Sega Saturn Cartridge Hack

[christo930]

I recently found out about the recent crack of the Saturn and the ability to flash a ram cart which allows booting of a CDR. I have tried the swap method with absolutely zero success. I have no way of knowing if I burned the CD correctly. I've watched some YTers do it, but with no success.

 

I was wondering if anyone has already done this and if they can, would you be willing to flash mine? From what I understand, once you have a working flash cart this is very trivial by simply swapping the cartridge after booting the master disc with the flash software on it. If anyone can help me out, I'd be greatly appreciative.

 

Thanks.

[Austin]

There's no swapping involved if you are using the Pseudo Saturn (flashed Action Replay or Game Shark). If the game isn't reading, then you're probably not burning the disc correctly or the system doesn't like the types of discs you are using. The best way to confirm if a CDR works is in a Saturn emulator (they allow booting from disc drives).

[towmater]

After trying every variation shown on YouTube, each at least a dozen times, I finally had success with one that describes leaving the cd-r Pseudo Saturn Kai CD in until the cd stops spinning with the message "this disc is unsuitable etc.", place an original game in, hit reset, then doing the swap back to the PSK cd-r once the logo "coalesces" on the boot screen. This turned out to be very repeatable and is kinder to your original game disc than trying to slam it in as other methods depicted in how-to videos. I used a verbatim brand disc sold at Best Buy, and burn games with Imgburn on XP run under Parallels on a MacBook. You do need to run the PSK cd-patch program on the game iso before burning.

 

Once Saturn is running the PSK firmware writer, I plugged in an Action Replay to update, with power on. A bit risky I imagine, but it only needs to happen once, and seemed safer than the suggestion of "jiggling the cart at an angle" to keep AR from booting first. The PSK program warned that it didn't recognize the chipset in the AR cartridge, though having spent so much effort getting that far, I decided I had to try anyways, and the new firmware worked fine. The only game I've found that doesn't work is Panzer Dragoon Saga, although the cutscenes play through before the game crashes. I've gotten through a half-dozen games on the compatibility list, US, EU, and JP, and they all work perfectly. Combined with a cheap Amazon Scart cable and HDMI converter, the display is perfect. PSK firmware has certainly breathed new life into my Saturn and I can't recommend it enough.

[keepdreamin]

There's no swapping involved if you are using the Pseudo Saturn (flashed Action Replay or Game Shark). If the game isn't reading, then you're probably not burning the disc correctly or the system doesn't like the types of discs you are using. The best way to confirm if a CDR works is in a Saturn emulator (they allow booting from disc drives).

 

From what I'm reading OP is trying to flash his action replay cart with Pseudo Saturn. That initial flash DOES require a swap trick to load the software onto the cart.

 

christo, you can buy pre-flashed carts on ebay.

[christo930]

 

 

From what I'm reading OP is trying to flash his action replay cart with Pseudo Saturn. That initial flash DOES require a swap trick to load the software onto the cart.

 

christo, you can buy pre-flashed carts on ebay.

I was hoping not to have to do that.

[Austin]

 

From what I'm reading OP is trying to flash his action replay cart with Pseudo Saturn. That initial flash DOES require a swap trick to load the software onto the cart.

 

christo, you can buy pre-flashed carts on ebay.

 

Right, I was under the impression he had already flashed it properly and it just wasn't "working" after that.

[konradklaus]

Doing the swap trick isn't too bad, just keep trying. You need to make sure you take the top off the Saturn to trick it into thinking the drive bay is closed. You can buy some preflashed cards from the psuedo saturn kai developer. You'll pay about twice as much as if you just buy the cart yourself.

[Austin]

Yep, that's true too. If you are having trouble you can always go the route of having someone else do it for you, or buy a cart pre-flashed.

 

Having two isn't a bad way to go. I personally have two AR carts, one flashed and one not. With a flashed AR you can't use it as a memory backup without re-flashing it and it's not really worth the hassle of doing that. For games where I want to backup the data I'll swap in the non-flashed AR, then I'll swap back when I need to play a burned game again.

[keepdreamin]

Or just wait for the next Rhea or Phoebe order, depending on what saturn you have. If you're stateside, you'll just have to designate time during the early morning hours on the weekend day the sale is announced. Get some sleep early, Plenty of caffeine, play some games and just refresh that order page every ten minutes or so until it opens. Sales typically seem to open mid to late morning at the sellers time, which is CET.

[konradklaus]

I dunno; if he doesn't want to do a swap trick, I doubt he wants to mod his console for the Rhea/Phoebe. I used to really think I wanted to get a Rhea, but honestly Psuedo Saturn Kai is good enough.

[keepdreamin]

I dunno; if he doesn't want to do a swap trick, I doubt he wants to mod his console for the Rhea/Phoebe. I used to really think I wanted to get a Rhea, but honestly Psuedo Saturn Kai is good enough.

 

? He's trying to do the swap trick for the initial flash. You've gotta open the system to tape down the lid button, that's already half way through a Rhea install.

 

I've got around 350 disc images on my SD card in the Saturn. That would be 350 CDRs I'd have to burn and store. If you had one, you'd quickly forget about Pseudo Saturn.

[konradklaus]

If you had one, you'd quickly forget about Pseudo Saturn.

 

You are probably right my friend!