Question about American SNES

[OldClassicGamer]

Hello. I know that removing tabs allows you to play SFC Games but what about PAL games? Can you play them as well? According to region lockout article on wikipedia, answer is yes but some people on internet say no. Is there anyone who tried it and can confirm to me? Thanks

 

[MTSoph14]

No, you can't. That is because a USA SNES cannot put out a PAL video signal, and a your TV probably does not accept them anyway.

 

[OldClassicGamer]

LOL, my TV is PAL, and it supports NTSC as well (Playing NTSC PS1 games on PAL PS2 produce massive black bar but it works)
If i have right SNES cable could then pal games work?

 

[Count Duckula]

Not without an adapter. The games have lockout chips that stop them running in overseas consoles, its not just a matter of pal vs NTSC video standard and the shape of the cart.

You would connect the overseas cart as well as a local one (from the region of your console) to the adapter. The adapter would connect the data pins to the overseas game and the lockout chip pins to the local game, to allow it to run.

 

[RodrigoDavy]

Not without an adapter. The games have lockout chips that stop them running in overseas consoles, its not just a matter of pal vs NTSC video standard and the shape of the cart.

You would connect the overseas cart as well as a local one (from the region of your console) to the adapter. The adapter would connect the data pins to the overseas game and the lockout chip pins to the local game, to allow it to run.

My old snes played both american and japanese games without using any adapter.

 

[Count Duckula]

My old snes played both american and japanese games without using any adapter.

Japanese and USA are both NTSC and share lockout chips. If you can get the cart into the slot then they'll work.

PAL and NTSC have different lockout chips, so need an adapter that uses a local game cart's chip, or I believe the action replay etc included a lockout chip and also acted as a region free adapter.

 

[RodrigoDavy]

Japanese and USA are both NTSC and share lockout chips. If you can get the cart into the slot then they'll work.

PAL and NTSC have different lockout chips, so need an adapter that uses a local game cart's chip, or I believe the action replay etc included a lockout chip and also acted as a region free adapter.

Didn't know that. I had a fair amount of japanese games back then. Since I couldn't understand english, it didn't really matter if the game was in japanese or english ^^

 

[Count Duckula]

I only know of them from renting games back in the 16 bit days. My local video store often had overseas games and would also give you an adapter and a local game if you rented one.

 

[OldClassicGamer]

So wikipedia is lying?

 

[Count Duckula]

So wikipedia is lying?

Link/Quote of info in question?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Nintendo_Entertainment_System#Regional_lockout
The info there all looks to agree with what I've said. It also mentions the speedup/slowdown issue that you will get in some games due to the different timings of NTSC 60hz and PAL 50hz.

 

[J-Machine]

It simply wont work. You would need to modify the snes or circumvent the lockout chip to allow it to play pal games. In fact many games will simply tell you on boot up that the game was not made for your system.

 

[Lumstar]

Speed, NTSC/PAL color, and lockout, are three different things.

Even if you install both a lockout switch and speed switch, the console will remain set to output NTSC color with composite/RF/s-video. Resulting in some form of NTSC50 at 50hz mode for those video types.