Sega Saturn 50/60Hz Switch

Myrddin

A vital mod this, for any self respecting Sega Saturn owner. As most will know, most previous generations of EU consoles were restricted to 50Hz. This meant 15/20% slower gameplay & huge black borders across the top & bottom of the screen.

When you allow a console to run at 60Hz, as NTSC ones do natively, you get full screen full speed gameplay - as it should be!

The Sega Saturn (Model 2)



Under the cover, psu on the left, cd rom unit on top, motherboard underneath.



As I mentioned recently with the Dreamcast mods, some consoles have interchangeable PSU's. The Saturn is another regularly imported console where people use stepdown/invertors etc. If you have a broken PAL model, or pick up a cheap one, you can swap out the PSU's also, the principal is exactly the same as the DC that I documented doing





Ok, stripped down to the motherboard now...



We locate the graphics chip, & lift pin 79 from the motherboard. It's more or less exactly like doing the Megadrive 2 mod of the same type. Once lifted, its a good idea to put some tape underneath it as we will be soldering a wire to it.





Ok the basic premise of the mod is that we feed either ground or 5v to the lifted pin, to change between 50/60Hz accordingly. We we get our required feeds from the psu connector, pin 1 is ground, pin 4 is 5v



To change between modes, an SPDT switch is perfect. Put 5v & ground on either outer pin, & wire the center pin to the lifted pin 79 as seen above. I used the battery cover as the place to fit the switch, this way I'm keeping the console untouched aesthetically.





Ground & 5v wired in...



Wire soldered to the lifted pin 79



In place...

Myrddin

50Hz



60Hz (because this is a PAL 50Hz game, it gets stretched off the screen, but you get the idea by looking at the bullet indicator position



The difference in speed & sound is very audible. It's a very recommended mod

Reamer Fanny

You do love your retro EN

Myrddin

justryan wrote: »

You do love your retro EN

Give me retro consoles any day of the week, I've done jtagging, CFW & all the modern stuff too but I never bother actually playing with any of it

Modern gaming for the most part is sh1te & generic at this point

Doge

So it's safe to say we Europeans scored higher in games that required fast reflexes?

Myrddin

waveform wrote: »

So it's safe to say we Europeans scored higher in games that required fast reflexes?

No, we just think we're better gamers than in fact we are

Reamer Fanny

EnterNow wrote: »

justryan wrote: »

You do love your retro EN

Give me retro consoles any day of the week, I've done jtagging, CFW & all the modern stuff too but I never bother actually playing with any of it

Modern gaming for the most part is sh1te & generic at this point

I'd take HD visuals over chunky graphics any day of the week, but it's nice to reminisce

Myrddin

justryan wrote: »

I'd take HD visuals over chunky graphics any day of the week, but it's nice to reminisce

If it looks like candy but tastes like sh1te then thats a thing of preference

Gameplay however, is not a modern thing, & in actual fact, is lost a lot on modern consoles.