nesdev.org

Hi,

I have to apologize for a newbie question, but I'd like to ask how does putting the NTSC cart into PAL console manifest?
The reason I ask this is that I only recently got a (PAL) SNES, and besides a few PAL games I have one game which doesn't run. SNES just displays green screen, as if no game is inserted. The cart in question has no plastic case, it's just the board, and while it fits perfectly in a slot, it doesn't run. It doesn't constantly reset (like the NES did), it just stays green.
So, I'm trying to figure if the cart is broken, or my PAL lockout chip just blocks the (possibly) NTSC cart.

Thanks in advance, and sorry if this post is being offtopic.

If you can open a PAL cartridge you could compare the lockout chip on the game in question with a known PAL game. On the chip itself it should have some words printed on it and they should be the same on PAL games and different on an NTSC game.

Also I believe that a solid green screen doing nothing sounds like maybe the connection between the cartridge and system is dirty or perhaps you plugged the cartridge in backwards. If it was the lockout chip then the system would either keep resetting or stay in a reset state, I'm not sure exactly. If you were really curious you could try very carefully covering the lockout chip's clocking signal or something like that to disrupt it and see what happens. You could test it with a PAL cart or NTSC or just turn on the system with no game inserted. That will show you what the system does with no lockout chip and likely the same thing as if you had the incorrect lockout chip.

By the way I don't see this as being off topic at all. You're asking about the SNES, in the SNES forum. It doesn't really have to be development related.

Thanks for the reply. CIC on both PAL Street Fighter 2 Turbo and Super Mario World says D413A, while the unknown's game CIC is D411A.

Anyways, according to this site it's one of the following:
-Cybernator
-Magical Quest Starring Mickey Mouse, The
-Street Fighter II

I still don't know if it's carts fault, or the region lock.
I tried holding reset with the working Mario World inside, and the screen kept being green, so I can't tell if isn't running or is being constantly reseted.

Actually, there's one more clue - I took out Super Mario World from it's case and put inside the unknown game instead. It fitted perfectly, yet still didn't work.

I will probably just try disabling the lockout chip on the console, and see if that fixes the problem.

In the meantime, here the pic of the board:


EDIT: BTW, the green color was coming from the RF cable. When I tried the AV connector (recycled from my N64) it was replaced by blue screen (default on my TV for "no input signal").

EDIT2: OK, apparently I found my answer. According to this:

(...) D411A is the USA NTSC variant

So there it is . Thanks for the help. I'll let you know how it works with the CIC disabled.

Wow, those tiny surface mounted pins were hard as hell to desolder. Thankfully I'm done, and there's no harm done. Actually it works great. Both the NTSC/PAL switch, and the CIC toggle.

The game in question was Super Star Wars, NTSC of course. Thank you MottZilla your help and input, it motivated me work on.

Cheers

Indeed it's no fun soldering or desoldering really small parts. But atleast now you shouldn't have problems with regional lockouts anymore.

MottZilla wrote:Indeed it's no fun soldering or desoldering really small parts. But atleast now you shouldn't have problems with regional lockouts anymore.

Would I be able to do similar with a smurfs PAL cart to run on my NTSC (locked removed) SNES console? I removed the lockout chip on the snes and ran a wire from U8 to u10 which makes it run most pal games but smurfs only lets me choose the language for the game then as it goes to the next screen it stops and says "only for use on PAL systems" or something like that.

There are two lockouts: the CIC lockout and the PPU lockout. Like the NES, the Super NES has different PPUs in different revisions: one that generates 262 lines with NTSC color and one that generates 312 lines with PAL color. The game probably detects your PAL PPU.

LJ65 for NES checks the PPU lockout to make sure players aren't cheating by using the NTSC cart on a PAL system and making the game run slower to score higher.

For some reason I thought whatever mod was done on PAL systems changed that as well but I suppose not. Being in the US I've never had to worry about PAL and NTSC. But it sounds like really the best way for you to play NTSC games is to buy a separate NTSC system or else you'll have to add ontop of what you are already doing, a Game Genie or similar device to use codes to allow those types of checks to pass. One Game Genie code line should allow you to bypass those types of messages. But it may not work if you try to play special chip games that have lockouts.

tepples wrote:There are two lockouts: the CIC lockout and the PPU lockout. Like the NES, the Super NES has different PPUs in different revisions: one that generates 262 lines with NTSC color and one that generates 312 lines with PAL color. The game probably detects your PAL PPU.

I think the 50/60Hz switch mod would be able to get around this problem as when I boot say PAL Super Metroid on my PAL SNES with the switch set to 60Hz, I get the the protection screen. Boot in 50Hz and then switch to 60Hz and it's fine. Some games however continually check the refresh rate throughout the game (Super Street Fighter 2 comes to mind).

But the again, I wouldn't be surprised if it dosent work on a NTSC SNES tho... NTSC hardware nearly always seems to be crippled this way...

Hojo_Norem wrote:Some games however continually check the refresh rate throughout the game (Super Street Fighter 2 comes to mind).

But then the Street Fighter II game engines extend vblank to fit bigger copies to VRAM. I can see the letterboxing even on an NTSC Super NES and a crappy TV. Such games would have more reason to crash if the vblank isn't the expected length.

tepples wrote:But then the Street Fighter II game engines extend vblank to fit bigger copies to VRAM. I can see the letterboxing even on an NTSC Super NES and a crappy TV. Such games would have more reason to crash if the vblank isn't the expected length.

It dosen't crash, it give you the "region lockout" message. Besides, I have been able to play PAL SFII and SFIIT at 60Hz with no crashing.

Here are the instructions to make both CIC enable/disable switch, and PAL/NTSC switch. http://mmmonkey.co.uk/console/nintendo/ ... ches-1.htm

Basically it's just grounding some pins on CIC and both PPUs.

Most NTSC games will work on PAL SNES as long as PPUs work in NTSC mode.

shiny wrote:Here are the instructions to make both CIC enable/disable switch, and PAL/NTSC switch. http://mmmonkey.co.uk/console/nintendo/ ... ches-1.htm

Basically it's just grounding some pins on CIC and both PPUs.

Most NTSC games will work on PAL SNES as long as PPUs work in NTSC mode.

This mod makes pretty much all games work on PAL or NTSC systems. I just did the mod and now I think I truely have a universal SNES Thanks for the link

Hey,

Apparently, I've got NTSC Donkey Kong Country, which does not run with either CIC disabled nor enabled (on PAL SNES). Is that game known to have some additional region checks, or could it be that the cart is borked? The guy I've got it from claims it works with the universal adapter.

Thanks

My PAL DKC works without the universal adapter only on my PAL SNES, and gives me an error message if I make it trough the adapter. The game somehow detect the adapter, I don't know how.