SNES 50/60Hz switch install

First off this is not an instruction manual, these are my experiences with the mod.

It is a very well known fact that games from the NES/SNES era were not properly converted from NTSC regions to PAL. They are usually just slowed down which messes up the gameplay and the music and because of the PAL video system's different resolution the image is squished.
To combat this there are modifications you can do to your SNES in order for it to play games in NTSC framerate and image size.

In an attempt to do this I gathered the needed parts:

  • Wire
  • Soldering iron, solder
  • Tweezers
  • panel mount SPDT or DPDT switches
  • 2.2K resistor
  • electrical tape
A tried to do the mod with the least amount of destruction possible so I removed the RF module and installed the switch in the RCA connector's hole. The install seems straight forward but lifting the PPU IC legs is hard, and they are so small that you need a microscope to see what you're doing. I had a short between two IC legs that caused me some headache but after eliminating it the switch works fine. The method is very simple, when PPU2 pin30 and PPU1 pin24 are connected to ground, the system is in ntsc mode. When they are connected to 5V the system is in PAL mode. This sets the region and the video output mode too so you need to add the region unlock switch if you want to start PAL games in NTSC mode because of region restrictions. I haven't done this, but after booting in PAL mode I could switch to NTSC on the fly.






On a CRT this works nicely, the image now fills the screen. However when I connected the Snes to my 4K tv through the OSSC I had a problem. PAL mode works fine but NTSC on a PAL console uses a weird refresh rate of 59.54Hz and that sync is not compatible with my tv. I get a few flashes of images randomly but that's it. So the whole mod is almost useless for me. I bought the OSSC to eliminate the CRT, but now I can either play at 60Hz on a CRT or play at 50Hz on an big screen lcd. We'll see how bad 50Hz games are and decide wether it is useable or not.


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