N64 and Sega Saturn mods (August 23)

Installing N64 RGB mod board and various mods for Sega Saturn console. Commission work blog post.

This post was for August this year. Again another backdated update.

So this time a customer sent me an PAL N64 and Sega Saturn for mod installs. Forstly the N64 needed a RGB board installing.

All went well and soon the picture was much improved. These boards have a deblur feature accessible by a control pad button combination. It really makes some games look better even on real CRT TV’s. It would look good upscaled too.

The Saturn was a multi mod request. The request was for a region free bios, FRAM save ram mod, and a switchless 50/60hz selection mod.

I started by removing the original bios and save ram chips. Hot air works well on this revision board (VA9) as the chips are not held in place with epoxy. The new bios eproms are slightly larger in diameter then the original chips so the legs need to pushed together slightly. Plenty of guides on installing these chips so no need to cover then in detail here. Same for the FRAM chip. I’ve done these mods more times than I can remember.

With these mods installed I proceeded to install the switchless 50/60hz mod. This can be tricky as it involves listing a pin on the video IC. All went well and soon I was able to play Japanese games in 60Hz.

I also tried to install a Phantom CDR modchip, but I just could not get the drive to read the recordable CD’s correctly. I decided to not provide this mod this time as it might risk damaging the drive. I’s a much better idea to get an ODE, if you don’t use original games.

Returned to the customer.