Gba Emu

[Azure]

And why could it not support sound?

There is an amazing amount of mis-information on this thread.

-Craig

www.gbax.com

I read somewhere (zodiacgamer, gbaemu, or maybe here) in a discussion about Nintendo's recent action towards emulation, the following (not actually quoted, but this is basically a summary of what the guy said): "nintendo wouldn't go after this emulator because it's on the gp32 and not many people know about it. Also, it won't even support sound, so nintendo wouldn't be worried because it wouldn't be up to par with the actually gba"

 

[declaration]

stop being so negative Akuma no Houkon.

A working GBA emu would be an immense technical achievement alone.

I know that Mario Kart Super Circuit is only 4mb and if fullspeed, would be worth an emu on its own.

A working gba emu would also allow us to enjoy the GBA homebrew scene aswell as the GP32 one.

Its very intrigueing and is adding excitement to the GP32 scene which has to be good.

 

[mars10]

Azure, the Zodiac emu wont have sound either

 

[divadsci]

Of course the leonard rom and the video works

any idea why they don't work on mine then?

it loads it but then, nothing

 

[washo]

I have been following this thread from the early beginning...Im quite good informed about this emu...
so can someone tell me why this emu wont have sound support...
Because enf65 want to add sound....and I think he will

see you :lol:

 

[lizard808uk]

I think the GBA Emu has created a lot of "buzz" - so in doing so there's a lot of mis-truths, hearsay and such.

I'm just going to trust what Washo says

 

[Akuma no Houkon]

declaration thats what the SNES Super Mario Kart is for, and its _much_ better than the GBA one, the GBA Mario Kart has very bad turning and controls compared to the SNES version.

Now this bios flash, will it be an "addition" to the bios (can you use the original bios still) or would it be replacement like PacROM. And what would this do? Do programs in the bios not use any part of the 8 MB memory? Leaving the Full 8 MB?

I still dont like the idea of flashing your bios, something that could easily result in a broken GP32...

Perhaps you should read what the author said

Perhaps if I knew his language I might. All I have read is _alot_ of speculation and wishes.

Note that I am a pessimist by nature and always will be, I am not trying to ruin anyones dreams, just trying to keep mine based in reality. Speculation and wishes dont run GBA games.

 

[lizard808uk]

you do not flash your bios you just run the program. You convert the GBA roms to GPA to run (only demos work currently).
GBA bios is misleading since its part of the program (the FXE)

 

[Azure]

I still dont like the idea of flashing your bios, something that could easily result in a broken GP32...

All you have to do is make sure that you have some fresh batteries and you'll be fine.

 

[Akuma no Houkon]

you do not flash your bios you just run the program. You convert the GBA roms to GPA to run (only demos work currently).
GBA bios is misleading since its part of the program (the FXE).

He will be able to get >4MB roms working but it will require a bios flash.

Conflicting information

Although I understand that lizard808uk doesnt understand that we are not talking about the GBA bios itself, but rather (I assume), flashing the emulator into your bios so the emulator doesnt take up any of the 8 MB of RAM, so 8 MB carts can be loaded. Or modifiying your bios to use the ram upgrade, or something else? (again assumtion as I dont have any information as to "why" we would need to flash the bios)

This type of thing is what causes all of this misinformation.

 

[ThndrShk2k]

you do not flash your bios you just run the program. You convert the GBA roms to GPA to run (only demos work currently).
GBA bios is misleading since its part of the program (the FXE)

how you convert?

The bios flash for over 4MB i think means that you get the 32MB upgrade and the mr.spiv firmware/bios stuff to register 32MB. Therefor you can play larger games easily

If you want to play over 4MB, get teh 32MB 'upgrade'

Specially if MashMods does it *and hopfully they will... i know my GP32 will go in and come out better, stronger, and faster XD *

 

[Sonic-NKT]

why do you all say those bad things about the emu.. its still in dev and some of you say.. oh this wont be worth it, i buy a zodiac for gba... it wont have sound.
When you think like this, just sell your gp32 and quit...
its even impressiv that gba software runs on the gp32... enf65 got demos to work that runs 5 times faster then on the gba.. all the other emus are MUUUUUCH slower than the gba. Even if this emu just runs 4 mb without any hardware mods it will be great...
i have several 4MB games which are very cool.. and it would be nice to play them on the gp32.
Also i heard that if you put the emu into the Firmware it wont take ram "space" so perhaps it will be possible on a normal gp32 to play 8MB games without hardware mods. perhaps it will be part of a multifirmware. i dont know and dont quote me for this post

 

[pip]

you do not flash your bios you just run the program. You convert the GBA roms to GPA to run (only demos work currently).
GBA bios is misleading since its part of the program (the FXE).

He will be able to get >4MB roms working but it will require a bios flash.

Conflicting information

That is not conflicting information, note that he is talking about the present (ie the currently alpha which can only load <=4Mbit roms while I am talking about the future (ie upcoming features). If you had bothered to read this thread instead of making your own (horribly wrong) assumptions, you would have read this from the author:

This is useful for 3 things (bios upgrade):
- allow me to see where it crash
- load roms bigger than 4M
- intercept SWI functions from GBA programs

 

[Wolfsclaw]

i take a look in a 1337 program and found out that currently 570 commercial gba games are 32 megabits
thats quite a lot and of course, there are some good games (ok, the most r crap but anyway, ill list some):
CT Special Forces
Need 4 speed porsche unleashed
Sim city 2000
double dragon advance
super mario advance 1-4
starsky and hutch
FIFA
deadly skies
v-rally 3
top gear rally
crazy chase
robopon 2 - ring and cross version
sheep
kuru kuru kururin
gradius advance
bomberman tournament
f-zero
and of course, mario kart.

and many more... i could live with the 4mb limit!

also, like said, we could enter the gba homebrew scene and could use pogoshell for example (if thats possible).

 

[ThndrShk2k]

true, i could too with those games

 

[Akuma no Houkon]

With the exception of the snes remakes and fzero, those games on your list really suck. Seriously, i've played them all and they are pretty bad.

I have this "big list" you speak of, in the form of OfflineList, and if you remove all of the different versions of the same game (blue, red, black, white, yellow, ruby, cross, ring, USA release, Japanese, Euro, etc..etc..) then this "Big" list of 4 MB games is actually closer to 70 games. Filter out all the remakes that you can already get from the current emulators and you have about 50, which imo almost _all_ suck or have better altertatives like MarioKart has a better SNES version (imo).

With an 8 MB limit, (if this actually happens) that would be liveable, I conceed to that, since there are only a few games that use 16 MB, (mario & lugi, sword of mana, goldensun2, BG, etc..

But so far all the talk of this bios flashing has been speculation and hope.

why do you all say those bad things about the emu.. its still in dev and some of you say.

Who has said anything bad about the emu? I expect it will run full speed and full sound without a problem. My issue was that it wont support larger games (even with flashing it wont get the 16 MB games) Still in dev or 100% finished wont change the fact that GP32 has 8 MB ram, I dont see what the emu being in dev still has anything to do with that.

!HOWEVER! If mashmods starts doing the 32 MB RAM upgrade (their first tests are in two weeks) and this emu coder takes that into account, an option for that. Then all issues I would have would be null and void anyway. So we may be arguing a moot point.

 

[Shadow of Chaos]

What is wrong with mario kart on the GBA? the graphics are better, not too sure about the handling though.. didnt seem too bad when i had a little go on it emulated on my comp

 

[Akuma no Houkon]

The handling for the GBA version is REALLY BAD, I mean its so bad I cannot even play it, not an get any enjoyment out of it. I try on an emulator and on the real thing, I even try on the gameboy player, its pretty bad compared to the original, hell its bad compared to Crazy Racers (GBA) which is practically the same game with different graphics!

Dont get me wrong, I am a _huge_ fan of Mario Kart, I would play the SNES and N64 (and even the GC now) versions for hours and hours, but I wouldnt play the GBA one ever.

 

[Tobriand]

you do not flash your bios you just run the program. You convert the GBA roms to GPA to run (only demos work currently).
GBA bios is misleading since its part of the program (the FXE)

how you convert?

The bios flash for over 4MB i think means that you get the 32MB upgrade and the mr.spiv firmware/bios stuff to register 32MB. Therefor you can play larger games easily

If you want to play over 4MB, get teh 32MB 'upgrade'

To my knowledge, that isn't right. Basically, for some reason, the bios as it stands won't let you load files greater than 4MB, or at least, if it will, it won't with GPA. No idea why, since we do have more ram than that but hey - that's life. So if you flash the bios, one of the things you are doing is removing that limit. You are *not* doing the 32MB mod - you'd still be unable to load anything greater than ~6MB (i.e. trimmed down 8MB roms). There IS a bios mod out there that is used for the 32MB ram upgrade, but unlike this mod, that one breaks all current fxe compatibility until they've been patched with something that's ENTRIELY unrelated to this.

The bios flash also allows a few other forms of commands to be given by the GBA rom without causing a crash. They're part of the ARM9 chip, but Gamepark didn't implement them originally. This bios would do just that.

What it won't do is upgrade you to 32MB.


Oh - and converting - there's an exe called "ROM_CONVERTER" on his site. Try that

 

[Akuma no Houkon]

What are you using to trim 8 MB roms down to 6 MB? I have trimmed about 100 GBA ROMS in my time, and havent gotten more than 200 off of one, its the same for every utility that I have used. And thats by removing all the trailing 00's or FF's that some use for padding. Its enough usually to squeeze in that extra rom on a cart that wouldnt fit before, but not much more. It defintly wont trim 2 MB off of the rom...not even close