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Saturn VDP technical documents in Japanese ?
cafe-alpha - Jan 20, 2016
  cafe-alpha Jan 20, 2016
Is there technical documents (especially the ones regarding VDPs) available in Japanese ?
I'm asking this because translation is sometimes unclear in English version of theses documents.
I can re-translate some parts of the docs (not everything ) if needed.

(Organizing everything about VDPs technical stuff in a wiki should be cool too, but I'm already busy enough by other Saturn projects ...)

 antime Jan 20, 2016
You'd assume they exist, but I don't remember ever seeing any. Japanese sites also often link to my webpage. You could ask around on Japanese-language forums.

Since you speak Japanese, does the info on this site... look reliable? If Google Translate is to be trusted, it's got some interesting tidbits like the SH2 being developed at Sega's request, and SGL starting out as the graphics code for Virtua Fighter Remix.

The Yabause wiki has hardware info that could be fleshed out.

 cafe-alpha Jan 23, 2016

antime said:


I asked google about theses Japaneses documents, but all the information I could get is that theses weren't leaked. Some reasons are that technical documents were mostly distributed in paper format to Japanese developers, while it was distributed in easy to leak file format elsewhere.

And, if you say that you never saw theses, and that Japanese sites link to your page (without linking to Japanese documents), then I guess that Japanese documents are not available on Internet :/


antime said:


Well, this page is detailed enough to think that author were in relation with game development during Saturn era.
... But, the author also jokes that is site is full of false informations (here, in Japanese...), so all the informations there can't be trusted without verification elsewhere, of course.

Here is the excerpt where it is dealing about SGL origin :


  
	
	

		
		

			SBL SGL 



 AM2 



MODEL 1  V60 SH2 







MODEL 1  3D 



 CPU  3D MODEL 1 



 SGL 



SGL 



 3D 













SGL 

VF2  SGL  Special Thanks S.G.L. Team


Quick and dirty translation (google translation is probably more accurate) :

In opposition with SBL designed for "private" usage, there is SGL designed for "business" (=game development) usage.
Saturn version of Virtua Fighters was developed by AM2 R&D dept, who also developed SGL.
At that time, development started from Model 1 Board's V60 assembly transformed into SH2 assembly.
(It was written in magazines at this time, but as I don't have theses on hand now, I can't remember more details)
As I said before, 3d calculations were performed by Model 1 Board's hardware.
And, this 3D calculation algorithm was emulated on Saturn's sub CPU, easing the porting of the whole project.
And SGL was born from parts of theses algorithms converted in C language.
To be more precise, I think that this code was moved into SGL library during the time Virtua Fighters Remix was developed.
Because there still were some bugs related to 3D algorithms, and also because rotation background wasn't used in Virtua Fighters, while Virtua Fighters Remix has improvements regarding theses points.

Well, I don't directly know about this, this is just a conjecture.
Maybe the fact that that separating game and SGL code, and improving SGL was the origin of "Remix" in the game title.
In Virtua Fighters 2, SGL was already used as a library, because "S.G.L. Team" was listed in the Special Thanks page.





antime said:


Thank you for the info I forgot about yabause wiki.