Psuedo Saturn Issues

[tlr3715]

So I recently ordered a pre made psuedo Saturn Kai cartridge from e-bay. It's one of those that come from China. I heard the red cartridges had shielding issues, so I went with the black one that has a 1M or 4M selector switch on the front.

After getting it, I noticed it comes with "Psuedo Saturn Kai Lite" which I am having trouble finding information on and if it is better or worse in terms of game compatibility and features over the standard versions. It seems the menu is limited compared to screenshots of other versions I have seen.

I have two reproduction games for the Saturn so far. X-men vs street fighter runs fine until I beat the game, then it resets the system, never get to see the endings 🙁 The English translated Grandia I have won't load at all. Get a black screen after the sega logo.

Any thoughts on how I can get reproduction games to run properly with what I have, or do I have to use a different cartridge with a different version of Psuedo Saturn?

Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[dibz]

I'm not terribly familiar with using carts for this as I've never had a need (I've had a regular modchip since the 90s), and these days I use an ODE.

That said, you can find information on the differences between the lite and full version by looking at PSK's readme.txt directly.

 

[Knight0fDragon]

The non lite version is for the Gamers Cartridge. It has SD support on it.

The Reproduction game of Grandia probably applied my region free patch before it was reported that it was broken. This is what happens when you buy repros.

No idea on the problem with XMen vs SF.

 

[privateye]

So I recently ordered a pre made psuedo Saturn Kai cartridge from e-bay. It's one of those that come from China. I heard the red cartridges had shielding issues, so I went with the black one that has a 1M or 4M selector switch on the front.

No matter if the cart is red, black, or whatever colour, all of these cheap carts from China have shielding issues. I tested one of them out and found that the compatibility is spotty at best. And just like you, I found that (most of the time) Grandia crashes to a black after the SEGA logo with an unshielded cart. Here are my test results: PPCenter :: Pseudo Saturn Kai Compatibility List

Instructions on how to shield your cart can be found here: PPCenter :: Pseudo Saturn Kai Compatibility List

 

[tlr3715]

I will try to open the cart and add foil tape to see if that helps. Thanks for the replies so far.

 

[tlr3715]

I tried a few more backup games. Street fighter zero 3 skipped audio on the Akuma stage and Christmas Nights froze when starting a new game. I added a thick layer of foil to the cart and was able to get farther into the games, but still experienced lockups.

I then switched to psuedo saturn on an action replay cart, all games now play properly except for English Grandia. Grandia still locks up after Sega logo, or when starting a new game. With the Action Replay cart I was able to get it to start one time and get to a save point. Since I can often get to the load game screen I should be good to go once the game is loaded. I do notice it is skipping the movies. It will play for a few seconds then jump right to the game, which is unfortunate.

Any suggestions on how to get English Grandia running 100%? Should I burn a different versions of the game?

Side note: do not buy the black psuedo saturn cartridge with the selector switch! It does not work.

 

[TrekkiesUnite118]

Grandia does a lot of data streaming off the disc. If the music, FMVS, etc. are skipping it's probably a sign of a bad burn. So it could be that it was burned poorly or that the CD-R media is of poor quality. Try using a better quality CD-R and burning at the slowest speed possible.

 

[RichFan]

hey guys I recently got a Saturn Kai ; its the cart that doesn't have the memory or the Action Replay codes - I just want to use it for backups and 1MB - 4MB games so that's fine by me

anyways its not booting up for some reason - the cartridge is not recognised even though I used to AR cart with no problems it ... any ideas?