Voultar is one of the most respected engineers and modders in the retro gaming hardware scene. Join us as he sits down with the crew for a deep conversation about console preservation, the craft of modding, and the business realities behind it. Best known for his SNES Edge Enhancer, a mod that non-destructively recovers video quality on two-chip Super Nintendos by addressing noise generated in the console’s internal DAC structures, Voultar walks through the technical challenges of designing a single mod that works across more than twenty different SNES motherboard and chip revision combinations.
The conversation covers serious ground beyond soldering. Voultar details how hardware piracy and board house cloning in the manufacturing supply chain threaten small modding businesses, explaining why he uses glob tops on sensitive components and why even that only buys time. He traces his origin story back to watching PlayStation mod chip installs at a video rental store in the late 1990s, and the crew digs into why some retro consoles like the SNES are nearly indestructible while others like the TurboDuo are a lost cause even after recapping.
Other topics include the Game Boy modding explosion, FPGA hardware emulation as a path to true preservation, why the Super Nintendo supported RGB video output (spoiler: thank Europe and the SCART standard), the Super Stacker flash cart inspired by Voultar’s love of Final Fantasy V, a brief appearance of a Nintendo PlayStation prototype variant, and why SCART cables will always be terrible. Recorded February 5, 2025 with BreakmanX, Jack Burt0n, Maul, and Logan.
Music: Opening: Project X – Mega Man 2 “Project X2 – Title Screen” OC ReMix – https://ocremix.org/remix/OCR00625
Closing – Project X – Mega Man 2 “Ending” Buy the album here : https://projectx.bandcamp.com/album/mega-man-2
