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Region and NTSC/PAL Hack for PCE Roms?

 
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Wolfeman



Joined: 26 Dec 2006
Posts: 62

PostPosted: Sat Jul 21, 2007 8:55 pm    Post subject: Region and NTSC/PAL Hack for PCE Roms? Reply with quote

I figured I'd have heard of such a thing if it existed but I thought I'd ask anyway.

Is there a Region and Video hack for PCE Roms. If so where can I find it?

Barring a software pacth, does anyone know where a good tutorial for region hacking a U.S. Turbo Duo is?
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kyuusaku



Joined: 26 Jul 2003
Posts: 941
Location: .ma.us

PostPosted: Sat Jul 21, 2007 9:56 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

There is no NTSC/PAL difference to the ROMs. There aren't any PAL games even since the console originally wasn't meant for the PAL market. The official PAL systems are sort of aftermarket and play US games. PAL PC Engine consoles are all unofficial modifications and play JP games.

The difference between JP and US HuCards is the data bus (D0-D7). The ROM data in US HuCards is reversed so that D0-D7 = D7-D0. To make a US Turbo Duo play JP HuCards, you need to design a circuit or use a very big switch to select between D7/D0, D6/D1, D5/D2, D4/D3, D3/D4, D2/D5, D1/D6, D0/D7. Other than that, there are no other modifications necessary.

Unlike the Turbo Duo, PC Engine DUOs need an additional mod to allow a JP console to play US games. Only US games have region protection so if you have a US console, you don't need to worry about it.
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Wolfeman



Joined: 26 Dec 2006
Posts: 62

PostPosted: Sun Jul 22, 2007 2:36 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

ahh ok, I think I understand. Do you happen to know if the US Region checkbox on the Tototek PCE Flash Cart software [dreamwriter] does the swapping of the data bus or is that strictly done through hardware?

I'm having quite a bit of trouble with more than a handful of roms on the Tototek flashcard playing back on my U.S. Turbo Duo.

When I check the US region box in Dreamwriter it seems to add more data to the rom. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. Typically the rom either freezes at the boot menu or the screen starts flipping with blue stripes. Is there some sort of protection scheme that goes above and beyond the reverse data bus swap?
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kyuusaku



Joined: 26 Jul 2003
Posts: 941
Location: .ma.us

PostPosted: Mon Jul 23, 2007 5:41 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I don't know what DreamWriter does but swapping the data bus in software achieves the same result as in hardware. I imagine that when you check the region, it makes sure the game is the correct region (and if it's not it will convert the ROM), it also needs this because otherwise the menu will not work. It must check games against a CRC database because there aren't any headers to PCE games AFAIK, perhaps the database is flawed?

Are the games that are failing strange sizes like 3M, 5M, 6M?

You're using a TTI Turbo Duo right? There should be no protection issues unless you are trying to play US games on a JP system.
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Wolfeman



Joined: 26 Dec 2006
Posts: 62

PostPosted: Mon Jul 23, 2007 8:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

kyuusaku wrote:

Are the games that are failing strange sizes like 3M, 5M, 6M?

You're using a TTI Turbo Duo right? There should be no protection issues unless you are trying to play US games on a JP system.


YES! The sizes of the games that do not seem to work are 3M/5M/6M... what does this mean?

I have an NEC Turbo Duo model: HES-DUO-01

I will try flashing without any region patching and see what happens.

I am getting the roms from usenet posted as "offline list verified". I have not tried running them through any sort of verification.

edit: I forgot to say thank you... "Thank You!" Smile
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kyuusaku



Joined: 26 Jul 2003
Posts: 941
Location: .ma.us

PostPosted: Tue Jul 24, 2007 6:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

OK, I'll bet the flash card doesn't support strange game sizes (which are normally made with multiple ROMs) and Dream Writer doesn't automatically pad them to a normal ROM size. Use uCON64 to pad a 3M game to 4M and 5/6M to 8M. That will probably help.
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Wolfeman



Joined: 26 Dec 2006
Posts: 62

PostPosted: Sat Jul 28, 2007 4:13 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm going to test this out next week, I'll report back.

thanks!!
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