Handheld Cores

[torn jay]

the current "shader colors" that the core has have been crafted by Soltan 4-5 years ago. If there is something better I'm open to it.
But please first try them and do compare images like you have there with the dark shadercolors instead of the original colors. I'm thinking they are very close already.

[solar iron]

Fantastic game.

[fading scroll]

My hot take: Other M is great from a gameplay perspective.

It has a rotten story which is responsible for the power-up gating, but in-motion I had a lot of fun with it.

[rotund flume]

I don't think it's a hot take, the third person combat is fun. I didn't like the massive gameplay pace break in the forced FPS segments. I think the novelty is interesting but in execution it didn't gel wel.

all imo of course, it's ultimately super goofy but I liked it

My biggest frustration with that game is that Team Ninja really could've done something incredible but Nintendo's direction brought it down.

[hollow rock]

Nina Gaiden 4 coming this year

👀

[sudden jasper]

I want a true Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball sequel

What the hell Team Ninja

[fathom trail]

I did start playing wario land and it's interesting. The pacing almost feels like kirby and not mario

[vast raven]

I love how Dead or Alive Xtreme is secretly a gambling game.

[sudden jasper]

It really is. When I recorded footage for a video I made about DOAXBV, I found that about 50% was just me cocking about in the casino.

[vast raven]

Can confirm the unstable GBA build from 2-19-2025 fixes Apotris, however the colors are all effed up

[gray grail]

With the build from the bot or mine ?

[vast raven]

Unstable nightlies

[gray grail]

Could you try again with mine, please ?

#1046941428758102086 message

[vast raven]

There we go

Thanks.

[gray grail]

Does it work correctly now ?

[vast raven]

Yeah seems like it. No clue what was with the nightly build some crazy color issue like I put on 3D glasses

[gray grail]

The GBA core doesn't like the standard seed for compiling, because the timings aren't quite correct every time (we have the same situation on Saturn right now).
When the timings are too far off, it seems that graphical issues appear like stripes or incorrect colors.

Placing a different seed could sometimes achieve a better successful route.

[rotund flume]

Holy hell is that what that is? I'd sometimes see weird vertical stripes when booting the core.

[gray grail]

That's the issue.

When I do a compilation with another seed, the stripes go away for that reason.

[rotund flume]

I’m getting the stripes on your latest build

[gray grail]

Ditch your MiSTer and stay with your Pi. 😏

[rotund flume]

I deserve that lmao

[gray grail]

Anyway, it depends on systems.
Some have better results with the unstable, some others with mine.

That's also why Robert is redoing/perfecting the core at the moment.

[rotund flume]

@gray grail wait my bad, ok now I’m using your core and it’s all working fine

Yay, thank you!

[fathom trail]

Mister power user ^

[torn jay]

this color effect is probably a timing issue, however, it also happens if all timings are pass. As it seems to be only on HDMI and affects basically all cores, I would suspect it's a scaler issue.
This came in maybe 1 year ago, because I have seen it with the last N64 builds, but not a single time in the development phase before.

It could be investigated:

• go back in the framework commits with binary search for the last two years.
• build a core that shows it often like N64 for up to ~ 10 times with different seeds. If it's 10 times without issues, It's very likely not in
• those are <32 changes in total, so 5 steps (*up to 10 builds) required to find it
• could be further reduced by looking at the change if it can be the reason, but that's a little bit risky

[ashen bone]

ah, i was getting a similar problem earlier. weird/glitchy color bands on the gba and saturn cores, but only over the hdmi output. strange

[fallen harbor]

If there’s color issues even with timing passing, it could be the bus between the fpga and hdmi transmitter. Things like slew and drive strength. Weird that it would pop up this far down the line though

[torn jay]

i haven't really investigated the broken builds, e.g. if 1080p is worse than 720p. Someone could try with the nightly GBA build(not the pinned one)

[rotund flume]

Sorry, should I keep both pinned?

[torn jay]

no, the unstable build is only of use for those who want to investigate the random hdmi out bug that hits all cores

[strong sierra]

with GBA_unstable_20250219_15db1c.rbf I get corrupt graphics from the BIOS splash screen onwards. Same issue with 720/1080 hdmi output.
setting the 2xresolution option to anything other than 'off' seems to fix it (yet it's still visible in screenshots despite not showing on screen). OSD core res changes from 240x160 to 480x320
also taking a screenshot while at the BIOS with this core consistently kills all controller and KB input for me (and the screenshot doesn't save to sd). no issue under stable core

likey just a bad build, reporting all the same

[gray grail]

Use mine.

See the pinned message.

[strong sierra]

yeah yours is fine

just in relation to what robert said

[gray grail]

Okay.

Sorry, I'm dealing too much things at the same time.

[strong sierra]

NP, im not sure if its related at all, just seemed odd 🙂

appreciate your builds, am running gba, snes and saturn ATM

[rotund flume]

Can I help with anything?

[gray grail]

Nope, just checking sometimes the discussions here during my breaks at work.

[torn jay]

thank you, that proves that HDMI out is very likely fine and the issue is probably the core video to scaler transfer

[torn jay]

small update: new GBA core vs old
I'm fully working on accuracy at the moment. Games don't boot yet but I'm sure when the tests are working properly, most games will as well.

[hard sinew]

Can't wait to play Golden Sun on your new core. Thank you for all your hard work.

[torn jay]

Thank you, a good title to test advanced visual effect handling, would be glad to get it fully tested

[wraith magnet]

Is there a desire to rest the entire library? I can put together a testing sheet if that would be helpful.

[wary fjord]

time to reopen the patreon...? 😄

[torn jay]

the library is huge....but yes at some point that would be helpful, especially since there are two cores then and reports could be mixed from both.
But it will still take 2-3 months I guess(until i can upload a first version)

[primal lichen]

Maybe one game will boot by Christmas

[torn jay]

this was my goal! in 2019

[wraith magnet]

I'll get a sheet knocked up in the next few days if it may be of use

[sudden jasper]

Hoping Crazy Frog Racer works

If it doesn't...

[ashen bone]

i would love to test out some gba games. i'm big into the mega man zero series and have been meaning to try out some other gba gems as well

[open shuttle]

You’re gonna do what to your sheets?

[rotund flume]

once this gets going I'll do the pins for this channel, because that's all I can do ☹️

[frank pasture]

You can provide emotional support

[vast raven]

What is the performance supposed to be for GTA on GBA? Runs pretty terrible in software emulation as well, but I'm not sure if that's just the game

[strong sierra]

Was gonna say somewhere between poor and miserable. Tested on an SP with ez-flash omega. Still gonna say that 🙂

[vast raven]

Payback is better anyway

[deft jay]

Just wanted to say I´m happy to replay Golden Sun 1& 2, the Metroids when the test core is ready 🙂

[frank pasture]

I’ll play the Castlevanias 😅

[hollow rock]

I could play ffta I guess. I haven't played that in forever.

Maybe I'll play Harlem Globetrotters

[ashen bone]

Analogue Pocket core for the MiSTer when? 😉

[novel kindle]

mostly not possible just because licensing

[gray grail]

One year after.
I'm buying a FP-GBC kit.
It costs less than modding the whole console from my wife.

Let's see within the next month.

[radiant eagle]

very nice! I wanted to get one of those too

[toxic cargo]

Don't. Screen refresh is wrong and scrolls are ruined.
I already reported it. They don't mind.

It makes me specially angry because it sounds great, it looks great statically, but games move like ass.

[little crystal]

That does seem like FunnyPlaying's MO sometimes

people reported interlacing artifacts on their ITA kit, and they basically said, "yeah that's what it looks like until we maybe do another board rev someday"

[radiant eagle]

Ah man, very disappointing to hear that

[gray grail]

I'll see straight away, the recent videos I saw with scrolling didn't bother me.
And the system will be for my wife who wants to replay some of her games.
We are not nitpicking, like we are doing here on extreme precision.

(I wanted to write down my initial report in the fpga section, sorry. Wrong topic and people replied already.)

[open shuttle]

C’est la vie sometimes when you’re a small business. Release a subpar product that many people would be fine with and recoup some of the r&d costs, or don’t and end up never releasing anything in some cases

[meager portal]

Can you test, cirotemark on the new core? https://cirote3.itch.io/cirote3, the tickdiff has to be 0

[vital meadow]

What a crazy and amazing game lol

[torn jay]

why does it have to be?

[primal lichen]

Truly the video game of all time.

[rotund flume]

Maaaaan that description is really NSFW

@primal lichen Can you link to it instead of posting?

Or spoiler it

[hard sinew]

Yes please, anybody who is 12 years old or american is gonna be red af if they read it!

[rotund flume]

Yeah? Am I being too sensitive?

[hard sinew]

For my standards absolutely but you guys also gave dead or alive volleyball a mature rating so what do I know.

[fathom trail]

It is pretty graphic

[rotund flume]

Well ok, I’ll leave it alone then.

Thanks for the feedback

[primal lichen]

I'm not going to post any of the explicit screenshots or anything. The link provides that stuff if you're curious.

Though I will admit the game does use some cool special effects.

[fathom trail]

I didn't realize it was part of that link. I wish I could unsee some of that game, I think

Impressive for gba

[rotund flume]

Before I forget. We shouldn’t be using any homebrew as a metric for accuracy unless it was homebrew specifically meant to test hardware functions of a system.

Sure, maybe it’s pulling off some weird bullshit hardware technique in order to do something but who’s to say that works across all devices in the family. Who’s to say it works on real hardware consistently?

[hard sinew]

I don't make the rules here fyi. We all submit to your power.

[rotund flume]

lol you don’t want that, I don’t want that

[hard sinew]

I want what I'm told to want by those that can ban and suspend me on this discord.

[hollow rock]

I would argue against said screenshots that have such explicit information even worded simply because of what kit has said prior about keeping things a little more PG13 and she's the boss.

That's just my 2 cents on it though lol.

[vast raven]

So while a new GBA core is being worked out, can we optionally force some kind of solid border color. My CRT tends to pinch the top of the screen if the picture is too narrow. Have to use borders for the Gameboy core for the same reason

[primal lichen]

Oh it would be fun to frame the GBA core with a border that replicates the GBA screen.

[dull imp]

If that gets added it'd be the feature I'd be the most excited for, my crt has the same quirk.

[hollow rock]

I agree would be nice to have something to fill the black space around the game

doesn't the Gameboy Player on the GCN have GBA boarders?

perhaps we could get that implemented in some way

👀

[raven arrow]

Really dumb question I could easily answer myself by plugging a MiSTer back but here goes

Can you run Mega Duck games inside the GB core?

[strong sierra]

yep

[raven arrow]

Even theoretically?

Oh wow

They are THAT similar

[hollow rock]

if a mega duck game works on an actual gameboy then it should work on the core

[strong sierra]

#test-builds message

[raven arrow]

Noice

[strong sierra]

it's other name 'cougar boy' still makes me chuckle

[raven arrow]

Oh my god

That came out of a different culture

[strong sierra]

I think it did have some HW differences, but Kitrinx added support which is in the stable releases now 🙂

[thorn atlas]

yeh, extremely minor differences with a few registers

mega duck is in fact supported

[radiant eagle]

@thorn atlas feature request: delete mega duck support

[thorn atlas]

I'm sorry you have to live with it forever

[radiant eagle]

when i do my spreadsheet streams and have to pick random games I always remove Mega Duck from contention People already made me play the entire library

not to completion, but sample it...that was bad enough

[raven arrow]

Okay but it will get reimplemented later as Cougar Boi™️

[torn jay]

Some games working on the new GBA core 🙂
(Please don't mind the low color depth, I'm currently using only 3 bit per color because I'm short on internal memory, this will change)

[fathom trail]

How satisfying is does it feel to redo the core?

[deft jay]

Wow its hard to contain the excitement! Looking forward to the first beta 🙂

[torn jay]

It's very satisfying to finally have done some things properly that bugged me for some years.
Also reaching Timing accuracy at the levels of the pocket is kind of satisfying after the criticism I received 5 years ago 🙂

[primal lichen]

I had to defend you a few times because people were criticizing the GBA core for being inaccurate on social media.

It wasn't malicious or anything, just clarification that yes the GBA core is inaccurate and the author is well aware that it could be significantly better.

[deft jay]

I dont remember the criticism, but since nobody improved the core or wrote a new one maybe sit down, my suggestion would be to sit down and shut the f*ck up. Respectfully ofcourse

[open shuttle]

I’m looking forward to replaying golden sun 1 and 2 on the reworked core, for science

[torn jay]

I still think the current core has value, too. The pocket dosn't have quadruple resolution rendering, CPU turbo or fastforward, which can be a nice addon.
But of course, accuracy is what people think when they think MisterFPGA and that's fair.

There are two newer GBA cores. One from Nand2Mario loosely is based on the mister core in parts and recently Gamebub. Both however don't target timing accuracy either.

[deft jay]

I assume this time there were lots of testroms available for timing, or did you have to create new test roms?

[torn jay]

In terms of timing, it hasn't changed much. For the serial port there are new tests.

Lots of general tests for the CPU+DMA are new, but mostly logic behavior, not timing.

[deft jay]

Its always interesting if something new not known by the community is found during your development.

[torn jay]

Biggest change is probably that NanoboyAdvance is available now and open source and fulfills most timing tests, so it's a great source of information.

[gray grail]

I have deep respect for what you have been doing for years in FPGA video game research. Yes, I regularly thought of the release of NanoboyAdvance as an important advance also in terms of knowledge on the internal behavior of the GBA.

Seeing you reworking on the core, I also saw it as personal revenge on the criticisms that we saw on certain social networks.

[rotund flume]

Accuracy is king.

All those other features are definitely nice to have, but people can enjoy them on software emulators if they feel they can't enjoy the original hardware.

Also I had no clue that the current GBA core was inaccurate. Games looked and ran perfect to me.

[hard sinew]

We share the same urges.

[frail stag]

i love the quadruple resolution rendering, this new core will not have this kind of features?

[fiery vault]

Will this new core still have save states and a 2P version?

[hard sinew]

Pretty sure Robert mentioned savestates will stay but no 2p version.

[digital pier]

Will the old version stay available as well?

[rotund flume]

It’ll still be available for anyone to get but it’ll be deprecated and no longer included as part of the official MiSTer distribution.

Like the Genesis core when we migrated over to the more accurate MegaDrive one.

[remote carbon]

The old genesis core is still being downloaded using the official mister distribution am I wrong? I had to filter it so it does not get downloaded everytime I updated.

[wary fjord]

Yeah, I’m pretty sure genesis comes down with update all automatically

[remote carbon]

Then thats the way I guess the new GBA core will work.

[rotund flume]

The intent to deprecate and remove does not currently match reality lol

one day it will!

[remote carbon]

So, maybe we can start a vote how the new core is going to be named? 🤣

[sterile quarry]

I guess maybe it won't all go. The 2P core will still be really nice to have

[rotund flume]

Oh damn good point

[primal lichen]

The GBA cores should be renamed "GBA (Old)" and "GBA (New)" to avoid confusion.

[wary fjord]

Game Boy Advanceder

[remote carbon]

GBAccurate

[sudden jasper]

GBA SP

[fiery vault]

Call the new core GBA Advanced to really confuse people

[open shuttle]

& knuckles

[north ice]

GBA_final_rev2

[vast raven]

GBA: Logic Maintenance Accuracy Overhaul

[hard sinew]

And rename the current player one to GBA DS.

[torn jay]

If I have a chance to give my opinion, I would like to keep both, new and old, under different names, so the settings don't mix up.
There are plenty of games I would want to play with the old core instead, because of the extra features. E.g. pokemon is unplayable for me without fastforward.

Savestates will likely not be 100% compatible, but saves will, so hopefully we get a main that maps both cores to one save/game folder

[torn jay]

It's not like it is super inaccurate. It was maybe the most accurate way to play (emulated) GBA in early 2020, or at least among few others, but things have changed in the meantime.

[wary fjord]

nudge nudge https://www.patreon.com/profile/creators?u=50999268

[winged tree]

A few suggestions for the new GBA core name:

• GBA SSJ2
• Ultimate GBA
• Ultra GBA
• GBA 2
• GBAdvenced
• New GBA
• FPGBAzumSpass
• GBA 2025
• GBA ver. 2
• Super GBA

[flat violet]

Why not just call the old core "GBA Legacy" and the new one "GBA".

[hard sinew]

GBA Color
GBA once more with feeling
GBA 2: Electric Boogaloo
GBA and friends
GBA The empire strikes back
GBA third time's the charm

[solar iron]

GBA Prime!

[wary fjord]

Because that would be sensible.

GBA and MegaBoyAdvanced

[rocky sun]

GBii A

[hard sinew]

Pls not GBA U.

[primal lichen]

GBA XX Accent Core Plus R

[gray grail]

And Knuckles

featuring Dante from the Devil May Cry Series

Funky Kong Mode

[winged tree]

• GBA Blue (legacy core) and GBA Red (new core)

• GBA Director’s cut
• GBA Final cut
• GBA Redux
• GBA Plus
• GBA PI
• GBA FPGA

• GBA Prime

[rotund flume]

The 2P version of that core can be called “GBA Prime Hunters”

[wary fjord]

R•E•A•L GBA

[sudden jasper]

Gangsta Boy Advance

[winged tree]

• GBA Neo
• Advance Game Boy

[torn jay]

Renaming the old and have the new one named GBA will cause trouble, because the name is loading the old config bits.
Probably best is to have 2 new names. Something like GBAugmented and GBAccurate.
But I'll leave that decicion to someone else. Engineering != Marketing 🙃

[meager portal]

I didn't think people would get upset over a few pixels. There are 2 roms in the link, one for testing timings and the other for the game. I didn't actually create the game but it seemed like a good test to me because it allows me to do several interesting effects.

[wary fjord]

Don’t worry, we gotchu. We have our top people on it

[meager portal]

I'm sorry if this bothered anyone.

Here are several tests performed on emulators, mister and the pocket

https://emulation.gametechwiki.com/index.php/GBA_Tests

The pocket core is much more precise than mister's current one but it is not perfect either.

[flat violet]

Actually your suggestions in this case make the most sense, since one core offers expanded features and the other one accuracy, and you want to keep them both relevant.

[torn jay]

Tests are fine, but they must be somehow reproducible and researchable. A closed source tests that mixes all kinds of things together isn't really helpful.
I could easily score 0 points or close with a very inaccurate emulator, because only the total count matters.

[unique radish]

And guess what has a 'release/port/proto' on the GBA..........

RE2

[torn jay]

best example: the current cores gets -231276, while nanoboyadvance scores worse. Still Nanoboy is WAY more accurate. But in the range of 0.1% inaccuracy that all this is about, it's basically pointless

[meager portal]

Nanoboy have some grafical glitches in the benchmark

in a real gba no glitches and the socre is allways 0, but I understood thar if the test is not opensource is very dificult to solve the timming innacuracies

[torn jay]

two completly different things: PPU drawing and timing accuracy (score) are no connected. Unless it depends on PPU stalling like madden06, but that's unlikely.
I understand that perfect accuracy is always nice, but how should this be possible with such a test?
You have to be correct over 300 million cycles.
It's like running a marathon and at the end you didn't finish in exactly 5 hours and think about what you might have done wrong.

Not trying to offend you, sorry if it sounds like that. I understand you brought it in with good intentions and I appreciate that!
Just wanted to explain why I will not use it and why I think the score is useless as measure.

[meager portal]

In understand, thank you for your explanation

[whole topaz]

is the GBA core updated officially now?

I'd like to update to a more accurate version of it if it's the case :)

[flat violet]

It's currently being worked on.

[whole topaz]

okay I'll wait

[digital pier]

Thank you! This was my concern as well. I like you have those extra features and for some other games an accurate core.

[untold smelt]

I have a question. I have savefiles from both pokemon yellow and blue that I dumped from my cartridges to be able to load them onto gameboy2p. if I run same game the savefiles load onto the first player but if I run 2 different games on gameboy2p those saves no longer work. is there a workaround for this?

[hollow rock]

I don't think the intention for this core was to run different games. It's expecting one game but you've loaded two games with different IDs and it's reading both and getting confused which is why it can't load the save

[strong sierra]

https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/GBA_MiSTer/tree/GBA2P#loading-different-games
when loading different games it'll create a combined save file named for the game you loaded 2nd

[untold smelt]

thanks guys, Idk what I did but i got what i wanted to work by just pressing things

[rotund flume]

@torn jay your call but once you release the new GBA core I’d like to spin up a GBA channel for you so we can get focused testing and feedback.

Plus I can do fancy pins there just for the GBA

[astral swallow]

This sounds dope, I've been wanting to trade gba pokemon to box on the gamecube

[rocky sun]

More Pins for the Pin God!

[wary fjord]

I am ready to test

[rotund flume]

they’re dumb and I’m still not sure they’re useful but hey, it gives me a mental break in between fixing bugs and cramming in features lol

[mild glen]

First rom to boot on new GBA -|| Shrek 2||

[rotund flume]

I have the Shrek movie on cart because the old core doesn’t support it lol

[vast raven]

Can't wait for the video now core, so I can use my MiSTer as a terrible DVD player

[primal lichen]

Honestly I don't get why the portable systems don't have their own threads to begin with. Just makes everything feel inconsistent.

[open shuttle]

Because it was willed to be so

[rotund flume]

Users are free to add them if they want. Look at my bullshit #1056040100141735986 thread lol.

[solar iron]

Robby wish casting a Virtual Boy core into existence will his greatest achievement.

[hard sinew]

Shameless self-promotion

That's like me announcing that dx violet got it's most successful youtube video yet by some Spanish speaking channel with 5k subs and over a hundred views.

[primal lichen]

Decided to make a separate channel for the GBA if that is alright.

https://discord.com/channels/647909397477195803/1347219390130688024

[frank pasture]

You fix bugs? On modern games? Nobody tell @hard sinew!

[hard sinew]

Anybody know a good QoL Romhack for pokemon emerald? One that doesn't change things unnecessarily, just gives you access to all the mons and fixes sensible things. Like dx violet for gen1 and patched crystal for gen2.

[rich mason]

it's impossible to make pokemon fun no matter how much you patch it

[hard sinew]

I didn't say I want it to be fun, did I?

[rotund flume]

Wow, imagine if they made an amazing rom hack like DX Violet but for Emerald?

[hard sinew]

Yeah, imagine. Couldn't be me.

[raven arrow]

Okay

I know Game Boy Color has a hi-color video output mode

But my CRT loses the sync on every flip

-# why is the goddamn video upside down

Ohhh

Analog width - Wide fixes that

[primal lichen]

There is an option that buffers the sync for screen changes like that.

[raven arrow]

Dang, yeah, that

[gaunt oar]

Hello, please tell me, is there support for the dualshock 4 gyroscope in the gba core?

[little crystal]

To my knowledge, the DS4 gyro isn't supported in any core, and its messages are blocked by MiSTer Main since the DS4 outputs them at a problematic rate

[gaunt oar]

Oh, thank you

[golden forge]

Am I correct that the Neo Geo pocket core is not yet generally available without patron subscription?

[rotund flume]

The Neo Geo Pocket core is available without a Patreon subscription, the black and white one. The NGPC core isn’t, the color one.

Those cores are unofficial however and quite fussy so they aren’t up to the standards of the official MiSTer cores.

[wary fjord]

Yeah, both cores are kind of a mess, unfortunately

[golden forge]

Cool thank you. I noticed that I had to do a cold reboot after trying to use the core as other cores wouldn't load roms correctly

[elder harbor]

I kinda wish someone that was actually interested in doing console cores would have picked up the neo geo pocket. Nothing against jotego.

Arcade just seems to be his priority

[rotund flume]

Jotego is freaking awesome and his arcade cores are incredible. We will always be in a debt of gratitude for his work.

But yeah, hand the NGPC over to someone please lol

It's like the Jaguar core except people actually want this one (no offense to Jaguar fans, I think the system is cool now that we have a good core for it).

[elder harbor]

Is anyone actually a jaguar fan or do they just like a few games that happen to be on jaguar? I put myself in that later group

Now that I think about it Im not a fan of any console I just like the games

[rotund flume]

I guess I’m in the latter group but I dig the funky controller and the console design too.

[elder harbor]

Once you playing on something like the mister the lines do get blurred a bit. Coz they all on 1 box now

[wary fjord]

NGPC is such a cool system - I wish Jotego would give it to someone who cared about it

[elder harbor]

I have been looking for a controller that would serve the purpose of systems with number pads and such on the controller

[wary fjord]

There is an SNES controller

that has a number pad on it

[elder harbor]

Does it work with mister tho? Will the number pad work as expected?

Im sure it would work with snac but that wont help with other consoles

[wary fjord]

I feel like someone used it...

[solar iron]

I love my precious Virtual Boy!

Sadly, regarding Neo Geo Pocket Color, there are precious few core developers out there. So even if Jotego did want to pass it along to someone else, who would even take it? Most core developers seem to choose their projects based on personal interest in the platform (like Robert and N64). And most of the "popular" platforms have already been completed. Honestly, we're lucky that Jaguar and 3DO are happening!

[fiery vault]

It'll happen eventually. Never thought we'd see a CD-i core or a 3DO core this soon. It's pretty much the best missing console available followed by the Virtual Boy and the PC-FX

The problem is this weird limbo state that it's in. No one wants to touch NGPC bc it's sort of half-claimed by Jotego

[wary fjord]

This is really the issue. Even if someone had interest, Jotego “called dibs”. So it sits in limbo until he either touches it or lets it go

[torn jay]

No one should have a virtual stop sign in mind if they really care for the system. If drama shall be avoided, do it from scratch.

I don't get why this is a thing anyway. In software emulation community, I have not seen any complains for systems done twice or even ten times.

[elder harbor]

i dont think its so much how many times something is done but more just not wanting to step on someone else's feet that's already working on a particular core. Its not an issue with emulation but emulation on pc can be a lot more varied.

Although I dont think jotego would care if someone else jumped in with another neo geo pocket core.

[low peak]

somewhat off topic, never had a virtual boy and i finally got into the library with the astoundingly good 3DS emulator that launched last year

so i ask you, as a fellow fpga/original hardware elitist gatekeeper, is this the best way to play VB in 2025?

[mild glen]

There is no dibs in open source.

Mega Drive core superseeded the old genesis core

[lost glen]

As I’ve said before: but there functionally is. People who don’t want to call up drama will avoid working on something that eg JT has said he’s on.

[hard sinew]

Yeah, I've had a 90% completed ps2 core running, but then @rich mason called dibs on it last year so I got rid of my prototype.

[frank pasture]

I threw my computer in the bin and then set fire to it for the same reason

[rich mason]

i cancelled that project so you can safely return to it

[hard sinew]

I deleted all my files.

[rotund flume]

Original hardware is the best way but that's not a viable option for most people. That 3DS emulator is most likely the best way to enjoy the library outside of original hardware but I'm hoping we get a core eventually.

[low peak]

unless i’m out the loop there’s no off the shelf stereoscopic display waiting for MiSTer users to pounce on

would a core be as good a gaming experience as 3ds or og-hardware?

[rotund flume]

Yeah I suppose it wouldn’t

[low peak]

don’t get me wrong

want want want

but the vb is the edge case of edge cases

[rotund flume]

Anaglyph red/blue glasses would likely be the easy implementation for 3D

Also it’s not like OG hardware is “better” than software emulation, I imagine most people would think it wouldn’t be. But the VB is such a weird experience with the full on face visor, the vibrating mirror, and the really good stereo separation that you can’t replicate with conventional setups.

So I guess it’s just perspective. 3DS I imagine is just a much more comfortable and accessible way of enjoying the library.

That would be my go to if I had a modded 3DS, even though I own hardware and games. It just sounds so much more convenient.

[deep yarrow]

modding a 3ds takes about 20 minutes and its all software

the only reason you need a screwdriver is because of how they buried the sdcard under the backpanel

highly recommend it

[hard sinew]

For n3ds. Normal 3ds and xl had it under a side panel you could pull off

[solar iron]

It is! I genuinely have no reason to boot up my Virtual Boy anymore now that I have the library on my 3DS. But I still love muh Boy! (hugs his Virtual Boy)

[wraith magnet]

My understanding is that the NGP core (I think even the NGPC parts?) are all open now, so if another dev wanted to fork and finish it they could. There don't seem to have been any takers yet though.

[solar iron]

NGPC is definitely locked behind the patreon still.

[wary fjord]

Yeah, NGP is out of beta, but NGPC is in beta and is a weird branch of the NGP build?

it’s all tangled together

[primal lichen]

Makes sense why no one is biting. FPGA developers like srg320 and FPGAzumSpass are currently busy with other projects, so hypothetical cores like the Neo Geo Pocket are in the backburner.

[wary fjord]

Well one of the main problems is that the NGPC core isn’t hypothetical - it exists and, assuming you know the right incantation, loads some of the games. But it’s been in that state for like 9 months now, with no sign of development. In essence, it’s kind of “locked” by jotego unless someone wants to start over from scratch.

[fiery vault]

Frankly, we'd be better off starting from scratch on NGPC. There was a similar situation in the past with the dev that started the PSX core that went nowhere before Robert came to the rescue and built his own core. It's easier to start from scratch in some of these situations

[wraith magnet]

Grey Rogue and Paul are two of the big Devs who quietly pick up cores and dig into other people's codes and work wonders adding new things. GR is obviously busy in Jaguar and Paul works in the shadows, no idea what he is working on.

[wary fjord]

And we cannot con Kit into working on it. She only does Atari stuff

[primal lichen]

Just lie and call it the Atari Pocket.

[solar iron]

Paul is the dev that's been working the SNES save state stuff right?

[elder harbor]

Someone will get to them eventually as soon as everything else is off the table

[deep yarrow]

i keep forgetting snes has savestates now, is that on update all or still in testing?

[gray grail]

Still testing.

[fiery vault]

Is Robert still working on the new GBA core?

[gray grail]

Yes.

First test version most probably in April.

[hard sinew]

It also has it's own channel if you wanna follow it: https://discord.com/channels/647909397477195803/1347219390130688024

[gray grail]

#1347219390130688024 message

[rotund flume]

@wraith magnet did you know about the Timetop GameKing?

Just found out about it - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GameKing

[wraith magnet]

I do indeed, Kitrinx had thought about taking that one on but we didn't have the CPU. Here is what I wrote about it on the forum:

You would have thought dodgy Asian gameboy knockoffs would have been a thing of the past by 2003, but clearly nobody told Timetop who released the GameKing. Trying to pass itself off as a GBA, GameKing went through three different hardware revisions (the third finally adding colour). Across the three versions just shy of 50 games were released, most being clones of NES, Atari 2600 and Gameboy titles. Under the hood it has 65C02, which we don’t currently have a core for. This system was done for the NT Mini, so is very doable, but would require someone to implement the CPU. Hopefully we see this one in the not too distant future, to help round off MiSTer’s support of dodgy Asian handhelds.

You know, I think we may now have a 65C02, that rings a bell...

[rotund flume]

I am sorry for ever doubting you, you are the real GameKing!

Well I mean I was pretty sure you knew about it

[wraith magnet]

It seems if we don't, then the 65C02 isn't that different from the 6502 we have in probably a dozen different cores including the NES

If Jason ever gets his RCA Studio II over the line then that will be the only console on the NT Mini we don't have (we also don't have the Video Brain but that is technically a microcomputer)

Looks like someone has done it in Verilog already

https://github.com/Arlet/verilog-65C02-microcode

http://forum.6502.org/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=4224

Does our 6502 have these extra opcodes in already?

[thorn atlas]

we have a 65c02 core

game king has a bunch of external interrupts

[wraith magnet]

What does that mean in practice? Things that need added to the CPU?

[rotund flume]

I posted about the GameKing because of this video - #share-media message

[wary fjord]

Robby, you'll always be our GameKing

[wraith magnet]

"Carlo Adventure Legend, a Super Mario Bros. clone"

The library is strong with this one.

Thanks to Grumby's work on the Super Cassette Vision we should have all the parts needed for the Hatung Game Master, and Epoch Game Pocket Computer handhelds. I don't know what adding the missing interupts entails, but it sounds like we have most of what is needed for the GameKing now as well, so maybe we will see some more dodgy Asian handhelds in the future on MiSTer. 🙂

[gleaming heath]

GameKing is also available as a 'Spiritualized' cored on the Analogue Pocket.... if that is extra motivating 😉

[rotund flume]

Is that the Kevin guy

[wraith magnet]

Yeah, it is one of the three Kevtris cores we don't have on MiSTer along with RCA Studio II (soon...) and VideoBrain

[rotund flume]

Kinda cool he did a core for it, I watched that Retro Pals video on the games and they’re fascinating. Like a midway point between game and watch and gameboy.

[random gazelle]

VideoBrain is the best name ever!

[raven arrow]

okay, I have this bizarre problem and I am not sure what I am doing wrong

I am trying to run Prince of Persia for Game Gear, I know it's the same game as Master System version but cropped into GG's screen, but uh

the colors are TREMENDOUSLY messed up and I don't think it's doing the proper crop

and it's the same across TEN different roms I've tried

[sterile quarry]

I've been meaning to test how MiSTer handles those Game Gear games. Been doing lots of SMS lately.
There's a list of games that run in SMS compatibility mode
https://www.smspower.org/Tags/SMS-GG

Castle of Illusion seems to often be the example. There's an interesting forum post here showing the differences.
https://www.smspower.org/forums/19127-ComparingTheSMSAndGGVersionsOfCastleOfIllusion
Even though it runs in SMS mode (and is often presented as an SMS ROM), the game gear version is also a completely different ROM to the SMS version

Not sure what MiSTer would do if you just made the file a .GG, assuming it isn't already.

Otherwise, you'd ideally want a Game Gear core that can run SMS games as if through a Game Gear screen, adapting the display accordingly. Could be done over HDMI at least. It really is very interesting how it does sub-pixel mapping across RGB to adapter for the lower resolution display. Would be amazing to see it on MiSTer. Not aware of any emulators that attempt to show the effect

[gray grail]

I remember that issue from 2019.
The solution was to rename the game with the SMS extension file type.

[raven arrow]

that just turns the game into SMS version with no crop

I find it really funny that I can't find actual GG versions on youtube being played

...oh well, I'll just pretend Game Gear version never existed

[sterile quarry]

If you wanted to check, try Emulicious. That emulator I think can be forced to select Game Gear and should run correctly.
Won't do the fancy sub-pixel mapping, but worth a sanity check for how you remember it looking

[raven arrow]

how odd

[sterile quarry]

Oh!

That's usually a pretty accurate emulator. I'm afraid I've no ideas.... Sometimes you really want that real hardware sanity check 😆

[raven arrow]

I wish I had a Game Gear now

.gg when forced in Master System mode is just exact same SMS game

finally, I found the reference

huh, the game isn't cropped, it's shrunk via compatibility mode

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/_Opsh3AwBnA

this was a waste of everyone's time, sorry

I really thought it would have a moving crop similar to Mega Man GG

I always forget GG's display does not have pixel grid matrix like Game Boys and is instead good enough to be a portable TV with radio antenna

[sterile quarry]

I wonder do these new screen replacements do anything like sub-pixel mapping....

[rotund flume]

Ok so WonderSwan, what’s the appeal here

why do people like this system

IM NOT TROLLING - just in case

[wary fjord]

I used to want a wonderswan back in the early aughts. But I think most (all?) games are in japanese?

But it had final fantasy titles back when those games' obscure titles had allure. It was basically a square handheld, and that was when square could do no wrong

Before the dark times

before ff13

[torn jay]

It has the best Klonoa game. Purely subjecting of course, but I was hooked instantly. By far the most important game to keep me motivated when working on the core.

[raven arrow]

various weird offshoots (Mega Man & Bass for WS, a sidescrolling Mega Man Battle Network game), JRPGs (Riviera) and a whole boatload of anime license games (Digimon, Fullmetal Alchemist JRPGs)

despite being configured for optional shmup portrait mode I have no idea if it even has shmups though

it has a very limiting niche appeal since every game in english for this system you'll see is a fan translation

and is 70% gonna be tied to some multimedia property, from the late 90s-early 00s

[random gazelle]

It has a cool name is why
Same reason the Videobrain is the greatest system of all time

[raven arrow]

it was worthy of knocking it off

-# oh my god I still can't believe it's Cougar Boy

you know, there's probably a reason why nobody does exposed contacts on carts like that

[sterile quarry]

Has anyone ever done the conversion of a WonderSwan into a USB controller to use on the core?

[rotund flume]

Yeah that game kicks ass, didn’t know it existed until I played this core. Did you enjoy the follow-up games on GBA?

[rotund flume]

It has one called Judgement Sword which is pretty neat

[rotund flume]

It’s such a weird name! lol

[frank pasture]

Maybe Robby is a weird name, Robby

But agreed, videobrain is weird 😄

[rotund flume]

That one makes sense, sorta. I mean “WonderSwan”

Like WHY

[frank pasture]

Because Swans are Wonderful?

What they have to do with games, I’ll never know

[vast raven]

Because wonder flamingo is harder to pronounce in Japanese

[lost glen]

Despite flamingoes categorically and obviously being more wonderful than swans

See, for example, how hard they are to pluralise.

Took me three tries!

[gleaming heath]

I so want to do this. There's a nice github repo with this somewhere. Haven't had time/resources/etc to experiment yet.

Would love a WonderSwan conversion usb controller and a NeoGeo Pocket one (though I know of no such project for NGCP)

https://github.com/zwenergy/swantroller

[torn jay]

didn't like the GBA games as much, don't know why. Maybe I should give them a second chance.

[solar iron]

Klonoa 2 on the PS2 will always be my favorite in the series. It's so good!

[raven arrow]

dumb question but didn't have clear answers after googling

can you link two MiSTer's with GBA2P cores to play 4 player mp?

is that even theoretically viable?

[wraith magnet]

GBA core doesn't have link cable support

And if it did then the answer would probably still be no for 4P MP

[raven arrow]

awww

so only 2 player Faceball then

[fading scroll]

have a nice day 🙂

[vast raven]

16 player faceball core when

[arctic solstice]

I don't think Faceball has a GBA version. The GB/GBC core does have link support via SNAC, but I'm not sure if it supports 4p with the adapter. AFAIK, the GBA core only plays GBA games.

[raven arrow]

Yeah I was just throwing Uncle Derek's traumatic journey here casually

That thing is a mess of voltages and unfortunate misspelling in the code to cap it to 15 players

[fading scroll]

Everyone loves a good buffer chip in their life

[pulsar trench]

Mole Mania vs mode on GB2P core 240918 doesn't seem to work. I can select vs mode, so the link is detected, but the game just resets back to title screen when I select vs.

Tetris 2P works just fine.

[gleaming heath]

I plan on getting one of Zari's adapters to see if it works on MiSTer. I'm not crazy enough or financial well off enought to get 16 MiSTer's though. I just have morbid curiosity.

[unique radish]

Is there a guide to get the snac link working with the gameboy core?. I have a GBC with Tetris, and I'm trying to play 2 player via the Snac adapter with the Mister

[steady wasp]

should just have to turn snac link on in osd. You'll have to use a gbc link cable, not a gba one

[unique radish]

Ahh

I think that's were I was going wrong

[bitter pasture]

If you have 2 gba link cables, you can make them work as a gbc cable. iirc connect the main connector (the purple) into the ext port of each other cable. The sub connector from each cable goes to the Mister and GBC.

[low peak]

feels like a missing part of my childhood just got made

[tardy turret]

How do you get SGB with GBC support?

[raven arrow]

N64 transfer pak with Stadium?

[low peak]

load gbc, add boarder

[sterile quarry]

What mod is this?

[vital meadow]

It's a gameboy/gbc core option in mister

[sterile quarry]

I mean the hack

[vital meadow]

I don't know how to answer that anymore.

[sterile quarry]

Valencia Island ain't a MiSTer mod. Looks like a mod for some Gen 2 game I guess? Just curious which one

[vital meadow]

I also found it strange, there is a new Orange hack around there, That was the last hack I saw

[low peak]

it’s the Orange islands you goobers

it never had a mainline entry, so the fans did what intending

man, Game Boy Color art is my happy place

[hard sinew]

The hack for gen2 sprites is also quite nice to replay gen1.

[brave nest]

I intend to play the gen1 games for the first time, but a bit nicer sprites sounds nice; what hack would that be? Do you happen to have a link?

[hard sinew]

https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/1385/

If you want colors + qol improvements like all pokemon available ect I recommend dx violet though, but I'm not unbiased on that one.

https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/8683/

[brave nest]

cool! Thank you very much for both links, and all your effort on it, will probably try yours!

[sterile quarry]

Is v1.2 up anywhere Quirrin?

[hard sinew]

No.

Rhdn doesn't allow for direct uploads anymore and I'm too lazy to make a new account on some random site.

[sterile quarry]

I was surprised seeing the link half remembering. I forgot that at least thankfully older mods are still hosted at least

I also recommend DX Violet. Been playing on my GBC with an everdrive and loving the fresh coat of paint

[hard sinew]

I'm curious on how you like cut when you get it.

And remember! 🫡

[sterile quarry]

Will report back. Almost finished getting side tracked with other games 🤣
Course that's the nice thing of DX, paint but also, mechanics

[hard sinew]

Just hope people like them.

[sterile quarry]

when traded by
RetroArch use
MiSTer instead dufus```

[hard sinew]

😅

[tardy turret]

Oh, darn. I was hoping it could just pull the SGB border from the ROM.

[acoustic axle]

So I was doing an odd bit of testing and trying to link two Misters via the Gameboy link cable SNAC adapter and an offical Nintendo GBC link cable. I'm trying to build kind of an arcade style install of link cable Super Mario Bros. Deluxe for the GBC. SO, I can link two systems in DMG mode no problem. But in GBC mode I get connection errors on every game. I CAN link a Mister to a real GBC without issue though. It feels like both systems are seeing themselves as the master device and neither as the sub device. Has anyone else run into this issue?

[steady wasp]

That's was a pic of mine from 6 years ago, tetris dx. I think it worked then.

[acoustic axle]

yeah that I got working, it's two Misters linked together that's the puzzle to solve

[steady wasp]

that doesn't work? 2 misters

[acoustic axle]

so it does in the Gameboy core when linking two Gameboy games like Tetris. But I tried across multiple Gameboy Color games and there I would get connection errors.

Mario Bros DX would have both systems boot into the multiplayer mode, but each as its own instance of the game, neither talking to each other.

Mario Tennis would get a link error not allowing me to get into that mode

[steady wasp]

ok, maybe I'll check that sometime ,I've got the gear now. I don't think I had 2 to test back then.

[acoustic axle]

awesome, thank you

[novel kindle]

is someone have a GBC to make some photos to adapt the corrected color on Gameboy core ?
Here the issue related to this topic
https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Gameboy_MiSTer/issues/264#issuecomment-2825117174

[deep yarrow]

there's a resource somewhere online with photographs of every imaginable gameboy screen iirc

[novel kindle]

have you some links ?

Paulbnl made a website showing differences possible to adapt the corrected color

[deep yarrow]

https://forums.libretro.com/t/real-gba-and-ds-phat-colors/1540/162

i can't find the exact exact thing i was thinking of now

ha, small world, woozle has done some work on this for the gba consolizer, he might know where there are good reference images, or extrems too since he worked on gbi

[regal holly]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XythLqgqok&list=PLmns9yRfAA-J3OrcEa677wLlu4rJASN-g&index=10

Bancho has a playlist with some nice GBC screen footage.

[novel kindle]

I saw something I never spotted before on the intro of Zelda link's awakening the trees are differents
on JP versioN

on US version

[little crystal]

A correction, since you don't have pine trees near the beach?

[novel kindle]

this difference is also on GB version. It wasn't corrected on DX version

[fallen harbor]

Yep, it’s fairly straightforward and the shader code provided by pokefan531 is really all you need. It’s also basically the same process to do HDR10 color correction used on the Morph 4K

The flow is:

gamma (decompression) -> 3x3 color matrix -> gamma (compression)

The first gamma stage linearizes the color data which is required for the color matrix to work correctly. The 3x3 color matrix is just taking the r/g/b pixel vector and multiplying it by a 3x3 coefficient matrix. The 2nd gamma stage takes the RGB data out of linear space, required for any display

Assuming 1x clock rate, you need at least 6 BRAMs and 9 multipliers

If I could do it again, I would probably use a lot more than 8-bits in the pipeline since you can’t really do 2.2 gamma with 8-bits, the lower values all get rounded away

(Then again gba data is only 5-bits per color)

[deep yarrow]

do you know what the original math was based on? i'm kinda curious how you get reference for a screen with no backlight like that

wouldn't the colors entirely depend what light was hitting it at the time

[fallen harbor]

I think based on camera shots under controlled lighting

[deep yarrow]

oh you just pick like a "normal" lighting condition and go with it

[fallen harbor]

To be totally honest, all the different screen presets didn’t seem all that convincing to me

[deep yarrow]

i've never been entirely satisfied with one either

idk whats missing though

[fallen harbor]

Anything to desaturate is enough

[deep yarrow]

yeah but i feel like how much i want ti desaturated varies on my mood

[fallen harbor]

That’s where more powerful hw can be useful

Just follow up color correction by a dedicated saturation matrix

[deep yarrow]

oh like correct the colors in one fixed stage then have highly variable saturation control after?

[fallen harbor]

Which is RGB->yuv + saturation multiplier + yuv->RGB all rolled into one matrix

Yes

You could maybe combine that with the color correction matrix, but in my experience it doesn’t work out and I don’t know enough linear algebra to know why

[deep yarrow]

do you happen to know what the analog pocket is doing? thats maybe my favorite actually

[fallen harbor]

Also within this, you need some way to manage overshoot. Via clipping or scaling the coefficients to keep the signal within range

Likely a saturation matrix?

[deep yarrow]

though that may also just be the screen size/quality i'm liking - very hard to seperate these things out, so subjective

[fallen harbor]

I remember hearing their products have a yuv stage in the video pipeline

I think it’s the screen too

Masks can also shift the colors

[deep yarrow]

appreciate your insights as always ! thanks

there you go @novel kindle !

[fallen harbor]

All good. Both pokefan and extrems answered some questions I had when I was starting out

Paying it forward

Everything seems so complicated until it isn’t :p

[novel kindle]

Thank you 🙂

[novel kindle]

Test build for color correction 😍
https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Gameboy_MiSTer/issues/264#issuecomment-2833586845

[hard sinew]

Is this a middle thing between raw and corrected?

Raw is a bit extreme and corrected a bit dull, so would be cool.

[novel kindle]

it follows more closely that the accurate emulator could do for corrected color

[hard sinew]

Guess I'll have to see it on my tv to know which one I prefer. But always great to see more options. 👍

[novel kindle]

it is less dull i think the corrected color

[novel kindle]

http://pbnl.byethost7.com/gb/gbc_color.html?i=1

[deep yarrow]

omg kirby was getting done rotten before wow

that looks great in all the comparisons there, what a useful tool

just to put it in sharp contrast this is the old correction vs the new:

[fallen harbor]

Oh no I’m on GitHub lol

Nice work

[novel kindle]

Sorry 😐

[vocal cove]

I wonder, can a Mister handle a Nokia N-Gage core, or is it too advanced?

Because, I don't know anything, but for all I know, the N-Gage is like a slightly powerful GBA, but not that much compared to a Nintendo DS.

[vast raven]

N gage had PlayStation games on it, so maybe. I want a core that lets me play the id RPG games

[rotund flume]

It’s considerably more powerful hardware. The n-Gage has a ARM9 at 104 Mhz, the successor to the ARM7 which was in the GBA running at 16.667 Mhz.

Not even the DS runs its ARM9 that fast, it’s only 67 MHz.

[vocal cove]

Then I guess that's out of the question.

Also, holy crap!

I didn't know if was that powerful than the DS!

[rotund flume]

I assume it’s because it needs to run full phone functionality alongside the game hardware.

Not sure how much you can simplify and FPGA implementation just to run game software. Maybe you can?

[novel kindle]

DS is also have two CPU AMR7 and ARM9 so not so far than n-gage regarding Mhz

[rotund flume]

Yeah, I think it’s just straight up the GBA processor too.

Run at 2x?

[novel kindle]

not sure for this point

I didn't know

I think maybe the second cpu amr7 is used for driving second screen or maybe more

[rotund flume]

Yeah that’s what we used it for. Bottom screen stuff.

[deep yarrow]

what if we just skip straight to the side-talking meme using a mister and don't bother with the core

[rotund flume]

I don’t know how much influence that had on the general public but I do know it turned the phone into a laughing stock. It was a meme sure, but it encapsulated everything wrong with the device as a gaming handheld and as a phone.

[deep yarrow]

imagine working like, years of your life to design and release a revolutionary phone/gaming device and all anyone remembers about it is this

[rotund flume]

Yeah that must’ve been pretty shitty to go through.

[deep yarrow]

i think i'd just put "unreleased nokia phone project" on my cv

[rotund flume]

I think they were very earnest in making an attempt to break into the handheld market and were ahead of the curve by a decade.

[deep yarrow]

yeah it wasn't for lack of trying

i think they made an nguage2

[wraith magnet]

Does N Gage CPU not run at over 100mhz or something too much for the DE-10 Nano?

[primal lichen]

Wikipedia says the CPU is an ARM920T with a clockspeed of 104 MHz

[torn jay]

It's only 32bit and has no TLB, so compared to the 64bit MIPS CPU we have running at 120mhz in the turbo core....

[reef marlin]

FPGAzumSpass N Gage core confirmed

[torn jay]

about the second CPU in DS, there is a nice rant from Martin:

The two Processors
Most game code is usually executed on the ARM9 processor (in fact, Nintendo reportedly doesn't allow developers use the ARM7 processor, except by predefined API functions, anyways, even with the most likely inefficient API code, most of the ARM7's 33MHz horsepower is left unused).
The ARM9's 66MHz "horsepower" is a different tale - it seems Nintendo thought that a 33MHz processor would be too "slow" for 3D games, and so they (tried to) badge an additional CPU to the original GBA hardware.
However, the real 66MHz can be used only with cache and tcm, all other memory and I/O accesses are delayed to the 33MHz bus clock, that'd be still quite fast, but, there seems to be a hardware glitch that adds 3 waitcycles to all nonsequential accesses at the NDS9 side, which effectively drops its bus clock to about 8MHz, making it ways slower than the 33MHz NDS7 processor, it's even slower than the original 16MHz GBA processor.
Altogether, with the bugged 66MHz, and the unused 33MHz, Nintendo could have reached almost the same power when staying with the GBA's 16MHz processor :-)
Although, when properly using cache/tcm, then the 66MHz processor <can> be very fast, still, the NDS should have worked as well with a single processor, though using only an ARM9 might cause a lot of compatibility problems with GBA games, so there's at least one reason for keeping the ARM7 included.

[low peak]

dual cpu’s with bus contention issues?

[torn jay]

yes, the bus is running at the slow CPUs clock rate and the fast CPU has to sync into it.
However: the last sentence is what good games did: they use the cache and TCM(small CPU internal memory) to run without needing the bus for critical sections

[low peak]

you could post most of that sentence in a discussion of the Sega Saturn architecture and how to best use it

[hard sinew]

So... DS core next? 🤞

[deep yarrow]

thats fascinating

i think its the gpu thats the problem with DS, it's a bandwidth monster

[torn jay]

DS VRAM is like someone made a mistake with the letters: they had ARM7 and ARM9 CPUs, so maybe someone wrote ARM9 as RAM9 in the spec and they ended with 9 different VRAMs.

[deep yarrow]

there's no flaws to exploit there right its just actually crazy fast and games use it too

[wraith magnet]

Has your reworked GBA code covered the chip(s) that are shared with the Sony PocketStation?

[torn jay]

it shares the CPU and yes, the reworked one will be easier to use with PocketStation, because it's just the CPu without some cycle counting stuff

I will still not work on it, for me it has nothing to offer, sorry

[torn jay]

Not crazy fast, but super low latency. Each one has faster random access than external sdram. total it's "only" 33mhz * 16bit * 9, so 4792Mbit. RDRAM in N64 has 4500Mbit. We drive the DDR3 with 8000Mbit to replicate it.

(10240 in turbo core)

In theory, if cycle accurate 2D PPU is not required (no beam racing), DDR3 could be used as long as no affine access is required. (mode7 rendering)
As affine mode cannot affect all 9 VRAMs at the same time, some intelligent scheduler could put some VRAMs or Cache in internal ram depending on the usage of the game.
Making all this work probably costs several months extra compared to some FPGA that could fit it and it would be less accurate and might lead to graphical glitches....

[hard sinew]

Still sounds like a great and fun project for a great and fun developer!

[torn jay]

i already did 4 cores and some other stuff since my last try and we still go no successor 😦

[frank pasture]

Nice try “retiring” to trick Terasic into releasing a new board 😉

[deep yarrow]

terasic actually finished the DE-11 Macro years ago they're just witholding it to see what else Robert will get working on de10

[flat violet]

I have seen Taki Udon propose or work on a Mister successor. Hopefully something develops out of it.

[vast raven]

How would you even interface the pocket station with the psx core? Have a shared save/data file?

[torn jay]

I never used one, but from the docs it behaves like a memcard and cannot be used while connected to the psx. So you would just access it from the PSX core, then load it's own core to "play" with it?

[hard sinew]

Does the pocket station do anything other than act like a memory card and maybe tell the psx it's a pocket station? If not you could just use the same routine from the gb/n64 core to transfer the save data.

[torn jay]

i think it can interact with the ARM7 and execute functions? Not really sure.

[wraith magnet]

It can play it's own game ROMs, and homebrew made it. My understanding is you can load up your PS1 save files as well for certain games and play mini games in tandem with your PS1 game, and save progress back to your PS1 save. The most famous example is Final Fantasy 8

https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Chocobo_World

So at a certain point you unlock a character and it lets you play a mini game on the PocketStation to level it up, which saves back to your PS1 FF8 save and is levelled up when you play FF8 next

It apparently works with the English version of the game as well incidentally

[rotund flume]

Yeah!

Outside of a PS1 it operates as VMU

[wraith magnet]

I think there is a fair bit of homebrew you can play on it as well, like how people have made them for the VMU

It would be a fun little core to get just for ROM loading even if it didn't save back to PS1 save files, would be a bit like the Pokémon Mini

Sounds like with Robert's new GBA core this one is now low hanging fruit for someone wanting to develop a core for an obscure handheld

[steady wasp]

Yeah you can't play it when it's connected to ps1. You could have the psx core think the virtual MC was a pocketstaion then save to that, then use that save on the hypothetical pocketstation core.

[wraith magnet]

It seems like:
Step 1: build PocketStation core
Step 2: integrate with PSX core saves

[steady wasp]

by the time you do step 1 step 2 will probably be easy.

[hard sinew]

2 is already done between gb and n64 core for transfer pak. @lunar isle wrote it.

[vital meadow]

Would it be possible to add borders to just the Game Gear core?

[little crystal]

Physically possible, maybe, but it would be some work - and that high-resolution image might eat up too much of the Game Gear core's available RAM

[vital meadow]

We don't need to use the image in high resolution, and this was just an example.

[hot sparrow]

yo this looks great

[hot sparrow]

is it possible to get a version of this that uses the gameboy color version of the core, this is defaulting to my DMG settings

[novel kindle]

on the comment of this link you have the RBF and you need to set the option to corrected

[hot sparrow]

yeah i know, the thing is that there's a different version of the core for gameboy color i assume bc people like to use different video processing settings and stuff. when i load this rbf it loads my dmg settings rather than the gbc settings from that version of the core and i don't wanna lose my dmg settings

[novel kindle]

i see

[hot sparrow]

as far as i know the cores are the same but there's like a different name on them or something

[novel kindle]

maybe you could use mgl file to have different configuration between DMG et GBC

[hot sparrow]

hm idk how

hopefully this ends up in main soon bc it's good

[novel kindle]

content of the MGL file for GBC
<mistergamedescription>
<rbf>/_Consoles/Gameboy</rbf>
<setname>GameboyColor</setname>
</mistergamedescription>

RBF => where the RBF is located

setname => will permit to have a dedicated configuration and directory for games in this cases the core will search games in games/GameboyColor directory

You can do also the same for GameboyDMG etc ...

https://mister-devel.github.io/MkDocs_MiSTer/advanced/mgl/?h=mgl

I used it also for SMS and GameGear

[torn jay]

When looking at the link port to try out my SNAC link adapter, I noticed the GB core has some issues with the link port:

• it uses it's own timer instead of reusing the DIV timer
• it does not implement the high speed link mode from GBC at all
  I could fix both, but would like to know if anyone has seen link issues with GB or GBC games with either mister+SNAC+GB/GBC or in the GB2P core?
  Maybe @steady wasp as expert in that field also has some clues?

[steady wasp]

Yes someone just reported something a week or so ago. linking real gbc with mister worked but not linking 2 misters. here's where that was reported you might have just found the fix 🙂 <#1046941428758102086 message>

seemed to be GBC games and not GB games they were having trouble with

[torn jay]

they mentioned smb deluxe and that works fine on the old gb2p core

can't link 2 mister currently, but there should be no difference

maybe @acoustic axle has more information

[steady wasp]

I tried Tetris dx and smb deluxe, both seemed to work with mister <> real GBC. Neither seemed to work with 2 misters. They wouldn't start when I went to 2p player or VS game.

I tried SMBD in GB2p and like you said that works. We'll see what Robin has to add to that.

[deep yarrow]

i've got all the hardware to test mister->real GBC if that would help, can't do mister->mister tho

for mister to mister do you have to use two snac adapters and a link cable inbetween or can you just use usb-A to A cable?

[steady wasp]

Two GB snac adapters and a link cable. USB cables would connect 5v from one to the other, which probably wouldn't be great

[acoustic axle]

So you are correct, but the GB2p core unless I am mistaken does not do different screens on different outputs like the GBA2p core does. Which for my edge case matters. I want to have the game playing on two separate screens. Ideally screens presented as in the attached photo. (We tend to deal in spectacle in the lab I work at, so there is a Mister in there that can boot games from giant cartridges via Zaparoo)

and per my testing from further up the thread, while I could via SNAC link Mister to GB, Mister to Mister playing GB, Mister to GBC. Mister to Mister playing GBC would always return errors. In the case of SMB Deluxe I could get both units to proc the multiplayer mode, but neither would be talking to the other. Two separate instances of the game running in multiplayer, but clearly enough of a link had been established to boot that mode. Similarly, Mario Tennis would attempt the link, but fail to keep the connection beyond the initial link message. If that help you.

[acoustic axle]

additional note: I could only really get a proper link using 2 Snac Adapters and a Gameboy color link cable. The Nintendo branded one with a DMG plug on it as well. Just no luck using what I assume to be all GBA link cables, though I believe those are fiddly even using real hardware.

[steady wasp]

GBA cables and GBC are wired differently. Did you try 2 GBA cables? wired like this

[torn jay]

it's not like seperate screen would be impossible, it's just not implemented. Overall this would be pretty easy to implement. Just need to write the analog out signals to some scaler framebuffer.
But i understand now that the issue is the mister<->mister connection and not some issue with the core itself.
I have no clue why mister<->mister should see issues that are not also seen in the gb2p core. It's basically the same without the cable

[deep yarrow]

could having a real cable in there be enough to trip it up timings wise

there are some like, pullups and stuff in the path? idk if that could slow things down enough

[steady wasp]

What I don't understand yet is they said "Mister to Mister playing GB" works.

[deep yarrow]

GB as apposed to GBC?

[steady wasp]

yeah GB games work and GBC didn't with 2 misters

[little crystal]

GBC link data rate is higher, right?

[steady wasp]

zumSpass said there's a higher speed mode above. unimplemented right now

[steady wasp]

I just quickly tried this and couldn't get GB tetris to work with 2 misters. maybe they used a different game or got lucky.

so maybe it is a 2 mister problem and not a gbc problem, I'm not sure right now.

[wraith magnet]

Maybe some cable or cable length issues?

[steady wasp]

maybe I got unlucky I don't know. I'll have to test more and get deeper into it. It's probably something small like a glitch in the signal that's enough to mess up the core but not the real GB.

[sterile quarry]

If this alternative method is updated, someone should arrange a meetup to stress test with 16 player faceball 2000

[steady wasp]

I like the idea of having the GB2p core have an option to output either splitscreen or 2 different screens. I thought it did something like that already but maybe I'm thinking of the GBA2p?

[torn jay]

GBA2P can do it, because it had scaler framebuffer mode implemented anyway from the highres rendering option, GB2P has not yet

would estimate ~1 day of work to add it

about the link: so far I haven't found a game using the high speed link mode. In theory, the game would likely not work on the current GB2P core or in mister<->gbc mode when mister is used to initiate the 2p mode(and therefore gnerating the clock)

[acoustic axle]

I definitely got Tetris working as it was my fall back game for big boy gameboys, but even the best Tetris feels less special than a mode of Mario few have ever played

[sterile quarry]

IIRC the limited testing I did was a little specific on which end started the link. Been a while and can't recall the game, but it could well be this has been the case. At the time I figured I was just messing up on the MiSTer menus or something

[whole topaz]

oooh

that's great to hear

I once upon a time made a Game Boy cartridge dumper with the N64 transfer pak

I used it to dump my games

[hard sinew]

I have a pc adapter I used to flash my own cartridge. 😅

[bitter pasture]

Last time I tried was in a while, but I noticed Mario Tennis being able to connect .When doing Mister to GBC, but failing on GB2P (communication error when starting the link).

[torn jay]

Can confirm, but unfortunatly was not fixed by adding the high speed mode 😦

[vital hull]

I have been on a haitus, but someone told me @torn jay is working on some new cool girl stuff

[hard sinew]

https://discord.com/channels/647909397477195803/1347219390130688024 is where the party is at. 😎

[novel kindle]

https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Gameboy_MiSTer/pull/265

[cinder peak]

yeah this is great

[hard sinew]

Holy moley. The corrected colors options used to turn the pokemon logo brown, this is a 1000% improvement.

@rotund flume next community poll pls: tanned pikachu vs pale pikachu.

[novel kindle]

We may need a YT video to announce this improvement 👍

[hard sinew]

@mighty isle get to it!

[hard sinew]

Something similar would also be nice for gba, as the current color correction options also drag the yellows into brown.

[vital hull]

Why does the one on the left look more correct to me? Is it cause I used the Super Game Boy and it does this too?

[hard sinew]

How can this look correct to you?

[misty escarp]

It's weird...but I remember it as a kid looking more like it does on the left lol

It's some Mandela effect thing 😂

[hard sinew]

Maybe tan pikachu is canon for surfing pikachu? 😎

[misty escarp]

Lol

[hard sinew]

But seriously, if so many people prefer the old correction the new one shouldn't replace it but be an additional option.

[rotund flume]

Is this an option you can turn on in the core?

[hard sinew]

Yeah, both cores can show the colors raw or corrected, with the new core having a better correction imo.

[flat violet]

Based on this image the old correction appears to be more correct looking?

[rotund flume]

I mean, do you want me to take a picture of it right now?

[flat violet]

Sure, if you can.

[rotund flume]

I don’t got no Pokemon yellow tho, darn

[flat violet]

Everdrive maybe?

[rotund flume]

I don’t have flash carts

[flat violet]

Got it. I got the cart somewhere but no handheld 😉

[rotund flume]

lolol with our powers combined

[strong sierra]

its a reflective screen, goes anywhere from dull to 'eh' with normal indoor lighting and quite vibrant in daylight at the right angle

i played so much tetris DX 🙂

[rotund flume]

Game rocks

[strong sierra]

cameraphone flash certainly beats wormlight

[rotund flume]

Actually it’s goofier than that, I had a head lamp on LOL

[strong sierra]

lmao

as only a gaming adonis would know to do

[rotund flume]

But you’re right, if this was broad daylight those colors would be popping

[flat violet]

So Pikachu is still more brownish in color.

[hard sinew]

https://tenor.com/view/pokemon-anime-pikachu-cute-gif-7252055363626669017

[rotund flume]

Maybe? I could try again later today when it’s bright outside

[hard sinew]

That's your reference.

[rotund flume]

I know this sounds crazy but it looks best only with sunlight

[strong sierra]

that colour spectrum

[rotund flume]

It’s not even 7am here which is why I used a headlamp lol

[strong sierra]

nintendo should have marketed more heavily to miners

not just minors

probably a translation issue

[tardy turret]

I like the left better, but it needs brightened up a tad. It's too dark. The warmer color temperature is nice. The one on the right feels too much like an emulator to me, and I hate poppy colors.

[rotund flume]

The one on the left is like “what if I played in a dimly lit room” while the one on the right is like “what if I played in the bright sun”.

[hard sinew]

Makes sense, as I played in the sun. 😎

But the brown pokemon logo is so weird. That can't be what was intended.

[novel kindle]

The change is linked to this ticket. Before we need to use patch for emulator to have better color on Kirby Dream Land DX (not over satureted).
https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Gameboy_MiSTer/issues/264

[tropic coral]

BGB emulator has really good screen simulation that you could reference. http://bgb.bircd.org/reality/index.html

[novel kindle]

Paulbnl uses it on the new implementation

[tropic coral]

Oh cool

[flat violet]

I just found this here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpo4wp_omjw

To me it looks closer to the earlier color correction with more desatuated colors.

Well, it's hard to say, it's more like an in-between maybe.

[little crystal]

Old LCDs, particularly ones with passively-reflective layers like the GBC screen, will appear and photograph extremely differently depending on ambient light

[tropic coral]

Oh these shouldn't be used as reference. I have no idea what color temp of the lamps I used to shoot these. I used old phone camera that does crazy amount of processing, which I color corrected by just eyeballing on my uncalibrated LG C2 heh....

[deep yarrow]

the math for all this was worked out long ago from some reference images that were taken under calibrated lighting etc apparently

[flat violet]

It is still a better reference than everything else I found. I wonder what the best conditions would be to get a good looking and accurate reference.

[tropic coral]

Tester for BGB says their measurements are done with philips graphica 5000K CRI 98

[little crystal]

This is a lot like the low-pass filters and stuff for arcade sound, where you're trying to dial in just exactly howwwww much that thin layer of cigarette smoke combined with the plywood in the arcade cabinet to alter the timbre of the extremely cheap speakers

[flat violet]

I looked into it and found this page, it contains a lot of good information: https://bgb.bircd.org/reality/index.html

[deep yarrow]

software emulators went through all this years ago we''re just reaping the benefit of their research

[tropic coral]

paulb-nl's update uses BGB measurements so we have pretty good baseline now. I think some one could make color temp filter that goes over it

[deep yarrow]

i think finegrain saturation control might help people dial it in how they remember it

[little crystal]

SNAC contrast dial

[rich mason]

https://tenor.com/view/no-lies-no-lies-detected-jasonearls-jasonearlscomedy-all-facts-gif-20324491

[rotund flume]

Yeah I was wrong I have a GBA and DS flash cart lol. Like from forever ago.

I forgot!

[rich mason]

you'se a liar liar, borderlands on fire

[rotund flume]

They’re flying me out to the fanfest, come show up.

[rich mason]

there's a fan fest

wat

what do those fans get? SWAG?

[rotund flume]

No clue lol

[hard sinew]

Just fyi, the modretro games work fine on the gameboy core, as you'd expect.

[solar iron]

Yeah, the Tetris game is excellent.

[hard sinew]

[elder harbor]

Is there ant difference in the modretro version of tetris and the gbc version?

[hard sinew]

I'm not a tetris expert. It plays just like Tetris. Maybe looks a bit nicer. I can dump it when I get home and make some screenshots on mister if you'd like to see it.

[elder harbor]

Cool..I been looking at getting a few physical games for my pocket

[hard sinew]

They should work just fine and you can order them directly from the modretro site. Personally I'm mostly interested in dragonyhm and thaumatorium penitent. Dunno if you can buy the tetris game by itself, it comes with the chromatic.

[elder harbor]

Stuff that isnt readily available as roms would be cool

Dragonnyhm is the game that started out as dragonborne

[hard sinew]

Everything is archived somewhere I think. 😉

[hard sinew]

Yes.

[elder harbor]

Im guessing that name didnt go over well with bethesda 🤣

[hard sinew]

Dragonborne is not the same as dragonborn!

I remember being interested in dragonborne for years, it always being supposedly right around the corner and then being reworked as dragonborne dx for gbc...

[hard sinew]

Turns out I can't dump the tetris. My adapter doesn't recognize which cartridge it is and gets an error message lol.

[solar iron]

It's completely different.

The Modretro version is a brand new version of Tetris and plays with modern Tetris rules and features.

All new visuals, audio, and gameplay.

[elder harbor]

Kinda sucks looks like tetris isnt sold separate from the chromatic

I did find this tho

[hard sinew]

Man, hope chromatic fixes everdrive support. You get to play dragonyhm on your pocket while I have to play it on mister, like an animal. 😅

[rotund flume]

I mean, you could buy the cart

I don’t know if the game is good, looks very nice tho

That, Chantey, and Tales of Monsterland DX all look pretty neat

[hard sinew]

Sir, whatever are you insinuating?! I'd never play a game that I don't own. Never have. It's just that I'm so bad at games that I require savestates, which the everdrive gbx7 and the mister core provide. Shame on you for besmirching my good name! 😭 🥺

[rotund flume]

Woah, I didn’t know the Everdrive gave you save states.

[hard sinew]

Only the x7

[strong sierra]

It works well on the core. better music than tetris DX but the tetris sound isnt as satisfying

[wispy gate]

Holy crap is there a way to use these on MiSTer?

https://www.reddit.com/r/AnaloguePocket/comments/18q2iz1/collection_of_all_official_game_boy_color_and/

[rotund flume]

But why

[wispy gate]

Why not?

[rotund flume]

Hmmm, good rebuttal. I have nothing.

[wispy gate]

It has more than what the title says, otherwise I'd agree lol

[frank pasture]

@wispy gate going hard on the handheld QoL addons recently

[wispy gate]

https://tenor.com/view/anger-management-jack-nicholson-yes-duh-nods-gif-5222702

[hard sinew]

I'd be happy about it but it's mostly for tubemen and I'm a scaler boy. 😦

[frank pasture]

He was a scaler boy, she said “see you later, boy”

[hard sinew]

I wish.

[wispy gate]

I do unironically like the Super Gameboy core and I don't exactly know why

[hard sinew]

I wish the super game boy palette in the real game boy core wasn't borked.

[rotund flume]

Why not? It offers an improvement to games that support it.

I wish the super game boy quasi functionality was stripped out of the regular game boy core.

[wispy gate]

Well it makes the display a lot smaller

[wispy gate]

but then you couldn't just load any border or palette you want

[rotund flume]

Oh, ok good point. Nevermind.

[wispy gate]

especially with gameboy color which isn't supported on the Super Gameboy

[elder harbor]

I was just in gamestop..they had a modretro chromatic there but none of the games. I just want the physical games for my pocket

[wispy gate]

you just like the feel of them in your pants or what

[rotund flume]

You can buy them from the ModRetro site - https://modretro.com/collections/games

[hard sinew]

Dragon box shop has them as well if you're in Europe, that's where I got mine.

Something about traumatarium penitent is strangely alluring to me. Might have to grab that one after all.

[elder harbor]

I know..just wanted see if i could get them locally first..I knew gamestop has them. But they were sold out

[rotund flume]

Ah sorry to hear.

[elder harbor]

I checked 2 gamestops both had the chomatic but no games

[hard sinew]

There is definitely something to be said for picking up game boy games from a store.

[elder harbor]

Except the tetris game included with it

[hard sinew]

Reading the manual on the way home, all while driving your car yourself since your not a kid anymore.

[hard sinew]

So can you pick it up by itself or does it only come with the chromatic?

[elder harbor]

It only comes with the chromatic they dont even sell by itself on the website

[wispy gate]

if only there were other ways of getting things that you can't buy

[hard sinew]

Too bad. Hope you can find some other way to play it.

[elder harbor]

I know right?

[wispy gate]

I saw earlier lol

[hard sinew]

I'm really jelly that the pocket works with everdrives.

[elder harbor]

Its a nice looking version of tetris it dont look like a gameboy color game

[elder harbor]

Im not using a everdrive but they do work

[hard sinew]

I like the everdrive since I can just jam it in the gb player. Makes it kinda work like the switch.

[elder harbor]

Yeah its good if you wanna move your games between different systems but if you like me and are only gonna play them on the pocket. There is really no use for it. I play on mister but that dont take carts so .

I got a 1tb sd for the pocket and havent even filled halfway yet

Not even half of halfway..lol

[hard sinew]

I have a 256gb in my mister and there is also some room left.

[wispy gate]

is there any point with the jailbreak cores

[wispy gate]

oohhh

I wonder if the GBI community would want the borders we made

[hard sinew]

Also I have a chromatic that doesn't have jailbreak nor everdrive support.

[wispy gate]

yeah true dat

Does the EZ flash work in the chromatic?

[hard sinew]

Don't have one for gbc to test.

[wispy gate]

Sounds like maybe no

I have one but that doesn't help you

[hard sinew]

But self made cartridges from insidegadgets work.

[wispy gate]

https://www.reddit.com/r/ModRetroChromatic/comments/1jnaykk/ez_flash_junior_partially_works_on_chromatic/

[hard sinew]

If there is still no support in a year or so I'll get 2-3 cartridges so I can play the most important romhacks on it. I still have all my cartridges from when I was a kid.

[deep yarrow]

does anyone else find it weird when you set out to make an fpga GBA handheld and then apparently dont test to see if it works with the common flashcarts

its happened multiple times now

[hard sinew]

Afaik all fpga clones had/have issues with it.

[deep yarrow]

GBC clones have too i think

[hard sinew]

Fpgbc and chromatic have no fix, while the pocket got one later.

[elder harbor]

I have 4tb ssd on my mister but it has alot of cd based games I am using over half of that

The 3do core is coming..Im gonna need it

[hard sinew]

Appearently there is a traumatarium game before penitent. I have to follow the rabbit hole.

[elder harbor]

https://horatiunyc.itch.io/traumatarium

It can be yours for the low low price of $9.99!!

[hard sinew]

I'll see if I can find a site with a better price.

[elder harbor]

I found a metroid dread demake for gbc that could be interresting

[hard sinew]

Sounds neat. Is it finished though? These projects often end up as a proof of concept only.

[elder harbor]

Yeah either proof of concept or proof nintendo ain't having it 🤣🤣🤣

[hard sinew]

Speaking of newish gameboy games, deadeus is also very good.

Turns out traumatarium is also on nintendo switch... for 4 bucks! I knew there was a cheaper option!

[elder harbor]

Is it a native port to switch or gameboy software emulation?

[hard sinew]

I dunno. The screenshots show it in a gameboy border. I'd wager it's emulation.

[remote fossil]

FWIW lots of those palettes came from the MiSTER core lol, but there is a whole bunch more of them now. They're in both the format for the Analogue GB core and also the MiSTer core and you can find them here https://github.com/davewongillies/openfpga-palettes

[wispy gate]

Yeah I saw, it was the others I was wanting

[remote fossil]

Maybe I should make a MiSTer version of the repo so they can be installed with update_all

[wispy gate]

Kinda what I was getting at

However there are already a group for MiSTer so I don't know what the best solution is to avoid duplicates

[remote fossil]

I was more thinking removing the stuff that was already in the existing MiSTer collection

[wispy gate]

if all of that is still included in the other one, then sure

[remote fossil]

Yeah, I'd leave the current openfpga-palettes one alone as that's Analogue Pocket specific and is pulled down by a couple of the Pocket updater programs. Then for MiSTer I'd just make a seperate repo that just has the palette files for the MiSTer gb core without duplicates

[wispy gate]

yeah

[whole topaz]

agreed, that game is great

[whole topaz]

do you have an Arduino and an N64 controller and an N64 transfer pak?

I created an open source Game Boy cartridge dumper

[hard sinew]

No

[whole topaz]

Darn

The dumper was written when I was in college

[hard sinew]

https://shop.insidegadgets.com/product/gbxcart-rw/

That's the one I have.

[whole topaz]

It's old source code and probably would need to be tweaked to work on a modern Arduino. Also I'd probably be best off upgrading it to work with an RPi Pico.

since those are the popular thing nowadays

okay I see

[hard sinew]

The software is on github. It just gives me an error when I plug it in. Dunno whether modretro did something to prevent easy dumping or if the software is picky and throws a fit when it sees something that's not in it's database.

[whole topaz]

my software is also on GitHub

[elder harbor]

There is 1 thing mister doesn't do that I wish the pocket didnt either. Mister doesn't save the turbo option on the snes core pocket does. I have a few games that weren't booting and it was because the turbo option was still on.

[wispy gate]

Say what now

If you want the turbo setting to save, save settings after you change it

[elder harbor]

Try it..set the snes core to turbo save and restart the core..it will be back to normal..it was done that way intentionally for the reason I just mentioned so its not left on.

[wispy gate]

Ahh I didn't know about that it actually sounds annoying lol

[elder harbor]

Im not complaining I was saying I actually wish the pocket didnt save it either but it does..lol

[wispy gate]

Yeah gotcha

[elder harbor]

I was trying to play Dragon Quest 1 + 2 earlier and it wouldnt load the game because turbe was on.

It has always miffed me why they never put Dragon Quest 4 on super famicom they got 1 +2,3,5 and 6

[elder harbor]

On gameboy Double Dragon 1 pretty much looks and plays like the nes game. 3 is like a port of the arcade game with a better framerate. But 2 is a completely different game nothing like any of the others.

[hard sinew]

If they made the game today it'd be called single dragon and be a dating sim.

[storm gust]

makes sense tho. dragon quest IV is Feb. '90. Super Famicom is November '90. 1-3 were 86, 87, 88, so were already two+ years old in the SFC era, and 5 and 6 came out during its lifetime

also the PS1 version of DQ4 is better than what we would have gotten on SFC imo

also playable on mister ❤️

[elder harbor]

So basically it was released too early to be on sfc and too late and too close to the nes release to get a port.

Timing is everything

[hard sinew]

I found some comparison pictures of the correction on the modtretro chromatic online. It's very nice on the chromatic screen and I think it's closer to the new color correction. When I found out how to use the video out on the thing I'll share some pikachu comparisons.

[novel kindle]

Great do you think it could be improved on core side ?

[hard sinew]

I dunno nothing about the core, just that the chromatic correction seems very nice to me. And very close to the new one. But I'm not enough into this kind of stuff to measure it.

[novel kindle]

Ok I will add it on the ticket to inform Paulbnl for this new source

[elder harbor]

I guess if thats all you want then it doesnt matter

[unique radish]

And the fpgbc being half the price (Apart from the slight timing issue with the clock)

I wonder where the gamebub will sit price wise.

[hard sinew]

I'm not big on multi platform handhelds, that's why I have a gazillion modded gameboys and no emulation handhelds. Anyway, the color correction would be nice for everyone if it could be ported.

[elder harbor]

I wasn't sure if I wanted it or not but I caved and got the dock ordered it last night

[hard sinew]

This is great. And realistic. Females always ask that question.

[wraith magnet]

If you look like Billy there, then they likely do.

[novel kindle]

@hard sinew
https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Gameboy_MiSTer/issues/266

[hushed raft]

then then the sequel is Widower Dragon

[novel kindle]

@hard sinew Sorgelig made a comment on the issue.
Do you think it could be handle using palette ?

[hard sinew]

Afaik palettes are only for gb games, not gbc. Am I wrong?

[novel kindle]

yes you are right

[wraith magnet]

Hmm, is there a hard technical wall that makes GBC pallettes impossible, or is it a case of it is substantially more difficult due to the increased number of colours on the GBC over the (four I think?) on GB games?

I shall use up all my mana to summon @thorn atlas who is an expert on this subject

[thorn atlas]

Reflective versus emissive color palettes are literally impossible to make perfectly equivalent

It's best to just find what looks reasonably good and enjoy it

GBC palettes are also huge

Not like nes

Better as an algorithm

[elder harbor]

Thats pretty much how I handle palettes..whatever looks good to my eyes..in some cases that can be weird to others

I like the pc-10 palettes the way they make certain colors pop..but in some cases they can look weird.

[hard sinew]

I use the kitrinx high saturation palette for nes since it's pretty good and a self made palette for gb, which is basically just the normal dmg palette with a notch more contrast.

[elder harbor]

I think high saturation is good on a big screen but it doesn't pop quite enough on the pocket screen

Also the first time I played SMB3 was on a playchoice-10 machine a few months before it was released on nes so I particularly like pc-10 with that game.

[misty escarp]

Are there differences between the PC-10 version and the console release?

[thorny apex]

when will we finally get the correct colour palette of viewing at the gba og screen when viewed at 87°/91° angles with the sun coming in like fall dusk from behind with ones own shadow masking around 23% percent of the lower left part 😥

[elder harbor]

Not that I noticed with smb3..now there is an obvious difference with the pc-10 Mike Tyson's Punch-Out. It ask for your initials before you start a game and has a leaderboard for fastest ko for each opponent.

I just found that out today I didnt know there were any differences. Gonna be trying them all now to see if others have stuff like that

[elder harbor]

I played punch-out again and it actually saves the best times

[steady wasp]

I have it on a cart, I thought that was a neat feature. They used a few different colors too so it looks a little different on nes, a few boxer and ring colors. since pc10 used that different rgb ppu.

[elder harbor]

I'm playing on the pocket the one I really noticed was the Great Tiger he is really dark colored

[steady wasp]

soda pop is different and tyson's ring iirc

[elder harbor]

I also noticed it dont show the whole training scene it just skips to the pass code

That I wasn't fond of .lol

[steady wasp]

I'd say that was to save time since pc10 was timer based. Your quarter would have ran out.

[elder harbor]

I didnt think of that but it makes sense

Its cool that the ring colors and everything change throughout the game

[elder harbor]

Do you know if any of the other pc10 games have those kinda changes?

[steady wasp]

No, but I wouldn't be surprised if some games do have some differences other than palette.

[elder harbor]

I thought Id mention for people that might be thinking about getting an analogue pocket but worried about waiting a long time to get one. The wait time isn't what it used to be. I got mine in a few days within 2 weeks.

Im in the US

Pretty much every review I watched on it talked about how long it took to get it

[fast dove]

Thank you! (apologies for not seeing this sooner)

[elder harbor]

Just got my pocket dock..gotta say at least for the gameboy stuff the way they reproduce the dot matrix screen looks a lot better on my tv than what mister does. Could be something Im doing but I can never get it looking this good.

[rotund flume]

Looks like a filter? Can probably reproduce that. What relation does the dock output?

[elder harbor]

Well supposedly the pocket doesn't use traditional filters and overlays like emulators and such..it uses the fpga to recreate the look of the screen. Mister does ok but you will see a lot of squiggly edged pixels. All of those on the pocket are perfect squares

[rotund flume]

Oh interesting.

[elder harbor]

Thats what that second smaller fpga does it handles screen processing

The big chip handles the cores

[rotund flume]

Thanks dude for explaining it. Had no idea. Very cool design!

[elder harbor]

Its a cool device..nice companion to the mister. Cant do everything the mister can..but Im sitting here playing my old zero mission gba cart on my tv .that's freaking awsome

[wispy gate]

Did you try the pixel filter on mister

The lcd one or whatever it is

[hot sparrow]

i got mister looking pretty great for dmg i'll check my settings and post

[elder harbor]

Yes the ones on mister are good but not perfect

[wispy gate]

I'm curious what was wrong with it

[elder harbor]

I would spot uneven or squggly edged squares in the gameboy dot matrix. I couldnt find them when I tried looking for them again but Ive seen them..lol

[wispy gate]

Even when using interpolation?

[elder harbor]

I dont remember the exact settings I used when I seen it so that could be an issue too.

Could have been the specific game that caused it too.

When I catch it again Ill make better note of the circumstances

[hot sparrow]

might need to use interger scaling

[wispy gate]

Yeah that too, but I seem to recall it looking pretty even when you use one of light blurs that basically just interpolates the borders

[elder harbor]

Another little observation notice the solid blacks in 1 of these dont show the pixel separation.

[primal lichen]

Something tells me the blacks not separating like they should is a mistake.

[regal holly]

The black is being separated, but the effect is lost on darker shades as the grid's colour intensity changes depending on what it is laid on top of.

[whole topaz]

btw, Super Mario Land 2 has a color hack, so if playing that one later (I know this isn't SML2) I'd suggest playing the color hack

[silver mist]

Maybe people would like to play the original presentation?

[whole topaz]

that's fair

[elder harbor]

Found these at gamestop

[arctic solstice]

SML1 has one too, a very nice one with the option to start on hard mode and play as Luigi.

[whole topaz]

playing as Luigi exists in the SML2 mod too!

[hard sinew]

I'd probably pick up dragonyhm since I waited years for dragonborne and am a huge sucker.

[elder harbor]

That SML1 hack has some new sprites too..you can choose to use the new sprites or the originals

[elder harbor]

Neat little boxes the chromatic games come in way smaller that original gameboy but more in line with what you would think a cart that small would come in.

Full color manuals

[toxic cargo]

Palmer Luckey, the man behind the Chromatic, is a known weapons dealer:
https://www.theverge.com/24303052/modretro-chromatic-review-game-boy-color-handheld-palmer-luckey
DON'T buy that thing or it's associated products.

This server is about the MiSTer FPGA cores.
This is not for promoting products from people that makey money from suffering and death of human beings.

[elder harbor]

Another statement made out of ignorance..guns and weapons don't kill people..people kill people

[lost glen]

You can’t fight in here, this is the war room. #spicy-off-topic or just don’t. @toxic cargo @elder harbor

[hard sinew]

What does dragonyhm even mean? The original title made sense to me, dragonborne. Dragon and borne are words I can look up in a dictionary. English isn't my first language so pls genuine answers if somebody can make sense of "yhm".

[lost glen]

Good for SEO I suppose

[hard sinew]

That would be... dull.

[lost glen]

Dragon nym would be 'dragon name' and then throw in an h to make it more fantasyland. That's all I can suggest

[hard sinew]

Maybe I'd find out if I played the game but who does that nowadays?

[frank pasture]

Not me

[elder harbor]

I might know but its a game spoiler so I'm not gonna say 😁

[hard sinew]

Guess I know what I'll play after lunar

[elder harbor]

Which lunar are you playing?

[hard sinew]

Silver star on sega cd. It's the rpg of the quarter on https://discord.com/channels/647909397477195803/1312772542091497472

[thorny apex]

eternal blue

[elder harbor]

A lot of people disagree but the sega cd versions are my favorite versions of those games.

[thorny apex]

I think most people agree that it is different enough to be its own game

[hard sinew]

I got the unworking designs patch since the all caps text drove me crazy

[thorny apex]

well, unlike eternal blue

[elder harbor]

I've heard they are very different I've only played enough of others to see they don't have random battles in the world map