Pal N64 Woes

Why PAL? Very few games were "PAL Optimised" so are the usual black border/17% slower. I'd get a 1st Gen USA model and RGB mod that...

 

No harm in having both. Also, PAL games can be picked up really cheap in Europe.

That's 17% more thinking/reaction time :nod:

 

Didnt the N64 security chip just get reversed?

If so, maybe suitable for a N64 version of the superCIC? therefore region mod the n64 and have best of both.

 

The N64 can be region modded, but you need to use the 2 PIF chips from either region, along with a switching circuit.

There is a schematic out there, but it's not accurate. I started to do an auto-switching region mod a while back:





Another one of my unfinished bright ideas....

 

I already had intended to do exactly what you have posted.

However if the chip is reversed (or at least, enough to work) then hopefully someone will do the work and make a PIC replacement.

 

Fingers crossed they get the PIF reversed to remove the region lockout.

That mod was a royal pain in the ass, a region free chip would save so much work.
And look a whole lot tidier

 

is this the schematic you talking about?
->

Did you do a schematic of your Mod? Your Mod seems a lot of work, but it is probably the most developed design I've ever seen before. let us improve it! :thumbsup:

 

That's the one I started with, but found that the controllers behaved strangely afterwards.

d4s who created it, later advised not to follow the schematic (link).

It's worth reading that whole thread, it was around the time I was doing that particular mod. I had a clear idea of how to auto-detect the region to a certain degree, but got stumped when it came to building a circuit to do the switching.

Unfortunately, I didn't complete the mod, and didn't draw up any schematic, and that N64 has since went AWOL. I'm sure all I did was switch the controller lines on the PIF, as well as those that d4s suggested.

 

Ok, but you can confirm, that the circuit above work?

My first own idea for the automatic switch is to detect the case.
PAL and NTSC cases are different.

PAL has the same shape like the JPN-Case.
For detecting JPN-Cases i dont have an idea, yet.





But the most important thing for me is to know that this schematic work. (out of my last post)
(I know that there are some thing to note about the frequency ect.!)

 

No it doesnt work. It doesnt switch enough of the lines and you get weird pad issues (as stated above).

There is another schematic knocking around the internet that switches more of the pins that is supposed to work

 

If I remember correctly, when a cart from the wrong region is inserted, there are no sync pulses on the composite video output. My idea was to use this to trigger the region switching.

I'm sure that it wouldn't be foolproof. Bad contact from a dirty cart from the correct region would cause it to switch over to the wrong region.

The d4s schematic is fine as a starting point, but you'd need to expand it to switch the controller data pins also.

 

So maybe that should work.

 

I found new informations for PIF-Switching

Link zur Quelle