You don’t know, you haven’t heard? It’s Yabause version 0.9.10 — the SEGA Saturn emulator for your PlayStation Portable. Now before you get all excited you should know a few things:

1. (Quoted from the readme) PSP support for Yabause is experimental; please be aware that some things may not work well (or at all), and in particular there’s no configuration interface yet.
2. You must obtain the SEGA Saturn BIOS yourself; a simple Google Search will turn that up.
3. You need a PSP-2000 (Slim) or later; Yabause needs the extra ram.

I tried it; it’s semi-functional in terms of loading CD images and playability. Things get choppy, but nonetheless, Yabause clearly demonstrates the possibility of SEGA Saturn emulation. Check the compatibility list here.

Download: Yabause 0.9.10

- source: yabause.org

Rewind back in time to NOTAZ’ PicoDrive v1.35b… Now fast forward to DAVEX’s popular “Rewind” mod, which has already been adapted to several emulators, and we’re left with the Unofficial PicoDrive v1.35b R.

PicoDrive mimics the Sega Genesis / Mega Drive and Sega CD consoles.

Unofficial PicoDrive v1.35b R changes:

1. Now you can remap the rewind key (default RTRIGGER).
2. Allows you configure rewind parameters in the new “Rewind” menu, in order to have more rewind time or more smooth rewind.

Download: Unofficial PicoDrive 1.35b R

- source: qj

Remember when DaveX took the liberty in adding this feature to these emulators (here, here, and here)… Yes, that’s the ability to rewind your game play at anytime while in game. Well now DaveX has given Akop permission to re-use that code and incorporate said feature in the official SMS Plus PSP release. So here you have it.

And if you’re a newcomer to SMS Plus PSP, it emulates the SEGA Master System and Gear Gear consoles. Get down.

PSP SMS Plus v1.2.55 changes:

• Time Rewind feature by DaveX – “rewind” recent gameplay (approximately 20 seconds). Map ‘Special: Rewind’ to any PSP button to enable this feature.

Download: SMS PSP Plus v1.2.55

- source: 0xff.akop.org

It’s no doubt been quite awhile since Akop touched on SMS Plus PSP; you know, the SEGA Master System and Game Gear emulator from back in ‘07. Heard of it? Well maybe not, like I said, it’s been along time… Whatever the case — we’re now nearing the end of ’08; so if ya caught it, ya got it – enjoy classic SEGA all over again.

Akop notes: this version does not include Wi-Fi or Ad Hoc support, not yet anyway… That remains a work in progress. Enjoy!

SMS Plus PSP v1.2.5 changes:

• When switching games, latest save state will be automatically highlighted.
• Rapid fire support – map any button to A or B auto fire (’Controls’ tab). Change the rate of auto fire in the ‘Options’ tab.
• Snapshots are now saved to PSP’s PHOTO directory (/PSP/PHOTO), and can be viewed in PSP’s image viewer.
• File selector snapshots – while browsing for games with the file selector, pause momentarily to display the first snapshot for the game.

Download: SMS Plus PSP v1.2.5

- source: 0xff.akop.org

drk||Raziel sheds some light on the development of his nullDC PSP port… First and foremost, due to the obvious PSP Fat hardware limitations, nullDC-PSP will only be usable on Slim [and future?] models.

As demonstrated previously the current speed/FPS is very slow. drk||Raziel’s notes: there is no dynarec, no optimizations, and no single MIPS assembly line in the present source. The majority of code is based on the PC version of nullDC. So with that in mind, it will definitely take time to optimize and establish a playable state for nullDC on the PSP’s hardware.

While drk||Raziel believes it is possible to achieve full speed on the PSP, it could very well be a long ass time before we see it. Or maybe drk||Raziel and the other believers will be proven wrong. Are you a believer or a nullDC infidel? Talk amongst yourselves.

- source: emudev

Prepare yourself for nullDC — the SEGA Dreamcast emulator for the PlayStation Portable. drkIIRaziel, who’s responsible for the nullDC PSP port, has shared several videos confirming its authenticity.

Still under active development with no release just yet, the videos show nullDC to be rather sluggish. But hey, it renders nicely — sort of… Release imminent? We can only hope.

Search YouTube for more nullDC videos.

Quite the update from developer notaz. Reintroducing PicoDrive — the all-retro, all-sega emulator for your PSP.

Notaz’ PSP port originates from Dave’s PicoDrive 0.30 code for the Pocket PC. The Mega / CD emulation is roughly based on tephane Dallongeville’s Gens.

PicoDrive v1.50/1.51 changes:

• Added some basic support for Sega Pico, a MegaDrive-based toy.
• Added proper support for cue/bin images, including cdda playback.
• .cue sheets with iso/cso/mp3/wav files listed in them are now supported too (but 44kHz restriction still applies).
• Added bin_to_cso_mp3 tool, based on Exophase’s bin_to_iso_ogg. The tool can convert .cue/.bin Sega CD images to .cso/.mp3.
• Greatly improved Sega CD load times.
• Changed how scheduling between 68k and z80 is handled. Improves performance for some games. Credits to Lordus for the idea.
• YM2612 state was not 100% saved, this should be better now.
• Improved renderer performance for shadow/highlight mode.
• Added a hack for YM2612 frequency overflow issue (bleep noises in Shaq Fu, Spider-Man – The Animated Series (intro music), etc.). Credits to Nemesis @ spritesmind forum. Works only if sound rate is set to 44kHz.
• Implemented some sprite rendering improvements, as suggested by Exophase. Games with lots of sprites now perform better.
• Added better idle loop detection, based on Lordus’ idea again.
• “accurate timing” option removed, as disabling it no longer improves performance.
• “accurate sprites” was removed too, the new sprite code can properly handle sprite priorities in all cases.
• Timers adjusted again.
• Improved .smd detection code.
• Minor general optimizations and menu improvements.
• Fixed a bug in Sega CD savestate loader, where the game would sometimes crash after load.
• Fixed a crash of games using eeprom (introduced in 1.40b).
• fixed suspend/resume (hopefully for real).
• Improved bin_to_cso_mp3 tool, it should no longer complain about missing lame.exe even if it’s in working dir.
• Fixed a regression from 1.50, which caused slowdowns in Final Fight.
• Fixed some regressions from 1.50 related to sprite limit and palette handling (caused graphical glitches in some games).
• Added ABC turbo actions to key config.
• Some other minor adjustments.

Download: PicoDrive v1.51

- source: dcemu

From A to B is the new version of PicoDrive — the dopest SEGA CD / Genesis emulator from developer notaz. Version 1.35b packs plenty of bug fixes and additions.

PicoDrive v1.35b changes:

• mp3 code should no longer fail on 1.5 firmware.
• added gamma adjustment option.
• added .cso ISO format support. Useful for non-FMV games.
• it is now possible to force a region after the ROM is loaded.
• fixed a sram bug in memhandlers (fixes Shining in the Darkness saves).
• fixed another bug in memhandlers, which crashed the emu for some games (like NBA Jam and NHL 9x).
• added suspend/resume handling for Sega CD games.
• some other small tweaks I forgot about.

Download: PicoDrive 1.35b

- source: dcemu

For all the SEGA Saturn skeptics out there, namely here in the comments — this is for you! Introducing Yabause, an early test version which is developing into a full-fledged SEGA Saturn emulator for the PSP. Yep, it is possible after all.

Installation follows the same steps as any other homebrew app or game. We have a 1.50 kernel compiled version, as well a build for custom firmwares 3.xx. You will however need to obtain the SEGA Saturn BIOS by using those resourceful Googling skills you have. Once found, rename to “saturn.bin” and copy the 512KB BIOS file to your memory stick, under PSP/GAME/yabause or PSP/GAME150/yabause — depending which version you downloaded.

Download:
Yabause 0.9.1 fw 1.50
Yabause 0.9.1 cfw 3.xx

- source: pspgen.com

Good lookin’ out David Roth

Update: Version 1.35a has been released. The quoted paragraph below details the changes…

Well that test-a-bios-and-you-are-screwed bug was quite a serious one, so I’ve done an update:

fixed a bug which prevented to load any ROMs after testing the BIOS.
fixed incorrect CZ80 memory map setup, which caused Z80 crashes and graphics corruption in EU Mega CD model1 BIOS menus.
added additional “set to 4:3 scaled” display option for convenience.
added an option to disable frame limitter (works only with non-auto frameskip).

Something new to occupy a megabyte or two on your memory stick — PicoDrive! The readme details everything you must know about Notaz’ latest SEGA Genesis / Mega CD emulator. Still requires a bit of work, but works well no less.

This is yet another Megadrive / Genesis emulator for PSP, but with Sega CD / Mega CD support. Although it has been originally written having ARM CPU based devices in mind, it has now been ported to PSP too, by replacing ARM specific parts with portable C code. The base code originates from Dave’s (fdave, finalburn) PicoDrive 0.30 for Pocket PC. The Sega/Mega CD code is roughly based on Stephane Dallongeville’s Gens.

Download: PicoDrive v1.35a

- source: psp-news.dcemu.co.uk