#23914 - cochese - Sat Jul 24, 2004 3:29 am
Hi board,
I'm coming from a Flash Actionscript 2.0 development area and want to start developing on GBA also. I'm familiar with OOP and saw some examples written in C++. Is that the way to go for GBA or is C the better go? I would like to know which dev environment is the best to be used for GBA. HAM seem to have many extra stuff but I've read some threads where people prefer DevKitAdv. Can somebody tell me in short the pro's and con's of boths environments?
On top a recommendation for which assembler compiler to use would be great too!
Thanks alot!
cochese
#23917 - dagamer34 - Sat Jul 24, 2004 4:32 am
I'll give you my advice as I was in your position about 8 months ago.
HAM
-------
Pros:
1) Easy to setup
2) Comes with a very good IDE
3) Easy to learn
4) Comes with several examples
Cons:
1) Eventually restrictive as you will want full control of the hardware
DevKitAdvance/DevKitARM
----
Pros:
1) Widely used on these boards
2) Can have full control of the hardware
Cons:
1) Steep learning curve as new concepts are introduced that you may not have learned about (interrupts, memory mapped hardware, using the bios, etc...)
2) No IDE (though several are available)
3) Will have to learn how to use makefiles and/or batch files
I'm sure other people will comment as well... That's all I can think of off the top of my head.
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#23954 - cochese - Sun Jul 25, 2004 8:11 am
Thanks alot dagamer34! I might be going to configure VisualHAM for use with DevKitAdv as well. Can you recommend me an assembler compiler? Currently I'm following GbaGuy's ASM tut's with GoldRoad assembler. But it doesn't support linking.
Does it mean that it isn't possible to use GoldStar together with C or C++ parts in the project?
I think I'd like to put project together later with both sides C/C++ and ASM for some critical parts like graphic/scrolling routines. But it seems with GoldStar you have to completely stick only with ASM?
#23955 - tepples - Sun Jul 25, 2004 9:07 am
GNU Binutils has an assembler called `as'. Any distribution of a GCC toolchain should include an appropriate Binutils.
_________________
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-- Who?
-- You know, the human.
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#23981 - dovoto - Sun Jul 25, 2004 11:54 pm
Actualy devkitARM is the best option. It is based of the devkitAdv gcc build but does not use cygwin makeing it much faster. It is also much more up to date. I beilieve you can also configure Visual Ham to use either devKitArm or devkitAdv.
If you are looking for a good place to start with anything other then ham:
www.thepernproject.com
The old tutorials are set up for devkitAdv and the new for devkitArm.
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#23996 - cochese - Mon Jul 26, 2004 4:14 am
Thanks dovoto! I already found that by reading Tonc's excellent tutorial site (http://user.chem.tue.nl/jakvijn/tonc/setup.htm). I will stick with DevKitARM and try to configure VisualHAM to work with it.
That site also explained very well what Thumb code is. :)
I will check Pern Project too!
--
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#32543 - kentsimon - Thu Dec 23, 2004 7:17 pm
| cochese wrote: |
I will stick with DevKitARM and try to configure VisualHAM to work with it.
|
Did you have any luck configuring VisualHAM to use DevKitARM?
#32545 - ymalik - Thu Dec 23, 2004 8:03 pm
| dagamer34 wrote: |
HAM
Cons:
1) Eventually restrictive as you will want full control of the hardware
|
How?
#32561 - Celeryface - Thu Dec 23, 2004 10:38 pm
| dagamer34 wrote: |
HAM
-------
Pros:
1) Easy to setup
2) Comes with a very good IDE
3) Easy to learn
4) Comes with several examples
Cons:
1) Eventually restrictive as you will want full control of the hardware
|
You can also use the HAM installation to make GBA programs without using the HAM lib. This will act just like if you're using DevKitAdv and Visual HAM together, but this installation method is a bit quicker than configuring the IDE yourself.
#32570 - blinky465 - Fri Dec 24, 2004 12:44 am
| ymalik wrote: |
| dagamer34 wrote: | HAM
Cons:
1) Eventually restrictive as you will want full control of the hardware
|
How? |
I came to GBA programming just a few months ago, having just completed a couple of heavily scripted games in Flash/Actionscript.
I found VisualHAM a godsend for getting started, though at the moment, I use it mainly for easy compiling to gba (you just hit F5 in the editor, as you do in MS VB IDE) and for the commonly used libraries (sprite control, tile maps etc).
Using it is not restrictive in any way - only your knowledge of the hardware is! You do not have to use HAM libraries for writing your code- you can do everything yourself longhand, then just use HAM for editing makes files and simplifying the actual compiling of your C file.
I don't really understand the underlying hardware yet, though am familiar with interrupts and memory mapping etc, as I have writing quite a few programs for PIC microcontrollers in assembler. When I need it, I will read the posts here and maybe ask a few questions, but so far I've come up with a few game engines with little more than a background in C and VisualHAM.
Of course, you need to pick a development environment that best suits your needs - I found that using C and VisualHAM is very easy when coming from an Actionscript background.
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