Just watched a video by Moder Vintage Gamer and tried the saturn emulator Ymir.
I tried few games and it seems to run really well even with some games that beetle struggle on my system (Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter dropping frames).
It is open source and I really hope to see it on RA!
It’s indeed very good, it’s from a single developer, I gather, from Brazil. It has a Duckstation vibe to it, in the sense that it came up so suddenly and it’s evolving so fast, but, being a Sega Saturn emulator, it makes it even more impressive how fast it got so good. It also feels great to play, from an input lag perspective, which is one of my disappointments with Saturn emulation. I even finished Street Fighter Zero 3’s World Tour a month ago.
It would be indeed a great addition to Retroarch, but it was already discussed in another Saturn related thread. Still, let’s hope it happens someday.
Sure go ahead and port it if you want another “duckstation drama”, you took my code and things like that, loads and loads of crap on Reddit and elsewhere. Not worth the trouble, Saturn is not important anyway, most of it’s library is covered by PS1/MAME. Stick with what you already have and use the standalone emu if you want.
Yes I had the same feeling! I didn’t do any tests but it does really feels very responsive!
yeah, lets hope!
I’m not a coder, I would port it if I could. I dont quite understand the “drama” about using open source code, isn’t that the whole point?
hope somebody will do it, better yet if it is going to be the creator himself.
Have you tested the upscaling for 3D? If they could do something similar to PGXP at some point it would be so great…
Yeah me neither. I thought there was nothing to understand, maybe. Just bored people on Reddit, same old… XD
I don’t think there is an option to upscale the internal resolution…
At least I have not found it 
It’s a bit complicated.
As long as the license is respected, you can do whatever you’re permitted to do with the code. You don’t need permission from the original developer or even his awareness. So, what’s the problem? Some coders are of closed-source mentality, but still choose to release their software as open-source; then, they become frustrated when reality conflicts with their views.
Again, what’s the problem? After all, it’s just people coping with their misplaced choices. But they whine, and how do they whine; unrightfully, though they complain nonetheless. They normally seek solace with a small (but highly vocal) and biased minority, which denounces the allegedly wrong deed (i.e. using a permission given beforehand by a license) in a short-lived echo chamber.
For the last time, what’s the problem? You just give no importance to people acting foolishly and that’s the end of it. However, RetroArch did give them attention, and it hit the proverbial fan. It’s all in the past, and I’m glad that everyone stays in their place and focus on their own project now.
If a port is to come, then I hope it will be treated professionally: does the license allow it? Fork, port and do not disturb upstream. Is the author throwing a tantrum and threatening to cease development? That’s his problem. If he can’t be an open-source professional, then he should choose another path for his life. No attention should be given besides a succinct statement as “the port was rightfully developed in accordance to the license pertaining to the software in question”.
It looks like the drama is already starting here. Let’s let the whole thing simmer for a bit.
Thankfully, we still have Beetle Saturn. Though i wonder how it compares to that.
Also, i read it’s responsive, how is the input lag compared to the above?
There are people that don’t want their code to be used by others but still release their code as open source, probably hoping some coders will aid the project.
Then the drama starts as soon as someone capable enough to port it thinks “it’s gonna be just fine, the code is open source”.
I saw that video too and got curious about Ymir. I wonder how it compares against Beetle Saturn on a powerful and modern PC, without enhancements. My experience so far is quiet good and I don’t know what could be improved on. Are there or is there a problem with Beetle Saturn? Note, I am not against Ymir, especially because it is actively developed.
Maybe internal resolution upscaling is not there (yet?).
I didn’t test it but that line in the Github got me curious:
“Graphics enhancements such as optional deinterlaced/progressive rendering of high resolution modes and transparent mesh polygon rendering”
Would be great to see that in action but I don’t know the Saturn enough to begin with…
Unfortunately I don’t have a powerful modern PC, I run an i5-6400.
on my system the performance improvement is quite evident in some games:
Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter : on ymir is locked on 60fps while on beetle struggle a lot (since the intro, selection screen and in-game)
Sega Rally Championship : same story: rock solid on ymir, beetle can’t get to 60 (40-50)
uncapping the framerates I have a gain from 15 to 30 frames in ymir
Other games have less problems with beetle like radiant silvergun, but still ymir seems more stable.
All of this on my system with no shaders, full screen and integer scaling.
unfortunately I don’t have the means to do proper testing, just my “feelings”,
so take my word with a pinch of salt…
transparent mesh seems to work well, I didn’t test any interlaced content yet.
Edit:
Just tried Virtua Fighter 2, deinterlacing works great and framerate is locked @60fps.
On beetle cant get to 60 (40-50) and no deinterlacing…
That’s weird though.
My previous build was an i5 4670, which should be a little less powerful than your CPU, yet Beetle Saturn run at full speed with pretty much every game, including Sega Rally.
Your system might not be performing optimally, is what i’m saying, assuming it’s a desktop PC.
Yes, that might be the case (I usually keep my cpu @2.7Ghz) but the relative difference remains, on the same system ymir perfrorms better.
Maybe that’s a laptop, usually laptop CPUs are underclocked for battery/temperature. Beetle Saturn is very heavy though. Can’t keep the pace at 60 on an intel i7-7th gen laptop i have (yabasanshiro can but not that accurate and you never know when it’s gonna crash). Perhaps ymir has some improvements on that part, some cached interpreter or something.
I’m on a desktop.
I did some more testing, I set my CPU to performance mode:
Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter: still can’t get to 60 in the selection screen and in-game (avg. 55fps)
Sega Rally Championship: using performance mode there is a good improvement: it stays stable at 60fps. But uncapping the framerate on Beetle avg 70 fps while on ymir stays over 100 most the time.
So, as I was saying the performance difference is quiet clear, and having more performance room means that there is more “space” for other things: shaders, input lag improvement etc etc… other than playing with a not powerful machine at a constant framerate.
The discussion here is very interesting and I’m not very familiar with Saturn emulation, but how does Kronos compare to Ymir?
Not sure, Kronos is not very stable on my system, Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter can’t go further than the license screen.
Ymir is also more demanding, eg if you have a i7 4790 and the like CPU, dont expect full speed at max compatibility settings and low cd block emulation.
Also as you can see on its github, it has still many minor and major game issues. For longer and more complex games stick with mednafen, beetle or ssf.