Game Regional Differences
This is quite a complex topic which I will try to make as simple as I can. As with many other consoles N64 games can be divided into three main regions:-
- Japan (NTSC)
- USA (NTSC)
- Europe and Australia (PAL)
Now its important to note that all NTSC N64 consoles and games are technically identical - a USA N64 motherboard is exactly the same as a Japanese N64 motherboard. There is only one thing that prevents a USA N64 console from playing original Japanese N64 games (or visa-versa) and thats some plastic tabs in the consoles cartridge slot which match some small slots on the back of the game cartridges, this means only one regions games will physically fit in the console. If you would like to play both USA and Japanese N64 games on your NTSC N64 then there is a simple modification you can perform which will allow all N64 games to fit:-
http://www.mmmonkey.co.uk/console/ni...-cart-tabs.htm
As USA and Japanese N64 consoles are basically identical, it is best to think of them as both being one region - NTSC.
European and Australian N64 consoles are known as PAL models, this is because they have some key technical differences in hardware that makes them different to NTSC consoles, including different security lockout chips as discussed in the previous section.
Hopefully you now understand that N64 consoles can bascially be categorised as being either NTSC or PAL, so at this point it might be a good idea to explain what NTSC and PAL actually means. Basically, different parts of the world use different TV standards:-
NTSC (Used in the USA, Japan, etc):-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTSC
NTSC has 480 lines on the TV screen and is 60Hz, which means the TV screen is refreshed 60 times a second.
PAL (Used in Europe, Australia etc):-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PAL
PAL has 576 lines on the TV screen and is 50Hz, which means the TV screen is refreshed 50 times a second.
Due to the difference in TV standards games that were developed/designed for one region (often NTSC) needed to be programmed slightly differently to work correctly in the other region. If a game was not changed (or ‘optimized’) for the PAL region this often resulted in a game that runs 17.5% slower than the NTSC version and has black bars at the top and bottom of the TV screen to fill up the extra lines – this is obviously not very desirable!
Many early PAL N64 games were not ‘PAL optimized’ at all, for instance PAL Super Mario 64 and Lylat Wars (Star Fox 64) were ‘unoptimized’ and run slower than the USA versions, and have black bars at the top and bottom of the screen. PAL N64 games from 1998 onwards (e.g. Zelda Ocarina of Time) or games originally developed in a PAL country (e.g. GoldenEye) tended to be PAL optimized and run at the same speed as the NTSC version and do not have black bars.
On earlier consoles such as the Mega Drive/SNES most PAL games tended to be exactly the same as the NTSC version, only the console hardware was different, and this resulted in black bars and slower speeds for many games. However since the Hz (Hertz) rate was set in
hardware, by modifying the console and fitting a physical switch it was possible to swap between 50Hz/60Hz when you wanted - this allowed PAL gamers to force many PAL games to run at the same speed as the NTSC versions. Unfortunately the same is not true for the N64, as the Hz rate is set by a combination of
software and hardware and the games are actually coded differently and tell the N64 which hertz rate to output, there is also no ‘hardware over-ride’ that we know of. This is important to understand, because these technical differences can lead to game regional compatibility problems which are not the fault of the flash cart.
NTSC N64 console owners
If you have a NTSC N64 console you can play any NTSC game, including USA and Japanese games (USA and Japanese ROM’s are often denoted by a (U) or a (J) in the title) However, you may have some problems playing PAL (European) games, but since there were only five ‘PAL exclusive’ N64 games this is not much of a problem. The list of PAL only N64 games are:-
F-1 World Grand Prix II
F1 Racing Championship
Premier Manager 64
Taz Express
40 Winks (Unreleased, but is available as a ROM)
As you can hopefully see, NTSC N64 owners have very little to worry about in regards to region compatibility. From the above list the game that is probably most desirable to play is the unreleased '40 Winks'. As this is a PAL N64 game it displays a region error message if you try to load it on an NTSC console, however a clever coder called 'Zoinkity' has released a patch for the game which bypasses the region check and allows the game to run on an NTSC console. You can download the 40 Winks region patch here:-
http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/539/
PAL N64 console owners
If you have a PAL N64 console you can play any PAL game with no problems (PAL ROM’s are often denoted by an (E) in the game title) However you may have problems playing some NTSC games, and unfortunately the list of NTSC games unreleased in the PAL market is quite large. There are a few possibilities as to what can happen if you try to play an NTSC game on a PAL N64:-
- The game will run fine but will be running in 60Hz just as it would on an NTSC N64.
- The game will run but might have graphics/speed/sound glitches (e.g. popping/cracking sounds in the music)
- The game will display an error message saying "THIS GAME IS NOT DESIGNED TO BE PLAYED ON THIS SYSTEM"
- Finally, you might just get a black screen – the game wont even load.
So what can a PAL N64 gamer do if they want to play NTSC games that were not released in PAL areas? You have two choices:-
Patch the NTSC games to play on a PAL N64
There is a program called ‘PALadin’ that is designed to patch an NTSC game to work on PAL N64 consoles. Its quite an old program by today’s standards, and it was designed to work with DOS prompts, which is not very user friendly, so there is also a ‘front-end’ program called ‘S-Paladin’ which works in combination with PALadin and makes it easier to use it on more modern PC’s. You can download both programs from here:-
http://home.clara.net/smiff/utilitie...dex.htm#region
To use PALadin:-
- Download and extract both programs and then put them both in the same folder
- Double click S-Paladin and the program will load up
- Use the folder structure to select the ROM you want to patch.
You now have numerous patching options, but the most basic way to use the program is to:-
- Tick the ‘Convert Video’ box at the top right
- Select the ‘Convert to’ mode (Most of the time you will want to leave it set to the default PAL setting)
- Finally click ‘Convert’ to change the ROM to support PAL video modes.
PALadin, is a really useful program, but it won’t make every NTSC game work on a PAL N64 console. In some cases the game will work but might have crackling/popping sounds in the music, or it might just display a region error message. You can try changing the PALadin patching options (Such as the ‘Fix country-check’ option) and trying again, but some NTSC games might still refuse to work on a PAL N64, this leads me to the second option:-
Buy an NTSC N64 console, AV cable, and one NTSC game
This may sound a bit extreme, but it’s actually quite a good option, as nowadays NTSC N64 consoles can be bought for around $10.00 on ebay.com (Excluding shipping, although they can still be bought for around $25.00 even including shipping) The only problem is finding sellers who are willing to ship to your country.
You don’t even need the US/Japan power supply or a step-down transformer, since you can use your countries original N64 power supply with any region N64 console (For instance, if you live in France you can use an original French N64 power supply with a US N64 console)
You will also need at least one original NTSC N64 game for the CIC and casing, but these can also be picked up for only a few dollars.
There are a couple of great things about this option:-
- As you would expect, compatibility for NTSC games is 100%
- You can still use all your PAL N64 accessories with no problems; this means you can use your original N64 power supply from your country with no step-down concerns at all. You can also use all your PAL Controllers, Expansion Paks, Rumble Paks, Controller Paks, Transfer Paks, etc. with no problems.
There are only a couple of minor downsides:-
- If you still want to play PAL N64 games as well you will need to have two N64 consoles setup, or switch consoles when you want to play PAL games.
- Your TV must support NTSC signals, although almost every European TV made in the last 10-15 years supports NTSC.
One minor consideration is that if your NTSC N64 console does not come with a Composite AV video cable you will also need to buy an NTSC N64 Composite or S-Video cable. Its not a very well known fact, but PAL and NTSC Nintendo AV cables are slightly different, as PAL video cables have an extra resistor inside that NTSC cables do not:-
http://gamesx.com/wiki/doku.php?id=av:nintendomultiav
You can easily buy an NTSC N64 Composite cable on ebay, or an even better idea is to pick up an N64 S-Video cable which will also give you better picture quality, and since no PAL S-Video cable was ever made you don’t need to worry about any possible NTSC/PAL cable differences. Also note that it is possible to modify a PAL Composite cable into an NTSC one by removing the extra resistor, although afterwards you can only use that cable with NTSC Nintendo consoles.
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Originally Posted by Link83 Guide
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