Sega Saturn emulators

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The Sega Saturn (American Model)

The Sega Saturn is a 32-bit, 5th generation console released by Sega in 1994 in North America.

Sega Saturn emulation is poor, with no cross platform, open source emulator with a high degree of game compatibility.


Name Operating System(s) Latest Version Active Recommended
SSF Windows 0.12 beta R4
Mednafen Multi-platform 0.9.41
Yabause Multi-platform 0.9.15
Yabause Devmiyax Multi-platform GitHub
MAME Multi-platform 0.181
BizHawk Windows
Satourne Windows 2.0 beta 3
Saturnin Windows 0.40
GiriGiri Windows 0.6
Name Operating System(s) Latest Version Recommended
uoYabause Android 0.2.2c


  • Mednafen is a very accurate emulator. However, it has no graphical interface and requires specific BIOS files to work. A quad-core Intel Haswell-microarchitecture CPU with a base frequency of >= 3.3GHz and a turbo frequency of >= 3.7GHz(e.g. Xeon E3-1226 v3) is recommended.[1]
  • SSF is a very accurate emulator. However, it is closed sourced and only for Windows.
  • Yabause is open source, but far less developed and has more compatibility issues.
  • MAME's compatibility is on par with Yabause.

Emulator development[edit]



The Saturn had technically impressive hardware at the time of its release, but its complex design, with two CPUs and six other processors, made harnessing this power difficult for developers accustomed to conventional programming. The biggest disadvantage was that both CPUs shared the same bus and were unable to access system memory at the same time. Making full use of the 4 kB of cache memory in each CPU was critical to maintaining performance. One example of how the Saturn was utilized was with Virtua Fighter's use of one CPU for each character.[2] Many of the Saturn's developers, such as Lobotomy Software programmer Ezra Dreisbach, found it difficult to develop for compared to the PlayStation because of its more complex graphics hardware.[3] In order to port Duke Nukem 3D and PowerSlave to the Saturn, Lobotomy Software had to almost entirely rewrite the Build engine to take advantage of the Saturn's unconventional hardware.[3] Third-party development was initially hindered by the lack of useful software libraries and development tools, requiring developers to write in assembly language to achieve good performance. During early Saturn development, programming in assembly could offer a two to fivefold speed increase over C language.[2] Sega responded to these criticisms by writing new graphics libraries which were claimed to help make development easier.[4] These libraries were presented as a new operating system by Sega of Japan.[4]



  2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 Next Generation (magazine) issue 2, 1995
  3. 3.0 3.1 3.2 Interview: Ezra Dreisbach. Curmudgeon Gamer (July 9, 2002)
  4. 4.0 4.1 So many 32-Bit Systems To Choose From Next Generation (magazine) issue 12, 1995