I have heard of at least two projects people have started with a goal of making a working emulator of SuperNES roms for GBA. It would most likely be called SNES2GBA or SNESonGBA. So far we have not seen any success in this area, but you never know. As soon as I will hear something I will sure post it here. Nintendo has ported a number of SNES games to Gameboy Advance: Super Mario World, Yoshis Island, Zelda: Link to the Past (Four Swords), but we are jet to see Chrono Trigger for GBA!
Lets compare SNES vs GBA Technical Specs:
CPU 16-Bit CPU - 3.58mhz 32-Bit ARM - 16.7 mhz
with embedded memory RISC
MEMORY Work RAM for CPU: 128 Kb
Video RAM for CPU: 16Kb 256 Kbyte WRAM (external of CPU)
32 Kbyte + 96 Kbyte VRAM (in CPU),
COLOR Max colors on one screen: 256
Total colors available: 32,678
Colors in bitmap mode: 256 32,768 possible colors
511 simultaneous in character mode; 32,768 simultaneous in bitmap mode
RESOLUTION Maximum screen resolution:
256 X 224 (512x448) 240x160 resolution
2.9" TFT reflective screen
40.8mm x 61.2mm screen size
SPRITES 128
Max size 64x64
128
Max size 64x64
SCROLLING Horizontal, Vertical, Diagonal Horizontal, Vertical, Diagonal
SOUND 8-bit 8 channel Sony 8-bit 2 channel + GBC sound
SOFTWARE RAM available
Max cart size 48mbit (6MB) available
Max cart size 256mbit (32MB) orriginal
1Gig Flash Cards!
So let's see, the GBA wins in the CPU department. The SNES had a weak CPU, based only on clock speed (there are undoubtedly other factors at work) the GBA CPU is nearly 5 times as fast. It also has 50% more VRAM and more than twice as much WRAM. The SNES of course wins in resolution, it is capable of the much higher resolution of 512 X 448, however nearly all SNES games use the lower res. of 256 X 224, only marginallly higher than GBA. Also, GBA
games are developed for the small screen, so it is almost a non issue. The GBA can display twice as many colours on screen at once, so it wins there. Also, GBA games have the potential to be 5 times as big as SNES games, as large as Ocarina of Time.....
The GBA's only downfall is inferior sound hardware. Only two channels compared to eight (plus the GBC's generated sound). This may seem hugely dispointing, but keep in mind that sound can be mixed with software, apparently only using 20 to 30% of the CPU time. This would allow SNES quality sound to be achieved on the GBA. Naturally there would be a performance hit, but the GBA's processor is fast, in genres that really benefit from great sound, speed is not essential, RPG's for instance. Even in other genres, platformers, puzzle games, it won't matter at all. The other advantage the GBA has is that it can pull samples right from the cart,
no need to load them into ram first. The GBA has 8 bit stereo sound capability. Unlike the Game Boy, a good part of the sounds on the GBA are sampled. The SNES has 8 bit sound as
well, but it also has tons and tons of filtering.
OK so to wrap it up - Emulation is SNES on GBA is possible!
Homepage N/A Download N/A
Possible names for the emulator SNES2gba :: SNESonGBA :: SNES Advance
Related links
PocketSNES - Super Nintendo / Super Famicom emulator for the Pocket PC
ARM = Release for Pocket PC's using a StrongARM processor (iPaq 36xx/37xx/38xx, Toshiba Genio, Casio E-200, Jornada 56x)
MIPS = Release for Pocket PC's using a MIPS processor (Casio E-115/125/500/7xx/8xx)
SH3 = Release for Pocket PC's using a SH3 processor (Jornada 525/54x)
SRC = Source code for each release (all processor types)
