/vr/ - Retro Games

>>10725635
people say that because of the library, you autistic retard.

>>10725645
/thread

>>10725645
>I've even seen many people suggest the GBA is weaker than the SNES

>>10725645
>people say that because of the library
3D was everywhere on GBA

>>10725635
half of the library that everyone owned was snes ports

>>10725635
>GBA absolutely demolishes the SNES in terms of specs
no it's not zoomer
historically it was easier to emulate gba than snes. even today snes is nightmare to emulate while gba was perfected becaus it had trash specs

the games by and large feel like they could be snes games (in a good way). calm down spaz

>>10725709
Nintendo themselves compared it as closer to the Sega Saturn than the SNES.
https://youtu.be/lR3NiPAQBec?feature=shared&t=292
Which is correct given its scaling and rotation capabilities.

>>10725709
>historically it was easier to emulate gba than snes
That has nothing to do with processing power, it's all about how difficult it is to reverse engineer. The GBA used a mass-produced ARM chip (the ARM7TDMI) that was extremely well-documented, which is why there were GBA emulators before the GBA even came out.

By your logic, Saturn is more powerful than the Switch.

>>10725726
That looks like a Panasonic GAOO TV. in the back. I have one that has the same front case design, they re-used it for a lot of their models

>>10725635
What kind of a retard wants to play on a small 2 inch screen

>>10725635
then why were the snes ports always worse than the originals

>>10725742
examples?

240x160 screen resolution
Worse sound chip
Less buttons and consequently more limited control schemes
Washed out colors optimized to a screen without backlight

There's a bunch of things that just make GBA games look, sound and play worse than SNES games, better processor or not.

>The GBA absolutely demolishes the SNES in terms of specs
Low bar.

>>10725635

The SNES had better sound hardware, higher resolution and better graphics/colors. It also had arguably better games.

>>10725635
Not with that garbage sound chip, it isn't.

>>10725745
Yoshi’s Island had troubles doing the mode seven stuff

>>10725645
First post best

>>10725769
Never heard of this, shouldn't even be possible. Proof?

>>10725774
Uhh just play the fucking game? I suppose YouTube could be your friend as well.

>>10725778
The burden of proving YOUR point isn't on me

>>10725660

And it was very........''experimental''

>>10725635
did Nintendo ever say why they didn't give it four face buttons?

>>10725787
Touch fuzzy get dizzy would be something that springs to mind for me.

>>10725635
Only problem is its sound hardware isn't at SNES level.

>>10725837
That and its vertical resolution is only 160 lines, it's 240x160 whereas the SNES is 256x224.

>>10725660
When I say library, I'm talking about the popular titles in the library. Not fringe examples.

>>10725660
Same amount on snez

>>10725835
That's because the SNES has a hardware feature: offset-per-tile for background layers that is not present on the GBA. So GBA has to emulate it in software.
Overal the GBA is many times more powerful than the SNES, except for display resolution and sound capabilities.

>>10725746
>240x160 screen resolution

yup. someone in design phase thought this would be good enough. "Its portable, the screen is small, and there's no backlite, so a resolution lower than the 8-bit home console generation's is perfectly fine."

This alone really obfuscated any computational superiority it might've had over the SNES in people's minds. Especially when it came to ports from the SNES.

>Worse sound chip

really infuriating how bad the sounds that were not from the GB's sound chip were. and you didn't have to even put a pair of headphone on to hear it. The samples were limited in the SNES for sure, but the damn DAC they used in the GBA sounded like it was 4-bit crushing its samples, even though the frequency response was better. Just listen to the Circle of the Moon opening singing on real hardware.

>Less buttons and consequently more limited control schemes
meh, dont think this was as much of an issue. Only a handful of games needed the last 2 buttons, really.

>>10725635
This shouldn't be controversial at all. Just compare Mario Kart on both platforms. Super Circuit has more scrolling layers, superior sprite scaling, and more detailed sprites in general.

Even a cursory look at the spec sheet for both consoles will tell you that the GBA is way more powerful.

>>10725660
You mean like the SuperFX games?

>>10725971
>requires extra chips in the cartridges
>abysmal framerate
>reduced screen size
>still only capable of untextured polygons and flat ground

>>10725975
Are you the same dumbass that started the "Fix the Saturn hardware" thread

>>10725736
Agreed this is the problem. Their argument is laziness. It's easier to pick up and play a portable console vs on a tv

>>10725660
Wow it almost looks like Doom, impressive!

>>10725736
I think low detail 2D games work better on a small screen.

>>10726056
I'm not sure you've played either Doom or that game.
But if we are talking about Doom, GBA version is light years ahead. SNES version actually has lower resolution than the handheld and still performs a lot worse.

>>10726074
There's also a sourceport of Doom and Doom II to GBA. The retail ports from the early 2000s were on custom game engines.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1TlUZLvYOc

>>10725635
Your point? New hardware and simpler architecture beats older more complex hardware? I'd hope so.
> "Hmm, yep, the SNES could totally do this no sweat!"
In your head maybe

>>10725635
And yet none of the games are any good so you're a dumb aspergers zoomer faggot.

>>10725635
why do the tranny jannies and mods keep allowing such shit flamewar threads created by morons?

>The GBA has a 32-bit ARM processor clocked FIVE TIMES
The average person doesn't know this and doesn't care to know. They use their senses to evaluate the actual experience they're getting. The GBA has lower screen resolution than the SNES and garbage sound, that's what most people are going to notice first and foremost, especially when comparing the same games on both systems.

>>10726203
Not op but how is he a zoomer faggot? Gba came out in 2001...

>>10726387
That's mainly a problem for ports, games designed for the platform shine in both departments and are well ahead of what the SNES can do.

>>10725635
>Do these people really look at all the textured-mapped 3D games on GBA and think "Hmm, yep, the SNES could totally do this no sweat!"
nobody thinks this. you're comically autistic and overthinking the issue. it's a console where most of the common games have SNES-like graphics and there are a bunch of (shitty) ports of SNES games. that's why soimen call it a "portable SNES", that's it. what an awful thread.

Pretty sure you can't run Tomb Raider on the SNES

>>10726414
It doesn't matter how true the statement is
OP's autism won't let it be the truth

>>10725635
90% of the games people care about are snes ports
8% are licensed shovelware
1% is gba videos like shrek 2 the full movie
the last % is golden sun

>>10725645
They also say it because that’s how the GBA was initially marketed and introduced to its primary audience, through game magazines and early internet gaming sites.

>>10725656
it is in some ways. it has a lower resolution, and g*mes like Donkey Kong Country are graphically downgraded

>>10725635
None of that matters when the GBA has the dog shit resolution of 240x160.

>>10725635
>that absysmal screen resolution
>missing Y and X buttons
>shitty sound

Those things alone make 1:1 ports of the SNES impossible and thus cucked. The RAM and CPU speed don't matter at that point because Nintendo cheaped out on the points I made.

>>10726430
you couldn’t run it on GBA until more than 20 years after the system was released

>>10727083
>not pressing select while holding A or B to get Y or X
Anon, do you had a GBA?

>>10727490
>having to take your finger off of the d-pad, your main form of control, to press one button and another in order to have the same function as just pushing a button

Of course I don't, because that is retarded and I have higher standards than you. Demand higher standards and Nintendo might actually make hardware worth a damn again.

>>10725745
all of them have fucked up colours and screen crunch

>>10727101
and 20 years later the snes can?

14 9 14 20 5 14 4 15 6 21 14 9 19 21 14 12 9 13 9 20 5 4

>>10725635
The GBA is essentially the SNES with all the cart specific enhancement chips built in.

>>10728608
y u so gay

>>10728626
No nigger no

>>10728628
21 18 13 18 7 1 25

>>10728683
omg is thisi actual footage of the beta?

>>10728691
25 15 21 23 1 14 20 3 15 3 11 23 1 18 9 15 19 8 15 23 25 15 21 3 15 3 11

115 111 110 107 116 104 101 104 111 110 107

>>10725645
this...i remember seeing snes ports being advertised fucking everywhere back in the day

>>10728626
While this is explicitly wrong it does something that the super fx was needed for: math. Snes sucked at fast math needed for 3d. Arm CPUs are comparatively better so in that sense the gba does not need a super fx like the snes.

>>10725660
None of the 3D games were good, so nobody gives a fuck.

>>10728901
SNES CPU just sucks in general.

>>10726430
I fucking hate funko pops with their soulless bug eyes and boring shapes and poses.

>>10727490
!!! GASLIGHTING POST !!!

>>10727490
This is the same bullshit the Genesis had to do to get enough buttons and it sucked there too.

>>10728330
>Has so big fingers he cant move his thumb quick enough
Get good!
And for most games you dont need the Y and X while moving?

>>10729014
I agree on fighting games it is hard, but mostly you just need the strong kick and punches.

>>10729013
What do you mean?

>>10729054
>What do you mean?
That you're pulling shit out of your AIDS-ridden ass and want us to believe. What game had that "feature"?
And the SNES ports moved the functionality of the two extra face buttons buttons onto the shoulder buttons or did other stuff.

>>10728969
Yeah it's a bundle of compromise but it offloaded work a lot where the gba can't.

>>10729094
The only thing preventing the GBA from offloading more work would be the cost and power requirements of putting another processor in the cartridge.
In principle, GBA is much less prone to the bottlenecks you'd get from something like Super FX. Cartridge transfers are 2x faster, the PPU supports framebuffer graphics (with sprites!), and there's even dedicated DMA modes for transferring bitmaps to VRAM.
The play-yan cartridge puts audio and video decode hardware in the cartridge and that worked fine.
But outside of this MP4 player there wasn't any need for things like that because the CPU was simply fast enough already.

Long way of saying I'm right anon. The mp4 player is interesting but something Nintendo couldn't have included during GBA development.

>>10727101
shit i didn't know the GBA had continuous hardware updates for 20 years
guess my argument is invalid ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

>>10725660
I love how, on the internet, someone can say something, and then someone else will attempt to rebuke it by saying something completely irrelevant.

>>10729276
I missed the part where the SNES library consisted of texture-mapped 3D games

>>10729279
hah, he's still doing it

>>10725736
You think that's bad? Wait till you find out what the screen was like on one of the launch GBA's instead of one of these modded ones all over eBay.

>>10729070
Sorry that you got filtered by how you operate the GBA. You should read the manual were the game buttons are explained.

>>10725745
The sound was fucked up on all of them because the GBA didn't have a sound chip so all the sound had to be done through software. Another anon already mentioned Yoshi's Island, but in my case I was always told not to play it because the music sounds much more awful than it does on the SNES version, and eventually I tried it anyway and found that to be the case. The earlier SNES ports such as the first two Super Mario Advance games also messed with the colors of everything to compensate for the launch GBA's lack of backlight, so if you play these games on later hardware such as the GBA SP which has a backlight everything looks washed out.

Having said that, usually I prefer the control schemes of GBA ports over the SNES originals, but I don't know if other people would agree, especially since most people played on GBA SP's back in the day which had awful shoulder buttons compared to the OG.

>>10725831
Probably for consistency with the other Gameboys. The Gameboy Color was supposed to be a variation of the original Gameboy instead of its successor, so maybe the GBA was developed with that same mindset.

>>10729312
>The sound was fucked up on all of them because the GBA didn't have a sound chip so all the sound had to be done through software
The GBA can do SNES-quality sound just fine and the sound restoration hacks for the Final Fantasy games prove this, and many GBA games just have good quality music anyway. The reason for the shit audio in many GBA games is because the marginal utility of better audio was minimal given the GBA's shit speakers, so you may as well save the cartridge space for something else if you know most players aren't going to be using headphones.

>>10729312
>The sound was fucked up on all of them because the GBA didn't have a sound chip so all the sound had to be done through software.
That's a half truth. Lazy porting is most of the problem there.
Music composed for the GBA sounds great. Music which is ported without producing a new mix will be missing envelope and modulation effects which makes them sound flat. You'd need to use different samples.
>Having said that, usually I prefer the control schemes of GBA ports over the SNES originals, but I don't know if other people would agree,
I find Yoshi's Island is much more comfortable with the shoulder buttons for egg throwing. But Mario World's spin jump feels awkward.

>>10729332
>the marginal utility of better audio was minimal given the GBA's shit speakers,
Also the shit DAC.

>>10729341
>But Mario World's spin jump feels awkward
Funnily enough, I actually had the spin jump in mind when I typed that. If I'm running, pressing R with a finger that I'm not using for anything else anyway feels more comfortable to me than having to reposition my thumb to reach A while holding Y. Maybe it's less awkward to do for a child with child hands than for a manchild like me with large adult hands.

>>10725635
It WOULD'VE been a perfect portable SNES if Nintendo added 4 face buttons instead of 2, and gave the OG model, with it's comfortable form factor that felt more like a SNES controller with a screen on it, an actual backlit screen so we'd be able to see what we play easily or in the dark.

I didn't truly get into the GB, GBC and GBA libraries until backlit emulation devices and also smartphones showed up, it's that crucial to me, though I might be alone in this sentiment.

I would rather play snes emulated on a 3ds then a cropped gba port.

>>10725656
Show your sources. I've never seen this.
Like others said, maybe people insult the resolution or sounds, but i've always seen people claim "it's a more powerful SNES" and not vice versa

>>10729774
Fuck that shit. A backlit screen would have killed the battery life and cranked up the price of the system. Let alone it would have made Nintendo switch to the SP style built in rechargeable piece of shit battery. No need four four face buttons either.

>>10730130
I mean, the GBA SP came out only 2 years later, and the issues with battery life and price, while were a thing in 1990 with the Game Gear, likely wouldn't have been as bad, it was already 2001 and Nintendo had made the Game Boy Light in 1998 just fine. Also, having 4 face buttons back then would've made SNES ports easier to make, while also allowing for more options in newer titles, I don't get why so many people get upset at the thought of the OG GBA having a backlit screen and 4 face buttons in 2001, it wasn't the 90's anymore, it could've been done and would definitely have been good, without the price at the time being so much higher than what it was. I'm likely not alone in saying that the dark screen in the OG GBA really hurt the system for me.

>>10730130
But at least it wouldnt meant that gba games looked like utter shit natively, look at this >>10730185, mario advance had been already bleached out for its release, and even so its BARELY visible on the original gba screen, Nintendo were just being greedy fucks again by saving money by using a worse screen then the GBC.

>>10725635
the games look like snes games

>>10725635
What holds back the gba in my eyes is the sound. Its ok, but has a weird scratchy quality to it. The sound of the snes is superior.

>>10725645
>portable SNES
>most ports of games of it look and sound like ass
Thanks Nintendo

>>10730359
Far more colors and effects.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43Lr2jKe1Bg
Couldn't even get a Mega Drive game right.

>>10730825
Stealth released a demo in 2007 showing just how lazy and shitty Sonic Team's attempt was.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFwxF-7vSrQ

>>10730825
But that wasn't really a Mega Drive game; it was a port of a shitty J2ME remake. Like Anon said Stealth did a straight port of the original and it has zero performance issues, plus there's several commercial Mega Drive ports that the GBA powers through like Comix Zone

>>10725948
Prerendered garbage

>>10729306
Point out at least 5 games that had that.

>>10729208
Not far off. Comparing the output of GCC/clang for ARM today vs. 2000 is night and day. ARM was not a well loved architecture before it powered every phone in the world and like all alternative ISAs GCC's output was "compliant" rather than "good."

>>10729341
>That's a half truth. Lazy porting is most of the problem there.
Not really, the GBA sound hardware was just genuinely bad. 8-bit just isn't enough when your DAC doesn't properly smooth the result to a nice pleasing waveform. Meant even with the best dithered 22khz 8bit samples it was still scratchy and crap on real hardware. The fact that lazy developers used really awful software mixing made it much worse than it could have been, true, but even at its best the GBA was still terrible. The better soundtracks were ones that just said fuck it and used the expanded PSG sound.

>>10725660
No it wasn't. there are damn near 1000 titles on the GBA and maybe 30 of them make heavy use of 3D in ways the SNES couldn't, and most of those are fucking trash.

>>10729276
The best part is when they do it, and it's a fucking lie.

>>10731446
Barbie as the Princess and the Pauper
Barbie and the Magic of Pegasus
Barbie in the 12 Dancing Princesses
Battle B-Daman
Battle B-Daman: Fire Spirits

It just shat the bed in all that matters
>smaller resolution
>washed out graphics on an awful screen
>bad sound
>two buttons

>>10728705
It seems like you have a very fat ass. What are your pronouns?

>>10732496
>>two buttons
You stupid nigger, how do you not see that there are SIX buttons. A,B, L, R, and Start and Select. I bet you're one of the faggots who gets pissy because the GBA does not have a Retina display, Thunderbolt 4 link cable port and bluetooth. Fucking imbecilic cunt.

>>10725635
GBA is more like a portable 32x.

just with even worse audio.

>>10725635
And yet its ports of SNES games were inferior. You're the retard.

>>10725745
Donkey Kong Country.

>>10733753
The GBA version has better physics and a wider field of vision

>>10725645
fpbp
>even today snes is nightmare to emulate
the fuck? what is giving you so much trouble. Both bsnes and snes9x run just fine, and I have 4gb ram

>>10733785
And worse sound.

>>10733737
But with actual good games.

>>10725660
>3D was everywhere on GBA
No it wasn't.

>>10725746
>Washed out colors

pretty much the reason I don't play GBA games at all anymore

>>10733867
That's true, but the music is still good https://youtu.be/lCGC7GbEzGc

>>10730185
Anon white light is needed for backlight on colour screens. Game gear used neon, which eats battery. GBL uses electroluminesence, not white and also needed bigger batteries than GB. White surface mount LEDs were too new /expensive during GBA development. The tech moved fast, powered by phone development but you must appreciate what was actually available when this thing was being put together.

Oops GG was fluoro not neon, but still eats battery.

>>10725921
Spotted the zoomie. The GBA at 240x160 was the highest resolution handheld ever at the time and was praised for it. Even the N Gage which came out two years later and cost an arm and a leg only had 170x200

>>10734479
>but you must appreciate what was actually available when this thing was being put together
I don't, regardless of whatever excuses Nintendo had at the time for designing the OG GBA how it was, what matters to me is the end result, and to me the OG GBA had an awful dark screen that's worse to see than its predecessors even, it was a pain to play on this thing no matter the position or the light conditions, it was never comfortable, and to me that's crucial on a handheld, comfort.

I'd rather play on a Game Gear for up to 3 hours than to play on an OG GBA for a dozen or more, or whatever the battery lasted, a long battery's useless if I'm hating my time while I'm using it.

I know it's an unpopular opinion, but it's how I felt then and how I feel now, I never got how it wasn't such an issue for most people, though by 2003 and 2004 most had a GBA SP instead really.

>>10725635
GBA is obviously more powerful than SNES but it has inferior sound capability since it all has to be run in software through the CPU as-opposed to having its own specific sound chip.

Just look at Smashing Drive or the homebrew Tomb Raider port for example. I'm sure we would have seen many more ambitious 3D games on GBA if the DS hadn't been introduced to supplant it only three years into its lifecycle.

>>10734512
The Sega Nomad has a higher resolution and was several years older.

Gameboy Advance SP is better.

>>10725746
>Worse sound chip
Creating good music on the SNES was a matter of covering for the pittance of ARAM you were given with the chip's high channel count and on-chip effects. This is more or less the polar opposite of the GBA's strengths and weaknesses, where the need to dedicate RAM time to producing the audio stream (combined with the inefficiency of Nintendo's stock audio driver) means that the name of the game is complex samples and finding naturalistic ways to include the PSG channel, so the average SNES port is going to sound significantly worse in comparison; conversely, most of the best GBA soundtracks are almost infeasible on the SNES.

Plok's compositional philosophy (sampled chords, low channel count) actually could've been a great match for the GBA, but it never came to be.

>>10734939
Please tell us more about the succes story that is the Sega Nomad and how it saved Sega from bankruptcy.

>>10732127
Are you honestly trying to suggest that compiler micro optimisations over the years are the reason you can run a full textured 3d game on more powerful hardware? Don't be a silly cunt, unless you intend to back up your claims with literally any shred of evidence I'll assume your capitulation and simply write this one down as 'pretending to be retarded'

>>10735036
Is this cope for the fact that you were caught posting lies?

>>10725709
>even today snes is nightmare to emulate while gba was perfected becaus it had trash specs
In what fucking world? Laptops my high school had back in the late 00s could run SNES9x with very little issue.

The sheer vastness of misinformation in this thread is staggering. Makes /g/ look civil and level-headed.

>>10733737
GBA is:
>>Like a portable 32x for 3D stuff.
>>Like a portable Neo Geo with mode 7 for 2D stuff.
>>Like a portable but worse Amiga with a duct-taped GBC for audio.
>>Like a 16:9 Game Boy for screen resolution.
>>Like a worse Game Gear for screen quality (later models improved it).

>>10725915
Then why so many SNES ports were shit on gba?

>>10729312
You had to REALLY have bad eyesight to preffer the vomit inducing GBA color palettes over the SNES ones

>>10733726
>START AND SELECT COUNT YOU GUYS

>>10733785
Nigga please.

>>10733785

>>10731052
Zoomer hands typed this

One of the bigger releases for the system was Super Street Fighter II Turbo Revival. This is the GBA's flagship fighting game release.

The game is completely fucked by the GBA button layout and resolution.

So I have seen many different projects to enable a widescreen mode on 4:3 retro games.

Shouldn't the same be possible for some GBA games to be opened up to 4:3 via hacking?

>>10733785
did you manually crop an SNES image to back up your story?

>>10725635
>GBA absolutely demolishes the SNES in terms of specs
And yet the only GBA games worth playing could run on a SNES easily.

>>10726430
>Pretty sure you can't run Tomb Raider on the SNES
Why would I want to do that?

>h-heh GBA can run it
Yeah at like 5 fps rofl.
Nobody gives a shit about tech demos.

>>10733785
left looks like shit

>better physics
lol

>>10734858
Anon the tech to do this didn't exist unless you wanted another chunky battery monster device. That's the opposite of what Nintendo were making and what the majority wanted, but this isn't a problem now anyway, so why complain?

>>10735504
We got chunky battery monster devices in 1990, by 2001 it might've made it slightly bigger and a bit more expensive, but not as bad as people say, technology had come a long way in over a decade to make that possible, that was just Nintendo at the time wanting to make it as cheap as possible to maximize sales, which is understandable, but I think the OG GBA suffered for it quite a lot by it.

I guess the reason I complain now is because this left an impression on me, all of the other kids at my school with GBAs had the SP and could play in the dark before bed, or any light conditions, fine.

All the while I struggled to play a console, whose library I adore by the way, because of its awful screen, and what sucked harder is I found the OG GBA more ergonomic than a SP, but the screen...

I have a grudge and bad memories of something I desperately wanted to love and have lots of nice memories with, but absolutely couldn't because I found it so uncomfortable to try and play then. All I can say is thank God for emulation and these smartphone emulators and emulation handhelds we have nowadays, being able to play this superb library anywhere with good screens is true bliss.

>>10735707
>and a bit more expensive
Look at how many GBA units sold at $100 a piece. My siblings and I each had one- that's $300 to Nintendo. If it was say $125-150 with your upgrades would we have had those GBAs? Fuck no. Parents liked the hundred dollar console with $20 games. Batteries also lasted long enough that they were not an issue. You clearly do not see this like people back on '01 did.

>All I can say is thank God for emulation and these smartphone emulators and emulation handhelds we have nowadays, being able to play this superb library anywhere with good screens is true bliss.
Kek. yes. Praise the Lord that we all have pocket wiretaps/GPS trackers on our persons at all times. True freedom comes not from being untracked by your tech, but by playing GBA games on expensive spy devices.

>>10735770
It's literally what I've said, they did it to sell more and they succeeded, my complaint isn't on their bussiness side of things, it's on user experience and how doable it was to have a backlight for a few bucks more, they went with the better sales decision, but my experience was 10x worse due to that. Also, stop acting as if everyone in 2001 saw things how you did, it's very disingenuous.

I'm not talking about tracking, spying or any of the other complaint and concerns you might be having with smartphones, I'm talking purely on having a portable emulator with a nice screen.

I don't get why me disliking a hardware decision Nintendo took in 2001, because my experience at the time was worse because of it, makes you so upset, the OG GBA's screen is objectively awful.

>>10735863
>I don't get why me disliking a hardware decision Nintendo took in 2001, because my experience at the time was worse because of it, makes you so upset, the OG GBA's screen is objectively awful.
But it's not. It works with even a bare bit of lighting. I remember doing trips to Indiana and playing it via driving past street lamps.

That said I do apologize if I have come off rudely. A mix of a really bad, double ear infection and people treating the GBA like it was worthless has me a bit annoyed. People who were not around for the GBA launch, people who have never used an unlit screen, or something without a touch screen or something disconnected from the internet have a fucking miserable compulsion of trying to force modern tech requirements on the past. The AGB-001 GBA was a miracle device. It looked amazing aesthetically and in games, it was cheap and so were the games, battery life? Amazing. You could get 12-20 hours battery life on an AGB depending on brand. At the time it was a game changer and absolutely dominated the market - knocking the Wonderswan, GBC and Neo Geo Pocket out cold. Yeah, looking back after being spoiled by new tech makes it seem weak and useless, but the GBA was an AAA device and still holds up damn well.

>>10735949
Well, I guess we had different experiences then, granted I sold my OG GBA many years back, so I haven't looked at its screen in years, but I recall having a very hard time playing the thing for too long before it frustrated me with how it never actually looked good to me no matter what I did, maybe mine was bought used and/or was faulty, I'll never know for sure, but I wasn't so lucky.

No need to apologize, I know what you mean, I also have days where I'm rude to people, even a lot of people I love, because there are things that just completely ruin my mood going on with me.

I'm sorry if I came off as rude too, didn't mean to upset you or try to downplay your good time and memories with the thing, it's a good device and Nintendo did pretty much everything right too.

I guess we had different experiences and that's fine, we can all agree that the library on the GBA was superb and the hardware, for a handheld at the time, was unlike anything we had ever seen, I suppose the reason I disliked the screen so much is because, to me, it hindered my enjoyment of a device I knew was really damn good and had a lot of stuff I wanted to play back then, but it's fine.

P.S. Are you treating that ear infection? Have you seen a physician? I'm a physician and I also have a history with ear infections, so it always gets me very concerned to see, how are you taking care?

>>10735995
Thanks Anon. I will admit to modding my original GBA with a backlit panel, but I made a point to preserve the original, still working panel. It's visible, but my eyes have grown progressively worse in the past 20ish years and as someone who still is working at a GBA library it was time to give my eyes a break.

Entirely get your arguments/feelings over the GBA/screen as well. You have logical and reasonable concerns/issues with it. I'm just fucking tired of every GBA related post on /vr/ being this weird ruckus of people who were most likely not alive until after the DS/3DS was launched, treating the GBA like it was a commercial failure.

Finally yes, went to the doctor yesterday. Went the week before and the pain started the prior week, but I was busy trying to manage things with a parent in the hospital and could not get checked. I was finally given some antibiotics and I'm hoping it clears up the issue.

>>10736040
No problem, I get why you felt upset, I feel that way often with the consoles and titles I'm a fan of when they're discussed here and I feel anons are being unfair, so I totally get it. GBA really's not appreaciated enough for the library it had, hardware for 2001 and everything it pulled off overall, maybe because GB/GBC and DS sold so much more, but it was still a huge hit back then.

I think it's just /vr/ in general now, negativity or full on console wars get a lot more traction and engagement from other anons, so now it's sort of the culture just like in /v/ aswell, it's a shame.

I'm glad you went to a doctor, considering how long you've been feeling pain it's likely bacteria indeed, so antibiotics are the way to go, as long as you take 'em as instructed, you'll get better.

Cheers, anon.

>>10735305
>completely fucked by the GBA button layou
You don't need 3 buttons that all punch and another 3 that all kick.

>>10735336
Nope, do a pixel count of it yourself and it'll turn 256x224
>>10735374
Yes it has better physics, the original game was Eurojank. Good Eurojank to be sure, but ultimately Eurojank

>>10733095
Wah/hoo

>>10734928
Nintendo's handhelds between Gameboy and DS felt crippled. GBC was seen as a small upgrade of GB (despite being much more powerful than GB) and wasn't out long enough for games to really push the specs before the GBA dropped, and then the same happened to GBA before the DS dropped.

>>10736324
>Crippled.
>32 bit handheld system.
Nah.

>>10736335
Crippled in the sense they didn't last long enough in the market for devs to really push the capabilities before the successor came out.

>>10735707
No anon, I get this is really hard for your zommer brain to parse, but smd led backlight is what made low power backlit display possible. The tech literally was not cheap mass production level during GBA development. It was only cheap enough around 2003, funnily enough when the sp came out, and quickly became ubiquitous. No way to make a cheap, low powered backlit display before then. Not some evil Nintendo scam dude, they were actually pretty early on this for the price point.

>>10735707
>>10735863
>>10735995
No anon, I get this is really hard for your brain to parse if you weren't old enough to remember many devices around that time, but smd led backlight is what made low power backlit display possible. The tech literally was not cheap mass production level during GBA development. It was only cheap enough around 2003, funnily enough when the sp came out, and quickly became ubiquitous. No way to make a cheap, low powered backlit display before then. Not some evil Nintendo scam dude, they were actually pretty early on this for the price point.

This article explains the first white LEDs (big chunky ones, not miniaturised surface mount ones) were released mid 1996, and they weren't good enough yet.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light-emitting_diode#:~:text=The%20first%20white%20light%2Demitting,in%20the%20autumn%20of%201996.
The led backlight Wikipedia article explains that dimmable ones used in mobile phones only came out in 2003. It didn't mention the non dimmable kind which obviously was a little earlier (but not by much). That was a space of under 7 years, pretty quick advance at the time.

Just dug around and found that the Ericcson t68 was the first ever led backlight phone also released some time in 2001 at €500. I actually used one and it was pretty good. The GBA would have definitely benefited from this kind of screen, as you say but I think the price of the phone says enough.

>>10737273
>>10737293
>>10737309
I get that the SP's technology, and decent small screens with backlight, weren't so cheap and it would've brought the price up, as I've said it was a great bussiness decision and the GBA's sales at the time speak for themselves, I'm talking about user experience most of all, and they didn't have to use new technology that was expensive and needed work, a screen with a mediocre light like in the Game Gear and Lynx would've been fine, they were over 10 years old by that point, so the technology used for their type of screens surely had improved by 2001 and/or was cheaper too.

Of course, I'm just guessing, I'm not a bussiness kind of guy, not a technology one, I just like video games and I wanted to love this console, but the screen messed it up for me then, it's not just the lack of backlight, GB, GBC and even Neo Geo had these kinds of screens, it's the OG GBA that's so hard to see for me, it feels way darker than the others, maybe due to the 32-Bit graphics it had.

>>10738603
>a screen with a mediocre light like in the Game Gear and Lynx would've been fine, they were over 10 years old by that point, so the technology used for their type of screens surely had improved by 2001 and/or was cheaper too.
NTA but the Game Gear literally used a full power lightbulb. It was woefully inefficient power-wise.

>>10738603
Am that anon and totally get what you are saying. Maybe your GBA had a problem or even the early release ones were that bad cos I remember them needing decent light to use too. Luckily I guess it's academic now that technology has moved on so much. Definitely can enjoy GBA games much more on a bigger backlit screen. Still go for COTM fix among others every so often. Thanks for your replies.

>>10725948
>>10725635
ehhhhhh it's important to understand the GBA's intention. It's meant to be a portable SNES. But... scaling down the SNES hardware is a no-go. Far too power hungry. Instead the GBA uses a much faster and more capable ARM processor that, most importantly, uses very little power because ARM's RISC shit just does (hence being used in every single mobile device these days)
Game development wise this has some interesting implications. First and foremost, the GBA has to be coded do a lot of shit manually that the SNES had built in stuff for. The most notable is of course and Mode 7 effects or other mode shit. The SNES is much more reliant on having various features like that being available for developers. This is why things like the wavy effect in Yoshi's Island is different on the GBA. All the logic for transforming and scaling sprites has to be done by the developers and implemented within the GBA's memory.
It also allows shit like >>10725660 because at a very core level the GBA is just way more fucking powerful if you're willing to just sit down and put the time into it. Hence why Doom port for the GBA didn't require extra hardware like the SNES port.
in short
>Nintendy wants portable SNES
>more powerful energy efficient chip is best way to do that
>in practice very different than SNES but SNES games can be ported
>mission accomplished

>>10741236
>The most notable is of course and Mode 7 effects or other mode shit. The SNES is much more reliant on having various features like that being available for developers. This is why things like the wavy effect in Yoshi's Island is different on the GBA. All the logic for transforming and scaling sprites has to be done by the developers and implemented within the GBA's memory.
This is mostly incorrect.
GBA's "Mode 7" effects are handled by GBA modes 1 and 2, which are outright more powerful than SNES. SNES Mode 7 only supports 1 rotated/scaled background layer, while mode 1 supports 3 (one rotated/scaled) and mode 2 supports 2 (both rotated/scaled). GBA additionally supports transformed sprites in all modes, which SNES doesn't support at all.

Yoshi's Island does use one SNES-specific hardware feature, which is per-column tile scrolling. That effect has to be bodged in software. But this is a pretty rarely used SNES feature and not the same thing as mode 7. Everything else is all natively supported by the GBA.

>>10741236
You're full of shit.
>>10741290
You're 100% right.

>>10725865
Pokemon looks no where like SNES games, not even Robotrek.

>>10731052
Yoshi player detected

>>10735291
SP owners get fucked

>>10729279
Lol you're still at it, huh

Donkey Kong Country looks worse on the GBA.

>>10725645
OP is a drama instigating fag everytime. GBA is a lot like snes

4chan is always contrarian bait

>>10742581
You're the fag.
SNES and GBA only share the PPU design, the rest is 100% different.

> The GBA absolutely demolishes the SNES in terms of specs
yes it's 12 fucking years newer, and yet the audio is still garbage somehow. based kundaragi

>>10725645
Fpbp

>>10741834
A lot of the SNES ports had modified color palettes to make them look better on the AGB-001 screen.

Some later titles like Minish Cap or Sonic Advance 3, included color palette options intended for improved visibility on different types of displays the original GBA, the GBA SP, or Game Boy Player (bearing in mind this had an intentional darkening filter).

The screen issue is why some launch titles like Castlevania Circle of the Moon, looks good on modern displays whereas Harmony of Dissonance looks garish.
CotM didn't compensate for the poor visibility of the AGB-001 screen, and HoD way over-compensated.

you can tell itt who actually played gba games and who only knows about snes ports

>>10735863
Only ever had an English teacher twice my age when I was in high school flirt with me. I shoulda tried I think now. She was definitely hot too.

Another lady my dad knew once acted like that to me and I didn't know what to say back then

This thread makes me want to dust off my snes mini and add some gba games to it.
I ignored the gba because I always thought its best games were just ported snes games, but it seems to have quite a lot of great unique games of its own.
The snes controller seems perfect for gba games.

>>10725745
The Final Fantasy ports sucked on the GBA. Pretty much all of them. That's more of an issue of them being full of gamebreaking bugs than the system itself though.

>>10725635
sucks how limited it was by the 2 button scheme and the screen.

>>10743318
>full of gamebreaking bugs
Are you talking about the SNES versions?

>>10743293
>The snes controller seems perfect for gba games.
So much so that this exists.

>>10742986
>I shoulda tried I think now.
Well... was she hot?
If yes, then you should have.
If not, then you didn't miss much.

>>10725635
>demolishes the SNES in terms of specs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prIXaXB62Tk

>here's your amazing sound chip bro

>>10745581
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4-DQ4hGRJo
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6o47N-aYd08
woagh dude genesis is so much more powerful than the nintendo ds