Is there a chance to oc the VB? Since it´s merely old-school computer circuits I thought it might be possible to boost it´s speed internally (not talking about screen refresh rate or mirror speeds).

I think games like Red Alarm would profit from that.
How about it?

That could be rewarding, I am curious now also.

It’s been done. DogP did it sometime in 2005 (maybe earlier). It should be possible to make it fully functional, but during experimentation it was found that the mirror oscillations were driven by the main clock, too. This caused the screen to “squish” horizontally. This might be remedied by either building a separate clock circuit for the display, or deriving the original clock from the new clock with a divider.

I’ve got IRC logs of a discussion about it, if anyone is interested…

Yeah, I am definitely interested. Are there any other issues to watch out for? Any parts dying soon, or are the VBs electronics sturdy enough?

I am sure others are too…why not have a section on it somewhere here on the site? Since some of us do modding on VB´s or parts of it, there would space enough. 🙂

Okay, here’s what I could find with a quick search. It’s been edited for relevancy. All times are CST (GMT-6).

Sun, May 22, 2005
[02:58:45a] How far can you overclock one without trouble?
[02:59:00a] I wouldn’t really know.
[02:59:06a] DP?
[02:59:11a] The bottleneck is probably the RAM.
[02:59:11a] You tried this yet?
[02:59:34a] I had one running at 33MHz, still ran, but had some glitches, probably RAM or cart ROM speed problem
[02:59:50a] 40MHz wouldn’t boot, not sure if it was the CPU or the VPU though (or both :P)
[03:00:10a] Just replaced the Xtal?
[03:00:23a] I wanna try just overclocking the CPU, leaving the VPU at regular speed… but I haven’t gotten around to it yet
[03:00:25a] yeah
[03:00:56a] CPU overclock would be great, because most games are timed to the VPU.
[03:01:06a] exactly…
[03:01:35a] I’d probably also need to do something about the mirrors…
[03:01:46a] It might actually be timed properly, actually. Just not using interrupts.
[03:02:12a] ugh, I used the same word twice in one sentence.
[03:03:22a] I think I’d need to make the mirrors move faster, or maybe with the VPU slow, it’d still stay sync’d… I dunno

Mon, May 23, 2005
[09:09:06a] at 40MHz, the CPU wasn’t hot, but it wouldn’t boot, and at 33, it was fast, but glitchy (but not hot)

As far as parts wearing out faster, I don’t think you need to worry with such modest speed gains. It likely draws more current at a higher speed, but I can’t say if it exceeds the VB’s voltage regulator’s capability.

If you try it, be sure to post your experiences here. Like you said, it’s quite an interesting topic.

I know a guy that overclocks Starfox carts – makes a good difference to the gameplay. Not sure how possible it would be, or how much crossover for something like Red Alarm.

Well that is an interesting find..OCing the cart and not the system itself. Poses less or no danger to a working unit.

I wonder if the carts of the VB are similar in internal design like the ones of the SNES…

L___E___T wrote:
I know a guy that overclocks Starfox carts – makes a good difference to the gameplay. Not sure how possible it would be, or how much crossover for something like Red Alarm.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOU2GikRRY8

Thats sweet. But…..
it couldn’t be done to any VB cart though as (and I am only guessing, not done any research or nothing, which being as we are on the internet makes me an expert…..) the Starfox overclock relates to the Super FX chip in the cart and has no effect on the actual processor in the snes.
As far as i can figure all VB carts hold the ROM and thats about it, no special chips to enhance the gameplay.

So back to field 1 – it can only be done within the VB?
What parts do we need and where will we have to put them?

Unfortunately I don´t have electronic skills, but I am quite good at soldering….if I had a spare unit and sort of a manual, I´d start immediately 😀

wolfman wrote:
So back to field 1 – it can only be done within the VB?
What parts do we need and where will we have to put them?

Unfortunately I don´t have electronic skills, but I am quite good at soldering….if I had a spare unit and sort of a manual, I´d start immediately 😀

AFAIK, all you need is a new crystal with which to replace the stock one. Of course, this will result in the “squished screen” problem, but I don’t know any specifics about how to go about solving that problem. If you have an oscilloscope, you could check the wires leading from the mainboard to the servo controller and try to find the mirror drive signal. I’m thinking a PLL could be used to derive a clock of the old frequency from the one produced in the OC’d VB. The good news is that, I think the VIP (graphics chip) actually synchronizes itself to the mirrors, rather than the other way around. My theory is that the squishing is caused by the VB trying to move the mirrors faster than they are physically able. Like any pendulum, they have a specific period. There is also the inductance of the drive coils to deal with.

I have a VB to use, and the desire to experiment with stuff like this, but I have neither the time nor the special equipment needed 🙁

If you send me a few hundred dollars for an o-scope and parts, I’ll post a “how-to” video for you in a couple of weeks 😉

So we need somebody, who is more into the innards of the VB…

Would love to give it a try…is there anyone on this forum with decent electronic skills to find out the connection of the servos and where the quarzes would have to be soldered on/bypassed?

I´d like to address this again…perhaps someone here in the forum is willing to have a look at this and can find out if there´s a workaround to get the VB overclocked AND the mirrors spinning at the right speed…..

I don’t think double-posting is going to get this noticed any better…

If you really want this to happen, put up a bounty. At the very least, you could offer your VB as a “lab rat” to be experimented on.

If you have more brains than money, to coin a phrase, then just (re)read this thread and check the wiki, the VB patents, and anything else you can find on the subject, roll up your sleeves, heat up your iron, and get down to business! Hey, you might even learn something useful along the way 😉

It wasn´t meant to be spam. But I saw this quickly vanishing out of sight and thought on the weekend there might be more attention on this topic for others being interested.

To be honest, I don´t want to kill my VB just for the sake of soldering something without knowing about it. Having somebody who has the knowledge and the passion to find out and posting a how-to is something common on other forums if you take a look around. And I am always happy to follow in those footsteps.

I wouldn´t touch the electronics unless i had a tutorial for that. And getting into all the circuit-board-related-stuff is definitely for someone with either lots of time or real knowledge. I don´t have the time and the unlimited resources of VBs to acquire that (by simple try-and-error that I am capable of in this particular dimension).

I think that there are more talented and more knowledgeable people out there who can figure this out way easily and faster than I could.

if there were real benefits to this, namely emulation or homebrew, i would be willing join in on a donation. but with that said, what would you hope would be accomplished? do you want vb games to run faster? it is an interesting idea but just to say “i did it” isn’t something i am interesting in donating towards.

Well thats the same as watching VB games on a TV – just having done it. There is no real benefit from that too, except that you can watch a small resolution on a big screen.

The reason behind it is first to have games run faster and second “having done it”. At least for me that is a good reason…and playing Red Alarm smoother than others too.