Baroque (SaturnRecomp)

Baroque (Sega Saturn) on SaturnRecomp

Play Sting's Baroque (Sega Saturn, 1998) natively on Windows, using SaturnRecomp by sonsegajp, an experimental clean-room Sega Saturn runtime. The English fan translation is supported.

SaturnRecomp runs the game's original SH-2 code through a fast interpreter on real Saturn firmware. Despite the project's name it is not a finished static recompilation (see its README). This kit adds the fixes Baroque needs, a launcher, and settings that make it pleasant to play on a laptop.

You need your own game and BIOS. This kit contains no Sega BIOS, no game data, and no SaturnRecomp code. On first launch it downloads SaturnRecomp's public source from the author's GitHub and builds it on your PC.

What works

• Boots through the real Saturn BIOS into the opening movie, title, menus and full gameplay in the dungeon. Tested by the author through the opening area, not a full playthrough.
• Full speed (60 fps) on a 15 W Intel i7-1355U laptop when plugged in. Battery play benefits from the power-mode switch below, but hasn't been measured in gameplay.
• Saves: Saturn internal backup RAM is kept in game\backup.bin.
• Widescreen: Baroque's own 16:9 mode, displayed correctly (see below).
• Action Replay / GameShark codes (see below).
• Keyboard and SDL-compatible controllers.

What you need

• Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit, with a Vulkan-capable GPU (any recent Intel, AMD or NVIDIA).
• Baroque (Japan), product T-33901G, as a CUE/BIN disc image dumped from your own disc. The original Japanese release and the English fan translation (tested: v1.0.1) both identify as T-33901G.
• A Sega Saturn BIOS dumped from your own console (512 KB). A Japanese BIOS is recommended for this Japanese disc. The kit author used JP v1.01.
• About 1.5 GB of free space and an internet connection for the first launch.

Install

Quiver Launcher: add Baroque from the catalog and press Play.

By hand: extract the release zip anywhere and run Baroque.exe.

On first launch a setup window opens:

1. It asks for your Saturn BIOS, then your Baroque .cue file, and checks both. It reads the disc's header to confirm it is Baroque, T-33901G.
2. It downloads a portable copy of MSYS2 (the GCC compiler, about 1 GB, kept in tools\). The download is verified by checksum.
3. It downloads SaturnRecomp at a fixed commit (26c9715), applies this kit's patches, and builds the runtime. That takes about 5 to 10 minutes.
4. The game starts. Later launches start straight away.

To choose a different disc or BIOS, run Baroque.exe --setup. To rebuild the runtime, run Baroque.exe --rebuild.

Controls

Saturn	Keyboard	Xbox-style controller
D-pad	Arrow keys or WASD	D-pad or left stick
Start	Enter	Start
A / B / C	Z / X / C	A / B / RB
X / Y / Z	R / T / Y	X / Y / LB
L / R	Q / E	LT / RT

F1 opens the runtime's settings (resolution, fullscreen, filtering, volume). Esc quits. The game starts fullscreen. Turn that off in F1 or with Fullscreen=0 in settings.ini.

Widescreen

Baroque has a built-in anamorphic widescreen mode for 16:9 TVs. To use it:

1. In the game, go to Settings > TV Type and choose Wide. The game keeps this in your save.
2. In settings.ini (in the game folder), set Widescreen=1.

The dungeon then shows a wider view at correct proportions. Menus and movies look stretched in this mode, exactly as they did on a widescreen TV.

Cheats

Edit game\cheats.txt. Change the - in front of a cheat's name to + to turn it on. The file is re-read while the game runs. Included, all off by default:

• Infinite HP, Infinite VT (checked against the game's memory)
• Faster level ups / max EXP, Max status (from almarsguides.com)

You can paste in other Saturn Action Replay codes. Types 1 (16-bit write), 3 (8-bit write) and D (16-bit compare) are supported. Master codes (F/B) are not needed and are skipped.

Performance and your power settings

Saturn emulation leans on one CPU core, so Baroque.exe:

• keeps the game on your fastest CPU cores at high priority, and
• while the game runs, switches Windows' power mode (Settings > System > Power) to Best performance for the power source in use, then puts your original setting back when you quit.

If you plug in or unplug mid-game, the other source is restored the next time you switch to it. A pending restore is kept in power-restore.txt until it's done.

What this kit changes in SaturnRecomp

All of these are general fixes and features, not Baroque-specific hacks. They are in kit\patches and were offered back to the author in sonsegajp/SaturnRecomp#1.

• CD block GetSectorInfo (0x54) was missing. Baroque re-read its sound driver forever and never left the BIOS.
• The master SH-2's on-chip DMA interrupt was starved. Baroque waits for it when entering the dungeon, which gave a black screen. (The slave CPU had already been fixed the same way upstream.)
• Backup RAM was never saved. In-game saves were lost on exit.
• Keyboard focus when the game is started from a launcher.
• A Widescreen setting for 16:9 presentation.
• Action Replay code support (cheats.txt).
• Two small diagnostics improvements.

The runtime is built with a performance profile (PGO) recorded while playing Baroque. If your compiler version can't use it, setup builds the standard version instead, which is a little slower.

Folder layout

Baroque.exe            launcher (run this)
settings.ini           runtime settings (created on first launch)
game\                  game.toml, cheats.txt, backup.bin (saves), runtime.log
bios\saturn.bin        a copy of your BIOS
runtime\               the built runtime
tools\, build\         build tools and SaturnRecomp source (can be deleted after
                       setup; they are downloaded again if a rebuild is needed)
kit\                   setup script, patches, profile, templates, setup.log

Troubleshooting

• Setup failed: kit\setup.log has the details. Run Baroque.exe again to retry; finished steps are skipped.
• "Not Baroque (T-33901G)": choose the .cue of the Japanese disc, and keep every .bin it lists next to it.
• The game stopped with an error: see game\runtime.log.
• Slowdown: close other heavy programs. On a laptop, plug in for the best results.

Legal

This project is not affiliated with or endorsed by Sega, Sting or the SaturnRecomp author. Baroque is a trademark of its owners. No BIOS, game data or SaturnRecomp code is distributed here. SaturnRecomp has no license at the time of writing, so it is built from the author's public source on your PC, and this repository contains only patches. Dump your own disc and BIOS.

This kit (launcher, setup, patches, configuration) is MIT licensed; see LICENSE. It was developed with AI assistance (Claude).