Forcing PAL Dreamcast to 60hz

[Mangaman]

Hi guys,

I'm not sure whether I should have plonked this in tech help or not, so I'm sorry if this is in the wrong spot!

Anyhows, I was wondering if anyone can help me out with something - I recently (as in today) finally got Sakura Taisen 3 LE ver. B and am very happy with it... except for one thing - it defaults to PAL 50hz 🙁

Does anyone know if there's anything I can use to force my DC to 60hz for my imports? I have a mod chip in my machine so I can play imports without having to worry about boot discs or whatever. I know that the Gameshark thingy allows you to run it in 60hz, as does another disc by a UK company... I think. Are there any programs made by home-brew developers to plonk my machine into 60Hz? I was reading somewhere that there was one that would force it into 50hz, but I haven't heard anything about a 60hz one...

Any help would be greatly appreciated... hey, it'd also see me playing Sega Rally 2, since that one lacked a 60hz option! ####, I'd even grab VF3 if I could force it to 60hz from one of my local stores!

Cheers,

-Mangaman-

 

[Shaneus]

u CAN force games to run @ 60hz using an Action Replay CDX/Gameshark, but it screws up the borders (ie. VF3 has no border down the bottom, but the top border takes up almost half the screen!)

it actually makes ur DC think its from another country, coz after setting it to NTSC, it boots up with the orange DC Swirl, and it will load my import copy of SegaGT without any probs!

so yes, it KINDA works... but not real well 🙁

 

[segasonic]

Out of interest has anyone found another way to force 60Hz? Shaneus is right about the border thing, it makes most games unplayable, including Sega Rally 2. There must be a way to play SR2 full screen on a PAL Dreamcast 🙁

The only game I have so far that the CDX has booted in NTSC (Full screen 60Hz) correctly is Ooga Booga.

 

[IceDigger]

no other way. not yet, and prolly not ever. it might only be possible with a BIOS or videochip replacement.

 

[ExCyber]

Well, there's this, but I haven't tried it and have never heard of anyone else getting it to work (only saw one guy on DCEmu who attempted it and it didn't work).

 

[segasonic]

Thanks for the info guys. The R422 mod will make PAL games work correctly on an NTSC DC, but AFAIK it won't force NTSC on a PAL DC 🙁

Still it won't hurt me to try

I really thought the Gameshark CDX would do it, gos the PAL DC boots in proper NTSC-60 (Not PAL-60), with the orange DC logo and everything. I don't understand why Ooga Booga converts to NTSC-60 perfectly (it usually runs at 50Hz on a PAL machine), but all the other games shift halfway down the screen 🙁

I guess I can pick up a cheap import DC to play at 60Hz.