Release VisualBoyAdvance port

[Zink]

Not sure if it's possible in VBA, but I will check it for the next release.

 

[EvilDragon]

... and how to disable the "Wrote Battery" message on-the-fly, as it appears every few seconds with some games.


Page Up / Page Down support on the launcher would rock as well

 

[FaeMinx]

Sorry, but how do I change filters? As a matter of fact, how do I edit any of the settings?


Your launcher (as far as I can see) gives no indication of how to access settings, and looking for the 'documentation' from the start menu appears to show that VBA is not listed.


Maybe I'm blind, but I could find no information about how to change settings in this thread OR on the repo?????


I'm going to engage the last scrap of common sense I have at my disposal to have a look inside the appdata folder to see what I can see...


...... aaaand I'm still at a loss.


Next point of query - you say GB and GBC games should run fullspeed? The few games I tried were really really slow even at 700mhz ... or would changing the frameskip as suggested fix this? Which leads me back to: HOW?

 

[crosspoint]

Just type "s" for settings as it's stated in the right upper corner of the launcher...

 

[NoeleyC]

Left shoulder button and "s" brings up the settings menu, you can change the filters on there too.

 

[Zink]

... and how to disable the "Wrote Battery" message on-the-fly, as it appears every few seconds with some games.


Page Up / Page Down support on the launcher would rock as well

For option change & rom selection?

Sorry, but how do I change filters? As a matter of fact, how do I edit any of the settings?


Your launcher (as far as I can see) gives no indication of how to access settings (...)

Oh?

Maybe I'm blind (...)

You may be right about this

Next point of query - you say GB and GBC games should run fullspeed? The few games I tried were really really slow even at 700mhz ... or would changing the frameskip as suggested fix this?

Yes, changing frameskip should fix it. I think I will set frameskip to 0 for default.

 

[FaeMinx]

Sorry, but how do I change filters? As a matter of fact, how do I edit any of the settings?


Your launcher (as far as I can see) gives no indication of how to access settings (...)

Oh?


View attachment 4142


View attachment 4143

Maybe I'm blind (...)

You may be right about this

Oh how interesting. Well, It seems I am *not* blind, but my Pandora is... either that or I've found a bug. See here:

Next point of query - you say GB and GBC games should run fullspeed? The few games I tried were really really slow even at 700mhz ... or would changing the frameskip as suggested fix this?

Yes, changing frameskip should fix it. I think I will set frameskip to 0 for default.

Ah. Now that I can change settings it works a treat! Nice filters. ... I don't suppose there is any way to add a filter or colour scheme to mimic the green/yellow tint of the original Game Boys? I really miss this...


But even so, this is now my GB & GBC emulator of choice.


Thanks a bunch for doing this! Great job.

 

[Lafazar]

Is there a way to get proportional scaling? Or simple 2x/3x scaling?

 

[PokeParadox]

iIs there really no way to display the border - no cmdline or config option


also i wonder if there is any chanc eog a pallete editor for gb games?


and finally can you make the launcher use the B gaming button to select the ROM?

 

[Zink]

Oh how interesting. Well, It seems I am *not* blind, but my Pandora is... either that or I've found a bug. See here:


View attachment 4147

Oh for real... It seems that Python detects one line and column more than the screen really has on your Pandora. I have no idea why that could be (but will try to fix it).

I don't suppose there is any way to add a filter or colour scheme to mimic the green/yellow tint of the original Game Boys? I really miss this...


But even so, this is now my GB & GBC emulator of choice.

There is a 'washed colors' option that tries to emulate GBC screen. I can add it in the next version.

Is there a way to get proportional scaling? Or simple 2x/3x scaling?

Yes. In the settings set "Stretch image" option to "no".

iIs there really no way to display the border - no cmdline or config option

I found the option for the border, but it works smoothly only with filters disabled (otherwise it's choppy even at 900MHz). I will try to make it for the next release.

also i wonder if there is any chanc eog a pallete editor for gb games?

Probably yes, but I suppose it requires too much work (I don't have much free time). The only option I can do for now is the built-in 'washed colors'.

and finally can you make the launcher use the B gaming button to select the ROM?

Yes (I have to write down all these requests, because I'm getting too many of them ).

 

[diligentcircle]

Is there an option in VBA to artificially color classic Gameboy games? If so, that would be a nice feature to be able to use. It doesn't need to be adjustable in the menu, just a config file is fine (preferably one that designates different colors to different ROMs, since e.g. what works in Super Mario Land won't necessarily look good in Metroid II).

 

[Exophase]

Is there an option in VBA to artificially color classic Gameboy games? If so, that would be a nice feature to be able to use. It doesn't need to be adjustable in the menu, just a config file is fine (preferably one that designates different colors to different ROMs, since e.g. what works in Super Mario Land won't necessarily look good in Metroid II).

Barring that, an option to run the GBC BIOS before loading GB games would be pretty cool, then you at least gets its colorization options and builtin palettes.

 

[Lafazar]

Is there a way to get proportional scaling? Or simple 2x/3x scaling?

Yes. In the settings set "Stretch image" option to "no".

I'm stupid, I asked the wrong question. What I meant was: Is it possible to make VBA integer scale? Currently the GB resolution of 160x144 is scaled to 480 lines, but since 480 is not an integer multiple of 144 not all gameboy pixels are displayed with the same size wich looks bad in some games. It would be nice if the image could be scaled exactly 3x (480x432) and centered with black borders around. Is this possible with notaz' SDL?

 

[Zink]

Is there an option in VBA to artificially color classic Gameboy games? If so, that would be a nice feature to be able to use. It doesn't need to be adjustable in the menu, just a config file is fine (preferably one that designates different colors to different ROMs, since e.g. what works in Super Mario Land won't necessarily look good in Metroid II).

Most probably no.

Barring that, an option to run the GBC BIOS before loading GB games would be pretty cool, then you at least gets its colorization options and builtin palettes.

There is an option to load a bios file, but I'm not sure if it's for GBA only. I will check it.

What I meant was: Is it possible to make VBA integer scale? Currently the GB resolution of 160x144 is scaled to 480 lines, but since 480 is not an integer multiple of 144 not all gameboy pixels are displayed with the same size wich looks bad in some games. It would be nice if the image could be scaled exactly 3x (480x432) and centered with black borders around. Is this possible with notaz' SDL?

Yes, it is possible. I will add 2x and 3x scaling options.

 

[diligentcircle]

There is an option to load a bios file, but I'm not sure if it's for GBA only. I will check it.

I'm not very familiar with the GBC, but my understanding is it only supports 4 colors, while the GBA can get more colors (8) by coloring the background and foreground differently. If that's the case, GBA would be the best choice anyway, it seems.

 

[PokeParadox]

Yes the GBC supported colouring classic GB games by use of pallete switching.


SuperGameBoy added some more colours(Possibly the 8 colours)


Native GBC supported 56 colours IIRC.


Some GB emulators have a pallete editor and I have used one which did let you actually assign different colours to different things in such a way that you could actually colour in class GB games. (Akin to Metroid II colour hacks that are around.)


If you can get a nice pallete switcher that could be nice, if you can find some options to finely colour in, even better!

 

[diligentcircle]

SuperGameBoy added some more colours(Possibly the 8 colours)

You have it backwards. The Super Gameboy predated the Gameboy Color by about 4 years.


The SGB does support more colors (12 colors at a time IIRC), but only for games specifically made to take advantage of the SGB (e.g. Donkey Kong and Pokemon Red/Blue). For other Gameboy games, I'm pretty sure it only supported 4 colors, just like the GBC (though it's handled differently if I'm not mistaken).


The GBA supports more colors for classic GB games than the GBC (8 colors instead of 4) because it colors the background and foreground differently. For example, I think for Metroid II, the background colors are blue or purple (or maybe brown; I'm not sure) and the foreground colors are red and yellow.

 

[Lafazar]

It's even a little more complicated with the Game Boy Color:


There is background, sprite plane 1 and sprite plane 2 with four levels of grey for the background and 3+transparency for the sprites, GBC could give each of these a different palette (selectable by a button combination during boot), so there could be 10 different colors at once, but since not all games used 2 sprite planes, some games will only display 7 different colors on GBC.


Here is a nice overview:


https://en.wikipedia...#Game_Boy_Color


In addition GBC could recognize certain games and would set a specific palette for that game, often similar but still different from the Super Game Boy palette (since they work completely differently, see below). Since it came later it can also recognise more games than the Super Game Boy.


SGB on the other hand could change the palette during the game and even apply different palettes to different parts of the screen, but only for supported/SGB enhanced games. Strangely enough it could NOT apply a different palette for the sprites and the background. More on that here:


http://blog.scoutsho...oy-introduction


So in summary:


SGB: lots of colors (SGB enhanced game), 4 colors (normal game)


GBC: 7 or 12 colors (depending on number of sprite planes the game uses, SGB enhancements are completely ignored)


GBA: exactly the same as GBC

Yes, it is possible. I will add 2x and 3x scaling options.

Awesome, thanks a lot!