Pseudo Saturn Kai lite firmware fixes and improvements
Written by cafealpha
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Classified in : Saturn, Programming
The reason is that children fought with nearly all typical winter diseases during the last three weeks : mumps, influenza (x2), gastro enteritis, and finally otitis ... x2 too
Internet husband ...
I hesitated to put other pictures like "x2 combo !"
and "body temperature over 40 ? High score !"
I hesitated to put other pictures like "x2 combo !"
and "body temperature over 40 ? High score !"
Children were relatively safe from winter diseases until last month, but last spurt until summer was relatively heavy for them
So, no significant updates, but various minor updates :]
Among theses updates, main menu display has been improved when lite version of the firmware is used :
- "Extra" features moved to main menu
- System status now displays Saturn related informations (BIOS version and PAL/NTSC frequency information) rather than nothing when USB and SD card aren't detected.
Theses changes concerns USB dev cart and Action Relay users, hence the majority of Pseudo Saturn Kai future users, so theses changes couldn't be avoided before initial release
Here are pictures taken before and after the changes.
Many thanks to Zone66x for testing and taking theses pictures
Pseudo Saturn Kai v5.820 : status display was a little "empty"
And USB port was incorrectly detected when running from Action Replay ...
And USB port was incorrectly detected when running from Action Replay ...
Pseudo Saturn Kai v5.875 : some saturn informations are now displayed.
There's no simple way to detect if cartridge is Action Replay or not,
so generic "Boot Cart" string is displayed when cartridge type is unknown.
There's no simple way to detect if cartridge is Action Replay or not,
so generic "Boot Cart" string is displayed when cartridge type is unknown.
And main menu is a little simpler :
no longer need to go to sub menu in order to access extra features.
no longer need to go to sub menu in order to access extra features.
Also, Zone66x verified that Action Replay communication port (parallel-like port) was usable with Pseudo Saturn Kai. Thank you for testing
Another new feature I'm proud enough to introduce it on my blog is the soft reset "à la carte"
Soft reset is used in Pseudo Saturn Kai when loading game from CD-ROM, and also when executing program received from USB port.
Basically, it wipes all memory, and puts VDPs memory and registers in initial state, which is good when loading game from CD-ROM, but causes problem when Saturn developer wants to do something else than "just" executing program on main RAM.
The "à la carte" advantage comes here : it is possible to select which module to soft-reset, and which one to let as-is before executing program.
Here is an example :
Pseudo Saturn Kai (lite version installed on USB dev cart) main screen.
Test program will be executed from this screen.
Test program will be executed from this screen.
Let's try to let VDP registers and VDP1 RAM as-is when uploading test program :
Soft reset "à la carte" settings and execution result :
Starfield (VDP1) remains in memory and is displayed on test program.
Starfield (VDP1) remains in memory and is displayed on test program.
One more try, but with VDP1 RAM clear before execution :
Soft reset "à la carte" settings and execution result :
As VDP1 RAM is cleared, starfield is no longer displayed.
As VDP1 RAM is cleared, starfield is no longer displayed.
Possibilities for this features are relatively wide : it's for example possible to upload graphics on VRAM, then level data on sub RAM, then execute test program on RAM.
I hope this will help to improve Saturn homebrew development scene :)