a CloneCD Image in 7z
Picture 5 shows the CloneCD image extracted to a folder in windows
If you get an errormessage from your Archive program, STOP and re-download the image, thisgenerally indicates a corrupted download. If it continually happens, contactthe group or person who provided the file and let them know what you’reexperiencing.
5. Open up the Redump listing for the game you’re working with
If you can’t find agame, it may not have been dumped yet, or you might be looking at the wrongregion or system option.
For this example, I (Ke) used Batsugun, found at http://redump.org/disc/5043/ (Picture 6)
6. Verify the hash of each appropriate file in the archive
If you have a BIN+CUE image, you’ll need to verify every single track against the appropriate hash value. This means putting each track into “Hash My Files” and comparing the appropriate hash value against the list of hash values in Redump for those tracks. (Picture 7)
If you have a CCD+IMG+SUB image, you only need to worry about the IMG file. You’ll compare the CRC-32 hash of this file against the value on Redump indicating TOTAL CRC-32 (Picture 8)
If all the hashesyou check match up, you can rest assured that your image has been verified asnot corrupted and unaltered, so you can eliminate the possibility of a“bad disc image” from potential problems.
If you run into anerror or mismatch for any hash check, re-extract the image and check again.
Note: Ke hasconverted the entire 2018 Redump Saturn archive into CCD+IMG+SUB from theBIN+CUE images, but has NOT as of yet verified all those image CRCs, so keepthis in mind if testing a CloneCD-based image Ke makes available. It takes aLONG time to properly verify 2050 disc images if it isn’t being done with somelevel of automation .
7. (Optional but VERY recommended) Test Image in an emulator
Most modern emulators will take an image file straight. Some (like SSF) will only work with a disc drive. Find what works for you. Emulator selection and setup is out of scope for this guide, but there are plenty of helpful Saturn community members.
Once you have yourchosen emulator functional, load up your disc image as appropriate and see ifthe game launches.
If the game launches, you can rest assured that the image as provided will work with Mod Boards/Mod Chips. If the image was in CloneCD format, you can also rest assured that the image will work with Rhea/Phoebe as is.
8. (Optional) Check Pseudo Saturn Compatibility Chart to see if the game you’re working with has any notes/Known issues
The Pseudo Saturn Compatibility Chart shows fairly good information about the compatibility of various games with Pseudo Saturn. Check here to see if the game you’re working with needs to be Pseudo Patched to be used on your Pseudo Saturn cart.
9.Panzer Dragoon Zwei/Saga Only
For ages, Panzer Dragoon Saga has been considered difficult to successfully play off a burnt disc without a mod board / modchip.
The game isn’t compatible with Pseudo Saturn 0.830 or 0.831, also known as the CWX Loading Methods.
One thing that is not very well documented is that Panzer Dragoon Saga (US) is completely compatible Pseudo Saturn 0.832 (implemented in Pseudo Saturn Kai as the JHL Loading Method) on MOST Saturn system revisions, even without patching. This was confirmed multiple times by Ke from the moment 0.832 hit the scene, and again when Shiro researched Panzer Dragoon Saga for Claire’s article last year.
However, we are not in possession of every single motherboard revision out there, and reports have come in that some motherboard revisions don’t allow you to play this game using Pseudo Saturn without applying the Pseudo Saturn Compatibility Patch first.
http://ppcenter.webou.net/pskai/#download(Pseudo Saturn CDPatch)
Note that despite Saga not ALWAYS requiring a patch to play on JHL/0.832, there is code within the game that detects what kind of cart you have in the system, and if the detection check “fails”, your cart is coming back as incompatible with the game. Generally speaking this check was to detect cheat devices and to detect carts that might allow for piracy. You can by pass this check using a game shark/action replay code, or you can attempt to patch it out using one of the Panzer Dragoon Saga Cheat Detection Bypass patches out there. Just be sure to only use that patcher if you absolutely have to, and only use such a patcher on a verified image.
10. Burning Your Game
General Tips:
– Use media with agood reputation. A brief Google search should help you determine whether yourchosen brand has a quality reputation.
– Until you’vegotten a few successful burns under your belt, shut down ALL other applicationsbefore you start your burns, initiate the burn as slowly as yoursystem/media/burner/burning program will allow, and don’t do anything until theburn completes. As you get more successful, you’ll find that modern computerscan handle multitasking quite well, but you don’t want to introduce variablesinto your process until you’ve knocked a few out.
– Until you’ve gotten a few successful burns under your belt, and again whenever you run into a problem, you should try to verify your burn. When the burn is done, if your burning program offers it, do a verification of the burnt data. CloneCD doesn’t allow for this but ImgBurn does, so keep that in mind. Since ImgBurn can’t deal with sub-channel data anyway, we will sometimes burn a Verified CCD+IMG+SUB image with CloneCD and then have ImgBurn do a verification check against a BIN+CUE image of the game that is a verified match.
– If you DON’T have a method to play imports on your system such as a Universal BIOS mod (aka “region free” bios, though that is not a correct term for what that mod does), Region Bypass Cart (Saturn Gamer’s Cart, Action Replay, Satellite, etc.), or a Region Switch, you’ll want to patch your image with SRP 3.0 Gold, listed in the opening section. Remember, please don’t share region patched images.
Pictures 9 through 16 show how to burn using CloneCD, including what settings you should use for Saturn games. Ke has created a profile that you can add to your CloneCD installation that will have these settings ready to go for you.
11. (Optional) Test the burnt game with an emulator
Test the burnt gameusing the emulator you might have used in step 7 above. If the emulator playsit, you have made a burn that should work with a real Saturn using a modboard/mod chip, provided you used good media and have a solid working laser inyour Saturn.
12. Test the burn with your system
If you have a modboard, all you need to do is pop the disc in the system, close the CD lid, andpower the system on. Most mod boards have a feature that disable the mod boardif the system is powered on with the disc lid open, so be sure to have that lidclosed before powering the system on.
If you are using Pseudo Saturn / Pseudo Saturn Kai, be sure to update to the latest version of the firmware, or the firmware compatible with the game you’re working with (see notes on Panzer Dragoon Saga and the Pseudo Saturn Compatibility List).
Unless you’re trying to use the Netlink modem cart with a burnt Netlink compatible game, I suggest Cafe-Alpha’s Pseudo Saturn Kai firmware as a firmware base as it is much more full featured than the original Pseudo Saturn releases. You’ll need the Kai Lite firmware for carts based on the Action Replay, but can use the Kai Full with the Saturn Gamer’s Cart.
If you are trying to use a Netlink modem cart and a burnt Netlink game on a retail Saturn, then I’d suggest the original Pseudo Saturn 0.831 firmware instead of any of the Kai variants. While the originals are lacking in features compared to the Kai versions, the originals have a very easy to identify stop point that allows you to “hot swap” the pseudo flashed cart for the Netlink Modem before loading the game. We DO NOT recommend this in general as hot swapping can damage your Saturn, but we have performed this ourselves repeatedly with retail systems and have never noticed issues or detrimental effects. On debug/dev kit systems, there is additional power going to the cart slot which will cause the system to reboot if the cart is swapped, so avoid that.
Ideally, if you’re planning to use the Netlink, we recommend you invest in a mod board instead of Pseudo Saturn.
13. Troubleshooting Questions
1. Have yousuccessfully burnt discs, and then played those same burnt discs with yourcurrent setup (computer, operating system, burner, media, burning program,burning speed, Saturn, backup boot method) in the past?
2. Did you get yourimage from a known reliable and/or verifiable source?
3. Did you verifyyour image’s hash value(s) before attempting any patching?
4. Did the unpatchedimage work in an emulator?
5. Is the game knownto be compatible with your method of playing backups? If yes, is a patchrequired for that game to use that backup playing method?
6. If you applied apatch to the image, did the patched image work in an emulator?
7. Did you use mediawith a good reputation for quality?
8. Did you quit outof all other programs before burning?
9. Did you burn asslowly as possible for your media/system/burner?
10. Did you makesure to not do anything else while burning (troubleshooting only. If you aren’ttroubleshooting, you don’t need to be in this section anyway, right?)?
11. Did you allow the burning program to verify the data burnt to the disc (CloneCD can’t on its own, but there are other tools out there)?
12. Does the burntdisc work in an emulator?
13. Has your Saturnbackup solution ever worked properly? If yes, can you boot other backups still?
14. Did you recentlyclean your Saturn laser pickup lens?
15, Have you triedthe same disc in a Different Saturn using the same backup solution?
16. Have you triedthe same disc in a Different Saturn with a DIFFERENT backup solution?
14. Addendum:
“Why should iuse CloneCD/CCD+IMG+SUB instead of ImgBurn/BIN+CUE?”
For Saturn, many inthe preservation community argue that the Saturn does absolutely nothing withSub-Channel data, so whatever data is in the Sub-Channel is essentiallyuseless.
As apreservationist, Ke believes that the closer we come to an accurate backup ofan original disc, the better off everyone is in the end, regardless of if theoriginal system reads that data or not. Accuracy is important.
Ultimately, we donot dislike BIN+CUE so much as we dislike having multiple disc image formatsfor the same disc.
Deunan (creator of the GEDMU and Rhea/Phoebe Optical Drive Emulators) and Ke had a conversation about trying to find a disc image option that was universal across all platforms (Mac, *NIX, and Windows), and why Rhea/Phoebe didn’t support certain image types. He came away from that conversation with a LOT more understanding, and dropped the hope of a universal format. He was already a CloneCD fan/user, but now He appreciates it so much more.
Also, whileCCD+IMG+SUB isn’t compatible with Mac or *NIX machines, those systems can oftenrun Windows in a virtual environment or via dual booting, which solves thecompatibility problem.
Here are some snippets from that conversation; all Deunan’s words but lightly edited for spelling or context, as well an an excerpt from his blog post in 2014 about supported formats for Rhea:
In short:
– CUE is a brokenformat, too simplistic for anything but the most common audio CDs
– it’s broken evenfor CDs with seamless audio tracks, it gets worse with games
– recentnon-standard extensions tried to correct that by adding missing TOC data
– but many programsdo it their own way, or not at all, plus you still can’t have subcode (EDIT:aka sub-channel) data attached to the image/tracks anyway
– older dumps don’thave that extended data and will break anyway, I’ve already had “bugreports” for games converted from CUE to other formats
– and there are CUEswith compressed audio tracks…
Let me just say thatALL current ripping methods are equally flawed, it’s just some programs atleast try to get it as good as possible given the limitations of typical PChardware.
In reality there isno such thing as rip accuracy, but if you use the same software, hardware andmethod you should end up with a bit-exact result. So while you can verify therip, it does not really mean this one particular variant is the “correct”one and all others are not. In general though, most discs mastered mid-90’s orlater should be well enough structured to produce identical results even withdifferent Hardware and tools.
For personal usagejust stick to general ripping guidelines like correct settings, non-brokenformats, and that’s it. All those efforts to re-rip all games for a givenplatform every few years are just wasted time mostly, unless the storage formatis really superior. This would be the case when replacing CUEs with CCD or CDIfor example, but CUE to CUE is at best fixing the really broken dumps, but notreally improving the quality of the rest.
CloneCD is pretty good when it comes to CDs. I’m also a fan of open formats but unfortunately all of them are rather lacking. Well it’s not really a surprise the best solution is the one you have to pay for 🙂
So, stick to CCD Iguess. I’m probably going to as well as CDI is discontinued and will eventuallyfade into obscurity as it stops working with more modern OSes and HW.
– Deunan
– Source: Privateemail conversation
After some initial issues Rhea has been upgraded to V1.5 and works pretty stable now. As in boots everything I throw at it. Which brings me to subject at hand: Many of the existing images of Saturn CD-ROMs are pretty poor.
I’m going to have toput a line somewhere because I don’t want users to complain about the devicenot working properly when the problem is with the dump itself. Only certainformats will be supported, and as always I urge you to make your own dumps.It’s not that complicated, Saturn discs can be read on a normal PC drive – nospecial hardware needed.
Supported formats:
CDI – Preferred.Needs to be either RAW or (optional) RAW+SUB format. CDIs include pregaps(index 0 parts of the tracks) by default which is good.
MDS/MDF – I’ve justadded preliminary support for this format. The only few images I have are inRAW+SUB format, but just RAW should be fine as well.
BIN – Only forsingle track images, needs RAW sectors. Since I haven’t seen a single trackgame yet I don’t think this one will be of much use – perhaps for homebrew.
I’m looking atCCD/IMG format now, I might add some limited support for that as well sinceit’s popular. Please note that having the dump in supported format doesn’t yetmean it will definitely work – the file format is one thing, and the quality ofwhat’s actually inside is another.
Not supported:
CUE – Anything thatdepends on CUE will not work. I’m not even talking about ISO+MP3 tracks, whichare the worst, but the whole format in general. There are many ad-hocextensions to the so-called standard CUE, and the tracks can be multiple files,single file, RAW or MODE1, even compressed via MP3 or FLAC, or converted toWAVE instead of raw audio data. Single file “pregaps” are just zero-filledspace even for data tracks. And to add insult to injury the MSF address of eachtrack is always +2 seconds, pregap or not, because it was more funny this way.
Some CUE based dumpscan be converted to a more sane format and will work. I’ve tested it bymounting the image in Daemon Tools Lite and re-ripping it with DiscJuggler toCDI. For some reason DJ doesn’t see WinCDEmu virtual drives, so that’s why DT.That’s just one possible option, and obviously if the dump was bad to beginwith this will not produce a working image. But might be worth a try if yourdisc is damaged and unreadable and CUE is all you’ve got.
It’s always best tostick to properly made dumps, even if these need to be converted you know thedata is good. I can’t guarantee correct operation otherwise.
– Source: Deunan’sGDEMU Blog,
– https://gdemu.wordpress.com/2014/10/08/saturn-rings/
You’ll note that myemail conversation with him happened about a year after his blog post, as hispreference for CDI had shifted to a preference for CCD, which was FANTASTICsince i haven’t had a working DiscJuggler setup in years.
15. Addendum 2: But I use Mac/*NIX and can’t burn CCD+IMG+SUB files!!!
Dual Boot or run aVirtual Machine that allows access to your disc burner.
16. Conclusion
Burning Saturn gamesdoesn’t have to be difficult, but one of the most famous lines in datamanagement has always been “Garbage In, Garbage Out”. This stressesthe fact that computers can only do so much with the data provided to them, andonly with the tools available to it. If you provide an unverified disc image toa burning program, you introduce the possibility of problems with the imageitself, on top of any potential issues with your computer, your burningsoftware, your burner, your backup playing method, or your Saturn laser itself.
Systematicallyeliminating the possibility of a point of failure makes it that much easier totroubleshoot when something goes wrong.
This is a LONG andTEDIOUS process, designed to root out problems you might have with a burnt discbefore it gets to the burning stage. Once you’ve done this process 4-5 timessuccessfully, the amount of steps can be reduced, but the moment you run into asnag, zero back to this guide and follow it step by step to see where yourpoint of failure actually is.
Above all else,remember… You MUST play SEGA Saturn!
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