Sega Saturn Muti-region mod. Anyone done this?

Hi Guys,

I decided to open up my Sega Saturn and see what wonderful things I could do with this baby.

The easy things are composite and S-video outputs which I plan to do once I get the region and Hz mod sorted.

I started to do the single switch region mod that is found on MMMonkey website

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

I got the board made up and double and triple checked it.

Connected it to the correct jumpers on the motherboard of my Sega but I cannot get any changes to the region setting. This is supposed to be visible under the settings menu of the Saturn.

I have used a 74LS04 inverter instead of the 7404 chip that is mentioned. The author mentions that 74LS04 will work for this.

Has anyone else done this mod and if so did you run into any problems? Do I need to perform the Hz mod also before the region changes take effect?

During the day i have been reading about what exactly the mod does and have an understanding of it and will test the voltage and continuity of each of the jumpers at each switch position.

I also purchased some 7404 inverter today so i am hoping this could be the problem.

Any advice?

OK i worked out the problem. The mod will not work unless there is a 50/60Hz switch installed also.

Now all the mods are complete. Used the back battery door cover to mount everything. Didn't take into account the motherboard at the bottom so the cover won't close properly.

Anyway it works perfect and I have S-Video out now which is what I wanted.

Look out Hollo. I can grab some of those Jap Saturn games now!

Here are some pics of the mod and it running.

http://paperfusion.com.au/jason/Saturn1.JPG

PAL Australia/Europe

http://paperfusion.com.au/jason/Saturn2.JPG

USA NTSC

http://paperfusion.com.au/jason/Saturn3.JPG

JAP NTSC

http://paperfusion.com.au/jason/Saturn4.JPG

This was a painful mod. I am a bit disappointed I didn't get a mod chip for this baby and install it while i was at it.

On that subject anyone know the best one to use and cheapest place to get one?

I've heard that this one is good, but can't personally vouch for it:

http://www.robwebb1.plus.com/saturn/saturnhard.htm (scroll down a little, it's the 4th item listed)

What do the two switches do exactly? One switches between 50Hz and 60Hz I imagine, is the other the region switch (AU, Jap, USA)? If so, could you be stupid and select 50Hz Jap? :P

How much would it cost me just for the switches, don't need the video outs as I have an RGB cable.

hi frank,

Thanks for the link. Will check it out.

The 2 switches are for 50/60hz and Jap/US and AU switch.

If the console is set to 50Hz it will always display PAL bios but the AU games will not work when in US and JAP mode.

I worked this out the hard way as I tried the Region mod first and couldn't get it to work.

A little circuit board needs to be made for this as it only uses 1 x 3 position switch.

I could do it the region and 50/60Hz for $40 if you are interested. There is a bit of work involved on this one.

I haven't fully tested it as I do not have any JAP or US games...Yet. Hollo will be sorting this out for me shortly I am sure. I am sure that it will work though.

I couldn't help myself with the AV mod as I have one set of AV leads coming out of my TV and it makes it easier to attach the consoles I want to play.

Nice job mamejay! The region mod's the only thing I haven't done to my Saturn myself - I had a group over in Sydney take care of it back in the day, before I'd even picked up a soldering iron and this kind of info was freely available! The 50/60hz switch was the first console mod I did, was totally worth it too!

Note that the 50/60hz has no bearing at all on the region protection, it's purely that cluster of jumpers that control it. Thus you can run PAL/US/JP games in 50hz or 60hz, it's up to you. This means you can play unoptimised PAL games (which were about... 90% of all PAL releases) in 60hz and correct the issues. On the handful of games that are optimised, this causes some interesting effects - VF2, VF Kids, Panzer Dragoon 1/2 and Sega Rally are amazing PAL conversions, so if you run them in 60hz, the screen will be clipped and the games run faster than the NTSC version. On some of the other releases where the screen has been optimised for full-screen but not full-speed (e.g. Fighting Vipers, Fighters Megamix, Daytona CCE), you'll fix the speed problem, but the screen will be clipped :) Mind, all the core Sega games that got a reasonable PAL conversion are cheap as from Japan, I'm sure Hollo could sort you out on those to replace any shonky PAL versions.

Edit: Oops, forgot to comment on Rob Webb's store!!! I've installed a handful of Saturn modchips over the years, Robb's are supposed to be the most resilient, though there are some Saturns that just refuse to take a chip. Can you remember if your CD-ROM controller board had a smaller 32-pin IC sitting on it, or was it the surface-mount 64-pin version? From the image it looks like you have a model 2 Saturn (round buttons), but that's no guarantee - my Saturn's a model 2 on the outside, but it still had the 64-pin IC that was a legacy from the model 1 design. Eventually managed to get a chip that worked on it, but it took a few goes before I had any success.