Just a week after the previous one, a new update to the Saturn core for the MiSTer FPGA was released today.
It can be downloaded by going to the developer’s GitHub page. For the single-SDRAM build, go here, and for the dual-SDRAM build, go here.
Alternatively, ZIP files of the updated core for both a single stick of RAM and dual RAM can be downloaded from a pinned post in the MiSTer Discord server’s Saturn Stuff thread.
The Saturn MiSTer core’s developer, Sergey Dvodnenko, tweeted about the update, listing everything he’s done to bring the core greater accuracy.
In the tweet, he said that he reworked the way his core handles the CD drive, added interlace support to the Saturn’s two graphics chips, VDP1 and VDP2, and made fixes to the sprite window and shadows in VDP2.
He also said that he made fixes to the music generated by the Saturn’s sound chip, the SCSP, and added support for that chip’s DSP co-processor.
At the end of the tweet, he linked a newly uploaded video on his YouTube channel demonstrating several games that now work or work better — Doom, Dragon Force, Galaxy Fight and Last Bronx.
It’s the first demonstration video he’s posted on YouTube since February, which was before he’d even publicly released his Saturn MiSTer core in June.
And this is the first time Dvodnenko has tweeted in nearly two months. He lives in Ukraine and his Internet access has been spotty since Russia invaded the country earlier this year.
He made no public comment about the MiSTer core updates he uploaded to his Github last week.
If you’re interested in supporting Dvodnenko, check out his Patreon.
Users in the MiSTER Discord server reported improved music and sound across a number of games, including Elevator Action Returns, Magic Knight Rayearth and Sega Rally Championship.
“Even the system menu UI actually has vastly improved audio.”
— MARI0
“The “drive door open” sound just played in the bios! Gave me a surprise haha”
— 230-V
Another person in the server, Andy D, said he found visual improvements as well.
“I also had an intermittent issue on dual ram where sometimes it would launch with vertical artifacts. That’s gone now as well.”
— Andy D
The MiSTer is a field-programmable gate array, a chip that can be changed by programming it to physically emulate retro video game consoles. It includes an SD card reader from which “cores” and games can be loaded.
The cores are the programming that tells the FPGA chip how to configure itself to reproduce the performance of a console. There are cores for a wide array of consoles, from the Atari 2600 to the PlayStation — and now, at least in an early form, the Saturn.
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