Japanese Sega Saturn

[Wools]

I'm considering buying some Japanese Saturn games and before I splashed any cash, had some questions I would appreciate if anyone could answer.

Which Saturn should I go for? I know of the original grey console, a white console (Mark II?) but is one meant to be more realisable than another?
Which memory pak should I buy? I believe there's a 1 Meg & 4 Meg option for games like KOF '96 and Metal Slug and assume the 4 Meg is the one to go for.
Should I buy the official Memory Card? My old modded Saturn could never save anything and assumed the battery back up was knackered so would love to go for a memory card that is reliable!
What step down converter would I need?

Many thanks for any help.

[Team Andromeda]

I rather the Grey One myself, but it can't be switched for 50/60 Hz (there are some good Pal games too ) and most of the Japanese Saturns are bullet proof you've got no worries on that score , whichever one you get . For the Meg Cart you are better off going for both official ones, as there's some Incompatabilty with games (even with the Action Replay cart) and to save to the Saturn system memory you need working CR2032 battery that 'may' have been the issue with the old Saturn

And any basic step down above 50W is fine

[S3M]

Should I buy the official Memory Card? My old modded Saturn could never save anything and assumed the battery back up was knackered so would love to go for a memory card that is reliable!

Errr you did know the panel on the back of the Saturn you can removed is so you can change the internal battery? Never leave a dead battery in there either as it can leak.

Usually I have to change mine around every four years, as Team Andromeda said go for the official memory card, also you will need the internal memory up and running and many games don't directly support the memory card.

FYI the Japanese releases of Outrun, don't work on the White Saturn model. Metal Slug and Space Harrier don't run on the skeleton model along with Outrun:

http://segaretro.org/Sega_Saturn_consoles#White_Japanese_Saturn

[Wools]

Regarding the grey Saturn, I thought about it but loved the look of the white version and some of the controllers you can pick up that goes nice with the white.

I did know you could change the batteries but don't want the hassle, however, I did not know not all games allow the save data to be placed on a memory card. That changes things!

[MiG]

I wouldn't worry about compatibility, my main Saturn is a white model and plays Metal Slug and the version of Outrun that I have (although there are versions of Outrun that don't work supposedly but I have never had trouble)

I would get the 4 meg RAM pack, the only games that I believe won't work with that are KoF 96 and Garou Densetsu, which will only work with the 1 meg cart..

Memory card again go with the official ones, they do a nice white one which matches the Saturn

[Asura]

I did know you could change the batteries but don't want the hassle,

Do note that it takes literally seconds to do. The back plate clips off. It's no more time consuming than changing a game cartridge in a SNES, once you have a new CR2032 battery.

[Wools]

Removing the battery, does that instantly wipe the saves?

[Jei]

Not if you leave it plugged in while you do it. Like others have said it's so simple you will kick yourself for not doing it to the last one.

Not sure why someone said the grey saturn can't be modded for 50/60hz. I have a launch machine that was modded fine.

[speedlolita]

They're probably just saying there's no SW4 point to easily install a switch. Hooking up pin 79 of the GPU to GND and 5V will toggle 50 and 60Hz no issue though. I currently have a grey launch Saturn (Made in Japan, better quality cart slot, better quality hardware generally, HKT-3200) with a region free BIOS installed and a later grey Saturn (HKT-3210) with a Phantom Universal modchip (20 pin).

Make sure you get an official memory card as it'll use non volatile memory, unlike the system memory. I believe not all games support direct writing to the cart but you can always manually store stuff on it using the system menu.

Don't even think about getting an AR cart too, they suck balls.

And there are like 9 or so different Saturn hardware revisions so saying that the "white" one doesn't work with certain titles isn't entirely accurate but good enough. I just prefer how the grey machine looks personally.

[S3M]

Which memory pak should I buy? I believe there's a 1 Meg & 4 Meg option for games like KOF '96 and Metal Slug and assume the 4 Meg is the one to go for.

Should have mentioned this in my earlier post but you'll need both the official 1MB and 4MB cartridges. Some games support one but not the other, as a general rule SNK's game best support the 1MB where as Capcom's support the 4MB. There are a few exceptions to that however.

It's a no brainer but all 1MB and 4MB games require system memory to save, but you can then backup save to memory cards. About 30% of the Saturn library doesn't support direct cartridge saving, there are some big games in that box to and a few games such as Hexen, Sega Rally or Sega Touring Car require a memory card to either save date or save ghost cars. Hexen takes up some thing stupid like 3000+ blocks on a single card, very bad coding as most games use between 10 - 100 blocks.

[Wools]

Thanks so much for every single piece of info everyone, now I'm off hunting on eBay!