AboutOctane Expertise I can Answer Video Game Compatability Problems (PAL, NTSC, JAP) for Atari 2600, 5200, NES, Super Nintendo/SFC, N64, Gamecube, Wii, Gameboy, GBA, DS, Sega Master System, Sega Mega Drive/Genisis, Game Gear, Mega CD, Nomad, Saturn, Dreamcast, Lynx, Jagura, Philips CDI, 3DO, Playstation, PS2, PSP and Xbox. Plus Ways around them to play wrong regions games on most consoles.
I also have an extensive knowledge of service and repair with most home consoles as well as arcade/pinball machines.
I have a reasonable general knowledge of most new to older games (I personally own about 1000 games and almost every console known to man.)
Experience Playstation, SNES, SATURN, Genisis/MD, NES, MS conversions. Controler conversions SNES to NES. Game conversion. Multi Carts. Remix and re-wire. PSP repair. Arcade building and customising. Video Game repair
Question if or when a game loads there is no moving video? baseball
has background but no players.car racing has no
car.fighting has no fighter.sound is fine and you can hear
the action just no picture ? baseball diamond is there and
you can here the game like ball being hit and camera angle
changes as if to follow ball but that is it. virtual
fighter 2 looks like the fighters are invisible . I can't
figure it out . please help
Answer Gday Peter,
Unfortunately it bad news. It sounds like one of the Saturn's graphic chips have gone out on you. The Saturn has 2 main graphic chips the VDP1 & VDP2. By the description you are giving the VDP1 chip is the one causing the problem. The VDP1 chip handles most of the Polygon based graphics but hardly any of the back ground graphics. IE Fighters in Virtual Fighter, car in Daytona etc. So your description fits the case.
It a simple fix really just replace the console. (I know not the words you wanted to hear)
Unfortunately to actually replace the chip requires you to not only get another graphics chip and the only way you will get one is get it out of another Saturn. But you would need a specialized desoldering kit and some wicked soldering skills to resolder the thing back in. It not some little chip but has 168 pins on it. So ultimately it would be easier to get another Saturn.
(But keep this broken Saturn around as you never know when you might need the optical drive or power supply out of this one)
