Sega Master System modding

I picked up my first master system from ebay for super cheap (under 50$ shipped). It works great, I decided to see what mods can be done to it. I s-video modded the system using the built in video encoder and wound up with huge jailbars. I found a way to wire in a cxa2075 encoder circuit to greatly reduce the jailbars, here's what I've got done so far:

http://i.imgur.com/Z69qrlU.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/nJa20ZO.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/kTiSHec.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/FA3umD5.jpg

Other upgrades that come to mind are the viletim fm audio board and the master everdrive. I'm curious what other stuff can be done to this system. I'm also curious what causes the jailbars in the master system.

SMS has exact same reasons for jailbars as MD does.

Great price on that Master System! Looks clean.

Another thing you can do is, pause in the controller mod (either single or two port). You are lucky having a 60hz console, so no need to do that (unless you have a great urge to play New Zealand Story).

FM board is the key, especially the latest board as it has the language mod built into it (so FM, off, FM jpn) which makes it compatble with all the fm enabled games including time soldiers & wb3. Big fan of the fm board tim has done and have used all 3 revisions, my sms2 initially had a rev 1.0 but that upgraded to a rev1.1 (the rev1.0 is in the drawer for another project). My sms uses a rev 2.

I am actually in the process of doing up (another) SMS2 that has the rev2 fm board in it. Just means a bit more wiring lol! I prefer to tap off the bottom of the cart slot since everything lines up.

Edit
Shit i just realised that is an early revision with the reed switches for pause and reset....nice!

That Kung Fu Kid has the Japanese title screen.

Behind the cart slot, is that an expansion slot ? If so, weird no door in case to allow connectivity to something. Also would you mind taking measurements of case, I believe it's 4 inches high (3.5 maybe) ad 11 to 12 inches wide and 8 inches in depth yes (from front controller part side to back s video mod side) ?

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Originally Posted by omp

Another thing you can do is, pause in the controller mod (either single or two port). You are lucky having a 60hz console, so no need to do that (unless you have a great urge to play New Zealand Story).

FM board is the key, especially the latest board as it has the language mod built into it (so FM, off, FM jpn) which makes it compatble with all the fm enabled games including time soldiers & wb3. Big fan of the fm board tim has done and have used all 3 revisions, my sms2 initially had a rev 1.0 but that upgraded to a rev1.1 (the rev1.0 is in the drawer for another project). My sms uses a rev 2.

I am actually in the process of doing up (another) SMS2 that has the rev2 fm board in it. Just means a bit more wiring lol! I prefer to tap off the bottom of the cart slot since everything lines up.

Edit
Shit i just realised that is an early revision with the reed switches for pause and reset....nice!

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I actually ordered a SMSFM board last week for my own SMS. Now I need some JP games to test the region switch. Any suggestion?

Um let's see off the top of my head....

Power Strike=Aleste
Wonderboy series=different titlescreen/japanese text on monsterland
A lot of titles flash "mark 111" at the intro.

There is a list on smspower for the fm games....

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Originally Posted by Vector

Behind the cart slot, is that an expansion slot ? If so, weird no door in case to allow connectivity to something. Also would you mind taking measurements of case, I believe it's 4 inches high (3.5 maybe) ad 11 to 12 inches wide and 8 inches in depth yes (from front controller part side to back s video mod side) ?

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Yes that is an expansion slot. It is pin to pin on the cartridge connector. There is a little cover over this and when you take that off there is a small rectangle that needs to be punched out. The fm board plugs into this with +3 connections.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by omp

Um let's see off the top of my head....

Power Strike=Aleste
Wonderboy series=different titlescreen/japanese text on monsterland
A lot of titles flash "mark 111" at the intro.

There is a list on smspower for the fm games....

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Yeah i checked the list but strangely, It would seem there are no JP exclusives using FM. In fact, its rather the opposite, a bunch of US exclusives use FM, even though the US Hardware never had the FM chip.. That is fucked up.

I guess then I will need to find which non text-critical game is significantly cheaper in JP version. Looks like Power Strike is.

Ah, thanks omp. Mind telling me if my (mm to inch) sms case size measurements is correct ?

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Originally Posted by Drakon

I'm curious what other stuff can be done to this system. I'm also curious what causes the jailbars in the master system.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by TmEE

SMS has exact same reasons for jailbars as MD does.

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Tiido is right if the SMS is using a CXA1145. If there's a V7040 encoder in there, the bars don't exist, I believe - I'm trying to get ahold of one for testing.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Vector

Ah, thanks omp. Mind telling me if my (mm to inch) sms case size measurements is correct ?

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363mm (top case) x 170mm x 70mm (+ feet)

Here is a pic of mine with the FM board in it, 50/60Hz switch, pause on control pad mod, RF module removed (for s-video socket....one day-I use SCART/Component) and BIOS re-fitted. Cool Story- I bought this as a "faulty unit" when I got it, I turned it on, no go. There was a rattle (should have checked that), opened it up and the BIOS had been cut out with *maybe* nail scissors. Luckily there were "stubs" that I could solder short wires to. Once that was done, it worked fine.

http://i.imgur.com/LXLRJ24.jpg

and just the back with some labels I knocked up on CAD

http://i.imgur.com/C0EHlCZ.jpg

Oh it also scored a re-cap;)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by TmEE

SMS has exact same reasons for jailbars as MD does.

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The rgb on this master system barely travels any distance it pretty much goes straight from the vdp into the encoder. Is this a subcarrier thing? Jailbars are only present in chroma not luma.

An interesting fact with this master system when I lifted the subcarrier pin from the vdp the system refused to start. The subcarrier in this system connects to the encoder and also has another trace connecting to....god knows what. I cut the other trace and connected it to a 3.57 mhz four pin oscillator and that made the system run again haha. Having the vdp subcarrier fed exclusively into the encoder didn't help with jailbars though.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Vector

Behind the cart slot, is that an expansion slot ? If so, weird no door in case to allow connectivity to something. Also would you mind taking measurements of case, I believe it's 4 inches high (3.5 maybe) ad 11 to 12 inches wide and 8 inches in depth yes (from front controller part side to back s video mod side) ?

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Height looks like 2 3/4 inches. Width about 14 1/4 inch. Depth about 6 3/4 inches.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by omp

Another thing you can do is, pause in the controller mod (either single or two port). You are lucky having a 60hz console, so no need to do that (unless you have a great urge to play New Zealand Story).

FM board is the key, especially the latest board as it has the language mod built into it (so FM, off, FM jpn) which makes it compatble with all the fm enabled games including time soldiers & wb3. Big fan of the fm board tim has done and have used all 3 revisions, my sms2 initially had a rev 1.0 but that upgraded to a rev1.1 (the rev1.0 is in the drawer for another project). My sms uses a rev 2.

I am actually in the process of doing up (another) SMS2 that has the rev2 fm board in it. Just means a bit more wiring lol! I prefer to tap off the bottom of the cart slot since everything lines up.

Edit
Shit i just realised that is an early revision with the reed switches for pause and reset....nice!

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I just ordered one of these fm boards this morning. From my memory the japanese pinout is different from american carts so I'm wondering what american carts support fm. Or would I just be better off getting a master everdrive? Should I install a region switch? I thought japanese master system games have a different pinout.

Yes, those reed switches are quite old school.

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Originally Posted by Lastcallhall

Tiido is right if the SMS is using a CXA1145. If there's a V7040 encoder in there, the bars don't exist, I believe - I'm trying to get ahold of one for testing.

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This one has a v7040 and the v7040 outputs jailbar city. Switching to a cxa2075 being fed rgb at the av out port greatly reduced jailbars. I wired my cxa2075 to the rgb input pins of the v7040 and that gave it huge jailbars, but tapping rgb at the av port greatly reduced the jailbars.

I really know nothing about the master system I just bought this thing on an impulse buy because it was so darn cheap.

*edit*

S-video screenshot comparison, v7040 vs the cxa2075:

http://i.imgur.com/X0VIq5z.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/H07DHiH.jpg




http://i.imgur.com/Pji5q00.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/dU2avo1.jpg

Japanese games are a different pinout.
There's currently no proven adapter to run them.

For JP games there's a need for BIOS replacement or bypass, as they have no header that western BIOSes look for. The adaptor needs to have a valid program for western BIOS that will in turn boot the JP cart.

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Originally Posted by Drakon

I just ordered one of these fm boards this morning. From my memory the japanese pinout is different from american carts so I'm wondering what american carts support fm. Or would I just be better off getting a master everdrive? Should I install a region switch? I thought japanese master system games have a different pinout.

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All North American Master System games I own that support the YM2413 still have the code for the FM music in the ROM. These are some of the games I own that I can remember off the top of my head with YM2413 support (all US carts):

-After Burner
-R-Type
-Double Dragon
-Thunder Blade
-Space Harrier 3D
-Zaxxon 3D
-Galaxy Force

If I remember correctly, though, the US version of Phantasy Star has its FM code removed. There's a patch you can get which will give you the option of selecting PSG or FM soundtracks and with retranslated text.

Japanese Master System games have a different cartridge slot entirely from North American and European Master System games to retain backwards-compatibility with the SG-1000. For SG-1000 games to work, it is absolutely necessary to swap out the BIOS with the Japanese v2.1 BIOS, and trust me, with a YM2413 in place, this is something you would want to do.

With the region switch, you're simply letting games that have boot screens programmed in the game to show them. Those screens are usually Sega logos or a screen that says Sega Mark III. I have yet to see anything useful come out of this.

Also, please bypass Viletim's amp. I know this is a post where one of the older boards was used, but the audio circuit is the same on both: http://www.smspower.org/forums/viewt...6d8b9733#58298

Ignore the faulty samples, those are from the REALLY bad 0108 HABG fake YM2413s. Regardless, I can point out 3 issues with Tim's amp by listening to those samples, particularly After Burner:

-An EXTREME amount of video noise
-Percussion is distorted
-Bass level is far too high

I have a custom FM board in my 1988 Master System on which I used a replica of the Japanese Master System's audio amp, and I tell you, it sounds a fair bit better than Tim's amp, though I will point out that with some LM358s, the sound will crackle (this seems to be the case mostly with LM358s made by ST Microelectronics. The chip I use is what I can only describe as a generic LM358 as it has no branding on it whatsoever and the sound doesn't crackle at all. Some Japanese Master Systems have this issue as well.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by TmEE

For JP games there's a need for BIOS replacement or bypass, as they have no header that western BIOSes look for. The adaptor needs to have a valid program for western BIOS that will in turn boot the JP cart.

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Yeah for now that helps just the card slot, or JP roms on a flash cart.
Lack of interest is an issue. It hasn't actually been tested successful with JP carts.

Ok, I had not realized the Mark III games were not pin compatible with the SMS. I though they would be because of the region switch on the board.
I just reread the SMSFM webpage and found this explanation for the region switch.

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One of the most popular games with FM sound is Monster World III: The Dragon's Trap. This game is programmed to use the FM sound hardware only if it detects that is is running on a Japanese SMS (or Mark III). For this reason I have added a region switch to V2.0 of the SMSFM board. A three position switch is supplied which can be used to select between PSG, FM, or Japanese/FM.

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Originally Posted by Drakon

Should I install a region switch?

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No need for a seperate region (language switch) as the fm board you ordered has that built into it. If the game doesn't have fm ability it just plays as normal. As mentioned most games just flash up "mark 111" at the intro. If you hate tmss because it takes 3 seconds of game play away from you, then you need not worry about this lol! Wonderboy in monsterland has a slightly different title and plays in japanese. Not sure on other titles if there are any actual language change....

Well Ace's sig mentions an SG-1000 adapter, as I'm talking about now. One person to watch for progress on this.

In any case strictly testing shouldn't need a BIOS mod. Korean Sonic 1 and Sonic 2 may have the right header.
I doubt they'd remove it for such a small market. If not the last few JP games like Bomber Raid.

Captured footage from my master system after I ran it through some filtering:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtvV1...ature=youtu.be

Sweet lord this is clean looking. It actually looks pretty much this good on my tv. I still wish I could fix what's left of the jailbars but I guess this will have to do.

The air movement in this game in this game is insane.

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Originally Posted by MaxWar

The air movement in this game in this game is insane.

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Now we know where the Matrix is....

Thanks for the measurements Drakon and others.

This thread inspired me and I just bought a bunch of expensive SMS games from ebay. I swear this hobby makes you do crazy things.

I get the more "popular" games from the UK. I try and find a seller that has a few of what I want + a few I might go "oh yea I'll try that" as with postage it works out cheaper than getting them from here.

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Originally Posted by omp

I get the more "popular" games from the UK. I try and find a seller that has a few of what I want + a few I might go "oh yea I'll try that" as with postage it works out cheaper than getting them from here.

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I use the same technique but from Canada or USA sellers.

Talking about UK, they seem to have very affordable international shipping rates, I regularly order stuff from here and it seems much cheaper than from the rest of Europe.
I dont buy games from Uk though as they are usualy PAL.

I just bought the Only NTSC-U copy of Wonder boy III on ebay and the only NTSC-U Power strike that was not overly expensive.
+ some more cool games to enjoy SMSFM: R-type and Spellcaster.

Master System is *mostly region free so european games (apart from new zealand story & maybe a few others). It is like sonic (1) the U.S. version is the same as the "Euro" version but has a sticker on the back making it worth a fortune.

Probably best to get that confirmed on smspower....

Quote:

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Originally Posted by omp

Master System is *mostly region free so european games (apart from new zealand story & maybe a few others). It is like sonic (1) the U.S. version is the same as the "Euro" version but has a sticker on the back making it worth a fortune.

Probably best to get that confirmed on smspower....

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Hmm, I always assume running PAL games, even when region free, will get me into some kind of speed issues from them being optimized for 50hz. I honestly haven't looked much into the PAL import, for any system and I have yet to install a 50/60 switch on a console. It appears that some games are simply slower in PAL consoles so running them on a US console would just restore their proper speed, but is that the case for most SMS games?

Price/rarity and exclusivity would be a reason to consider PAL releases If i can get them to run just fine.
As for the games I just bought, I could have saved a couple bucks maybe from getting WBIII from Europe but no more than that.

Pal consoles they run slow. I always have mine on 60hz except when playing new zealand story.

Edit apparently doing a 50hz switch on a us console is a headache too. I seem to remember someone on these forums tryibv to do it.

Master System games can be programmed to detect 50hz or 60hz. Sonic 2 does that.

Like the 16bit version if you switch region when running, music speed becomes wrong.

Yeah, I was actually surprised about that. I've recently bought a Master System II to relive my childhood and whatnot, and I'd always assumed that all MS games were not optimised at all for 50hz. Even Ninja Gaiden and Master of Darkness, which came out in 1992 (late in the console's lifespan...unless you consider brazil as well) aren't, and yet Sonic 2 IS, even if it's just the sound. Also, some audio channels seem to be a little different, although that may also be because I'm a brute and fucked the console up when modding. Who knows!

I've got ApolloBoy putting an FM Sound board into my US SMS 1 as we speak.

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Originally Posted by Greg2600

I've got ApolloBoy putting an FM Sound board into my US SMS 1 as we speak.

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The viletim pcb or something more custom?

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Originally Posted by Drakon

The viletim pcb or something more custom?

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Viletim's board.

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Originally Posted by ApolloBoy

Viletim's board.

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Ace has been complaining about the audio circuit on it. I bought it anyway just because it's awesome.

It sounds fine to me but i got shitty old ears lol

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Originally Posted by omp

It sounds fine to me but i got shitty old ears lol

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Ace is right about the Video noise in the samples ( high pitched whine ) but I actually get this when recording most consoles that are connected to my CRT. That is unless I use a ground isolator ( I use Behringer DH400) so I would not be so quick to blame Tim's circuit for this. About the other issues, It does not seem too bad to me, yes maybe the bass drum overdrives a bit but it is not overbearing and might be caused by the recording conditions too.

This being said I know Ace is ultra picky about authenticity so maybe it sounds different than on a real Mark III and I know that would annoy Ace. Unless you compare both directly you may not notice anything wrong.
In any case, I have pretty good ears and a good audio setup so If I am happy after installing the SMSFM board it should be fine for most but the pickiest.

Also I think I will let the news fly. I was thinking about keeping it secret for a while but I dont see the point. I ordered two SMSFM boards, the second one is the solder version. I will try to install it in my consolized Game gear. The process is undocumented and I havent seen any evidences of anyone having done it before but according to Tim it should work.