Genesis 3 VA2 Mods

[0x15e]

I gave a Genesis 3 to my gf's kids and unfortunately, the only AV cable I could find for it disintegrated within a couple of weeks. I intend to mod it with standard AV jacks to solve that problem.

While I'm in there, can someone link me to whatever mods are necessary to get Virtua Racing / Game Genie / SMS modes working? Of those, the VR is the one I'd really like to get working. The others would just be for my own personal fooling around but I have a spare VR cart and I think they might enjoy it.

[0x15e]

Bump. Anyone? This has to have been figured out but my search skills are failing me. I can't find anything solid for VA2 mods besides the Game Genie one.

[Ace]

Here's a thread with a chart showing compatibility fixes for the VA1 and VA2 Genesis 3: http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthr...ty-Restoration

Solder pin B19 to solder pad C42 on the pad closest to the ASIC to deliver the 7.67MHz clock to the Sega Virtua Processor, then link pin B26 with pin B16 to fake the !CE_H signal.

However, for the time being, you're out of luck when it comes to Sega Master System compatibility. As of right now, only the VA1 motherboard works with Master System converters.

As for adding A/V jacks, you might want to add S-Video instead(unless your TV doesn't have an S-Video input). Solder a 75ohm resistor and a 220uF capacitor in series to the Chroma and Luminance lines(pins 15 and 16, respectively). Then, to get the dual Mono audio out of the system, look for two pins which are linked on the underside of the Multi A/V out.

I should make a thread compiling all known Genesis 3 mods.

[0x15e]

Thanks for the quick rundown on VR! Are there any downsides to that? Will it break any other games that you know of?

I'll be ok without the SMS compatibility. It was more a curiosity than anything.

As for the S-Video, I'm sure these kids would just destroy the jack / cable like they did the original AV cable. I'm mostly doing the AV mod to simplify the connections and hopefully make it a bit more durable.

[Ace]

Since I modded my VA2 Genesis 3, no games have been broken. Most games don't make use of pins B19 and B26, so they shouldn't break unless you did something stupid while soldering.

As much as S-Video would have been better on the Genesis 3, if that's not possible, use this picture as reference to know which pins carry which signals on the multi A/V out: http://www.calmdownkidder.com/lulz/megadriveav.jpg

Ignore Audio Right, as that's not present on the Genesis 3. You'll have to grab both audio outputs from Audio Left. If you want Stereo sound, you might want to consider building a slightly tweaked version of TmEE's Audio Mod(tweaked to account for louder FM Synthesis out of the 315-6123).

[evildragon]

You shouldn't need a dual mono hookup. Most amps and TV's will detect that nothing is in the right audio port, and internally duplicate it to the right from the left for you.

[Ace]

Many of the TVs I've used are incapable of telling apart a Mono audio from a Stereo audio signal and will simply output the audio on the left or right speaker depending on where the Mono audio out is being plugged in. That's why I made mention of dual Mono.

[0x15e]

I have enough jacks and it's not much more effort. I'll probably just go ahead and hook up dual mono. It's easier to find an AV cable with yellow / white / red than just yellow / white anyway.

[evildragon]

Many of the TVs I've used are incapable of telling apart a Mono audio from a Stereo audio signal and will simply output the audio on the left or right speaker depending on where the Mono audio out is being plugged in. That's why I made mention of dual Mono.

As long as nothing is plugged into the right audio jack on the TV, it should work.. Unless they are cheap TV's.

[Chibisteven]

As long as nothing is plugged into the right audio jack on the TV, it should work.. Unless they are cheap TV's.

That only works on the back of my TV with what you said above. The front on the other hand requires daul mono for some reason, but then the front will over-ride the back A/V jacks when something is plugged in the front by switching to the front jacks. It's how they used to do some TVs in the year 2000. Thought I throw this peice of information out there.

[evildragon]

Honestly, I think the RCA jack is just broken, and is not correctly identifying if a cable is in there or not.

ALL my TV's correctly handle a mono RCA audio jack.