A fork of the Windows version of Saturn emulator Yaba Sanshiro is bringing gamepad functionality to its user interface as well as a new look. It’s intended to be easier to use with handheld hardware running Windows.
The developer, Miyax, posted the “handheld” version of 1.9.2 to his blog today. You can download it here.
On his blog, Miyax explained that he ported the Linux version of Yaba Sanshiro to Windows because it works with gamepads, making it easier to use the emulator with handheld PCs that run Windows.
“2022 is the year of [the] handheld Windows PC. It’s exciting that [they can] play PC games anywhere. But YabaSanshiro for Windows is built using the old QT library, and you need a mouse and keyboard to use YabaSanshiro. It’s not easy to play games on [the] Windows version of YabaSanshiro.”
-Miyax
To test his emulator and fix bugs, he said he recently bought an AYANEO NEXT, a handheld PC with an OLED screen for gaming that runs Windows. That seems to have led him to put out this handheld-friendly version of Yaba Sanshiro.
This new version is a departure from previous ones whose user interface was built on QT, a software for creating graphical user interfaces that work across different platforms. It was first released in 1995 but is continuously updated today.
“If many people like this, I want to sunset [the] QT version,” Miyax said.
A video Miyax uploaded shows off the new version’s user interface as well as several games running with it.
He also released a new update to the older QT version of Yaba Sanshiro for Windows. Identified as version 1.9.3, it fixes a few bugs in specific games:
- Fix: Virtua Fighter 2: broken polygons
- Fix: Street Fighter Zero 3: sprite screen is not cleared
- Fix: Sonic 3D Blast: crash when the special stage is started
Version 1.9.3 can be downloaded from this page.
Yaba Sanshiro was last updated less than three weeks ago when version 1.9.2 was released. It improved the stability of saving and loading save states as well as CPU affinity performance.
Yaba Sanshiro began development seven years ago as a fork of Yabause, an emulator that is no longer actively worked on, to bring it to Android devices. A PC version was released about a year later, seeing regular updates alongside the Android version.
Its name was changed to Yaba Sanshiro 2 in April 2021 after Google blacklisted the original app for including Action Replay cheats.
Danthrax is a contributor to the Shiro Media Group, writing stories for the website when Saturn news breaks. While he was a Sega Genesis kid in the ’90s, he didn’t get a Saturn until 2018. It didn’t take him long to fall in love with the console’s library as well as the fan translation and homebrew scene. He contributed heavily to the Bulk Slash and Stellar Assault SS fan localizations, and has helped as an editor on several other Saturn and Dreamcast fan projects such as Cotton 2, Rainbow Cotton and Sakura Wars Columns 2.
How about enlightening us with best button settings? For example… what to use for “C” & “Z” If I want the attack button as “B” and jump buttons as “A”, then what do I do for C & Z. I believe this needs to be addressed!!