Import Saturn PAL games?

[WiseSalesman]

Hi, sorry if this question has been asked before, but a quick search turned up no answer.

I'm interested in modifying my US Saturn to play PAL games. I've already poked around in it once, when I put a US/JAP region switch in it, so I'm fairly comfortable with poking around and soldering in there. Can anyone tell me if this or this mod will work?

Also, are there other things I need to worry about when bringing PAL games to the US? Like refresh rate or anything? I'd appreciate any help you can give me. Thanks.

[chaoticjelly]

I dont think you should do either..

I think the first link you posted is modding a Saturn to make it play US and JAP games (no PAL there...) so thats a no-no if you want to play PAL..

The second link is for switchless for the same type of thing.. so no PAL..

If you go to mmmonkey.co.uk and under mods section Sega Saturn region switch, you could take that and ADAPT it to your US region Saturn (the jumper pads quoted on mmmonkeys site are for the UK PAL console)

The refresh rate is only and issue with PAL optimised games, i.e. the PAL version of Guardian Heroes, or the PAL version of Sonic R - both of which were optimised to the PAL 50hz speed, and will go out of sync in music at 60hz.

However you can install a 50/60hz switch in your Saturn to overcome this problem, and its pretty easy to do.

Hope this helps

[WiseSalesman]

uh, yeah! Actually, that's extremely helpful! Much more so than I expected, thanks!

Also, if you have any links to instructions for that refresh rate mod, I daresay I would appreciate them.

[chaoticjelly]

http://www.mmmonkey.co.uk/console/sega/saturn5060.htm

Should be exactly the same for US Saturn console.

[manuel]

I don't know if this is of help, but perhaps buying a PAL console might be better than modifying your NTSC system.
I play lots of Japanese games, so I often have both the European and the Japanese version of consoles at home. I think that's much better (and probably cheaper?) than modifying.
Just my 2cents.

[davidleeroth]

Actually the first two links *are* for USA/JAP/PAL mod. If you take a look at the schematic in the first link, you'll notice that JP12/JP13 controls 50/60Hz, JP6/JP7 and JP10/JP11 the region lockout and JP8/JP9 can be omitted 'cause it's the same (Ground) for USA/JAP/PAL. The monkeyman mods are the same, only divided in two different parts.

I personally prefer to fiddle with the JP12/13 instead of the pin on the 315-5964 chip. If you break that pin (been there, done that), that's when things really get messy.

[chaoticjelly]

The second Saturn I modified I broke the graphics chip leg..

Wasn't TOO messy.. I got my trusty dremel, used a small drill bit and drilled through the plastic casing of the graphics chip until I got to the trace from the leg.

Then I soldered one strand onto that trace and it worked perfect