Return of the SainT

For the ST users among you, the most well known and widely used emulator out there has got to be Steem, with its cycle-accurate code and MIDI capabilities. But there is another, in fact one of the first, its name is SainT. Now up to version 1.3, SainT is quite simply one of the most intuitive and best laid out emulators that I have used in a long time. For someone who grew up messing about in DOS trying to get a virtual ST to run, it is a godsend to have everything laid out clearly in a few simple menus and have some very powerful tasks at your fingertips.

The authors don't pretend to replace the ST, but they know what fun the games were, and still are! So they created an emulator with the gamer in mind. From the Disk Menu you select your virtual floppy. From here you can also do a cold/warm reset if you wish. The great thing here is that the file tree can be almost full-screen, much easier to navigate than Steem's small file window. When inserting a disk you can have SainT automatically run and reset the ST to get a demo or game going, saving you the need to do that manually... nice touch!

The Options Menu is just as well laid out. All the usual settings are here; memory, speed and ROM image. However, the options in the left-hand column may seem unfamiliar to many of you. To enable fluid cycle emulation of the ST, SainT has opted for the DirectX route. What this means for non-techie people is your PC will need to be what is known as DirectX compliant from version 8.1 upwards, otherwise the emulator will not run at all. Don't worry though, most video cards will work, even if you have to enable software rendering. The only PC I have had problems with is my old Pentium 100 MHz laptop with only 1 MB of video memory. The authors recommend that you use a PC with at least a Pentium II 233 MHz processor and anything from a Voodoo 1 3D accelerator card upwards. Consequently, most modern PCs will be more than capable.

The Record Menu is a great way of  taking screen-shots of your favourite games and demos. More than this though, SainT has the ability to store the memory of the ST in ten slots for instant access, this way you can play, let's say an adventure game and take a few more chances (if it doesn't work out then just re-run the game from a memory slot and try again). The centre of the screen is dominated with a preview of the screen-shot to be taken, you can also choose to save the sound as either a PC WAV file or ST YM file for later playback.

Here is a screen-shot of Black Lamp taken within the record option:

mpreston@myatari.net

MyAtari magazine - Review #1, June 2003