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How to play Sega Saturn games under Windows? (Dungeon Master Nexus)

What is a Sega Saturn? Check the Wikipedia article about Sega Saturn.

With Mednafen emulator

Follow these instructions:

  1. Download Dungeon Master Nexus for Sega Saturn.
  2. Download this Sega Saturn emulator: Mednafen.
  3. Download the Sega Saturn BIOS files (US and JP) included in the OpenEmu BIOS Pack .
  4. Decompress the game, the emulator and the BIOS archives.
  5. Copy the BIOS files mpr-17933.bin and sega101.bin in the 'firmware' folder of Mednafen.
  6. In Windows Explorer, drag and drop the game image file (*.cue or *.ccd) onto the mednafen.exe file to start emulation. You may also run the emulator from the command line: mednafen.exe <Full path to the game CD image>
  7. The keyboard controls are described here: https://mednafen.github.io/documentation/ss.html#Section_default_keys

With SSF emulator

SSF runs the game flawlessly and has a Save state feature that allows you to save your progression whenever you want.
However, SSF has higher hardware requirements than Girigiri. It requires a processor that can execute SSE2 instructions so for example it will work with Pentium 4 and AMD64 processors, but not with Celeron and Athlon XP processors.
Follow these instructions:

  1. Download Dungeon Master Nexus for Sega Saturn.
  2. Create a folder "C:\DMNexus" and decompress the archive there.
  3. If you downloaded the archive containing the audio tracks compressed as .ogg files, run "Decode.bat". It will decompress the Ogg Vorbis audio files to standard .wav files.
  4. Download DAEMON Tools and install this program. It is a CD-ROM emulator for Windows. This free utility will create a virtual CD-ROM drive in which you will be able to "insert" a CD image (many formats supported). Using this tool, you can try the game without having to burn a real CD.
  5. Now insert the CD image into the virtual drive: click the Daemon Tools icon in the system tray, select your virtual CD drive, browse to the folder where you decompressed the archive and select the .CUE file.
  6. Download this Sega Saturn emulator: SSF.
  7. Download the Sega Saturn BIOS (US version) included in the OpenEmu BIOS Pack .
  8. Decompress the emulator and the BIOS archives in the same folder C:\DMNexus.
  9. Run SSF.exe
  10. In the 'Option(O)' menu, click 'Option(O)'.
    In the 'Peripheral' tab, configure the following options:
    Saturn BIOS: browse to the file SEGA_100.BIN that you downloaded.
    CD Drive: select = choose the virtual Daemon Tools drive. Its name is usually a series of random characters.
    Cartridge: select '4Mbytes RAM Cartridge'
    Area code: select 'America, Canada, Brazil'
    In the 'Controller' tab, click the 'Redefine' button next to 'Player 1:A' to configure your own control keys.
  11. Click the 'OK' button, validate the popup message popup and exit SSF.
  12. Run SSF.exe again. The emulator should start. The first time, you have to configure the date/time and language of the console, then the game will start.
  13. In the 'File(F)' menu, you can use 'State Load(L)' and 'State Save(S)' to record your progression.

With Girigiri emulator

You may experience some sound and graphical glitches with Girigiri.
Follow these instructions:

  1. Download Dungeon Master Nexus for Sega Saturn.
  2. Create a folder "C:\Girigiri" and decompress the archive there.
  3. Run "Decode.bat". It will decompress the Ogg Vorbis audio files to standard .wav files.
  4. In order to play the game with the emulator, you need to convert the ISO/WAV/CUE image to a BIN/CUE image. Follow these steps:
    1. Download DAEMON Tools and install this program. It is a CD-ROM emulator for Windows. This free utility will create a virtual CD-ROM drive in which you will be able to "insert" a CD image (many formats supported). Using this tool, you can try the game without having to burn a real CD.
    2. Now insert the CD image into the virtual drive: click the Daemon Tools icon in the system tray, select your virtual CD drive, browse to the folder where you decompressed the archive and select the file "DMN.CUE" (do not select the .iso file).
    3. Download the free evaluation version of CDRwin and install it (let the setup install its own ASPI layer, it is required). It is a CD burning tool that can make BIN/CUE CD images.
    4. Run CDRwin. Click the "Extract Disc/Tracks/Sectors" button. Select your virtual CD drive (the one containing your Dungeon Master Nexus ISO/WAV image) in the "CD Reader" list, and type "C:\Girigiri\dmnexus" in the "Image filename" text zone.
    5. Click the "START" button. Once the new BIN + CUE image is created, you can close CDRwin and unmount the ISO/WAV image from your virtual CD drive. You can even delete the ISO/WAV files as you will only need the BIN/CUE version from now on.
    6. Open the file "C:\Girigiri\dmnexus.cue" with notepad and change the first line to remove the absolute path: replace "C:\GIRIGIRI\DMNEXUS.BIN" by "DMNEXUS.BIN".
  5. You now have a BIN/CUE CD image of Dungeon Master Nexus, ready for use with the Girigiri emulator. Download this Sega Saturn emulator: Girigiri (Grab "Girigiri et le loader 0.8.3.b").
  6. Decompress the emulator archive in "C:\Girigiri".
  7. Open a "Command Prompt" window and go to your Girigiri folder by typing "CD C:\Girigiri".
  8. Execute the following command line: "gentoc -b dmnexus.cue". This will create a "toc.bin" file required by the emulator, and update the "base.ini" file accordingly.
  9. Open the file "base.ini" in notepad. You have to configure the correct area code: "AREA=4" for US or "AREA=1" for Japan (an ISO image of the original CD would contain area code 1 for Japan, but the ISO image may have been patched to run on US consoles so you would have to use area code 4). If the value does not match the one in the ISO image, then the game won't start, and you will only access the Audio CD player of the Sega Saturn.
  10. Run "glaunch.exe". Choose your preferences and then click on the picture at the bottom left of the window to start the emulation.