Change DC's color system

Change DC's color system

Okay, I am fed up with my PAL-M Dreamcast!

(for those who don't know, PAL-M is simply NTSC resolution, 60Hz and PAL color encoding)

I need a way to get my DC back into NTSC colors, so some certain games should detect it properly as 60Hz and run properly instead of turning my TV into a greenish flickering mess.

<silly story>

I had a nightmare in the past, trying to get Ikaruga to work on it. The darned game seems to use the color system for detecting the region, and always booted up in 50Hz on me.

Of course PAL-M TVs, being 60Hz, don't know WTF to do with a 50Hz signal, and it screwed up. I got lucky to find a patch that forced the game into NTSC (well, a backup version of it, actually).

Now the same problem comes back with Border Down (only on shmups? damn!), and I recently strumbled over the chance to get myself an original copy of Ikaruga (yay!), and I want to play it.

Plus seems neither the GameShark nor the Utopia disc (version 1.0, tough) are capable of forcing Ikaruga into 60Hz (couldn't test the Gameshark on Border Down, since mine was destroyed a while ago).

</silly story>

Is it even possible? Do I need to replace my BIOS or something? Or a bit of soldering in the right place can solve it?
 
Change DC's color system

Yes, they run fine in 60Hz VGA mode.

And you can also patch both of them to PAL 60 using Megalexx's PAL Patcher...
 
Change DC's color system

I don't have a VGA box, and if I had, my monitor is so craptastic I'd prefer use my TV anytime :p

I'll try looking for that patch. I tried PAL to NTSC Patcher 0.92, it said it did find a PAL proteciton code, and apparently patched the game, but nothing changed.

Or maybe I'll just wait until someone comes up with a BD-specific fix... oh well...
 
Change DC's color system

It was never a problem, until the DC.

In all other PAL-M consoles I owned, the signal change was usually done by a modification undetectable by the software. The games never knew they were running in PAL-M, since the format change was done with circuitry. So, all games released in Brazil are merely unmodified NTSC games.

But the DC, being the flexible beast it is, is capable of outputing all major TV formats (PAL-M included), and the default format is set in the BIOS (odds are Brazillian DCs have a modified BIOS). And games can change the current TV signal format too, as it's the case with Border Down and Ikaruga.

The problem with those is that they detect if the DC is NTSC or PAL by reading the BIOS color encoding (PAL, NTSC), NOT the frequency (50Hz, 60Hz). Seems they forgot that there are DCs that work with PAL colors and NTSC resolution/frequency.
 
Change DC's color system

Or they just didn't care that there were DC like that because they never intended to sell the games there.
 
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