Dreamcast multi-region mod pr0ns!

AmiNeo

CodeMonkey
Joined
Jul 28, 2010
Posts
7,436
Country
UK
Region
Kendal, Cumbria
Hey guys! Just thought I'd share my excitement...

I had a stomach bug all day today and was in need of a project to keep me occupied while stuck in the house...
So I just took my old faithful Japanese Sega Dreamcast ( bought before xmas 1998 ) and finally made it a multi-region system thanks to my new Weller soldering iron! Something I've been wanting to do for years as I've had 2 systems setup whenever I've wanted to play through my fave Dreamcast games...

As the final pics show, shes working perfectly. Running PAL games and ofcourse its native NTSC-J (and should run NTSC-U too) without the need for a boot disk.

Here's Pr0ns ... :LOL:

*** I should add to the moderators that this in no way affects the dreamcasts ability to play CD-R games, as they can all can play those without this modification already and GDROM discs as you will know are not easy to rip.

If however this is against any rules i'm not aware of I will be happy to take it down. Please let me know. *** (y)
 

Attachments

  • DSCF4101.jpg
    DSCF4101.jpg
    188.4 KB · Views: 2
  • DSCF4109.jpg
    DSCF4109.jpg
    180.1 KB · Views: 1
  • DSCF4108.jpg
    DSCF4108.jpg
    178.4 KB · Views: 0
  • DSCF4110.jpg
    DSCF4110.jpg
    184.6 KB · Views: 2
  • DSCF4111.jpg
    DSCF4111.jpg
    173.6 KB · Views: 0
  • DSCF4114.jpg
    DSCF4114.jpg
    177.1 KB · Views: 0
  • DSCF4131.jpg
    DSCF4131.jpg
    171.4 KB · Views: 0
  • DSCF4125.jpg
    DSCF4125.jpg
    163.9 KB · Views: 1
  • DSCF4120.jpg
    DSCF4120.jpg
    172 KB · Views: 0
  • DSCF4118.jpg
    DSCF4118.jpg
    194.3 KB · Views: 0
That stray blob of solder in the third pic on one pin of a chip was already there beleive it or not! :LOL: (not my doing, lol)
 
Last edited:
Heres a few more pics which I left out... soldering was a little sloppy due to me not feeling too good, and the components being so small, I didnt want to fuss about tidying them up and accidentily unsolder something that would take me half an hour to get back in place :LOL:. Also the shinyness around the black and red wires is Isoproprynol Alcohol I used to clean up excess flux.


And that one next to the Dreamcast is a mark 1 PAL Saturn.
 

Attachments

  • DSCF4098.jpg
    DSCF4098.jpg
    180.4 KB · Views: 1
  • DSCF4096.jpg
    DSCF4096.jpg
    186 KB · Views: 0
  • DSCF4104.jpg
    DSCF4104.jpg
    177.5 KB · Views: 2
  • DSCF4123.jpg
    DSCF4123.jpg
    173 KB · Views: 0
Last edited:
very nice!!! :D I just flashed my pal dc to a NTSC-U one , but I hear now that leaving the dc's eprom flash-enabled it can damage it...
 
That sucks, I dont know much about the flash enabling of the EPROM aside from its a bridging technique between 2 sides of the board, but I wouldnt imagine it'd be too good for the system long term.

I'd really recommend these, they work awesomely and very little work.
 
I like! Where did you get the information on doing this hack? I might like to do the same to my Dreamcast. :D

Heather
 
You need to buy a small chip, which is pretty cheap, £11.90 + postage

Got mine here, http://www.consolegoods.co.uk
Click on Dreamcast on the menu on the left and its the third one down. Wires come pre installed too so you just need to solder them to the Dreamcasts motherboard. The guy ships worldwide and this mod works on any region dreamcast.

This website explains the soldering...
http://www.mmmonkey.co.uk/console/sega/dc-mod-chip.htm


... Nomore disc swapping :D

---------- Post added at 20:45 ---------- Previous post was at 20:40 ----------

As you'd expect too, if you ever wanted to take the chip back out for whatever reason, it'd be pretty easy to remove. Simply heat the solder up and pull the wires off and your DC is back to factory standard.

(y)

---------- Post added at 21:15 ---------- Previous post was at 20:45 ----------

EDIT: Oh and one more thing... If anyone is doing this on an NTSC console and happens to have some picture trouble with a very small minority of PAL games (around 1% or less which is about 2 or 3 PAL games out of the whole catalogue) there is another very simple fix here...
http://www.opensenses.com/discussion/dreamcast-pal-pal60-r422-mod

This mod involves putting a simple bridge between 2 pins on the underside of the motherboard (area marked R422) which I think changes the output from NTSC to PAL-60. This isnt necessary on every machine either however, leading me to believe its dependant on motherboard revision if this problem pops up or not.
 
Last edited:
Very nice neat work there chap. :D

Why, thanking you nicely! (y)

---------- Post added at 02:21 ---------- Previous post was at 02:10 ----------

Woot, this thread is 9th on googles search list for the string 'dreamcast r422'.

Ima gonna be famous :cool:

lol
 
Just edited my how to do it post to clarify the last fix. I re-read it and it appeared a little misleading.
 
Did you ever get around to trying this Heather? I'd love to see how it went!
 
I honestly haven't had the time to get to it yet. :) I'm planning on slimming down my retro collection then I'll have more time to work on some of these other projects. :D

I'll definitely let you know when I get around to doing this mod on mine!

Take care,

Heather
 
Back
Top Bottom