Sega Saturn Project

Performa

Member
After all this time talking about it, it's finally time to stick the Fenrir Optical Drive Emulator (ODE) device into the Saturn. Thanks to Sega's "modular" design, the little Fenrir board's ribbon cable just clips into the header on the Saturn's board, and the Saturn itself has no idea it's reading an SD card instead of a CD. Pretty cool, as that will allow the machine to play more than the handful of games I can get my hands on right now.

Speaking of games, here's NFL 97' running on it. It's the only Saturn game I could find at the moment. For 1996, it doesn't look too bad, and considering the controllers don't have joysticks, it actually plays pretty good.





I don't think the Oilers are going to get to the super bowl this time though. 🤭
 

Performa

Member
It only took all month (everything else kept coming up) but I've finally done the Fenrir swap. Probably the easiest console mod I've ever done, I wish they were all this simple!

Here's a quick video guide that goes over the installation process, though it's actually even easier on newer versions as the updater and firmware are one file now instead of two.

 

Performa

Member
Here's the Sega Saturn with the hood popped open. From here you just unplug the power and data cables, plop the Fenrir device in it's place, and plug the wires back in. No soldering or anything required.



 

Performa

Member
Once the lid is back on, this is all of the device that's visible- just enough to see the micro SD card slot.

 

Performa

Member
Here's the result!





Unfortunately it's not "perfect" as this one is giving me some sound problems, which was a known problem with this version of the board and this version of the firmware. I haven't worked too hard to troubleshoot it as of yet.

(I was more focused on getting pictures than beating Ice Man here.)
 

Pezdude

Active member
Never knew they made something like this for the Saturn! That is a pretty cool mod for sure and seems pretty straight forward when watching the video. The last console mod I did was the RCA output mod for the Atari 2600 so that I could hook it up to my newer TVs and such! Lots of fun and required a bit of soldering.
 

Performa

Member
Never knew they made something like this for the Saturn! That is a pretty cool mod for sure and seems pretty straight forward when watching the video. The last console mod I did was the RCA output mod for the Atari 2600 so that I could hook it up to my newer TVs and such! Lots of fun and required a bit of soldering.
I don't think there's an easier mod anywhere. This was, truly "drop in and play" without anything more to it.

I've never thought about doing a composite mod for the Atari 2600- is the picture quality much better?
 

Pezdude

Active member
I don't think there's an easier mod anywhere. This was, truly "drop in and play" without anything more to it.

I've never thought about doing a composite mod for the Atari 2600- is the picture quality much better?
I found the picture quality to be 100% better! That was the biggest motivator for me to mod my 4 switch 2600.
 

Jasper

Well-known member
Here's the result!





Unfortunately it's not "perfect" as this one is giving me some sound problems, which was a known problem with this version of the board and this version of the firmware. I haven't worked too hard to troubleshoot it as of yet.

(I was more focused on getting pictures than beating Ice Man here.)
Awesome!
 
Top