Convert PAL NES to NTSC NES

No, I just soldered it back together again and the console runs fine

 

I've had the same Aoyue station and the NES ground pins can be a pain to desolder; I've found the best way to do it is just attempt to reflow them a couple of times and they'll normally come free, although I've also had a few damaged pads. Famicoms are a lot more forgiving.

 

look at super mario world, its been modified for its pal resolution

 

thanks for this thread!
Was lucky enough to get 3 "dead" NES machines this week + actually still have two dead units lying in the "must check one day pile".. ordered mentioned parts and look forward to this project!
Tim

 

Were did you find the parts? I seem unable to find them

 

I finally got round to replacing the PAL CPU/PPU with the clone UA6527/8 chips. Was unimpressed with the results. Ended up with corrupted sprites here and there, and some funky colours (notably on the status bar in Mario 3) and of course the messed up audio. I've sourced some original NTSC chips so hopefully I'll get everything sorted soon.

 

That sucks... I take it you actually replaced the crystal as well?

 

yeah of course, from what I've gathered though, the clone PPU doesn't seem to work well with the NESRGB, so maybe thats why I'm having problems

 

I ordered 5 each from "Chuangyi Tengxiang Sales Center" on Aliexpress..
but.. oh dear.. the seller has put the items on "shipment ready for dispatch" ...buuut.. marked the items "UA6528 DIP40 1PCS" and "UA6527 DIP40 1PCS" now as no longer available for more orders on Aliexpress.
That is never a good sign

Perhaps a silly question, but are the NTSC variants found in the Japanese Famicom too?

 

they are indeed. famicoms are a great way to obtain ntsc cpu/ppu and xtal tbh. dead units sell on ebay for cheap most of the time.

 

great, that's what I was thinking about.. shipping sadly kills the fun a bit, but it's a fairly priced alternative

 

ordered a very yellowed and dead famicom.. let's see what arrives first, controllers have some issues too, will be interesting to see if I can refurbish them using parts of a clone controller if needed (although I'm guessing some graphite will do magic)

 

Games that run slowly in 50Hz regions are more the exception than the rule in my experimentation. Especially from the 16-bit era onwards.

Most games are either speed-corrected in their local release, or use H-sync rather than V-sync for timing. The difference being 0.1% versus nearly 20%.

 

I don’t think I understand what you mean by the last part.

Take Sonic 1 on the Mega Drive. It runs slower in 50Hz and as far as I understand it would be impossible to match the speed of 60Hz as you can only move each asset a certain number of pixels each frame for a fluid animation.
What I mean here is that at full running speed the background might scroll by 2 pixels each frame (just an example, probably not the case). If you would match this speed in 50Hz you would have to increase this number by 17% which doesn’t result in an even number and you would get crazy stutter. Which is why it was much easier to just run the game at a slower speed.

At least that’s how I understand it, but please correct me if I’m wrong

 

I did say "most" Sonic 1 is the exception that proves the rule. It runs slowly on 50Hz systems irrespective of the cartridge's region.

Some MD games have speed-corrected local versions, such as Sonic 3, which will run too fast if you put a PAL cartridge in a 60Hz system (though it's region-locked, so you have to boot at 50Hz then toggle afterwards). Other MD games like Desert Strike run at the same speed regardless of 50/60Hz. Every SNES game I've tested runs correctly irrespective of 50/60Hz too.

It all depends on what interrupt the programmer uses to time their logic. As I said, horizontal refresh is nearly the same between regions, so if you do your game logic between scan lines rather than between frames, the outcome will be practically identical.

I don't claim to know the programming voodoo behind it, but it's definitely there.

 

..so a busted up famicom arrived today (ebay) .. and the bag of crystals..

patiently twisting thumbs for the rest

 

I got a couple of cool guys from a Facebook group sending me an NTSC CPU/PPU, so I should be able to fully convert my NES to NTSC

 

In case anyone is interested, since my little adventure failed miserably I have the CPU, PPU and crystals from aliexpress spare. I'm located in the Netherlands.

 

oh noes.. what went wrong Speedfreak?
I've just received the chips from aliexpress.. no P versions, so that's a good start..
sadly no time next 2 weeks to tinker as leaving for vacation in DK/SE on Friday, but i'll get back when testing

 

They don't work very well at all with the NESRGB, so if you don't plan to use the NESRGB, you might have better results.