Sunday 21 April 2019

Virtua Fighter in HD



Virtua Fighter needs no introductions and would be a prime candidate for a full-on remastered collection for modern systems, but until SEGA delivers we can always improvise and try to make it ourselves. For the second entry in the "REMASTERED" click-bait titled series I picked every numbered entry in the VF series and tried to make it look as good as possible, meeting the modern standards of Full HD resolution (1920x1080) and widescreen 16:9 picture format.

You can watch the results above and read more about the particular setup and challenges for each game below:

VIRTUA FIGHTER 1


There wasn't much choice in regards of version or emulator for VF1. The original arcade version ran on the Model 1 board, which can only be emulated at native resolutions in MAME, so that was a no go. The only other option was the Saturn version and the only recommended emulator for HD resolutions was YabaSanshiro (or one of its many forks).

For the widescreen hack I relied on the community effort from the folks over at the Assembler Games forum, something I've covered before in this article.

Monday 8 April 2019

Yaba Sanshiro, a Sega Saturn Emulator That's worth your time.

I am not an advocate for Emulation, but with today's advanced TVs and Setups, plus with the age of the Sega Saturn, I am all for these great classics living on for decades. It would be a crying shame for these great games to completely disappear from the earth, so this is why I began checking out this new Emulator for Android users.

It's called Yaba Sanshiro, and it is a unofficial port of uoYabause. This project is focused on the Android version of yabause using OpenGL ES 3.x. It is currently in active development and it is making quite the stirring for Sega Saturn Fans! You can download the emulator directly from the Google Play Store, and, of course, you have to provide your own Disc Images. I personally only use Emulators to play games I already own in HD, so being able to fire up NiGHTS and Daytona USA in glorious 1080p brings a smile to my face. It is true that not all Sega Saturn games will work right now, while others have multiple glitches, but it's absolutely amazing how far this emulator has come in a relatively short amount of time!


There is an active community of players who are constantly reporting on what games work and what doesn't, and the great thing is that the developers actually are listening! They read everything and try their best to fix any issue that happens to come up! You can check out a compatibility list and everything else you may need over at http://www.uoyabause.org/

My initial tests are proving to be fantastic. I tried games like Street Fighter Zero 3, Dead or Alive, and even Panzer Dragoon Zwei and ALL of these games ran Flawlessly! Virtua Fighter 2 and Fighting Vipers also look and play Fantastically!!!!  Games like Panzer Dragoon Saga and Burning Rangers are, sadly, not fully supported as of yet, but trust me .. a little patience and I am 100% sure that these games, among other great hits, will be playing 100% in no time!


The latest update to the emulator has Analog controllers added, and you can also edit your controller while in a game! Also, Virtua Fighter Kids, X-Men vs Street Fighter and Mr Bones are now Fully Playable with MORE on the way!

In my opinion, the best way to experience this emulator is with the NVidia Shield TV 4K Box. All of the Sega Saturn Games look fantastic through this device, but other android devices out there that have access to the Play Store can also run this emulator, even your tablet! 




Check this one out! This may be the best way to Keep the Sega Saturn Alive for Centuries!!


--CC






Monday 1 April 2019

Titan is the best moon



Yes, it is.

Tian is waifu. Titan is bae.

Sure, Earth's Sattelite is round and pale and full of craters, so it that's your thing...well, who am I to judge.

Come on! It doesn't even have a proper name. It's just "moon". What the hell? Can you imagine if the Earth was called "planet"?

Now Titan, that's a proper moon! Just check out these cool facts:
 
- Titan is the largest moon of Saturn and the second-largest natural satellite in the Solar System.

- It is the only moon known to have a dense atmosphere, and the only object in space, other than Earth, where clear evidence of stable bodies of surface liquid has been found

- Titan is 50% larger than Earth's moon and 80% more massive.

- It is the second-largest moon in the Solar System after Jupiter's moon Ganymede, and is larger than the planet Mercury, but only 40% as massive.

And those are just a few! Heck, it's so popular that there's even an arcade system named after it, the ST-V - short for Sega Titan Video. But of course you don't care about that. You're not a video game nerd, are you?

Of course not! You're into hardcore stuff like astronomy and stargazing, so go dust off your old telescope and point it towards the firmament. Oh yeah, baby!

Top Reasons Saturn is Awesome (and Earth Can Eat Shit)

Here are just a few of the many reasons why Saturn is the best damn planet in the solar system...


It's roundish.

Even flat Earthers can fucking believe that Saturn is round. It's also slightly squished and is not a symmetrical sphere which makes it way more interesting.


All those fucking moons, man.

Saturn has 62 moons, which is 62 times more than Earth's one shitty moon. Also, how woefully uncreative is it that we just refer to our only moon as "Moon"? Fucking pathetic. Meanwhile Saturn's largest moon, Titan -- named after the mega-popular Saturn Junkyard TitanCast podcast --  is larger than some entire planets, including Mercury and Pluto.


It's made largely of hydrogen and helium.

Sure, Earth has all of its rocks and nitrogen and oxygen and other boring bullshit. But try hanging out on Saturn for a while and you'll start to talk like one of those green aliens from Toy Story. That's way cooler. It's the claaaaaaaaw, motherfuckers.


The bling.

Saturn's got all those kickass ice rings hanging around it. You know what Earth has? A bunch of lame shit like decommissioned satellite debris, global warming, and Nazis.


No time for your crap.

The average day on Saturn is 10 hours and 39 minutes long. That's efficiency.


Peace.

Every war in the history of our solar system has happened on Earth. Fuck Earth.


In sum, the Earth is dumb. Everyone should move to Saturn.