Saturn Bios mod

Discussion in 'Modding and Hacking - Consoles and Electronics' started by Vimtoman, Nov 23, 2012.

  1. l_oliveira

    l_oliveira Officer at Arms

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    Well folks. Saturn Hardware had several BIOS revisions. You guys have only one hacked BIOS which only works properly for a specific SET out of all motherboards that exist.

    I know that the EARLY boards (DIP) BIOS don't work correctly with newer BIOSes for once.

    One of the things that break is the MPEG card support.
     
    Last edited: Nov 25, 2012
  2. Bad_Ad84

    Bad_Ad84 The Tick

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    No, we have all the bioses. The region free patch is identical across them all. Simple pattern match and replace = patch any saturn bios.
     
    Last edited: Nov 25, 2012
  3. l_oliveira

    l_oliveira Officer at Arms

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    Still the recommendation stays. Use the SAME bios (patched) the unit came with.
     
  4. Druidic teacher

    Druidic teacher Officer at Arms

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  5. l_oliveira

    l_oliveira Officer at Arms

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    By broken MPEG card support I meant the Saturn completely freezes when you try to use it, be it a game which supports it (Wangnan Dead Heat for example) or try to watch a VCD.

    In my case it's a early MB with a newer BIOS. BIOS is not modded. Hi-saturn bios (newer type).
     
  6. Druidic teacher

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  7. l_oliveira

    l_oliveira Officer at Arms

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    I no longer have access to the ROM chip. The actual board is a US VA 0.5...

    I believe the BIOS is the second type because it was a SOP package and the system was a 21 pin drive with Hitachi MCU (the so called 64 pin I think).
     
  8. Druidic teacher

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    Last edited: Jun 22, 2017
  9. l_oliveira

    l_oliveira Officer at Arms

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    I burned Hi Saturn bions on a 27C160 EPROM and put it on a VA0.5 mobo. That broke movie card completely. New bios + old mobo = not working...
     
  10. Bad_Ad84

    Bad_Ad84 The Tick

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    Did you try a later bios, but not for one of the special models?

    I.e. the 1.01 bios from a regular saturn in the 0.5?

    I never mix Hi/V-Saturn bioses with "normal" saturns.
     
  11. Druidic teacher

    Druidic teacher Officer at Arms

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    Last edited: Jun 22, 2017
  12. Bad_Ad84

    Bad_Ad84 The Tick

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    If the Hi-Saturn came with a built in vcd card - stands to reason it may have been done slightly differently and why that bios doesnt work on a normal saturn +vcd card.
     
  13. l_oliveira

    l_oliveira Officer at Arms

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    It's NOT built in. It's a connected card. Same board as the JVC card but the BIOS ROM for the Hitachi card is different.

    And like I said, the Hi-Saturn I took the bios from had a newer board with a different chipset than VA 0.5...

    It was what you guys call "64 pin saturn".

    Edit: And I am using the actual Hi-Saturn card too, by the way. The Saturn broke in a unfortunate crushing accident so the board was lost but I was able to salvage the movie card.
     
    Last edited: Nov 26, 2012
  14. Druidic teacher

    Druidic teacher Officer at Arms

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    Last edited: Jun 22, 2017
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