De nuevo el bueno de
Rockin'-B, un alemán que se dedica a desarrollar para Sega Saturn, ha vuelto a darnos una agradable sorpresa.
Su última idea se llama
Atlas para Sega Saturn. ¿De qué se trata? pues ni más ni menos que un bootloader en plan menu para poder ejecutar varios juegos o aplicaciones de Saturn desde un unico disco.
Según el propio autor es algo equivalente al Dream Inducer de Dreamcast. En teoría podemos crear un disco con una compilación de juegos de Saturn con menu y screenshots que podemos lanzar a nuestro gusto.
Estas son las especificaciones de la aplicación:
- Atlas
- Demo Demo Loader for SEGA Saturn
- by The Rockin'-B, www.rockin-b.de
- version 05/10/09
-
-
- Atlas is a fully customizeable bootloader
- for run on SEGA Saturn videogame system.
- (similar to the Self Boot Inducer method for Dreamcast)
-
-
- Features:
- - up to 50 games per disc
- - multiregion disc
- - multitap and pad disconnection support
- - resolution 352x224
- - 4 methods of per-game info
- - fully customizable
- - 3D display
-
-
- Controls:
- LEFT / RIGHT - change selected game
- NOTE: when releasing LEFT/RIGHT
- 1. the audio file playback is stoppe
- 2. the selected game info screen is loaded from CD
- 3. and the audio file is played back, if present
- -> so there might be a short wait time involved
- START - boot selected game
- A - show game info screen
- B - back to main screen
- C - credits screen
- A or Y or Z - play game audio information
- START+A+B+C - exit Atlas and return to multiplayer
-
-
-
- Things to customize:
- Atlas:
- - main screen image (352x224, 15bpp)
- - credits screen image (352x224, 15bpp)
-
- For each game (not required, optionally):
- - thumbnail screenshot sprite (64x64, 15bpp)
- - info screen image (352x224, 15bpp)
- - audio file (.AIF, supports ADPCM, up to 60min)
- - text file with:
- - CDDA start track specified
- - info text (up to 8 lines of up to 20 characters)
-
-
-
- Not customizeable:
- - title screen
- - title sound
- - button help sprites
- - button mapping
- - default data (if not available)
- for "GAMENAME.IMG", "GAMENAME.SPR", "GAMENAME.TXT"
-
-
-
- How to customize:
- 1. create temporary folder "myAtlas"
- 2. create an ISO:
- 2.1 create folder "cd" in "myAtlas" and
- put the 8 Atlas files in:
- 0.bin
- ABS.TXT
- ATLAS.IMG (your custom)
- BIB.TXT
- CREDITS.IMG (your custom)
- CPY.TXT
- FLD_KNL.BIN
- README.TXT (your custom)
-
- 2.2 download and extract Mkisofs.exe and Cygwin1.dll
- into "myAtlas"
-
- 2.3 create file "MAKEISO.BAT" into "myAtlas":
- mkisofs -quiet -sysid "SEGA SATURN" -volid "SaturnApp" -volset "SaturnApp" -publisher "SEGA ENTERPRISES, LTD." -preparer "SEGA ENTERPRISES, LTD." -appid "SaturnApp" -abstract "ABS.TXT" -copyright "CPY.TXT" -biblio "BIB.TXT" -generic-boot ip.bin -full-iso9660-filenames -o myAtlas.iso cd
-
- 2.4 add game data
- for each game add data into "cd":
- (see below how to create)
- "GAMENAME" <- folder with all files on game CD
- "GAMENAME.IPI" <- game ip.bin
- "GAMENAME.IMG"
- "GAMENAME.SPR"
- "GAMENAME.TXT"
- "GAMENAME.AIF"
-
- 2.5 put Atlas' "ip.bin" into "cd"
-
- 3. create a .CUE sheet:
- CDDA tracks of a game MUST BE consecutive.
- First track of a game MUST BE the same
- like specified in "GAMENAME.TXT".
- Here it would be
- "2" for "GAMENAM1.TXT" and
- "5" for "GAMENAM2.TXT".
-
- Example "myAtlas.cue" sheet:
- FILE "Atlas.ISO" BINARY
- TRACK 01 MODE1/2048
- INDEX 01 00:00:00
- POSTGAP 00:02:00
- FILE "GAMENAM1_Track1.wav" WAVE
- TRACK 02 AUDIO
- PREGAP 00:02:00
- INDEX 01 00:00:00
- FILE "GAMENAM1_Track2.wav" WAVE
- TRACK 03 AUDIO
- INDEX 01 00:00:00
- FILE "GAMENAM1_Track3.wav" WAVE
- TRACK 04 AUDIO
- INDEX 01 00:00:00
- FILE "GAMENAM2_Track1.wav" WAVE
- TRACK 05 AUDIO
- INDEX 01 00:00:00
- FILE "GAMENAM2_Track2.wav" WAVE
- TRACK 06 AUDIO
- INDEX 01 00:00:00
-
- 4. burn "myAtlas.cue" sheet with Nero, CDRWin or other
-
-
-
- How to create custom data:
- Filenames are importand (8.3 format).
- Each game MUST HAVE:
- "GAMENAME" - a folder where the game files are in
- "GAMENAME.IPI" - an IP.BIN file
- Each game CAN HAVE (not required, optionally):
- "GAMENAME.IMG" - info screen
- "GAMENAME.SPR" - thumbnail screenshot
- "GAMENAME.TXT" - text file
- "GAMENAME.AIF" - audio file
-
- "GAMENAME.IMG" full screen image (352x224, 15bpp):
- "ATLAS.IMG" main screen:
- "CREDITS.IMG" credits screen:
- 1. save as "GAMENAME.TGA",
- size MUST MATCH width=352 and height=224
-
- 2. use BGCON to convert it to Saturn format
- (uncompressed raw bitmap 15bpp binary)
- 2.1 create TGA2IMG.TXT:
- CD 15
- IF TGA
- IM BITMAP
- CMP NONE
- RGBHI ON
- TRANS -1
- OF BIN
- L atlas.tga
- S atlas.img
- L CREDITS.tga
- S CREDITS.img
- L GAMENAME.tga
- S GAMENAME.img
- .....
-
- 2.2 create TGA2IMG.BAT:
- BGCON.EXE TGA2IMG.TXT
-
- 3. convert by opening TGA2IMG.BAT
-
-
- "GAMENAME.SPR" thumbnail screenshot sprite (64x64, 15bpp)
- 1. save as .TGA,
- size MUST MATCH width=64 and height=64
-
- 2. use BGCON to convert it to Saturn format
- (uncompressed raw bitmap 15bpp binary)
- 2.1 create TGA2SPR.TXT:
- CD 15
- IF TGA
- IM BITMAP
- CMP NONE
- RGBHI ON
- TRANS -1
- OF BIN
- L GAMENAME.tga
- S GAMENAME.img
- .....
-
- 2.2 create TGA2SPR.BAT:
- BGCON.EXE TGA2SPR.TXT
-
- 3. convert by opening TGA2SPR.BAT
-
- "GAMENAME.TXT" text file:
- - first line specifies the CDDA start track
- (default: 2)
- - following 8 lines are printed to screen AS IS
- (up to 20 characters, beyond 20 are skipped)
-
-
- "GAMENAME.AIF" audio info file:
- - up to 60 minutes long
- - can be ADPCM encoded
-
- "GAMENAME.IPI" ip.bin file:
- - this file is in the first couple of sectors of a Saturn CD.
- In some homebrew Saturn games it's included as a file.
- In all other cases such like commercial game,
- You'll have to extract the first sectors (< 30) of a CD or CD image
- with IsoBuster and remove the zero bytes after the IP.BIN with a hex
- editor. Usually IP.BIN's are 4-5 kBytes size,
-
-
-
- Special thanks to VBT, who made the
- MultiBoot Demo Demo Loader
- for SX Saturn Coding Contest 2003.
De momento es sólo un proyecto, pero conociendo a Rockin'-B mucho nos tememos que pronto lo tendremos en nuestras manos
Podeis ver más detalles
aquí.
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