Playing PAL games on my Korean/Japanese Mega Drive

[molotovwars]

I've never really played imports on my Genesis and now that I'm in Korea I've got a Korean Mega Drive which is basically just a Japanese Mega Drive with a pretty Samsung shell.

I don't know much about the shape of PAL cartridges, but I would need to get a pass through cartridge right? I'm pretty sure I need one for US cartridges as well. Would I need 2 seperate pass through cartridges?

It seems like some games have region lock outs. So I might need more than just a pass through cartridge and maybe something more like a game genie (but I'm using a Korean Mega Drive, so I don't know what I'll need)

Also I always see that PAL games run on a different frequency 50 or 60mhz ... I never remember which. Will this cause a problem with the games?

Basically I'm going to import a copy of Vectorman since it ws never released in either Japan or Korea. I've already got a US copy, so I may pursue getting a PAL copy just to mix things up. Any problems I should anticipate.

Sorry to make a new thread for this, it just seems information for running PAL games on a Japanese system is less abundant than importing games to a US system.

[Breetai]

A lot of games from about '93 on are region-coded. This is very possibly the case for Vectorman. Test it on an emulator by setting the Mega Drive to Japanese mode on it and using a ROM of the NTSC-US game. That will give you a big hint as to whether or not you can play it on your Japanese (well, Korean, but it's probably a Japanese system) MD.

The easiest and cheapest thing for you to do is to solder in a region switch. This should set you up for games from anywhere. Also, you're right, you should get some sort of pass-through cartridge such as a Game Genie so the games will fit. You could also physically modify the system.

[molotovwars]

If I do a test with an emulator would it show problems that might arise from the difference in frequencies between the regions?

[Breetai]

If I do a test with an emulator would it show problems that might arise from the difference in frequencies between the regions?

I don't know, as I'm only personally concerned with running Japanese games on an American system and vice-versa. I suspect that it would. Try it and see. If PAL Sonic runs at a strange speed on the emulator set to NTSC-US or NTSC-J, then the answer is yes.

I don't completely trust this method, but I do think it works fairly well.

[emwearz]

Unless I am mistaken some games wont boot if not at there correct freq (IE a PAL version of Sonic Spinball will not boot if your freq is set to 60HZ) so you need a freq switch as well (You can swap it back to 60HZ once you get past to boot seq).

I may be wrong, but I am pretty sure this is the case with some games.

[molotovwars]

Well I managed to find a US copy of Vectorman out here in Korea and got it to play simply with a Mega Converter pass-through cart.