Would it be possible to use a NTSC board (with a D411) as a donor for a PAL game, if I just replaced the CIC chip with one from a PAL board (D413)? Or would this bring any other problems?
idano wrote:
Would it be possible to use a NTSC board (with a D411) as a donor for a PAL game, if I just replaced the CIC chip with one from a PAL board (D413)? Or would this bring any other problems?
The cartridges are the same. The CIC is the only difference as far as regions go. Swapping the CIC should make it work on a PAL machine without any real issues.... some games might not work right because of the difference in the colsoles.. but the CIC is just a handshake function between the CIC in the console and the CIC in the cartridge.
Changing the CIC will allow your console to run the game program, but whether the game will work without glitches will depend on the game itself. *All* games will run at 83% of the speed they would in NTSC, since NTSC consoles run at 60fps while PAL consoles run at 50fps. Aside from that, some games rely on precise timing for raster effects such as status bars, pseudo-3D roads, and so on. These will definitely look wrong, because PAL timing is completely different.
"D" CICs are for Super NES games. These don't depend on CPU timing quite as much as they do on NES for three reasons: HDMA, vtime interrupts (a true scanline counter, unlike the CPU counters of VRC and FME), and the CPU not running 6% slower relative to the PPU.
tepples wrote:
"D" CICs are for Super NES games.
Oh, I see. Yeah, SNES games are much less sensitive to timing than NES games, but they're also more rigid when it comes to region protection, aren't they?
Many are easily region patchable unless they're PAL and actually use all the vblank time.
OP is using it as a PAL donor board, I would presume this means they have a PAL ROM to put in the board.
Update:
Worked fined. Used a Japanese board as donor and replaced the CIC chip and maskrom with PAL ones..