#79954 - bobandted - Mon Apr 17, 2006 5:16 pm
Hi,
So I want to get going and have a go at GBA development. Problem was I had a look at available tools and find a whole bunch of them. Now I'm confused. Anyone some advice on the best tool to get started with?
thx
bob.
#79956 - Dan2552 - Mon Apr 17, 2006 5:20 pm
VisualHAM is a great start point, but I think everyone moves away from it eventually - maybe because of the splash screen
#79957 - keldon - Mon Apr 17, 2006 5:44 pm
I would advise the tonc tutorials using devkit pro.
It is best that you know how to program beforehand, so learning c++ for te pc would be a good start. I don't know of any links for that, but we do have resources on our uni website.
#79966 - bobandted - Mon Apr 17, 2006 7:10 pm
Ham looks good to me. I think 29 bucks is an ok price. After all I paid more for crap games. Now for $29 I can create my own crap games, with noone else to blame but myself :-)
#79968 - keldon - Mon Apr 17, 2006 7:47 pm
#79971 - jake2431 - Mon Apr 17, 2006 9:20 pm
Yeah, there is no need to pay the $29 bucks when devkitPro is faster and free. I suggest starting with VisualHAM because of the ease of setup, but use it for free. Once you get some experience move to devkitPro which is in general a lot better. I.E. it is updated often(HAM's compiler hasn't been updated in years) and the code runs quicker.
#79973 - bobandted - Mon Apr 17, 2006 9:27 pm
Thanks for the Tip. I will do just that.
I'll start of with some HAM as there is also a good book about GBA development from J. Harbour (sadly blocked for release by the big N.)using VisualHAM as the development platform. Should get me up and running in no time.
#79975 - Dan2552 - Mon Apr 17, 2006 9:31 pm
The registered version of HAM includes the following benefits:
* Intro screen is not shown - nobody will note that you are using HAMlib
* In addition to a registered Debug library, you will also get a registered Release library
* Release library is ~20% smaller and ~10% faster (depends on functions used)
* A good feeling of supporting a long-maintained community project ;-)
how much faster is devkit? I guess buying visualham could be still worth it if you cant be bothered to switch :P
#79976 - bobandted - Mon Apr 17, 2006 9:35 pm
These are good points. And I also feel it's important to support smaller community projects. I see how I get on as I work though the book. If everything works out ok $29 won't break the bank! HAM looks good to use too!
#80046 - wintermute - Tue Apr 18, 2006 7:43 am
| bobandted wrote: |
Thanks for the Tip. I will do just that.
I'll start of with some HAM as there is also a good book about GBA development from J. Harbour (sadly blocked for release by the big N.)using VisualHAM as the development platform. Should get me up and running in no time. |
Sadly N didn't do a better job blocking the release of that book. While it may be easy to understand it contains many errors and ill advised programming practices which will make your life awkward later. These include non volatile register definitions, data in headers and #include of .c files, all of which would get a professional developer a serious roasting at a code review.
Why should you care? You're not a professional developer.
Regardless of developer status these things introduce potentially subtle bugs which can be difficult to diagnose in more complex projects. If it's a hobby then why make life difficult for yourself?
Some references
http://user.chem.tue.nl/jakvijn/tonc/bitmaps.htm#ssec-data-hdr
http://user.chem.tue.nl/jakvijn/tonc/video.htm#sec-vsync1
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#80055 - bobandted - Tue Apr 18, 2006 10:03 am
Thanks, these are really good tutorials. I think I take this good advice and use the devkitARM development tool set instead. Your right, it's best not to get any bad habits from the start.
bob.