PSIO + Japanese SCPH-5000 + PAL games = black screen

[sk8er000]

Hello,
I've just received today my PSIO, and I had already prepared some rips from my collection (ntsc and pal games).
I'm using a japanese SCPH-5000 with a rgb scart (sync on luma) and every PAL game that I try to run I got a black screen and no sounds (tried on xrgb mini and PVM) the ntsc-u games and ntsc-j games run normally instead...Am I missing something?

Even if I change the menu from NTSC to pal I get a black screen but the bgm is still playing..

Tried on composite too and same behavior

[Matt]

Something is wrong with your PlayStation. PSIO doesn't do any trickery to the video output.

[squallrs]

I have a Japanese SCPH-7000 + PAL games, and no problem for me.

[LameGuy64]

I think it most likely has something to do with your console being incapable of outputting PAL or even quasi-PAL as it probably lacks a crystal oscillator for outputting 50Hz video.

There are modding tutorials about adding an additional crystal oscillator to an SCPH-500x or older system for 50Hz video output but I think its much easier to just get an SCPH-700x or newer system and perform a PAL color fix mod on it (which is just a matter of lifting a pin on the GPU and connecting a pad to 3.3v like I did, you'll find more details about this here).

[sk8er000]

I've tried with a japanese 7000 and it works..it's a strange thing..
Should it be that the 5000 series (and not 550x series) was a NTSC only release?

[krisk77]

Bumping an old thread in case someone else comes across this, as there is no other info about this elsewhere.

But I can confirm myself that PAL games won't boot (black screen) on a 5000 JP NTSC PS1 with PSIO. My setup:


Sony PVM 14M4E
RGB CSYNC RGC Scart cable
Japanese SCPH-5000 - PU-8 Motherboard.

However, you can patch PAL games to NTSC, yet the Y-POS is still screwed up even if you use the Zapper program from consolecopyworld to fix the screen position after converting the video mode. So it's probably best to stick to us/jp ntsc versions but I will install another switch board into a JP 7000 series out of curiosity.

[Matt]

They go to a black screen because there is no oscillator for the PAL frequency. Some boards have that design unfortunately, but PSIO is working. The only thing you can do is get a newer revised board, stick to NTSC games only or patch them.

[krisk77]

They go to a black screen because there is no oscillator for the PAL frequency. Some boards have that design unfortunately, but PSIO is working. The only thing you can do is get a newer revised board, stick to NTSC games only or patch them.

I never knew that until last week about some boards having that design, as 20+ years ago I always used PAL consoles with a mod chip via RGB scart running a mixture of both formats. It was only until I was installing the switch board I went and bought a JP model, purley for the Rhythm dance games like Bust a Move and having a true 60hz signal, so the timings would be in 1:1 sync, instead of installing a dual oscillator mod, etc.