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'''SSF''' was once renowned as being the best Saturn emulator from its inception in early 2000's till around mid-2010's when a slate of newer and open-source Saturn emulation software was first launched. These included the [[Mednafen]] versions from late 2010's and onwards with much improved Saturn compatibility, and two WIP derivatives of the old [[Yabause]] base called Kronos and [[Yaba Sanshiro]]. SSF is superior to [[Yabause]] and was initially superior to [[Mednafen]] with its early Saturn core versions for compatibility, but is Windows only and closed source. It no longer requires mounting ISO files in a virtual drive to run them (see below). The source code was uploaded to GitHub just once in late January 2021, and a couple release packs with various builds were uploaded there, which added confusion to the emulator's development. There has been no more commits since then. Moreover, a large number of Saturn games require manual and pernickety editing in the emulator's configuration options to run properly, which furthermore prevents SSF from being recommended for most users, bar for the most devout followers.
The author Shima was, for a time, probably the longest-time active developer on any emulator from the emulator's public launch (Labelled 'SSF 001') in 1999 till 20 years later in late November 2019. It is unknown when the first ever version was released publicly, however, the next version of 'SSF 002' was released on 5th December, 1999.<ref name="20Years_reddit">{{cite web|url=https://www.reddit.com/r/emulation/comments/e3u9wz/ssf_saturn_emulator_has_been_actively_developed/ |title=Thread: 'SSF (Saturn emulator) has been actively developed by the same single author for 20 years now.' |author='ZarkonD' |publisher=Reddit |date=December 30 November 2019}}</ref>
A recent major update to 0.12 improved compatibility for certain games and broke others. It added support for some of the games such as Astal (needs "Enable SH2 Cache"). Keep both versions, pre- and post-0.12 just in case. To raise compatibility, you can try with "No Bios" enabled or disabled, and you'll want to start with the MaxCompatibility (slow) option, then try with the faster options (that do not always work).
* [https://segaretro.org/SSF See the external links in this Sega Retro page for guides and compatibility databases].
* An user called 'FreeckyCake' has produced an useful, detailed overview and guide to setting up SSF and uploaded it to a website in early December 2021. It also contains 15 table of content items and small information on decent alternatives such as Mednafen and [[RetroArch]]'s cores of Beetle Saturn and Kronos, although the user probably didn't try Mednafen with a GUI frontend, which marred his experience somewhat.<ref name="FC-Guide_reddit">{{cite web|url=https://www.reddit.com/r/EmulationOnPC/comments/r80f95/ssf_emulator_guide_for_beginners_saturn_emulator |title=SSF Emulator Guide For Beginners (Saturn Emulator) |author='FreeckyCake' |publisher=Reddit |date=3 Dec 2021}}</ref><ref name="FC-Guide_AoG">{{cite web|url=https://altarofgaming.com/how-to-play-sega-saturn-games-on-windows-pc/ |title=How to Play Sega Saturn Games on Your Windows PC |author='FreeckyCake' |publisher=Altar of Gaming |date=3 Dec 2021}}</ref>
* The website FantasyAnime, which is well known for hosting fan-translation patches for many SNES RPGs among others has detailed guides for many advanced emulators of old consoles before 2000 and 2010. They have a much more detailed guide than FreeckyCake's guide above to setting up and running SSF, which was last updated on March 2022.<ref name="FA-Tutorial>{{cite web|url=https://fantasyanime.com/emuhelp/ssf |title=SSF Tutorial |publisher=FantasyAnime |date=31 March 2022}}</ref>
