Opinions on Professor Abrasive's Saturn Satiator (Sega Saturn Flash Cart)?

[johnyept]

I'm crossing my fingers that he meant Australian dollars.

Me too, if $150 AUS = $102 USD = €92, then I'm all over it!

Since I'm not a patreon, all I can see in his patreon page is his last 2 titles posts, "Shells" at November 4th and "BUILD" at November 10th, I'm hoping this means we'll start seeing production next year...

EDIT: A little more digging revealed that the 1st update was about warped shells, the following update one week later was about starting the BETA SHIPPING around the end of the current month! I guess some reviews will eventually start popping up on Youtube!

[Greg2600]

I have no clue how long he's intending his beta test period to be.  Presuming he's already worked out the manufacturing/distribution out, you could see a Spring 2020 release I'd say.  If he still hasn't worked those out, then good grief. 

[bbuchholtz]

Long-time fan of EverDrive and krikzz's products. I will say, the user registration is a tad tedious...

Anyways, beta testing for Satiator has begun. Thus far, it's a solid product. I'd imagine some reviews will be out shortly.

-Brian

[leonquest]

Long-time fan of EverDrive and krikzz's products. I will say, the user registration is a tad tedious...

Anyways, beta testing for Satiator has begun. Thus far, it's a solid product. I'd imagine some reviews will be out shortly.

-Brian

Here is the first recorded playthrough for those interested :

https://www.thatsitguys.com/articles/sega-saturn-satiator-beta-tested

It looks like the fw is on a very early stage and comes with quite a few visible bugs. The pretty UI hasn't been insterted yet. Other than that it's all looking good. Hopefully he'll come up with a better retail strategy.

[johnyept]

Here is the first recorded playthrough for those interested :

https://www.thatsitguys.com/articles/sega-saturn-satiator-beta-tested

It looks like the fw is on a very early stage and comes with quite a few visible bugs. The pretty UI hasn't been insterted yet. Other than that it's all looking good. Hopefully he'll come up with a better retail strategy.

The main problem so far appears to be FMV skipping. Some games seem to play videos correctly, but that might be due to lower FPS. If it's caused by a bandwidth limitation on the Video CD interface, that would be a HUGE setback for this project. Let's just hope it can be fixed in a future firmware upgrade, because I really like the plug and play versatility of the Satiator over the (impossible to get) ODE internal cards...

[leonquest]

Here is the first recorded playthrough for those interested :

https://www.thatsitguys.com/articles/sega-saturn-satiator-beta-tested

It looks like the fw is on a very early stage and comes with quite a few visible bugs. The pretty UI hasn't been insterted yet. Other than that it's all looking good. Hopefully he'll come up with a better retail strategy.

The main problem so far appears to be FMV skipping. Some games seem to play videos correctly, but that might be due to lower FPS. If it's caused by a bandwidth limitation on the Video CD interface, that would be a HUGE setback for this project. Let's just hope it can be fixed in a future firmware upgrade, because I really like the plug and play versatility of the Satiator over the (impossible to get) ODE internal cards...

Not a bandwidth problem for 2 reasons:

1. It only happens on certain games.

2. Prof. Abrasive had already spoken on the subject of bandwidth, and mentioned there's much more than needed.

[leonquest]

Here it is, found it on the post "features and unfeatures" from January 4:

“The loading times are identical to real hardware because it paces the sectors out the same as a real drive for compatibility reasons. Some titles will depend on the exact CD drive timing and the Saturn's CD Block itself can only handle a certain data rate, so while I may implement a turbo mode in the future, it will be a configurable option rather than on by default.

This also means that the choice of SD card is not critical - it only reads at a few hundred kB/s. As long as your card isn't actually faulty (fake capacity or bad sectors) then the Satiator is not picky.“

[johnyept]

Here it is, found it on the post "features and unfeatures" from January 4:

“The loading times are identical to real hardware because it paces the sectors out the same as a real drive for compatibility reasons. Some titles will depend on the exact CD drive timing and the Saturn's CD Block itself can only handle a certain data rate, so while I may implement a turbo mode in the future, it will be a configurable option rather than on by default.

This also means that the choice of SD card is not critical - it only reads at a few hundred kB/s. As long as your card isn't actually faulty (fake capacity or bad sectors) then the Satiator is not picky.“

So it's "just" a matter of fine tunning the firmware. Let's hope he can do it quickly, it would be great if the Satiator started distribution sometime in 2020.

[Marteicos]

About the Croc issue, it happens on consoles with integrated 68000 sound cpu, it happens on my Phoebe or disc if you boot directly, you need to go to the cd player before booting the game then it works fine. This can be accomplished by holding the A button while booting the system. This works on my Phoebe, getting back from menu works too. Maybe prof Abrasive can implement a way to return to the cdplayer to fix the issue.

[Davestra]

Thanks, Marteicos! I'll remember that next time.

[Greg2600]

Pretty good series of videos from a Beta Tester (ReEnthused Channel)

First look at the Satiator Sega Saturn Flash Cart Beta by Professor Abrasive.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=digVewVEqGg

We take another look at the Satiator after updating to the newest firmware.
Firmware 73:
Fixes FMV stuttering
Speeds up menu loading when there are lots of files
Adds page switching with shoulder buttons
First attempts at implementing audio indexing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2yMWUPr9l8

[leonquest]

There was also a stream on Sunday night made by emerald nova games, testing out games with the newest firmware, all previous issues were fixed. There was only like 3-4 of us so he was taking requests. I asked for 3 games and he tested them all. It's looking really good.

[leonquest]

Posting this here just to keep the hype alive:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j11SgTcagMY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQNkgFoQL9I

[Greg2600]

LOL!  Tough to keep up the hype, when there's been zero inclination of an ETA.  I'm hoping this summer but not counting on it.  In comparison, PSIO was sold a few years ago with it being fairly compatible and all features working.  Since they, they've made continual firmware fixes after user testing.  There's so many damn games there's no way to test them all in Beta.  Problems will come up.  I'm not sure what the Prof's threshold is though.

[leonquest]

LOL!  Tough to keep up the hype, when there's been zero inclination of an ETA.  I'm hoping this summer but not counting on it.  In comparison, PSIO was sold a few years ago with it being fairly compatible and all features working.  Since they, they've made continual firmware fixes after user testing.  There's so many damn games there's no way to test them all in Beta.  Problems will come up.  I'm not sure what the Prof's threshold is though.

  I really want to preorder, no matter how long it takes. My PSIO preorder in june 2017 shipped on september 2018. That is how bad I want my ODEs.

As for the comparison, to be fair, considering that the PSIO started selling in december 2015, after being worked on for 5 years (as per their FAQ), and only few people were able to get their hands on it until recently. very small batches. If prof. abrasive manages to make better production quantities, I'd say they fared better.

In any case, for those who don't wish to wait, there's the fenrir. I'm going to wait, I don't have any nostalgia for the Saturn which makes it easier for me.