Abe's Oddysee on Sega Saturn vs PlayStation: loading time (Devlog #9)

TETHYS Odysseus - Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee ported to the SEGA SATURN - Devlog #9 Two and a half minutes of the original PlayStation version and the Sega Saturn port running side by side across the same sixteen screens. The PlayStation takes *13.9 seconds* of black/loading time; the Saturn **19.1**. Median screen transitions are **0.20 s vs 0.95 s**, while the black screen after death is actually faster on Saturn: **3.0 s vs 6.0 s**. I then compare the Saturn port against itself, three days apart. By caching room data in unused memory, the median transition time drops from **1.87 s to 0.90 s**. Four CD requests per screen instead of eight or nine makes a significant difference. The rest of the episode covers some of the compromises and tricks required to bring the game to Saturn: • Why the port renders at *640×240 internally but outputs 320×240* • How room graphics and animation banks are streamed from CD • How Abe can walk behind scenery when Saturn has no equivalent of the PlayStation's video-memory masking • Why loading the next room during gameplay made the game sluggish and had to be abandoned • Why explosions are reduced from 20–150 debris pieces to 12 for now • Why gunshot smoke is four times too bright on Saturn • How the GameSpeak menu was reduced from resident animations to on-demand loading • How Abe's chanting glow is rendered despite VDP1's lack of additive lighting • Why limited VDP1 palettes force some sprites to share colours • How detector beams turn Abe completely red instead of affecting only the beam area The R.E.L.I.V.E. engine runs natively on the Saturn's SH-2 through the Saturn Ring Library SDK. Everything was captured on a **real Sega Saturn**, without a RAM cartridge or emulator. Tethys is a fan/homebrew project porting RELIVE, the community reimplementation of Abe's Oddysee, to the Sega Saturn, built with the Saturn Ring Library (SRL) toolchain. Named after Tethys, the moon of Saturn with the giant crater Odysseus. With help from: the SegaXtreme Discord, Cerbero and Carlos24_ (found and reproduced fatal errors: cutscenes that would not load, and the lasers), Wesker and Slygamer (general testing). ⚠️ A non-commercial, fan-made technical project. No game data is distributed. Not affiliated with or endorsed by Oddworld Inhabitants. #SegaSaturn #Homebrew #Oddworld #AbesOddysee #RetroGaming #GameDev Chapters: 00:00 Tethys Odysseus, devlog #9: loading time 00:06 PlayStation and Sega Saturn, side by side 00:17 How long a screen transition takes on each machine 00:34 Saturn is faster on respawns 00:45 How Abe walks behind the scenery 01:08 Screen loading on the Sega Saturn 01:23 The PlayStation loads the next room during play 01:45 The barrels are finally fixed 01:57 And the PlayStation does not always get away with it 02:17 How an explosion is built 02:34 Three days of work on the screen transition 02:47 The same route, three times 02:58 What changed 03:16 The smoke of a gunshot, slowed down six times 03:26 The GameSpeak menu 03:44 How Abe glows when he chants 04:03 The Stockyards: how Abe turns red 04:15 What is left, and thanks