Sega Megadrive 1 Region & Display Mod

Myrddin · 02-03-2011 8:36pm #1

I know I've done this before, but the pics were just hotlinks & not embedded, not to mention the badly soldered wires etc. So this is the revisited Megadrive 1 mod, & my final time to document the damn mod

Ok, grab yourself an MD1. This one belongs to Ciderman, & is a PAL Asian model.

Take the lid off, & you'll see the control jumpers on the right hand side.

The control jumpers. On a PAL system, JP2 & JP3 are connected to the relevent point as you can see. Wee need to cut this connection, & install a switch to allow us to choose the region etc.

Pew Pew

I've applied solder to the needed points here, & it's ready to attatch the wires onto.

Ok, these are the points needed for the region mod. By either connecting the common point to either 5v or ground, will determine if the console is PAL or NTSC. The blue wire is the common point, and as such goes to the middle terminal of a switch. Then on either side, go the white & green wires (being ground & 5v).

And here's the switch, the common point (blue wire) goes to the middle, & we've a choice of 5v & ground on either side (PAL or NTSC).

The routing I chose for the wiring. I brought the switches to the rear of the console to preserve the looks of it, careful to make sure they didn't interfere with the cart slot etc.

The display mod is done in the exact same fashion, using jp3's common point. Blue wire for this, & brown/white for ground/5v.

Follow the same routing, & secure wires together.

Tighten the switches & put the console back together.

50Hz mode, 10% slower game play & smaller viewable screen. Us Europeans tend to get shafted with this kinda thing!

60Hz mode, full screen, full speed gameplay. Unfortunately as I'm using an RF cable to test this, it's in black & white (I also had to change my tv's colour system to get the image to remain still). This isn't a concern when using Scart though, it will display perfectly. But the difference even in the music is immediately audible.

And there you have it, a universal Megadrive for the price of two switches, a bit of wire & a drop of solder.

CiDeRmAn · 02-03-2011 9:32pm

Thank you very much, can't wait to get my mitts on it.
Does this mean I get to play Thunderforce IV on it?
Oh, and as I have an Asian MD, I sold my boring PAL one for €30 with Sonic to a work colleague who saw me test the Asian machine after buying it and wanted one for herself! So, not too shabby!

Myrddin · 02-03-2011 9:37pm

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

Thank you very much, can't wait to get my mitts on it.
Does this mean I get to play Thunderforce IV on it?
Oh, and as I have an Asian MD, I sold my boring PAL one for €30 with Sonic to a work colleague who saw me test the Asian machine after buying it and wanted one for herself! So, not too shabby!

It should play anything that fits in the slot man

Is Thunderforce IV normally PAL locked? Well just boot it in NTSC mode now & leave it be, or once it's booted, you can revert back to PAL should you feel the need. Same goes for the display frequency, certain games are locked to 50Hz, boot them in 50Hz & once the game is at the title screen, flick to 60Hz goodness (with the exception of a few 50Hz locked games, Sonic 3 etc, they NEED to stay at 50Hz for timing reasons).

Reamer Fanny · 02-03-2011 10:43pm

Where do you get these retro consoles?

Myrddin · 02-03-2011 10:45pm

justryan wrote: »

Where do you get these retro consoles?

This was Ciderman's, but they're all readily available from Adverts/Ebay etc. Megadrives aren't expensive by any stretch of the imagination. The ones I work on and show here are normally either my own, or the lads from the Arcade & Retro forum.

Myrddin · 02-03-2011 10:50pm

I'm just glad for once to be able to show a hacked console that can't cheat at MW2. Always a good example for the 'evil hacker' brigade, nothing wrong with this mod :cool:

Reamer Fanny · 02-03-2011 10:57pm

Nice work do people still play these?

KeRbDoG · 03-03-2011 1:13am

Nicely done sir

Wonder what that DB9 connector is for on the rear of the 'control deck' ?

Myrddin · 03-03-2011 9:36am

justryan wrote: »

Nice work do people still play these?

Are you kidding? I'll take a Megadrive over a PS3 any day of the week. There's a thriving retro community for all of this stuff.

KeRbDoG wrote: »

Nicely done sir

Wonder what that DB9 connector is for on the rear of the 'control deck' ?

Why thank you

It's on early Model 1 MD's, and was actually used for the modem that was available at the time

roast · 04-03-2011 1:35am

Can the mods be switched while the system is running?

Myrddin · 04-03-2011 10:01am

roast wrote: »

Can the mods be switched while the system is running?

Yes because the switches I used are 'break-before-make', meaning only one cirecuit can be on at any time. With certain games you need to boot them in 50Hz (if they're locked to 50Hz) to allow the cart to pass authentication, then you can switch to 60Hz for full screen etc.

roast · 04-03-2011 10:22am

Thought so. Thats a smashing little mod.

I might do one of those while I'm repairing my Mega Drive II as well.

Ruu_Old · 09-03-2011 7:07pm

I have one of those Japanese Megadrives in the house, brilliant! Always used to rent games from the video shop hoping I wouldn't see the red screen of death.

Myrddin · 09-03-2011 7:44pm

Ruu wrote: »

I have one of those Japanese Megadrives in the house, brilliant! Always used to rent games from the video shop hoping I wouldn't see the red screen of death.

To think of how easily it's solved these days...that screen used to strike terror in the hearts of us years ago

Doge · 07-03-2012 10:24pm

Just finished the mod myself!

I went for the single switch version which can be found in this guide...

http://mdpal60.net/wiki/megadrive/regionmod/start

Here's the writers demo video of it in action:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wNIAnmzgk8

I used one of those cables used in old PC's that carry the analog CD audio for the wiring,
and ran it under the board to keep it neat:

and the other end popping up through the mounting hole for the EXT. port connector, which isn't in my VA6 board revision:

Went a bit mad with solder on the middle point!

The black wire isn't insulated all the way as it's used as shielding, and I had no shrink wrap so I improvised with some hot glue to insulate it at the other end.

And used hotglue to glue the switch to the case also.

Myrddin · 08-03-2012 9:54am

Very nice dude. Fair play :cool:

Doge · 02-04-2012 11:36pm

There's one thing I forgot to point out with the Single Switch mod.

The one disadvantage of it, is that it doesn't change the Language in-game, it sticks to whatever was set when you turn on the console, so you can't do comparisons with it, only comparisons of the speed and size of the screen in-game.

Myrddin · 03-04-2012 9:59am

waveform wrote: »

There's one thing I forgot to point out with the Single Switch mod.

The one disadvantage of it, is that it doesn't change the Language in-game, it sticks to whatever was set when you turn on the console, so you can't do comparisons with it, only comparisons of the speed and size of the screen in-game.

That's why I prefer the switched method, there's more control given then over the switchless mods which force settings based on the game.

Sega Megadrive 1 Region & Display Mod

Comments