N64 region mod

[Tsurugi_Takuma]

So while waiting for the FPGA's to arrive I've mostly been thinking about making a second circuit board to house the PIF's. Made a shopping list for tomorrow and everything But 5 minutes ago I opened up a 64 for the first time to look at the PIF's, and my god are they tiny... Was gonna buy what we in Sweden seem to call an experiment board to solder sockets for the chips and output from the card so that I could just pop the board on top of the FPGA I/O pins. But seeing that all these experiment cards I find seem to have a distance of 2,54 mm between the holes, though I might read the info incorrectly, I can't figure out how to mount a socket/PIF... Are the any adapters to tackle this size difference?

BTW I bought 2 spare 64s and 4 controllers for $50 this Sunday(had to go gather it via a 45 minutes buss ride with a severe cold and a fever hehe, what we do for the things we love ), so still fully committed to this project

[sanni]

Yes there are cheap adapters available from 1.27 smd to 2.54 dip, like this one: http://www.ebay.com/itm/SOP32-to-DIP32- ... 1251850754

[Tsurugi_Takuma]

Yes there are cheap adapters available from 1.27 smd to 2.54 dip, like this one: http://www.ebay.com/itm/SOP32-to-DIP32- ... 1251850754

Thanks, ordered 4 SOP28 to DIP from china so now that I finally have my FPGAs I have to wait again

Gonna try to de-solder the PIFs today. Can't wait to have all the stuff I need so that I can breadboard it all and try this concept!

Any tips for the de-soldering?

[meneerbeer]

Any tips for the de-soldering?

Interested in this as well.

Just a short question. I assume that currently if you play NTSC games on a PAL console the games run too fast?

Edit: which clock speeds need to be generated (both for NTSC and PAL). Then I can take a look how to design it.

[Tsurugi_Takuma]

Both sound and video is a bit of if you play an NTSC game on a PAL machine...

I have a quote someone did of OzOnE

NTSC...
Colour sub = 3.579545 MHz
Vid Xtal = 14.318 MHz
RAM Xtal = 14.7 MHz

RCP = 60.852265 MHz
CPU = 91.2783975 MHz
RDRAM = 249.9 MHz

PAL...
Colour sub = 4.4336188 MHz
Vid Xtal = 17.7345 MHz
RAM Xtal = 17.7 MHz

RCP = 62.0706625 MHz
CPU = 93.1059938 MHz
RDRAM = 247.8 MHz

[meneerbeer]

Both sound and video is a bit of if you play an NTSC game on a PAL machine...

I have a quote some of did of OzOnE

NTSC...
Colour sub = 3.579545 MHz
Vid Xtal = 14.318 MHz
RAM Xtal = 14.7 MHz

RCP = 60.852265 MHz
CPU = 91.2783975 MHz
RDRAM = 249.9 MHz

PAL...
Colour sub = 4.4336188 MHz
Vid Xtal = 17.7345 MHz
RAM Xtal = 17.7 MHz

RCP = 62.0706625 MHz
CPU = 93.1059938 MHz
RDRAM = 247.8 MHz

So if I understand correctly, if we want to make NTSC games run completely the same on a PAL N64, we have to change two clocks, the Vid Xtal and the RAM Xtal. That would mean we have to be able to mux from four clocks.

[Tsurugi_Takuma]

I think we could leave the ram alone and just change the vid.

[meneerbeer]

I think we could leave the ram alone and just change the vid.

Yes, it should fix the sound and video. I figured, if we are going to do this we might as well make NTSC games run completely the same on a PAL N64.

I guess we have the option to generate the clock signal with an FPGA using the PLLs. I have no idea how precise the result would be. Perhaps it is easier to buy oscillators that already have the right frequency and just mux these. I have no idea if there are any oscillators with these values out there.

[Tsurugi_Takuma]

Yes, that was marshalls idea as well, gotta look at the oscillators when I get home. Maybe these would do the trick?
http://www.ebay.com/itm/350684008634?_t ... EBIDX%3AIT

http://www.ebay.com/itm/321365873400?_t ... EBIDX%3AIT

And reading between Marshalls lines, we don't need to change the ram clock. But that is just my quick and dirty interpretation. Marshall, can you shed some divine light on the subject?

[meneerbeer]

I am a bit confused at the moment. My knowledge is not very great.

I see two crystals on my PAL N64. I suppose these are the RAM(17.7 MHz) and VID XTal (17.7345 MHz). I have no idea how to read the values on them though. I think both of these crystals are connected to separate clock generators. These clock generators then multiply and divide the clocks to new values?

Now I would say that we have to supply the clock generators with a new crystal. Not sure if that is what we want? If it is, I see a problem with that. The input clock for the clock generators is acquired with a crystal. A crystal is different from an oscillator: link. I have no idea how/if you can mux a crystal?

Maybe Marshallh meant that we should replace the complete clock generator and make the FPGA generate the frequencies. It seems possible with an FPGA using a PLL. Oscillators (14.318 MHz, for instance) with the right speed can be found easily, since these are common appearantly.