[minichapman]

About 2 months ago as a birthday treat for myself, I bought a SEGA Saturn model 2 for the good price of £25.
Later on I got an E-mail stating that I would need to buy basically everything else for the console, I'd already bought 4 games by that point so it cost me over £60 in the end but that's off topic and a different story altogether.

ON TOPIC: I want to do the softmod treatment on my Saturn.
Looking around has suggested that the chips are no longer being made.

I'm basically asking on advice for what could/can I do now.

Anybody?

[Lobotomy]

You're welcome.

[Andlabs]

That's not a softmod. I don't think Saturn softmods exist, unfortunately. I know Datel made Pro Action Replays and region converters for the Saturn, if that's what you're looking for (they use the memory cart slot and provide their own disc firmware in lieu of the Saturn's one which is lost as a result of booting off the cart slot).

[Shadow Hog]

Action Replay 4-in-1 is pretty much the way to go here, really. You could mod your Saturn, I suppose, but outside of the ability to save directly to cartridge, it's not especially worth the hassle when a more-or-less hassle-free method already exists. Not to mention, this cartridge also gives you the RAM needed to run titles like X-Men vs. Street Fighter, Metal Slug, Street Fighter Zero 3 or any of those games that needed more RAM to properly work.

Available from the same store Lobotomy linked (and the same store I bought my cartridge from, too).

[Meat Miracle]

The hell do you mean by softmodding, exactly? You want to run burnt games? Just tape off the cd door checker and learn to time disc swapping right. And modify the headers of the stuff you burn with Saturn Region Patcher, so you won't need the Action Replay for booting imports.

[Lobotomy]

Only problem is that hurts the fuck out of the disc drive motor. Not recommended.

[Andlabs]

Which is why he added the "learn to time disc swapping right" part... Really the Action Replay is the easiest option.

Or do you want to replace the Saturn's firmware a la Xbox Linux/Homebrew Channel? I don't think anyone's done that with the Saturn yet.

This post has been edited by Andlabs: 30 November 2011 - 10:30 PM

[dsrb]

I still wonder if anyone has any of the dev discs (security ring included) that stop the drive to allow swapping. Gold dust, my friends!

There was a small flurry of activity a while back where a few people claimed to have read the ring data, but obviously no one ever figured out how to write it—if that's even possible, since I don't think we know conclusively whether it's normal data or not. Anyway, OT.

[Meat Miracle]

Lobotomy, on 30 November 2011 - 10:11 PM, said:

Only problem is that hurts the fuck out of the disc drive motor. Not recommended.

No it doesn't, as long as you do it properly.

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Really the Action Replay is the easiest option.

Doesn't let you boot backups, only bypasses the region lockout.

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There was a small flurry of activity a while back where a few people claimed to have read the ring data, but obviously no one ever figured out how to write it—if that's even possible, since I don't think we know conclusively whether it's normal data or not.

Best that people did so far was writing the "trademark sega etc" thing at the far end of the disc, which has fuck all to do with the protection. And no, it cannot be read with a normal cd drive. However, we have dumps of the command list sent by the cd block when its reading the ring, and the modchips have been reverse engineered. No one managed to burn out that data though.

Best would be a modern HD loader... someone would need to reverse engineer the Virtual CD development device (which was exactly that, a HD loader).

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Or do you want to replace the Saturn's firmware a la Xbox Linux/Homebrew Channel? I don't think anyone's done that with the Saturn yet.

Nope, it has bee already done, and chips are on sale. All it does is bypass the region lock though.

[dsrb]

Meat Miracle, on 01 December 2011 - 09:32 AM, said:

Best that people did so far was writing the "trademark sega etc" thing at the far end of the disc, which has fuck all to do with the protection. And no, it cannot be read with a normal cd drive. However, we have dumps of the command list sent by the cd block when its reading the ring, and the modchips have been reverse engineered. No one managed to burn out that data though.

Thanks for the clarification! I've been out of the loop for ages, as well as having forgotten most of what went on before. It's a shame there was no progress with writing the reverse-engineered data. I assumed the security code was part of the outer ring and somehow interspersed with the graphics, but I could well be wrong.

This post has been edited by dsrb: 01 December 2011 - 09:39 AM

[Meat Miracle]

The visual "trademark sega" ring has little to no relation to the actual security. It's just there to make the disc pretty from what I can tell.
There's a 1mm thick ring before that - some discs actually have data or audio on top of it. You can see it on the disc if you hold it towards strong light. THIS however is assumed to be either a red herring or an "end of code" marker, since when you run a game, the drive does not seek to this ring, but to an earlier point somewhere on the disc. If it can't find it, it keeps looking from that middle point till the visible inner ring back and forth. If it finds the security code, it then seeks out to the farthest end of the disc, but not quite to the visual outer ring. Apparently it doesn't check the outer, visual ring, just the black line before the actual visual parts, probably to see if the data stops there (or there's something else which cannot be read at all). THEN the console boots the game.

This is all visible if you run the machine with the top removed.

So there are basically 3 rings, and the only one we can duplicate is the one that Saturn doesn't even bother to check!

[TmEE]

From what I have read that security text ring is important and is used to get a certain sequence of info from it. Text is made of certain patterns on the CD that the security code wants to get. Modchips present this pattern to the SH1 when it makes the drive read it out.
There's a bunch of info around it on Segaxtreme forums. Some people have managed to somewhat write that ring on a CD, but in a jiggly manner

[Meat Miracle]

If you remove the top of the machine and check the laser positions as it loads a retail game, you can see that it doesn't even go as far as the text part. The farthest the laser goes is the black line that separates the data part and the text ring. And that's after it checked one or two earlier positions on the disc!

[Infiniti]

Lobotomy, on 30 November 2011 - 10:11 PM, said:

Only problem is that hurts the fuck out of the disc drive motor. Not recommended.

Well then get a PC fast enough to run SSF...Problem solved!

[sonicblur]

Meat Miracle, on 01 December 2011 - 09:32 AM, said:

Lobotomy, on 30 November 2011 - 10:11 PM, said:

Only problem is that hurts the fuck out of the disc drive motor. Not recommended.

No it doesn't, as long as you do it properly.

I wrecked my drive motor doing it, I don't think there was anything improper about what I did because it worked. You don't really have a choice not to wreck it, the disc is spinning when you remove it.