Over-clocking the megadrive

[carbon boy]

God only knows how I found myself reading through the info at Wikipedia but I did

Any-hoo. I stumbled across their section on the Sega Mega Drive and read with wonder, a little article towards the bottom of the page which referred to over-clocking. I've heard this term mentioned in PC circles and such like, but I didn't think it could achieve on a console.

Has anyone here over-clocked a Japanese Mega Drive, or any console for that matter? What effects does it have? Is it safe...!?

[wheelaa]

I've heard of overclocked N64s. I think there's a thread here tbh.

Edit here it is

http://ntsc-uk.domino.org/showthread...ht=overclocked

[kernow]

dc and ds have been overclocked in the past too

[qatmix]

Heh I overclocked a DC

[anephric]

I've always been really tempted to overclock one of my N64s, considering they're dirt cheap so if you bork up it doesn't matter, but my soldering skillz aren't up to it...

Can it potentially fry the carts? Or am I talking bool****?

[Leon Retro]

I heard you can do stuff to the SNES. One of them forcing it to always display in ( hi-res mode )

Is it true?

[vertigo]

AFAIK the SNES is actually very hard to do as I think you have to overclock all the major processing units. The Megadrive overclock is good but you'll need a switch on it coz it causes ****-ups with many games, but improves many others. There's a vid going around of Hard Drivin' in normal and overclocked mode and the difference in frame rate is quite stark. I will get around to overclocking one of my Megadrives one day, eventually. The N64 one is effective for a few games but proves quite useless and unstable for many others.

kingston lj I think the SNES diplay mode is dictated by the software. Software can switch the display mode as and when, not just on boot. I think to get it to display always in hi-res mode you'd have to poke a certain value into one of the PPUs memories and keep it there, which would be nigh on impossible.

[eretsua]

if you're tired of your NES slowing down check out this article on how to overclock your NES. Sadly when the CPU clock rises, so does the audio pitch.

[randombs]

http://www.epicgaming.us/

go nuts, kids!

i'm considering doing this too, provided my MD's processor is the right one. basically the mod involves two switches - one to pause/unpause the processor, the other to choose the speed (7-odd or 13-odd mhz). the pause switch stops the thing crashing mid-game. it'll be great for sonic (especially 2-player mode) when you lose your rings!

you can run megadrive emus overclocked so this could give you some idea of how your favourite game will run before you take the plunge

anephric, noone's mentioned anything about carts getting fried although overclocking does heat up your expansion pack (and possibly the regular n64 ram pack) a bit. some people have stuck a fan in there to help with the cooling down. i saw a video someone recorded of perfect dark in hi-res overclocked and it was a constant 30fps which was amazing, although the video could've just been speeded up. however, as the rate was constant, compared with the frame rate highs and lows you get when playing at normal speed, i'd imagine faking it would've taken a lot of time!

[Leon Retro]

AFAIK the SNES is actually very hard to do as I think you have to overclock all the major processing units. The Megadrive overclock is good but you'll need a switch on it coz it causes ****-ups with many games, but improves many others. There's a vid going around of Hard Drivin' in normal and overclocked mode and the difference in frame rate is quite stark. I will get around to overclocking one of my Megadrives one day, eventually. The N64 one is effective for a few games but proves quite useless and unstable for many others.

kingston lj I think the SNES diplay mode is dictated by the software. Software can switch the display mode as and when, not just on boot. I think to get it to display always in hi-res mode you'd have to poke a certain value into one of the PPUs memories and keep it there, which would be nigh on impossible.

I remember reading in an early EDGE, that there was a magazine dedicated to this sort of thing in Japan, and I distinctly recall the article mentioned they had modded a Super Famicom, so it always runs in hi-res ( Modet6?? )

It didn't go into detail, and I don't know if it was true, but they did print the article.

I can't find any info on Google, and I can't be bothered to look through my issues. I guess it's unlikely many people ever attempted the mod!

[randombs]

why would you wanna run it in hi-res though? unless it does hardware stretching of the screen, wouldn't it just be in a tiny window for anything that wasn't hi-res? kinda like when you run a snes emu at 640x480 or higher and turn off stretching?

or is the snes cooler than i think?

mind you it'd be interesting just to find out about it...

[k0pp0]

There's a couple of nice RPG's that run full screen hi res mode. Can't remember what they are but I'm sure a google search would brnig them up

[vertigo]

I think you're talking about Gamelab, which by the accounts I've read was a fantastic magazine.

[Leon Retro]

There's a couple of nice RPG's that run full screen hi res mode. Can't remember what they are but I'm sure a google search would brnig them up

There are a few games. I remember one being an early title, possibly an EA isometric racer. The hi-res mode was usually reserved for title and menu screens though.

On my old Sony CRT, the hi-res mode just made the screen look more interlaced. I guess the mode used more power too, which is one of the reasons so few games used it.