Nintendo-64 on Pimp my retro handheld

Nintendo 64 CPU overclock

Tue, 25 Apr 2023 19:13:58 +0000

I recently modded my N64, first by converting it to NTSC, then by adding a Tim Worthington’s RGB kit. The motherboard was still out of its shell and the temptation was high to apply a last mod before remounting it : overclock ! A small and heap kit can be found on ebay or from https://www.delta-island.com/forum (french). The purpose is to be able to switch the original CPU frequency from 93.75Mhz to 125 Mhz. A video on youtube show how to install the mod.

Nintendo 64 : modded to output RGB

Tue, 14 Feb 2023 18:23:34 +0000

In a previous post, I shared how I converted my PAL Nintendo 64 to NTSC. The problem is that my CRT TV does not support NTSC composite signal, so an RGB mod was mandatory. I used Tim Worthington kit version 3.0.

I’m not going to explain what is already on the official install guide, I’m just sharing my experience…

Overview

Here is the N64 motherboard with what is in the kit : RGB board and wires:

Converting a PAL Nintendo 64 motherboard to NTSC

Mon, 06 Feb 2023 20:58:31 +0000

Like many consoles of its generation, the Nintendo 64 is zoned. That is to say, each of the 3 usual regions (NTSC / Japan, NTSC / USA, PAL / Europe) had a specific model that could only play same region’s cartridges. In fact, NTSC regions share the same hardware and the protection is only physical (like the Megadrive and Snes) : a simple piece of plastic that could easily be removed. But The PAL model has a different hardware, including a specific region check chip (PIF-NUS) and video encoder to output a (obviously) PAL video signal.