Is my Mega Drive MK1 region free?

[dcultrapro]

Hi gang... I'm not sure how the region coding worked on the Mega Drive but I saw a vid somewhere on youtube that if your Mega Drive says "Stereo Sound" and has the serial port visible on the back that its actually region free... does anyone know if thats true? I was tempted to buy the Japan only Dragon Ball Z game the other day but hesitated when i thought about the region. Though I was always able to play the imported version of Xmen 2 Clone Wars, but then I don't know if that game was region coded its self. Was it the games or just the machine that dictated region?

cheers

[Lum]

There wasn't a region code in the modern sense. Instead each machine has two internal settings games may check: hz and language. This behavior inherited from Master System, so backwards compatible mode is also affected. (like Cloud Master will become Japanese on their Mega Drive)

Mega CD drives try to check your machine version as well. You can't use an imported Mega CD without getting around that.

[Yakumo]

Pretty much any game made for the Mega Drive in any region until 1990 will work in ANY Mega Drive. It wasn't until later releases did region protection get put in to game cartridges. Even then only some games including the Dragonball game had it.

It's very easy to region mod a Mega Drive anyway so it's not a problem to be honest. There are plenty of guides on the net.

Yakumo

[dcultrapro]

hmm... interesting! thanks for the responses guys... I knew it wasn't region protection like we have today but rather down to the carts themselves and the checks the system performs, though I'm guessing later versions of the MK1 and the MK2 probably perform more stringent checks and I guess its possible the very first MK1 didn't do that??

Yakumo you said Dragon Ball z does have region coding on the cart, so if my MK1 is region free will the coding on the cart not matter? or is it that my MK1 isn't actually region free at all?

sorry if I'm asking the same question twice tis a bit confusing lol

[Lum]

That won't work on its own. An early MK1 still has those two settings I mentioned. You've confused region with TMSS, that limited protection against unlicensed games the later revisions added.

[dcultrapro]

ok yeah then I must be getting confused. ok so your saying that every MK1 will have 2 settings, so regardless of the region of the game or console, the console will check the default language of the cartridge and the... HZ...? what's the HZ? thanks

[Lum]

HZ is part of the console's video and running speed. Most games play slower in 50hz than 60hz. An event many PAL users dislike.

[Sektor]

Japan and USA use 60Hertz. Europe and Australia use 50Hz. I'm not sure on your location but since you called it Mega Drive instead of Genesis then I guess you have a 50Hz PAL system. If the game doesn't care about the Hz setting then it will run 17% slower on a 50Hz system.

[dcultrapro]

aaah ok cool, I should of known that to be fair, I know about the 50/60hz problems etc lol doh!!

yes mate I am from the UK, maybe I should put that under my name instead of what I normally put lol.

So I guess then the next logical questions would be how do you know if a game will pass the checks or not? I assume any US game probably will as the language will be fine, but I'm guessing I can't play Japan region ones... I don't suppose theres any easy way to know except through trial and error huh

[synrgy87]

aaah ok cool, I should of known that to be fair, I know about the 50/60hz problems etc lol doh!!

yes mate I am from the UK, maybe I should put that under my name instead of what I normally put lol.

So I guess then the next logical questions would be how do you know if a game will pass the checks or not? I assume any US game probably will as the language will be fine, but I'm guessing I can't play Japan region ones... I don't suppose theres any easy way to know except through trial and error huh

its seriously easy to mod a megadrive especially a megadrive mk1 with a 50/60hz switch and a region/language switch theres also a switchless version of ths mod but i wont for the switch version simply because all you need is 2 switches and some wire. and i wont be selling my mk1 so not worried about value or the holes i put in the case for the mod.

also you probably know you need to "adjust" the cartridge slot to fit the fat ass japanese games in. us games should run fine on any megadrive as far as im away pal or us. "Game" a number of years back were selling Genesis games off the shelf i picked up a Genesis copy of Batman Forever and it ran fine on my mk2 i had back then and works fine on my mk1 i have now even before the 50/60hz switch although its probably slower at 50hz.

[dcultrapro]

ok so do you mean my mk1 could handle 60hz?

how do you do the mod? Is it a physical mod? i've only ever done software mods to my Xbox and using SD card stuff for my DC so I don't know how keen I'd be to physically change the MD in terms of tinkering with parts

[synrgy87]

ok so do you mean my mk1 could handle 60hz?

how do you do the mod? Is it a physical mod? i've only ever done software mods to my Xbox and using SD card stuff for my DC so I don't know how keen I'd be to physically change the MD in terms of tinkering with parts

it is a physical mod and yes your mk1 can handle 60hz, there are guides all over the internet basically its just putting a switch inbetween jumpers on megadrive board. http://www.mmmonkey.co.uk/ has a guide just need a soldering iron some wire and a switch and maybe a drill or switch and drill not needed if you go for switchless option. look it up and see if you're confident enough to do it yourself, or someone may do it for you.

there's also loads of videos on youtube of people doing it, in my opinion playing at 60hz full screen is well worth it. maybe if you dont want to do it, buy a second megadrive. you can get the "console only" ones for around £10 on ebay.

choice is yours

[dcultrapro]

nice, thanks for the info mate I shall certainly consider it :)

[Hedgeyourbets]

There's also the issue of the cartridge slot, pretty sure japanese games won't physically fit into an unmodded PAL system. It takes about 2 minutes to widen it mind you, unlike the crappy PAL snes UGH!
If you're uneasy about doing the mod yourself, you can always post your megadrive to me and I'll do it for you for a small fee
Alsooo, to play megadrive games in 60hz you need to use an RGB cable or it will look all black and white and awful

[dcultrapro]

hhmmm... yeah I'm just thinking is it worth it, I mean I have no real intention of buying import games PURELY because of the cost and the thought that I won't actually play them. I would have considered it 5/6 years ago but lately I just can't justify the expenditure, if it were something fairly simple to do like how you import on the Saturn or DC then I'd go for it definitely. I was interested in getting the Dragon Ball Z game on Mega Drive but don't have any other imports I'd want to play, I just don't enjoy playing games on any system where I can't understand the dialogue or txt on screen. The only real exception to this for me was Frame Gride on DC where it was such a great game I just didn't care lol

thanks for the offer mate, maybe one day if I have the money and don't mind spending lots on games in Japanese that I can't understand lol

I guess I was kinda hoping that importing Japanese games on the MD wouldn't be quite this complicated

slightly off topic, relating to the whole 60hz part about the md and how it comes out black and white.... this has interested me, I have problems capturing from the older consoles because I receive interference or its just possible the device I use doesn't like the static or something, the TV obviously cuts it all out but when sending the Mega Drive, 32x, Mega CD or Master System to my PC via EZCAP the picture comes out ok but the colours are all wrong

I got around this problem by first sending the picture to my DVD/VHS player/recorder (its got both built in) and then the output from the player goes to my pc via RCA and the picture seems fine. Just wondering if anyone knows why it does it when sending the picture direct? It does it no matter what region I pick when playing with the capture settings in Arcsoft Showbiz


thanks