” And there will be… sorrow SAROO! “
-Bad Religion
There may be a few folks scratching their heads at this article’s title thinking, ‘What exactly is a… SAROO?’
If this is you, I recommend this quick read, but to briefly summarize, SAROO is basically a versatile open-source SEGA Saturn flash cart project that got it’s start several years ago before going dormant, then being revitalized and ultimately coming to market about a year ago through numerous Chinese vendors on AliExpress and eBay.
Folks might also wonder why we, SHIRO! (a site completely dedicated to timely and accurate Saturn news) have waited this long to get our hands on one. Well, it’s complicated.., but let’s just say that the hardware itself had not been officially finalized by the project’s creator, TPUnix. So for the past year or so, SHIRO! has tentatively awaited a major hardware revision (replacement of the FPGA, an Altera Cyclone IV). However, while we were busy waiting, many enterprising Chinese vendors said, ‘screw it,’ moving forward with the existing schematic as it was…
As a project that is nearly a decade old, you can imagine just how many parts have become somewhat obsolete in terms of sourcing them through reputable distributors, and this has led to many vendors using new-old-stock parts and even resorting to pulling second hand chips from scrapped e-waste in order to build and sell these things at a price that folks will take a chance on. That’s made it tricky for us to recommend SAROO without at least some reservation…
There’s no stopping progress, though, and after getting word from TPU (through colleague TZMWX) that the hardware would, in fact, NOT change at this point, we at SHIRO! could no longer the elephant in the room SAROO has become… So, both Pat and I decided to take the plunge, ‘jumping into the deep end’ and seeing how deep it goes… As we embark on this hardware ‘adventure’ together, we will report our findings and our experience along the way.
One convenient prod in this direction came from Bob at RetroRGB who reached out and sent us these nifty injection-molded cases from J&T Studio care of Martin from RGR Retro Game Restore. These cases are identical in design to SEGA’s OEM carts, and they can be used with numerous different boards out there, from Action Replay to Pseudo Saturn Kai to SAROO.
When it came to actually buying a SAROO board, that’s where things got a bit tricky… Because there are so many different vendors on AliExpress and eBay making and selling their own SAROO carts, there are varying degrees of quality and support out there. Many of the currently available boards use second hand chips (as previously mentioned), and many of them feature heavily modified/forked firmware that differ greatly from the official and currently stable version…
When you consider that some of these boards of dubious quality have bricked when attempting to update the firmware, it almost feels like a game of ‘Minesweeper’ just trying to figure out which one to buy! However, based on feedback from folks like TZMWX and cyo on Twitter, the Retro Game Paradise Store seems to be a well known and reputable vendor in China, so that’s what we are currently recommending to folks reading this and thinking about grabbing one themselves.
We did finally pull the trigger and buy one, and it only took a few days to get to us. (It should be noted that despite putting in two separate orders with two separate shipping addresses and paying individual tax & shipping on each, they ended up lazily shipping both boards in a single box to me, leaving Pat empty handed for a day or two until I could rush one overnight out to him. On the bright side, we filed a dispute and got a refund on one of them, so that’s cool. The takeaway here is to be very clear in the ‘notes to seller’ regarding your intentions & expectations, or you may end up dealing with the same nonsense).
Still, I was excited to try out that new J&T case, and to my pleasant surprise, it was a perfect fit and looks pretty sharp. (It’s important to note that the standoff post on the front half of the case had tabs that needed to be clipped off in order to accommodate the FPGA chip on the SAROO board. This case is not necessary when using the case with an action replay or pseudo cart.) Everything snaps together easily, and a pair of screws hold it secure.
Once getting the SAROO board into a cartridge case, it was time to make a label. I figured it would be nice to match my OEM Backup Memory cart, so that’s what I did… (For folks who opt to buy a SAROO board WITH a case for about $20 extra, a pretty decent sticker label is included.)
Now that the thing was all put together and decorated, it was time to get it playing some games, and this again is where it can get a bit tricky for some folks, as there is a lot of varying info out there, seeing as there are many carts with their own bespoke forked firmwares, and a lot of what’s out there is also in Chinese, no less. That said, it’s best to go straight to the source, TPUnix’s official Github project page. Here, we can find the latest firmware version 0.4. After unzipping the archive, we’ll find a SAROO folder that needs to be copied to the root of a FAT32 formatted MicroSD card (exFAT is also supported). Then, we need to create two new folders inside the SAROO folder called ‘ISO’ & ‘UPDATE’.
Once this is done, your SD card should look something like this:
To reduce potential risk of bricking carts when flashing new firmware updates, TPU has implemented a new system whereby new firmware updates are simply accessed from the SD card directly (ssfirm.bin & mcuapp.bin). When upgrading firmware, you’ll simply replace these files in the SAROO folder.
One of the characteristics that differentiates SAROO from other ODE options at present is it’s game compatibility need for several edits to the the saroocfg.txt configuration file in order to dial in the timing for each title in order to ensure proper performance. It’s still very early days for SAROO, and folks are in the process of testing each game and finding the proper timing configuration, however, this will likely end up being as trivial as downloading a template config file and calling it a day, similar to the RetroTINK scalers.
Most folks who happen to be reading this article will probably want to change the default language of the menu to English, which can be done by editing the line:
[global]
lang_id = 0
to lang_id = 1
Once this change is made and you save (ctrl-S) the file, your SAROO should boot in English by default, though you should be able to cycle through menu languages by pressing the L-trigger on your controller.
Now, when it comes to adding games to the SD card, .ISO, .BIN/.CUE & .IMG/.CUE formats are supported (multi-track games with more than one .bin file are also supported). You’ll need to create a different folder to house each game bin/cue, and one thing you will notice when firing up the SAROO for the first time is that games are sorted in the order that you dropped them onto the SD card. That means that even if you have everything in alphabetical order, if you happen to add a new game image, it goes to the bottom of the list regardless of what letter it starts with. This is due to the amount of compute power required for automatic sort, especially when working with Chinese characters (for English only, it’s not nearly as power intensive).
The current workaround for this is to CUT all of the game folders in the ISO folder, PASTE them into a new folder outside the ISO folder, SORT them by name, CUT them again and finally PASTE them back into the ISO folder… YIKES! I’m sure it won’t be this way forever, but this is the kind of thing one has to get used to if buying into the SAROO at this early point in time…
However, if you want all that cut & paste nonsense done automatically for you, there IS A TOOL FOR THAT!, so check out SDSorter.
Pat: Another option to sort your games is using a program such as DriveSort that will allow you to sort the order of files on your SD Card. With this, you should be able to override the way FAT32 orders the files on the disk, and you can set it to be in Alphabetical order. Take note: Your SD card needs to be formatted in FAT32 to be able to take advantage of this program.
Alternatively, if you are interested in trying out an unofficial firmware fork, Martin of Retro Game Restore has a nice custom firmware version that does support alphabetical sorting!
Pat: There is notable menu slowdown when selecting games using Martin’s custom firmware. This has to do with the Saturn’s processor having performance issues when sorting through lists. While it’s a caveat if you love how snappy the Saroo’s interface is, you’ll also have a fully sorted games list.
In all honesty though, even with the slowdown, you’ll probably save more time in the long run than hunting for a certain game using the original firmware.
It’s also important to note that at the time of writing this article, the current official SAROO firmware does NOT support soft reset back to the SAROO menu. While folks like YZB do have this feature working in private test firmware, it’s not yet been made available to the public.
Because it uses the Saturn’s Cartridge port, SAROO takes boot priority over any other device, including discs or even Satiator. However, this means that if you already have a Satiator, you can leave it plugged in, and you don’t have to worry about the SAROO conflicting with it. When you boot to the SAROO menu, simply select ‘System CD Player’ and the next device on the priority list (in this case, Satiator) will take over. Then if you still want to get to the CD Player Menu / Memory Manager, you’ll do that from the Satiator menu.
One very positive thing about SAROO is that overall, it boots games very fast! (this speed will likely depend on the speed of your SD card to a degree, however, SAROO is not locked down to the same boot speed as the CD-ROM drive, the way that Satiator and the other ODEs are. So far, however, boot speed seems on par with the stock Satiator menu, though in-game loading may be somewhat improved on SAROO.
Another great thing about SAROO is that it uses it’s own virtual ‘internal memory’ for each game (never actually touching your Saturn’s true internal memory). When you boot any game via SAROO, it will create a new save that is stored directly on the SD card and will be loaded automatically anytime you boot that game up again. However, this will not be reflected in your Saturn’s true internal memory. If you would like to play a game using a save that is located on your system’s physical internal memory, you can boot the game using the Z button to do so.
There is currently a memory manager utility available care of zny1982, however, it is entirely in Chinese, so use it at your own risk…
Here’s a link to a very nice configuration guide to help get folks up and running with their new SAROO carts: https://elephantflea.pw/2024/02/saroo-configuration-guide
Here is an excellent full compatibility list: https://github.com/williamdsw/saroo-compatibility-list
Here are some preliminary compatibility figures at a glance:
Pat: While the support for retail games is quite excellent, several homebrew projects, and even a few fan translations simply won’t load at all. The only homebrew game I was able to get running was The Garfield Master (But that’s honestly all you really need!).
TPUnix was able to get Hellslave running when modifying the BIN/CUE disc image, so it’s possible more homebrew projects will be supported this way moving forward.
Pat & I will both continue to report our findings and our experiences along the way as we dig in and discover all that this new
A massive Saturn fan since Christmas ’96, Dave is enthusiastic about growing the community and spreading Saturn love and knowledge to fans old and new. Co-founding the SEGA SATURN, SHIRO! podcast back in 2017 and creating the SHIRO! SHOW in 2020, he seeks to create interesting and engaging Saturn-related content for the community. Dave’s interests circle around game preservation, and he is a huge fan of game magazines and developer interviews.
An interesting review of the Saroo. I have a MODE (bought before I knew that the creator was an arsehole), and I’d be interested in using the Saroo to allow me to load games that require certain RAM configs.
Thanks for the review! I luckily ordered mine from the right place, so I’m hoping they’ll open up the Saturn for even more gaming!