Hello all, I'm new to the forum, but have been customizing consoles for many years.
I recently bought a FC twin at my local classic game shop, and I love the thing, I added the lockout chip to the system to allow games like Kirby Superstar to run (I'll be happy to detail this for those interested in the specifics of this mod in the near future) I made it so that I can switch it off for pal games but the 50/60hz check is still in place on many of the pal games I have, so they refuse to run.
I'd like to know if anyone has discovered how to switch between the display modes on this unit.
I am unsure which chips are PPU1 and PPU2 since it's third party hardware, and because the chips are similar in appearance, I am wary of trying out the existing guide for a SNES 1.
I own a real PAL SNES as well, but I'd love to use the games on this space saver so I can keep it safe.
any assistance will be appreciated, Thanks!
FC twin 50/60hz mod question (+ adding a CIC chip tutorial)
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Random_Hajile1980
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FC twin 50/60hz mod question (+ adding a CIC chip tutorial)
Last edited by Random_Hajile1980 on Fri May 16, 2008 1:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Please tell me how to add the lockout chip! I've been wanting to do that since the first day I got my FC Twin. But before you tell me the mod, let's see if I'm on the right track: you take the lockout chip from a Super NES game(or console?) and solder it on the empty solder pad on the corner of the Super NES board next to controller port 2, right? What was bothering me was the way the lockout chip is supposed to be oriented.
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Random_Hajile1980
- Posts: 38
- Joined: Thu May 15, 2008 9:19 pm
adding a lockout chip
It sounds complex but actually it's pretty easy, you unsolder a cic chip from a sports game cartridge (i used Troy Aikman football) you then solder a 16 pin IC socket onto the board in the space marked D411.
you then solder a 2.2uf capacitor to the empty space in front where you just added the Socket, the area with more white is the negative lead which is marked on most capacitors with a thick white stripe.
Now you would think that you'd just plug in the chip and be finished right? Wrong! it took me about three days to figure out why when I inserted the chip into the socket the twin wouldn't boot a SNES game.
There is a pair of jumper pads, located side by side, (with the controller ports facing you) next to the edge of the board closest to the CIC chip socket that you need to change, they are located between R52 and C45 you have to use de-soldering braid to remove the Factory settings (solder blobs connecting middle pads to the pads closest to C45) and then using new solder, jumper the pads so that the center pad of each jumper touches the pad in front of it, the ones closest to R52.
I have no way of posting pictures, and it's kind of hard to explain but if you look closely you should be able to see what I'm talking about.
now you can rig it up and test it (no CIC chip first) it should still boot fine, just like before, next you have to decide if you want to be able to disable the chip to play PAL titles, If you only want US/J titles turn the board so that the front of the controller ports are facing to your left, and the D411 socket is directly in front of you, then simply insert the CIC chip (D411) into the the socket you installed earlier with the Nintendo name so you can read it (if the lettering is upside down, you have it backwards) to test for proper operation, insert a game into the system and power it up, it should boot up (even mario RPG or Kirby Superstar) then turn it on with no cart inserted, the power light should come on but the screen should act like you are holding the reset button for example, my TV screen stays blue.
If you want to disable the chip for PAL titles it's a little more work, you have to bend up pin #4 on the CIC chip (i used a second IC socket instead of bending the chip itself), on my chip it lines up with the first "N" in N-intendo and install a switch to enable/disable pin 4. there is lots of data on this on the net so I won't go into it, just use some of the excellent tutorials already available.
To those thinking about performing this modification: If you are unsure, or confused AT ALL about this mod, or are uncomfortable soldering in any way DO NOT ATTEMPT THIS MOD!! I am not sure what can happen if you do it wrong, you could do nothing, or you could Fry it!!
All that is needed now is to find the 50/60Hz setting to be able to play (nearly) all games from all regions.
you then solder a 2.2uf capacitor to the empty space in front where you just added the Socket, the area with more white is the negative lead which is marked on most capacitors with a thick white stripe.
Now you would think that you'd just plug in the chip and be finished right? Wrong! it took me about three days to figure out why when I inserted the chip into the socket the twin wouldn't boot a SNES game.
There is a pair of jumper pads, located side by side, (with the controller ports facing you) next to the edge of the board closest to the CIC chip socket that you need to change, they are located between R52 and C45 you have to use de-soldering braid to remove the Factory settings (solder blobs connecting middle pads to the pads closest to C45) and then using new solder, jumper the pads so that the center pad of each jumper touches the pad in front of it, the ones closest to R52.
I have no way of posting pictures, and it's kind of hard to explain but if you look closely you should be able to see what I'm talking about.
now you can rig it up and test it (no CIC chip first) it should still boot fine, just like before, next you have to decide if you want to be able to disable the chip to play PAL titles, If you only want US/J titles turn the board so that the front of the controller ports are facing to your left, and the D411 socket is directly in front of you, then simply insert the CIC chip (D411) into the the socket you installed earlier with the Nintendo name so you can read it (if the lettering is upside down, you have it backwards) to test for proper operation, insert a game into the system and power it up, it should boot up (even mario RPG or Kirby Superstar) then turn it on with no cart inserted, the power light should come on but the screen should act like you are holding the reset button for example, my TV screen stays blue.
If you want to disable the chip for PAL titles it's a little more work, you have to bend up pin #4 on the CIC chip (i used a second IC socket instead of bending the chip itself), on my chip it lines up with the first "N" in N-intendo and install a switch to enable/disable pin 4. there is lots of data on this on the net so I won't go into it, just use some of the excellent tutorials already available.
To those thinking about performing this modification: If you are unsure, or confused AT ALL about this mod, or are uncomfortable soldering in any way DO NOT ATTEMPT THIS MOD!! I am not sure what can happen if you do it wrong, you could do nothing, or you could Fry it!!
All that is needed now is to find the 50/60Hz setting to be able to play (nearly) all games from all regions.
Last edited by Random_Hajile1980 on Fri May 16, 2008 2:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.
R32? You mean R52? Anyways, I currently have my FC Twin disassembled in front of me, so let's see if I got this straight: you solder on the lockout chip from a game, then a 2.2uF capacitor, then you make the jumpers on the side of the board between R52 and C45 touch the solder that's been placed on the trace going toward R52 instead of towards C45? Is the chip supposed to be oriented with Nintendo being read from the cartridge port to the controller port, or the other way around?
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Random_Hajile1980
- Posts: 38
- Joined: Thu May 15, 2008 9:19 pm
Yeah I'm sorry, I meant R52, edited and fixed. it was kinda hard to read the label the way the light was hitting it.
the easiest way to line up the chip is to look for the dimple on the corner of the chip, it should look like this:
D411A
(C) 1990 Nintendo
O 9248 BA
the "O" is the dimple, it should be oriented so the dimple is closest to the corner of the board, that dimple will line up with the capacitor you just added to the board.
and you have to remove the existing solder on the jumpers between R52 and C45, It seems like you know which ones I'm referring to, they are right next to what on my board looks like a orange resistor (i think it might actually be a fuse) once the factory solder blobs are removed, you'll have six pads, 3 per jumper, and on each of the jumpers you'll connect the pad closest to R52 to the center pad, leaving the pad closest to C45 disconnected.
I hope I'm making sense, it's hard to explain without a photo of how it's supposed to look.
the easiest way to line up the chip is to look for the dimple on the corner of the chip, it should look like this:
D411A
(C) 1990 Nintendo
O 9248 BA
the "O" is the dimple, it should be oriented so the dimple is closest to the corner of the board, that dimple will line up with the capacitor you just added to the board.
and you have to remove the existing solder on the jumpers between R52 and C45, It seems like you know which ones I'm referring to, they are right next to what on my board looks like a orange resistor (i think it might actually be a fuse) once the factory solder blobs are removed, you'll have six pads, 3 per jumper, and on each of the jumpers you'll connect the pad closest to R52 to the center pad, leaving the pad closest to C45 disconnected.
I hope I'm making sense, it's hard to explain without a photo of how it's supposed to look.
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Random_Hajile1980
- Posts: 38
- Joined: Thu May 15, 2008 9:19 pm
OK good luck with it, I hope it works as well for you as it has for me, can't wait to see those pics. I dunno if this mod makes it work with Street Fighter Alpha 2 or Star Ocean since I don't have either game to test, perhaps someone who owns the carts can try it out if they do the mod.
Further testing of the 50/60hz mod goes on, I'm sure it's simple. The makers of the console probably wanted to make it as easy to change to the other frequency as possible, I doubt they'd make up different versions of the board for just for PAL/NTSC since it's made in Asia and much of Asia uses the PAL TV standards.
hmm... there's another jumper next to C38 behind control port 1 that looks like it could be it related, more testing may be necessary.
I tried changing the jumper on the power board next to the empty crystal (labeled 24.378) location as suggested on another board and I simply got a 60 hz signal in Black and White for Super NES, the NES was unaffected.
I'm still at a loss as to how to attain the 50hz signal on the machine...
Further testing of the 50/60hz mod goes on, I'm sure it's simple. The makers of the console probably wanted to make it as easy to change to the other frequency as possible, I doubt they'd make up different versions of the board for just for PAL/NTSC since it's made in Asia and much of Asia uses the PAL TV standards.
hmm... there's another jumper next to C38 behind control port 1 that looks like it could be it related, more testing may be necessary.
I tried changing the jumper on the power board next to the empty crystal (labeled 24.378) location as suggested on another board and I simply got a 60 hz signal in Black and White for Super NES, the NES was unaffected.
I'm still at a loss as to how to attain the 50hz signal on the machine...
Maybe I can offer a little insight:
The CXA1645 on the rear board handles the video encoding duties (RGB to composite). A few of the supporting components need to be changed to put this encoder into PAL mode. It also needs a suitable sine wave fed into it. The NTSC signal is 3.579545, i'm not sure off the top of my head what PAL is. I do know that in the FC twins, the sine wave signal comes from the main board. I havn't checked the crystal on the main board, but its possible this is the source of the signal. If not, its generated by the main video IC. If its not possible to change the signal coming off of the main board, they you can definitely just buy a stand-alone crystal oscillator (about $5us) that you can use the feed the CXA1645 the right sine wave for PAL.
The FC twin is a little bit of a tricky beast, since it uses the external video encoder. Doing this work is only going to make the system output a PAL compatable video signal, while the system itself still runs in NTSC mode.. Not really going to help with game compatability. Keep poking around on the main board for jumpers and such, it might be more fruitful. If I had to guess, i'd say this system might be designed as pure ntsc though..
The CXA1645 on the rear board handles the video encoding duties (RGB to composite). A few of the supporting components need to be changed to put this encoder into PAL mode. It also needs a suitable sine wave fed into it. The NTSC signal is 3.579545, i'm not sure off the top of my head what PAL is. I do know that in the FC twins, the sine wave signal comes from the main board. I havn't checked the crystal on the main board, but its possible this is the source of the signal. If not, its generated by the main video IC. If its not possible to change the signal coming off of the main board, they you can definitely just buy a stand-alone crystal oscillator (about $5us) that you can use the feed the CXA1645 the right sine wave for PAL.
The FC twin is a little bit of a tricky beast, since it uses the external video encoder. Doing this work is only going to make the system output a PAL compatable video signal, while the system itself still runs in NTSC mode.. Not really going to help with game compatability. Keep poking around on the main board for jumpers and such, it might be more fruitful. If I had to guess, i'd say this system might be designed as pure ntsc though..
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Random_Hajile1980
- Posts: 38
- Joined: Thu May 15, 2008 9:19 pm
I'm definitely going to keep poking around with it, my version uses the older encoder CXA1145 so I don't know if there's a lot of major differences. I'm confident that it can be modded, I haven't run across to many units that can't be put in either 50 or 60hz, the problem comes when you consider that there is very little documentation on the reverse engineered SNES chipset that this unit incorporates. even the NOAC the NES portion uses a pinout that is a mystery on the FC twin.
I'm tempted to get a second unit to experiment with, at least then if I screw it up, it would just be a spare.
It appears that the crystal on the SNES board is the source of the system frequency, I am unsure what value crystal I'd have to use to get it into PAL mode, I will attempt to get the value on it and report back, perhaps its similar to a real NTSC SNES crystal and if it is, all I would need to do is try a PAL SNES equivalent and rig up some sort of switch.
I'm tempted to get a second unit to experiment with, at least then if I screw it up, it would just be a spare.
It appears that the crystal on the SNES board is the source of the system frequency, I am unsure what value crystal I'd have to use to get it into PAL mode, I will attempt to get the value on it and report back, perhaps its similar to a real NTSC SNES crystal and if it is, all I would need to do is try a PAL SNES equivalent and rig up some sort of switch.
