Hi guys,
(skip the paragraph if you want to)
I am new here and I love Famicom games since I was 8 or 9. I believe 8Bit never die here.
Anyways, I have purchased a dead famiclone over eBay years ago, I I have been trying to fix it for couple of months now, and thank God I did! After extensive internet research I finally figured that my Famiclone was manufactured in Venezuela. I watched videos on youtube, read forums, and looked for PCB pictures all over the internet, until one day I bought a similar PCB from eBay. I finally figured that it was a specific voltage regulator "KIA 7805P 3C" was the problem. What a feeling of success when I turned on the first time! Woahh! IT WORKS!
My problem is the sound is weird, It took my a few minutes to think that it could be a PAL famiclone. Is there a way to convert PAL to NES? Thank you!
weird sound. what did you mean under that?
was it just slow? or intensively distorted/muffled?
relatively modern made famiclones have got very bad PCB design (eg: which produces a lot of humming noise) and poor quality sound circuits as well ( heavily distorted, unclear muffled sound).
Hi! Thanks! It isn't slow. It has great quality picture. The Base(BASS) is great, the high pitch sounds are a little low.
You can use an emulator like Nestopia to test the speed difference between PAL and NTSC. Or just use youtube, plenty of compare videos out there.
My guess is also because it's a famiclone, unfixable situation, cloned CPU is the reason.
@ jpx72
Yes, it is a Venezuelan made famiclone( but is says Made in Taiwan)
You will need NTSC chipset and crystal 21.477MHz.
Like 80s said, this is a full hardware clone, you need to exchange PAL PPU (one of the "big chips") for a NTSC one. Plus xtal.
Actually some guys from Argentina managed to do the mod without replacing CPU or PPU
http://retrogaming.com.ar/forum/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=11157
Thanks for this. After an thorough inspection it turns out my Famiclone isn't PAL after all. I have switch a couple of resistors and the sound is perfect like the actual Famicom. At the same time it resolved my second issue that I have not mentioned. When I had a weird sound, controllers won't work. As I switched resistors it solved 2 problems. It works now but has damaged PCB circuit traces.
I don't understand that forum and translator is not helfull
But I understood that he pulled pin16 PPU high.
The usage of EXT pins of a PPU are not clear to me...
Also what crystal did he got there? Pal or ntsc?
I ask the guy from the video in that forum, and he replayed me :)
"well, basically you have to lift pin 16 of the ppu and then connect it to 5v (i connect it to the pin 40 in the video) thats it, i dont have an schematic. Also, this only works on some CRT tvs, no lcds. This is because some crt tvs when they detecting the color system, it checks the hz (50 or 60) or the color subcarrier. With the ones that check the speed you get black and white, with the others you get color. I was told that this mod works on some european clones and with plasma tv."
:D
Hmm will try what it does on one of my clones ;) I will post results!
Quote from: jpx72 on January 26, 2016, 01:56:21 pm
Hmm will try what it does on one of my clones ;) I will post results!
me too :) !
EDIT here are my results, but NO luck :(
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hP6LmoJ5Ql8&feature=youtu.be
You will need a NTSC crystal, cant imagine how this will work without it, even if the PPU manufacturers "edited" the function of one of the EXT pins to make an universal pal+ntsc ppu.
Try other EXT pins too, 14,15,16,17.
I went through the posts and some members got things right with pin 17. And yeah - the XTAL swap is also needed.
well, as you might noticed modding to PAL-60 instead of NTSC doesn't seem to require a use of different crystal.
sounds that it only works on specific PPUs.
Post Merge: January 28, 2016, 06:43:38 am
let me explain.
color subcarrier remains the same. The amount of scanlines per second is near the same.
525*30=15750
625*25=15625
IMHO, it seems like that pin triggers internal divider/counter to shift vertical blanking signal to a different value.
Hi. I tried some days ago the 16p-bridge on my Spanish Nasa NS-81 with PAL CPU UA6527P and NTSC PPU UA6538 and didn't work, changed the Crystal for one 21.47 but the console just don't bring any image (tested in CRT too), I read a Spanish guy say he was able to change her clone to 60Hz modifying the multiplier with a resistor (I don't know what that means), but he didn't mention what chipset was, if that console was an Spanish version like mine for sure he got a UA6527P/TA-03XXX or equivalent.
I contacted with that guy but no answer, I wish there's a possible way to change to 60Hz in 6527P without replace the CPU, if someone here have more information I will appreciate he can share with us.
Edit: Some images from my NS-81 PCB.
(http://i.imgur.com/tBjgvCT.jpg)(http://i.imgur.com/EOIuDfT.jpg)
Thanks. See ya.
Does anyone know how to tell the difference between PAL-60 and NTSC? My TV doesn't say what the input is, would the music sound different between the two or something?
The only difference would be the colour encoding. PAL-60 simply means PAL encoding but with 60 Hz framerate (PAL means PAL encoding and 50 Hz framerate). Sound isn't carried in the NTSC/PAL signal, only video.
I have no idea how to tell the difference between PAL and NTSC colour encoding though.
Thanks P :)