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SSF Tutorial
Article source: ​http://fantasyanime.com/emuhelp/ssf

Contents
1. About SSF (p.2)
2. Installation (p.2)
3. Q: I get a XAudio2Create error! (p.2)
4. Q: SSF opens so tiny! (p.4)
5. Saturn BIOS (p.3)
6. Setting up the BIOS (p.3)
7. Setting up the keyboard or gamepad (p.4)
8. Booting CD games (p.4)
9. Booting ISOs (CD images) (p.4)
10. Virtual CloneDrive & competitors (p.6)
11. Booting CD images with Virtual CloneDrive (p.6)
12. Q: I get a black screen when I boot games! (p.9)
13. Q: I get a initializeDirect3D9 error! (p.9)
14. Full screen mode (p.10)
15. Screen filters (p.10)
16. Save states (p.12)
17. CD swapping with multiple-CD games (p.13)
18. Capturing screen shots (p.13)
19. Improving performance (p.13)
20. General troubleshooting (p.15)
21. Game-specific troubleshooting (p.16)
22. Finding Saturn games (ISOs) (p.17)
23. Q: SSF crashes on start! (p17)
24. Q: SSF crashes mid game and gives CPK error! (p.18)
25. Q: I keep getting disc read errors! (p.18)
26. Q: Audio is out of sync! (p.18)
27. Q: SSF isn't saving anything! (p.18)
Copying
28. Burning Saturn games from ISO (p.19)
29. Copying/Backing up Saturn games (p.21)
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About SSF
This tutorial is to help you with SFF for Windows. From the early 2000s up to 2018, SSF had the
crown as the #1 Saturn emulator. The crown was promptly taken away by uoYabause.
However, just because SSF was #1 doesn't mean it's a good emulator. Emulation quality is
okay. Saturn emulation, in general, has always had a bad reputation for emulating poorly.

Even though uoYabause is #1, it's still buggy and sometimes crashes. SSF may not run games
as good, but it's a mature emulator that's far less prone to crash games. So we're not kicking
SSF to the curb yet--it's still worth your time.

*If you would like to download SSF, I have it on my emulators page

[​http://fantasyanime.com/emulators​].

Installation
SSF is a standalone program so it does not have an install wizard. Installation is simple: just
extract SSF from its zip file. Not sure how to extract zip files? Here's a video tutorial showing
you how: how to unzip files on Windows [​https://youtu.be/6ISxgrCOwok?t=1m1s​].

IMPORTANT!​ SSF must be placed in a common folder on your computer. I recommend

Documents,​ ​Downloads,​ or create a folder on your desktop. If you place SSF somewhere else
on your main C drive, then you may be restricting it to read-only access. Doing so prevents SSF
from saving anything.

To open SSF, double-click on

Q: I get a XAudio2Create error!

When you attempt to open SSF, you may receive the following error:

XAudio2Create() error.
File : ./XAudio2.cpp
Line : 219
Function : XAudio2_Initialize

So to resolve this error you need to install the full version of DirectX. You can download it from
the web version of this guide. This installer promises to install all the legacy files that correct
issues such as this.
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Q: SSF opens so tiny!

SSF initially opens up small (as shown toward the
right). Don't panic! SSF isn't broken. Just wait a
few moments. SSF will eventually load into a full
window.

Saturn BIOS
Most games require the Saturn BIOS in order to boot or emulate properly. SSF will fool you into
thinking it doesn't need the BIOS, but really it does. You can download both the Saturn BIOS
and the STV BIOS from the web version of this guide.

Setting up the BIOS

1. It's best to extract the contents of the BIOS zip files into SSF's folder. It's easier this way.

2. Click on ​Option(O)​ > O

​ ption(O)​.

3. You'll arrive at the ​Options​ window (shown below). In the “​Saturn BIOS”​ box click the
Browse b ​ utton.

4. The “​Select Saturn BIOS file”​ window will pop up. Click on “​us_100.bin”​ , then click ​Open​.

5. Back in the ​Options​ window, in the “​ST-V BIOS”​ box click the ​Browse​ button.

6. The “​Select STV BIOS file​” window will pop up. Click on “​stv110.bin​”, then click ​Open.​

7. Click ​OK.​ A window will pop up with “​??????”​ . SSF is just telling you to close and
re-open it for the configured BIOS to take effect. Go ahead and do so.
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Setting up the keyboard or gamepad

1. Click on ​Option(O)​ > O
​ ption(O)​.

2. You'll arrive in the ​Option​ window. Click the ​Controller​ tab, as shown below:

3. To redefine the keys for player 1, click on ​Redefine​ where circled above for “​Player 1:A​”.
Follow the prompt and press the keyboard keys or gamepad buttons you want to be
assigned.

Booting CD games
Insert your Sega Saturn game into your CD-ROM, then open SSF. That's it! SSF will
automatically boot up your game.

Booting ISOs (CD images)

This is where things get weird. SSF does have the ability to boot ISOs in BIN/CUE format. The
feature is tucked away in a not-so-obvious location. I'm going to walk you through this process,
but then I'm going to discourage you from using it. Here's how to use SSF's native BIN/CUE
booting:

1. Extract your Saturn game from its ZIP, RAR, or 7z archive. If you don't have a program
that extracts RAR or 7z files, use 7-Zip (it's free).

2. SSF's native support for booting ISOs only

supports ISOs that are in BIN/CUE format. So if
your Saturn game is in a different format, you can't
proceed with these directions.

3. The first step is SSF needs to have the drive door

open:
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The lower-left of SSF's window lets you know if the drive is open or closed. If it's closed,
go to ​Hardware(H) > CD Open(O)​ to open it.

4. Go to ​Option(O) > Option(O).​ You'll arrive at the “Option” window.

5. The first tab, “Peripheral”, is open. Look to the bottom for an area titled CD Image (CUE
+ BinaryImage):

​ nd click ​Browse​ to select the CUE file of your Saturn BIN/CUE.

Put a check in ​Enable a
Click ​OK ​when you're done.

6. Restart SSF and the game will load.

Now I'm going to discourage you from using this process. If the BIN/CUE you downloaded is
faulty, the next time you start SSF it will either immediately crash or give you an error and not
open. SSF will get stuck in this corrupt state, forcing you to re-download it.

Rather, I recommend using virtual CD-ROM software. This has several benefits: (1) ISO files
are supported, (2) it's easier to switch between games, and (3) if your ISO is faulty, SSF won't
become corrupted and refuse to open. Keep reading to learn about Virtual CloneDrive, the top
(free) virtual CD-ROM software.
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Virtual CloneDrive & competitors

Virtual CloneDrive is the friendliest, easiest, and safest virtual CD-ROM program. Its drawback
is that it only supports CD images in ISO and BIN format (see below for samples). Virtual
CloneDrive does not support “ISO/MP3” or other ISO formats such as NRG, IMG, UIF, DAA,
CDI, XBX, B51, BWI, etc.

So what about other virtual CD-ROM programs?​ Is Virtual CloneDrive your only option? Well,
yes and no. If you Google around on this topic, you’ll see people recommending ​Alcohol 52%
Free Edition​ and ​Daemon Tools LITE​ for SSF. Those programs actually work very well. They
even support every common ISO format. However, these programs are ridden with adware and
malware! I do not recommend them.

If your Saturn game is in an ISO format not supported by Virtual CloneDrive​, my

recommendation is to try downloading your game from other ROM sites to search for it in ISO or
BIN format. Avoid the risk of malware infection from using ​Alcohol 52% Free Edition​ or ​Daemon
Tools LITE!

WinCDEmu​ and ​MagicDisk​ are other popular virtual CD-ROM programs. However, they’re not
an option because they don’t work with SSF.

Booting CD images with Virtual CloneDrive

1. Download and install Virtual CloneDrive: ​http://www.slysoft.com/en/download.html
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2. Next, we need to configure CloneDrive in SSF. Open SSF. Click on ​Option(O)​ >
Option(O)​.

3. Look in the “​CD Drive”​ box. Click the drop-down and choose ​ELBY CLONEDRIVE,​ as
shown below:

4. Click ​OK​ and close SSF. You'll get a weird “​SSF?????”​ message - ignore it. I'm
assuming that message is lost Japanese telling you to restart SSF.

5. Because you installed CloneDrive, a CD icon should now be in the lower right (next to
the time). You find it by clicking on the notch, as shown below:
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Right-click this icon , click ​Drive ​then ​Mount​, as shown below:

6. The “​Virtual CloneDrive Drive​” window will pop up.

○ If your Saturn ISO is an ISO file:​ You'll see it in this window below:

Click on your ISO Saturn game, then click ​Open​.

○ If your Saturn ISO is a BIN file:​ Click ​CloneCD/DVD Images​ in the lower right, then
click ​Other Images​, as shown below:

Click on your BIN Saturn game, then click ​Open.​

7. Now open SSF and your Saturn game should automatically be booting up.
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Q: I get a black screen when I boot games!

This is tricky. Consider the following:

● First of all, give SSF a minute or two before you decide that nothing is happening; maybe
the game takes a while to boot.

● Did you setup the BIOS? You should - most games require it. I cover this earlier in this
tutorial.

● See if the game you're trying to play even works with SSF - check the compatibility list
[​http://lusspace.free.fr/ssf.htm​]

● If this is a Saturn ISO that you downloaded, perhaps it's bad. Try this:

○ I've been told that sometimes bad ISOs can be repaired. Try using CDmage's
[​http://www.softpedia.com/get/CD-DVD-Tools/CD-DVD-Images-Utils/CD-Mage.sh
tml​] “​Scan for Corruption​” feature. Then use “​Fix Corruption”​ to see if it finds
anything.

○ Try downloading the game from another site.

● There's a possibility that your game will run with an older version of SSF. Go to my
emulators page [​http://fantasyanime.com/emulators​] and download the zip containing all
SSF releases. Try running your game with them to see if it works.

● If nothing works, then your computer is not compatible with SSF. Sorry, SSF was not
designed to run on every machine. SSF requires the following processors:

● “​SSF requires the processor to have the SSE2 instruction set, so a Pentium 4, Pentium
M, Opteron, Athlon 64, Sempron (64bit), Turion 64 or better are necessary to run it.​”

Q: I get a Direct3D9::_initializeDirect3D9 error!

Upon booting a game, you might receive this error:

IDirect3DDevice9::CreatePixelShader() error.
File : ./Direct3D9.cpp
Line : 1180
Function : Direct3D9::_initializeDirect3D9

Unlike other SSF errors, this one is actually fixable! You need to make a small edit to “ssf.ini“.
So go into SSF's folder and look for . Double-click on it, and it should open up in
Notepad. Scroll to the bottom and look for “WindowX” & “WindowY”:
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As shown above, enter '50' for these attributes. Save and close. Open SSF and the error should
be gone.

Full screen mode

Simply press ​Alt+Enter​ to bring SSF into full screen. Press ​Alt+Enter​ again to exit full screen.

Screen filters
SSF offers two filters for rendering the screen: ​Scanline​ and ​Bilinear Filtering​. To enable them:

1. Click on ​Option(O)​ > O

​ ption(O).​
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2. Click on the Screen tab, and you'll arrive here:

3. Put a check in either “​Scanline”​ or “​Bilinear Filtering​”, or both! Look below for samples of
these filters. Click ​OK​ when you're done.
Bilinear Filtering Scanlines
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Save states

Save states​ is a feature that saves the exact spot you are in any game. Here's how it works:

Saving a state
1. Go to ​File(F)​ > ​State Save(S).​

2. At the top of the screen, SSF will prompt you with “​Select Save No. 0-9​”:

3. SSF allows you to save up to 10 different save states. For now, press “​0”​ to select
the first slot.

4. That's it! Your state is now saved.

Loading a state
1. To recall a save state go to ​File(F)​ > ​State Load(L).​

2. At the top of the screen, SSF will prompt you with “​Select Save No. 0-9​”. Press “​0​”
to load a save from the first slot.
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CD swapping with multiple-CD games

1. Open the CD drive within SSF. Go to ​Hardware(H) > CD Open(O)​. Look for the “Drive
door open” message in the lower-left to confirm that it's open:

2. The next step is dependent on if you're using native BIN/CUE booting (explained in
“Boosting ISOs”) or Virtual CloneDrive (explained in “Booting CD images with Virtual
CloneDrive”). If you're using native BIN/CUE booting, go into the Options and select the
CUE sheet for the next disc's CD. If you're using Virtual CloneDrive, unmount the current
ISO then mount the ISO for the next disc.

3. Next, close the CD drive within SSF. Go to ​Hardware(H) > CD Close(C).​ SSF will load
the disc from the Saturn boot menu and you can hit ​Start Application​ from there. That's
it!

4. If the next disc does not load, I would suspect SSF considers your Saturn ISO to be
faulty. Make sure the BIOS files are properly set up (explained in “Settings up the
BIOS”).

Capturing screen shots

Go to ​File(F)​ > ​Snapshot(C)​. SSF will dump the screen shot as a bitmap (BMP) into the
“​Snapshot”​ folder.

Improving performance
It can't be helped that SSF is a buggy emulator. But, yet there are a few things we can do to
improve game performance and maybe even prevent/workaround crashes.

1. Click on ​Option(O)​ > O

​ ption(O).​
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2. Click on the ​Screen​ tab. Remove the check from ​Auto Field Skip​, and add checks to
VSynch Wait (Window)​ and ​VSynch Wait (Fullscreen),​ as shown below:

3. Click on the ​Program 4​ tab. Add a check to D

​ einterlace (Very Slow),​ as shown below:
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4. Click on the ​EZ Setting​ tab. As shown here below:

I circled two settings:

○ Highest Compatibility​ - Some games such as “​Spiritual Assassin Taromaru”​

and “​Daytona: CE​” run best with this setting.

○ Full Compatibility​ - Set this option for the broadest game compatibility possible
with SSF.

General troubleshooting

Sprites in SNK games missing

Character sprites in SNK games may not be appearing. To show them, go to ​Option(O)
​ nd under “​Cartridge​” select ​1MBytes Ram Cartridge.​
> ​Option(O) a

Flickering in FMVs
If FMV sequences have an annoying flicker, go to ​Option(O)​ > O
​ ption(O)​ > P
​ rogram 3
and put a check in ​Check Cycle Pattern.​
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No sound
If sound is completely gone, well, first check for the obvious and make sure sound is
working on your computer. Then try this: go to ​Option(O)​ > ​Option(O)​ > ​Program 3​ and
put a check in ​Memory Access Wait.​

Stuttering sound
If you find that sound is stuttering, go to ​Option(O)​ > ​Option(O)​ > ​Program 1​ and put a
check in ​Scanline Base Timing.​

Game-specific troubleshooting
You'll find all of the below options in ​Option(O)​ > ​Option(O)​. There are a lot of games in this
list. Press ​Ctrl+F​ to see if the game you're having problems with is here.

● Baroque (FMV issues)​: Enable “​Check Sprite Priority​”.

● Chaos Seed​: Enable “​Check Cycle Pattern​”. Enable “​VDP2 RAM Revision Access​”.

● Dark Savior​: Enable “​Bus Wait”​ (fix for logo). Enable “​VDP2 RAM Revision Access”​ (fix
for save data screen).

● Daytona USA Circuit Edition​: Enable “​VDP2 RAM Revision Access​”.

● Deep Fear, Daina-Airan, Mr. Bones, X-Men Vs. Street Fighter​: Enable “​Memory
Access Wait​”.

● Denpa Shounenteki Game, Astal​: Enable “​SH2 Cache​”.

● Galjan​: Enable “​SH2 DMA Real Transfer​”.

● Gokujou Parodius Da! Deluxe Pack (aka Fantastic Journey)​: Enable “​Bus Wait”​ , Set
“​Bus Wait Clock​” to 0.

● Grandia (FMV issues)​: Set “​Dot Clock​” on 3.7 or above. Set “​SlaveSH2 Speed​” to 90%,
Set “​EZ Setting​” to Highest.

● dol Janshi Suchie-Pai II (fix for cutscenes)​: Enable “​Check Cycle Pattern​” and “​VDP2
RAM Revision Access”​ .

● Lunar Silver Star Story (FMV issues)​: Enable “​SCU DMA Delay Interrupt​”.

● Marvel Super Heroes Vs. Street Fighter (fix for sound noise)​: Disable “​Sound
Thread​”.
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● Pro Mahjong Kiwame S, Megaman X3​: Set “​Dot Clock​” to 3.7 or above. Set “​1Block
Clock”​ to a value as low as possible.

● Quovadis 2 (fix for FMVs)​: Set “​Dot Clock​” to 3.0 or above, and “​EZ Setting​” to “​High”​ .

● Riglord Saga 2​: Set “​Dot Clock”​ to 3 or above.

● Ruri Iro no Yuki (fix for company logo among other stuff)​: Enable “​Check Cycle
Pattern​”.

● Sol Divide​: Set “​Dot Clock​” to 3.4 or above.

● Sonic Jam​: Set “​Dot Clock​” to 2.7 or above. Enable “​Check Cycle Pattern”​ (fix for 2P
Mode in Sonic 2).

● Taito Chase HQ Plus SCI​: Enable “​CD Track/Index​”.

● The Tower​: Enable “​VDP2 RAM Write Timing​”.

● Toshinden URA (if FMVs skip)​: Set “​1Block Clock​” to 50. Disable “​Check SlaveSH2
Idle Loop​”. Enable “​Bus Wait”​ . Set “​Bus Wait Clock”​ to 1. Enable “​Enable Instruction
Cache​”.

● Virtua Fighter 2​: Enable “​VDP2 RAM Revision Access​” (fix for key config screen).
Enable “​Memory Access Wait​”.

● Whizz, Thunder Hawk II​: Enable “​Bus Wait”​ .

● World Heroes Perfect, Castlevania Symphony of the Night (fix for data select
screen), Macross Do You Remember Love​: Enable “​VDP2 RAM Revision Access”​ .

Finding Saturn games (ISOs)

In my links page ​[​http://fantasyanime.com/links#roms​]​, I have some good links to sites where
you can download Saturn ISOs. If you want to try to find more sites than what's in my collection
of links, just Google around. For example, if you want to download ​Shining Force III​ just Google
“​download shining force iii saturn​”.

Q: SSF crashes on start!

This can be tricky because this could be caused by many things.
1. In most cases, this happens simply because you don't have the latest version of DirectX
installed. You can download it from the web version of this guide.
2. See if the game you're trying to play even works with SSF - check the compatibility list
[​http://lusspace.free.fr/ssf.htm​].
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Q: SSF crashes mid game and gives CPK error!

At certain points in a game, SSF may suddenly crash and give you this error: “​CPK error
0x00000301​”. Particularly, this happens in Dragon Force 2 when you select a kingdom.
Unfortunately there is no fix for this problem. The game you're playing is not compatible with
SSF.

Q: I keep getting disc read errors!

SSF might repeatedly prompt you with disc read errors - even if you're using an ISO with virtual
CD-ROM software. There are a few things you can try:

1. Attempt #1​ - Play with the compatibility settings (​scroll up to the “Improving
Performance” section for direction​). You find it by going to ​Option​ > ​Option​ > ​EZ
Setting​ tab. Maybe try the lowest compatibility setting just to get past the point of the
game giving you disc read errors. Then set it back to ​Full Compatibility​ until you get
disc read errors again. Does this not resolve it? Try the next attempt...

2. Attempt #2​ - Try different versions of SSF [​http://fantasyanime.com/emulators​]. The last

time I updated this tutorial, the latest version of SSF was 0.12 beta R4. Avid users of
SSF have told me that 0.12 beta R3 is actually more stable than R4. Using R3 seems to
be the least prone to give you disc read errors. Does this not resolve it? Try the next
attempt...

3. Attempt #3​ - Lastly, I would question your ISO. Maybe it's partially corrupt or in a format
that isn't so friendly. So try a different ISO; download the game from somewhere else.

Q: Audio is out of sync!

In some games, you'll encounter out of sync audio, which is very annoying. Games such as
“​Keio 2​”, “​Twinkle Star Sprites”​ , and “​Spiritual Assassin Taromaru​” are affected by this bug. To
resolve this use SSF version 0.11 or older. Go to my emulators page
[​http://fantasyanime.com/emulators​] to download older releases of SSF.

Q: SSF isn't saving anything!

If you're using SSF for the first time and you're finding that you have all these problems:

1. Save states aren't working. You save a state, then when you try to reload it nothing
happens.

2. In an RPG when you save your game at a save point and close/re-open SSF, you find
that the save is lost.
 19

3. Emulator configurations that you changed such as adding a screen filter aren't saved
(​screen filters were covered earlier in this guide)​ . When you close/re-open SSF, you
have to make those configuration changes again.

Then your problem is that you currently have SSF in a read-only location on your computer. You
must move SSF to a more common location such as ​Documents​, ​Downloads​, or a folder on
your desktop.

Burning Saturn games from ISO

These directions are for burning an ISO or BIN/CUE archive to a CD-R. Note that in order to
play CD-R copies on the Sega Saturn system, you need to use the boot trick:
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=saturn+play+copies&page=&utm_source=open
search​.

Here are the burning directions:

1. Download & install ​ImgBurn​ (it's free). You can download ImgBurn from the ImgBurn
homepage: ​http://www.imgburn.com
*If you have an anti-virus such as AVG, it may flag ImgBurn for containing adware. Don't
panic - ​it does not contain adware!​ This warning is false. All that ImgBurn does is show
you ads during the install wizard (which is why AVG falsely flags it). ImgBurn is 100%
safe.

2. Upon opening ImgBurn, click ​Write image file

to disc​, as shown to the right:

3. Under “​Source”​ click the folder icon, as shown

below:

Navigate your computer to where your Saturn ISO or BIN/CUE resides. Select it and
 20

click ​Open​, as shown below:

4. Take a look at this picture:

Insert the CD-R disc. Upon insertion, you'll see information appear (where indicated in
the picture at “1”). Next, make sure your CD drive is selected (it should do it
automatically).

5. Click the icon to burn. Depending on the speed of your CD drive, your game could take
maybe 2-10 minutes to finish burning. That's it! Enjoy your fresh copy of a Saturn game.
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Copying/Backing up Saturn games

These directions are for duplicating a real Saturn game or a CD-R copy.

1. Download & install ​ImgBurn​ (it's free). You can

download ImgBurn from the ImgBurn homepage
[​http://www.imgburn.com​].

2. First, you need to rip your Saturn game to an

ISO. Open ImgBurn. Click ​Create image file
from disc​, as shown to the right.

3. Make sure the proper source drive is set in “​Source”​ , then click the ​Read​ icon - as
shown below:

4. Ripping your Saturn game will take maybe 20-30 minutes. By default, ImgBurn will toss
the BIN file (the ISO) into ​Documents​. Now that you have a BIN/CUE of your game you
can follow the burning directions right above. Scroll up to “​Burning to CD-R​”.
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Thank you for reading my tutorial! If you have questions you can email me or message me on
social media [​http://fantasyanime.com/contact​].