v6.483 : The long awaited one

Written by cafealpha 16 comments
This is with the pride of a job finally being done to announce the public release of Pseudo Saturn Kai v6.483 ! As usual, it can be found in the download section of Pseudo Saturn Kai page.

This release was heavily tested by privateye and in fact it couldn't be released without his extensive help. Thank you very much !!

Rare footage of privateye and me uniting forces during
Pseudo Saturn Kai development and testing

There are many changes not only concerning ODE support so that every Saturn worshiper may appreciate this release.


Game and Saturn hardware compatibility improved

So far JHL loader wasn't supporting some Japanese grey Saturns but this is now fixed so that it's finally possible to play Panzer Dragoon Saga with Pseudo Saturn Kai on all known Saturn hardware revisions

This fix doesn't removes the need disc image before burning it. This concerns few games indicated as requiring usage of Pseudo Saturn patcher utility in Pseudo Saturn Kai compatibility page.


Additionally to hardware compatibility improvement, graphical issues are also fixed in some games. This concerns Croc, Slam 'n Jam '96, MechWarrior 2, Need for Speed and Space Hulk so if you were waiting for an update of Pseudo Saturn Kai to play these games, it's (finally !) the right moment to update your cartridge




Save Data Manager for Satiator ODE

As indicated in the title, Save Data Manager now supports Satiator ODE.

Supports include the export and import of save data to/from SD card, the access to all known backup devices (including Saturn floppy disk drive), so if you have important saves from your favorite games and don't want them to become lost or corrupted or want to share them with Saturn friends, you don't have any excuse to do it right now


Save Data Manager and Satiator access emulated in Yabause

Additionally to Satiator ODE support, many small details were fixed or improved, for example file browsing now uses a better font, comments written in Japanese are now correctly written in save data dump report file etc.

All these fixes and improvements were made in the hope everyone (and not only ODE users) will take benefit from Save Data Manager : if you want to import a pre-recorded save for a given game then SDM may be useful for you, if you want to copy saves recorded on a floppy disk then SDM may be useful for you, and so on



Support for latest (2021/07/02) Fenrir firmware

In regard of the stream of the "why Pseudo Saturn Kai doesn't works with Fenrir ?", or "when will Pseudo Saturn Kai will support latest firmware of Fenrir ?" or all the similar questions asked here and there on the internet, that's probably a super awaited feature ! And finally it is here

So, latest firmware (2021/07/02) is supported, and consequently nested folders feature too.
However, display of game cover/screenshot is not supported, so even if it is enabled nothing will be displayed on Pseudo Saturn Kai. This shall be added in a future release, but as other features may take over the priority, ETA regarding this feature is not decided yet.

Fenrir nested folder example under Yabause


As I like to improve things whenever it is possible, I caught the occasion of the development of nested folder feature to do cosmetic enhancements to disc image selection menu.Majority of these enhancements won't be noticed : for example slight changes regarding width of some letters, or making menu title not flickering during initial display.
On the other side, Rhea/Phoebe and Fenrir users now may appreciate the addition of font selection on disc image selection menu ! I like default one but as it may not be the taste of everybody, it's now possible to select an alternate font

Font selection in disc image selection menu



Development and testing of this version was quite exhausting because of unexpected troubles here and there. For example, Satiator didn't always wanted to provide access to the CD-ROM it is emulating when SD file access is enabled, which was fixed simply by ... directly reading disc image file contents instead of data sectors from emulated CD-ROM
On Fenrir side, reading of save data files whose size is not a multiple of 2 KB isn't working correctly, so the simple workaround for this problem is to add a padding at the end of save data files to make their size being a multiple of 2 KB Remaining problem with this workaround is that save data exported with older version of Fenrir firmware may not be readable now and unfortunately it's impossible to fix that only with Pseudo Saturn Kai.


All of that to say we may take a well deserved rest for a small while. I don't know how situation is exactly on privateye side but personally I would like to recover back sleep time lost during the last four weeks


Please wait for 30 minutes (a dozen of episodes) for
privateye and me to return back to full power


Next goal for Pseudo Saturn Kai is to support disc image selection for Satiator ODE. Development pace until this milestone as well as additional support for Fenrir ODE depends on everyone supporting Pseudo Saturn Kai on patreon, so don't hesitate to contribute there if you're interested


16 comments

#1  - George said :

Thanks for the continued support and development :)

Updated my Action Replay after a very long time on an older version. No problems to report :)

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#2  - cafealpha said :

Thank you for the feedback ! I wish you happy playing :)

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#3  - Phil said :

Amazing work! Thank you so much for the update. I’ve updated my Action Replays and they work great with my Fenrir. Thanks again it’s very much appreciated!

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#4  - cafealpha said :

Thank you for the kind comment, and please enjoy playing Saturn games :)

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#5  - mistamontiel said :

Great! Still had the old May version queued up so I'll use this even that I don't do ODEs 0.o Still want Gamer's Cartridge, February!

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#6  - cafealpha said :

This version (finally) have its JHL loader improved to work on Japanese grey Saturn. So if you have an occasion to use your cartridge on this particular hardware revision (or give/sell it to a friend etc) it's recommended to update its firmware.

Regarding Gamer's Cartridge, thank you for your interest but I can't guarantee that a cartridge will be available at that time.

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#7  - Steve said :

PSK Lite was working ok for me, but after replacing my 110V PSU with a "Saturn Power" one, I just get the "Pseudo Saturn Kai Lite - v6.483" header at the top, and it locks up. Any ideas?

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#8  - cafealpha said :

Sorry for the broad reply, but please refer to the following points in order to troubleshoot this problem :
- Boot your cartridge without any cartridge inserted, and see if it works or not. If multiplayer screen doesn't shows, there may be a problem around the setup your PSU.
- Load a game (or play an audio CD) in order to check if CD-ROM unit is in working condition or not.
- Turn off the Saturn, adjust position of cartridge in its slot and turn on the Saturn. The "completely insert and then lift by around 1 millimeter" combo usually solves connection problems between Saturn and cartridge.
- If you're using an ODE, check if settings/firmware/SD card/whatever else is set up correctly.

I wish you good luck and "Be Praying" :) ( http://www.ykz909.net/game/stg_sgxbox_6a.html )

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#9  - zelu said :

Hi, I have an OG grey AR 4in1 that I flashed 3+ years ago, does this release allow for it to be used for saves and backups or that property will never be reinstated with the newer firmware?

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#10  - cafealpha said :

Changes during the past 3 years are (roughly) an improved game compatibility and support for Fenrir ODE. I do plan to add save data storage on Action Replay cartridge but other development tasks take priority over this one, sorry.

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#11  - Hisaturn-stond said :

Thanks for this info! I've been using Pseudo for years and it's an awesome tool. The only thing I personally miss is getting the memory card feature back.
Thanks again for pseudo saturn :)

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#12  - cafealpha said :

Thank you for the kind comment and also for appreciating Saturn console !
I still plan to add memory storage feature on Pseudo Saturn Kai, so please be patient until that time :)

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#13  - Haze said :

Wow just randomly looked here see if there’s a update to make croc work and there is lol. After testing its much better but some missing player polygons and most enemies invisible except for their eyes make it not possible

Really enjoying the program thanks for the updates

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#14  - cafealpha said :

Ah ah, it's good that this fix arrived at the right time for you :) I will try to make Croc working more correctly but I can't guarantee anything about that.

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#15  - Yiop said :

Hi, is there anyway I can update my action replay without having to open my Saturn and prepare it for the disc swap? I sold my old Saturn (which had the open-tray trick done) and bought a new one, but I kept the action replay with me and this new Saturn doesn't read discs with its tray opened.

Is there any alternative to update from the previous Pseudo to this one? Thanks a lot!

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#16  - cafealpha said :

Disc swap (which requires open-tray trick) is necessary only on first setup of Pseudo Saturn Kai, typically when Action Replay cart is bought without Pseudo Saturn Kai pre-installed.

If you want to update from an old version of Pseudo Saturn Kai to latest one, then simply burn its flasher utility (pskai_flasher_lite.iso) on a CD-R, boot it like you would boot a game copied on CD-R and finally follow the ROM update instructions displayed on screen.

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