Sega Saturn Region Free BIOS

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Thank you bud for shooting me a PM .

From my experience, the bios chip in a VA0 motherboard comes socketed (My personal Saturn), but the 2 other VA0.8 Saturn motherboard's i have come across were not socketed (Now they are).

So over all i'm guessing this

VA0 Saturns = Comes with socketed bios
VA0.8 Saturns = Bios soldered directly on the motherboard

 

Cool. I guess they stopped doing it early in the consoles life to save money as it was pretty pointless. It's going to make it really easy to replace though.

 

Here is some info for anybody interested in looking to get the right bios for their Saturn without opening up your Saturn. For model 1 Saturn's, you can identify which type you need just by looking at the power port (See pic below). For Model 2's they are all SMD.

Early Model 1 Saturns (DIP Bios) Vs. Later Model 1 Saturns (SMD Bios)

 

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On the website it offers mmonkey download, bios euro region free, us, and saturn v jap. it works?

www.mmmonkey.co.uk/?wpdmact=process&did=MTcuaG90bGluaw ==

 

They have been posted in this thread, along with others too.

 

it is ok and all works?

 

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Pretty sure I posted an automated patcher that works on all saturn bioses. So the list is any saturn bios thats available.

Here is the link for that again though.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/28488139/sega.saturn.region.free.bios.patcher.1.0-patch.exe

 

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Correct, just like d4s's original patches.

 

thank you

 

Trivial to patch the BIOS yourself with a hex editor if you don't like the idea of an executable doing the work for you.

 

after you apply patch, there needs to swap bytes before the programmed?

 

Yes

 

Hey guys, I am a brand new user and I signed up because I have a question about BIOS modding on the Saturn. I recently picked up a model 2 NTSC-U Saturn, and I was originally just going to use an action replay, but since I am planning to install a mod chip for CD-R backups anyway, I figure I might as well go all the way and make a true region-free Saturn that can also play backups.

My dilemma is this: I really, REALLY don't want to remove the original BIOS chip. My ideal would be to piggyback the region free chip top of the stock one, and have a discretely mounted switch for changing between them, like the Dreamcast BIOS mod. For one, I don't like that screechy Japanese bootup jingle, and want the ability to go back to the more pleasant American one-- secondly, in the event that the flash chip ever goes bad the future, it would be far easier to safely remove if it is NOT soldered directly to the motherboard. I do not want to risk lifting/stripping any pads. I would vastly prefer to able to reverse the mod if ever necessary, and at very least be to easily switch between the US and region free BIOS.

 

If you don't want to remove the BIOS chip and don't like the Japanese BIOS, why are you considering doing a BIOS swap? Just install region switches as per the mods back in the days when the Saturn was still on shelves.

 

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Funny I find the export Saturn bios EXTREMELY ANNOYING. lol

That's the main reason why I keep a early Gray VA0 saturn as my personal Saturn unit ... lol