If you are PAL gamer, you may know how we were treated. A lot of games weren't edited for the European/Australian market, due to the developers being lazy (?) or not being able to edit the game till the release date (which is sometimes not understandable). So many games are running slower, games for different TV-norms with no exception, which is kinda bad (in most cases). So I thought a frequency voltage converter might fix that problem by overclocking the NES.
But I'm worried:
What if the change from one voltage/frequency to another one may be a brilliant step to brake the NES? As far as I know, the American and European NES systems are nearly the same (besides the main processor), using 9V AC. PAL NES use 1,3A and 50Hz. I guess the American NES uses as much current as the PAL NES.
So what you think?
You can't just overclock the NES that way. The circuitry in the NES does absolutely nothing with the voltage or frequency of the mains current, other than rectifying it into DC. Instead, a crystal oscillator feeds the PPU, and then the PPU divides that down several times to get the 60.1 Hz (NTSC) or 50.0 Hz (PAL) vertical frequency that the game expects.
- The crystal oscillator is 6 times the color subcarrier frequency: 3.5795455 MHz * 6 (NTSC) or 4.43361875 MHz * 6 (PAL)
- The PPU divides the crystal frequency by 4 (NTSC) or 5 (PAL) to get the pixel frequency, which is close to 5.3 MHz on NTSC and PAL
- The PPU divides the pixel frequency by 341 to get the horizontal sync frequency, which is close to 15.7 kHz on NTSC and PAL
- The PPU divides the horizontal sync frequency by 262 (NTSC) or 312 (PAL) to get the vertical frequency (60.1 Hz on NTSC, 50.0 Hz on PAL)
It's like multiplier-locked PC CPUs: you can't change the PPU's vertical divider. And if you try overclocking the crystal, the frequency of the color subcarrier and horizontal sync signals will go up to where the TV can't find them.
tepples wrote:
You can't just overclock the NES that way. The circuitry in the NES does absolutely nothing with the voltage or frequency of the mains current, other than rectifying it into DC. Instead, a crystal oscillator feeds the PPU, and then the PPU divides that down several times to get the 60.1 Hz (NTSC) or 50.0 Hz (PAL) vertical frequency that the game expects.
- The crystal oscillator is 6 times the color subcarrier frequency: 3.5795455 MHz * 6 (NTSC) or 4.43361875 MHz * 6 (PAL)
- The PPU divides the crystal frequency by 4 (NTSC) or 5 (PAL) to get the pixel frequency, which is close to 5.3 MHz on NTSC and PAL
- The PPU divides the pixel frequency by 341 to get the horizontal sync frequency, which is close to 15.7 kHz on NTSC and PAL
- The PPU divides the horizontal sync frequency by 262 (NTSC) or 312 (PAL) to get the vertical frequency (60.1 Hz on NTSC, 50.0 Hz on PAL)
It's like multiplier-locked PC CPUs: you can't change the PPU's vertical divider. And if you try overclocking the crystal, the frequency of the color subcarrier and horizontal sync signals will go up to where the TV can't find them.
Hm... that shatters my hope.
So I guess the best solution would be using a NTSC NES with an adaptor.
You'd be surprised how many pal games WERE optimized (to some degree) Super mario plays like mario's on speed! You dont need an adaptor.....just cut pin 4 on the lockout.
Some PAL carts will not work on an NTSC system, even a front-loader with pin 4 lifted or a top-loader. These are designed for the longer vertical blanking period of the PAL NES (70 lines, not 20 lines) and the 6.25% shorter scanline time (106.56 cycles, not 113.67). But they run at normal speed on a PAL NES anyway.
Jeroen wrote:
You'd be surprised how many pal games WERE optimized (to some degree) Super mario plays like mario's on speed! You dont need an adaptor.....just cut pin 4 on the lockout.
Just to clear a few things. I'm a PAL user and I'm using a PAL system, and yes I have already modified my NES by breaking off the pin on the lockout chip, due to the reason I want to play some NTSC games too. But that's not the point of this thread. I was asking how to make the PAL games run faster on a PAL system.
I'm aware that some PAL games won't work properly or at all on a NTSC system. Don't know where I found the page anymore.
Same happens vica versa. German site.
No, you can't throw a PAL NES PPU into PAL60 mode. It works on newer consoles such as the GameCube (and in fact some games require PAL60) but not on the NES.
Eightbit Allstar wrote:
Jeroen wrote:
You'd be surprised how many pal games WERE optimized (to some degree) Super mario plays like mario's on speed! You dont need an adaptor.....just cut pin 4 on the lockout.
Just to clear a few things. I'm a PAL user and I'm using a PAL system, and yes I have already modified my NES by breaking off the pin on the lockout chip, due to the reason I want to play some NTSC games too. But that's not the point of this thread. I was asking how to make the PAL games run faster on a PAL system.
I'm aware that some PAL games won't work properly or at all on a NTSC system. Don't know where I found the page anymore.
Same happens vica versa. German site.
I wasnt trying to say that. simply trying to say that most pal games WERE optimized and dont need to run faster.
Jeroen wrote:
I wasnt trying to say that. simply trying to say that most pal games WERE optimized and dont need to run faster.
Can you give some examples, other than (the second release of) Super Mario Bros. and SMB 3?
While the music of many PAL NES games was adjusted for the lower frame rate, as far as I know, hardly any games had their actual gameplay sped up. I'd like to be proved wrong though...
-- M
mark_k wrote:
Jeroen wrote:
most pal games WERE optimized and dont need to run faster.
Can you give some examples, other than (the second release of) Super Mario Bros. and SMB 3?
It might not count because it's after the NES's commercial era, but the PAL build of the puzzle game
LJ65 is designed to run 20 percent faster than the NTSC build.
mark_k wrote:
Jeroen wrote:
I wasnt trying to say that. simply trying to say that most pal games WERE optimized and dont need to run faster.
Can you give some examples, other than (the second release of) Super Mario Bros. and SMB 3?
While the music of many PAL NES games was adjusted for the lower frame rate, as far as I know, hardly any games had their actual gameplay sped up. I'd like to be proved wrong though...
-- M
I happen to know startropics was and iirc so was zelda.
Shadow of the ninja or blue shadow as it was called here in europe was optimized for PAL. More details here:
http://tasvideos.org/1653S.html
I believe most NES PAL games were thankfully optimized. SNES PAL gamers weren't as lucky though were most games seems unoptimized.
Jeroen wrote:
I happen to know startropics was and iirc so was zelda.
I'd be surprised if Zelda was, I remember a while back the phrase "PAL Zelda" became a big joke, right up there with "can't hack Metroid".
Let me pop it into my ntsc av famicom
Edit: well I dont remember the ntsc version running like link was on speeed..............so there IS a pal zelda
Sure, I assume most of the games had to be changed in order to run them properly. My only gripes were slower gameplay and music which could kill the enthusiasm while playing, but yes some of those games were still great, maybe even prefered.
@ Kinopio: I own Blue Shadow. And I read this article one time. Great run btw.
