Atari Jaguar 60Hz PAL mod tutorial - Does it REALLY make a difference? 

Thanks for watching my Atari Jaguar 60hz mod video. A huge thanks to my Patreons who make these videos happen. If you can chuck some change in the MFS hat I would be eternally grateful and you'll get your name up in lights! Visit www.patreon.com/markfixesstuff for details!

The Tom chip in the Jaguar has a 64-bit object processor and 64-bit blitter with 64-bit registers, and the system has a 64-bit bus. Atari didn't "add two 32-bit chips together", as the urban legend goes.

What a difference! Really enjoyed seeing those examples at the end thanks Mark

Really well created and nice fun video!! I’ve never seen in a Jag before... So many TABS! :-). Loving the quirks!!! Leaky caps... ?!? Nope just crud!!

Well worth the mod and easily done nice work.

Very good, clear video Mark. This looks well worth doing, for the extra screen space alone, let alone any speed differences. The mod looks very simple, and you showed how to do in neatly and with due care - awesome stuff! Just watch out for those neighbors especially as we are all stuck at home :)

Will do this one probably. Made one for Saturn, it makes all the difference... I also happen to have an original Atari scart-cable for Jaguar. It's really, REALLY monster sized cable, with Atari logo on the Jaguar-side connector. And I have a working cd-rom also...

Thanks Mark! I didn't realise it made such a difference, will be modding my Jag this weekend now!

More good quality content up to your usual standard Mark... Thanks...

The innuendo's are brilliant Mark... Although, It does need a bit of massaging to get it off, but don't we all....! Genius sir. (or is it just me?)

Nice video Mark 👌 And a quite noticeable difference, more than I'd have thought. One small thing though, my highly trained observers eye noticed there where quite a lot of tabs there... you should maybe mention that next time 🤔😁

A big difference there and almost worth just removing that 0 ohm resistor and forgetting the switch.

Wow Mark this is amazing, I’m seriously considering doing this to my Jaguar. I have the same scart lead.

Great video! Did you find anything that was actually *worse* in 60Hz? I'll be doing this mod but I'm just wondering whether to bother making it switchable...

Hmm loks very simple might have to do this with one of my E type Jags.

I used to stretch the image to full screen using my trusty Commodore 1084s monitor, worked great for megadrive/snes as well (apart from the 17% slower gameplay of course).

Great Video, makes me wonder if mines modded as it came with a scart that connects to the RGB out and its full screen already, but if not I dont mind love me some "Where did you learn to Fly"

Huh. Always wondered what that slot tool was for. Now I know :-D

Great video,! Planning to do that when I recap the Jaguar. What temperature (°C) did you set the iron to for the (de)soldering? You mentioned in another comment that too high temp could damage the board...

'No need to introduce this game...' *immediately introduces game* 😆

Great video! One question. The mod only changes frequency rates but doesnt change the video format? Because i want to buy a PAL jaguar to play it in a NTSC tv. Can i do that?

4:58 talk about asbestos fingers! 😲

Great job, looks like a nice cheap upgrade 👍

Old commercial games are OK to run on 60 Hz, especially those JagCD whose are not 50 Hz compatible like Dragon's Lair. But some moderns demos are not 60 Hz compatible. So it's good to have a switch

Luckily we moved on and we no longer get black bars just for using higher resolutions *cries in 1920x1200*

I’ve always wanted my jaguar switched but I can’t find someone in Scotland that can do it

So by removing R140 and not installing a switch, this would make the PAL Jaguar video output run permanently into NTSC mode?

So, if you just remove the resistor, it'll be locked to 60hz? I did a similar mod on my PAL MegaDrive 2, just cut a trace, now it's set to English NTSC.

It have 64 bit memory bus so... Technically it's 64 bit XD

Cool. I thought the Amiga 500 had a lot of tabs.

Great non intrusive mod this mark. Wire clippers, real men use there teeth 😁

Wait, so if I just desolder that resisitor thingie, I can make a Jag run 60hz? Wow. Does Burn Out run fine in 60hz?

But, what about tempest 2000??? (The sole reason to play on the Jaguar ;-))

Isn't the squashed PAL screen the result of the bigger resolution 576 lines where NTSC has only 480 lines? As shown in video, the framerate of 50Hz is slowed down 60Hz or vice versa.

I'm not sure why this story about Tom and Jerry being two 32 bit chips keeps being propagated. It's simply not true. While the Jag chipset is complicated, there is no way to add up its chips to make 64 bits. The way it was described by its designer is that it's 64 bit where it needs to be and not 64 bit where it wouldn't have made a difference. It has a classic Motorola 16 bit CPU for example... although that is more of a manager for the other chips. The data bus and GPU etc are all 64 bit.

As someone who greatly respects your ability and your approach to repairing electronics, I feel it is beneath you to claim the fan boy mag nonsense you did in the first part of the video. Not one minute into the video and I feel I need to correct you. Atari never made any such claim that two 32 bit processors equaled 64 bits. That was the lie pedaled by the fan boy mags back in the day because at best the writers were game player, not coders by any stretch. The Blitter and the OPL are indeed 64 bits wide sitting on a 64 bit wide data path. The 64 bits is the graphics processing portion of the machine. Both the blitter and the OPL process data at a full 64 bits across that 64 bit wide data bus. The system was choked by developers thinking they were coding for an Amiga, Atari ST or a Sega Genny. The 68k was a mistake. It ran at half the bus speed and one quarter the bus width. Atari put the 68k in the machine to give familiarity to programmers as the two RISC chips were not compatible with anything familiar at the time or even to this day. The manual makes it clear that the 68k was to get things up and running and then once that took place, the rest of the machine was to take over with the 68k stopped. The GPU however, though a 32 bit RISC processor, can load and store 64 bit data values using the LOADP and STOREP instruction. The OPL( essentially a hardware windowing and sprite engine) use instruction that were 64 bits wide. The Blitter could operate anywhere from 1 bit to 64 bits wide depending on the way it was used. It is called the Atari Jaguar 64 bit multimedia system.... not the Atari Jaguar 64 bit processing system for a reason. The machine was plagued by horrible tools and a 68k that cut the performance down to well below its potential. When turning it off and using the monster chips, a noticeable difference was made. No one has ever really seen the Jaguar perform at its full potential because no one ever bothered to take the time to find said potential. Some came close but not fully did they realize the machines ability. I've been coding the Jaguar since 1998 and have spent countless hours learning the ins and outs of the system.

Also..... I would not 100% say that the two 32 bit RISC chips were buggy.... there are some minor issues with them that would be better expressed as cost saving/missed opportunities. They are very capable chips installed in to a badly designed system. the 68k is the Achilles Heel of the system in more ways than one.

60Hz is a must have on this machine.

Pal 50hrz is terrible.

Always wanted a Jaguar, even though they're a bit...bobbins.

60hz is very nice until the wallet has to come out for some nice scart cabling to connect to an old tv I find.

it's real ugly there are more advanced 50/60 Hz mod's out there without an ugly switch on the back which "butchers" the console and make them useless for collectors. Ensure you have the right version of the shunkboard as well, else you may break your jaguar port/voltage circuit.