Hello again SEGA Saturn fans, it’s James the SEGAHolic here of The SEGAGuys and as 2024 draws to a close, TPUnix has dropped version 0.7 of his SAROO firmware, adding compatibility fixes and several new features.
The first thing you’ll notice when you boot up your Saturn is that the SEGA logo on the “licensed by SEGA” screen morphs into a rather cool SAROO logo using the SEGA font … not a feature per se, but a nice addition to the overall presentation.
Another visual feature relates to the cover.bin file included in the update, because yes … we now have cover art on the games list, but the implementation looks a little janky at first. The artwork itself looks decent, and it’s higher resolution than on the Fenrir menu, but it overlays the text for the game titles and feels like the covers have just been dropped on top.
Thankfully, though, if you press left on the D-pad you can move the layer the cover art is displayed on, moving it behind the text. Why that’s not the default setting, I don’t know, but hey … options are good; some folk might prefer it on top of the text and not faded behind it.
There’s also no way to currently amend or add to the covers in the bin file, but TPUnix has already stated that a future update will allow users to amend and add their own artwork. Hopefully the layout gets tweaked, too, but a welcome addition nonetheless.
The main feature though is the addition of something SAROO owners have been screaming about for months, and that’s better save file management. Yes, when you go into the Saturn’s memory manager now, you see the system memory and the SAROO’s cart memory, what’s on each of them, and can copy files between both with ease.
Other features include the addition of more languages, namely Greek, Polish and Swedish and the release notes also state there’s increased BIOS compatibility and the ability to start a burnt disc.
All in all, a very worthwhile update for your SAROO, if anything just for that save file management.
I hope you find the video below as useful as our previous setup guide, and don’t forget that if you’ve any questions to leave them in the SEGAGuys or SHIRO! Discord servers. Thanks for reading, and until next time, we’ll see YOU on the SEGA side!
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