#121400 - mrhaboobi - Mon Mar 12, 2007 4:29 am
Hey Guys.
Im looking to just do coding on GBA. So i would like to know what is the best set up that would provide me the easiest coding environment. Supercard, flash card etc.. Any thoughts or advice would be appreciated..
Thanks
#121402 - Ant6n - Mon Mar 12, 2007 4:51 am
coding environment can be linux or windows. the easiest is probably visualham under windows, but its a bad ideas because it is old, not updated and inferior and people get stuck with it (i.e. its hard to migrate to better solutions after getting used to it). devkitpro is the way to go - it works under linux and windows. check out tonc's tutorial if you already know c programming. emulator is visual boy advance. also check beginner's faq
to run gba games i find the easiest solutions are the adapters from memory cards to gba cart, i.e. supercard,m3 etc (dunno which one is 'the best' these days).
oh yeah: in personal experience it is better not start from the very bottom; the hardware specs of the gba are very well known so its very tempting to start at the hardware, but then itll take you very long before you get things done.
#121403 - mrhaboobi - Mon Mar 12, 2007 5:01 am
| Ant6n wrote: |
coding environment can be linux or windows. the easiest is probably visualham under windows, but its a bad ideas because it is old, not updated and inferior and people get stuck with it (i.e. its hard to migrate to better solutions after getting used to it). devkitpro is the way to go - it works under linux and windows. check out tonc's tutorial if you already know c programming. emulator is visual boy advance. also check beginner's faq
to run gba games i find the easiest solutions are the adapters from memory cards to gba cart, i.e. supercard,m3 etc (dunno which one is 'the best' these days).
oh yeah: in personal experience it is better not start from the very bottom; the hardware specs of the gba are very well known so its very tempting to start at the hardware, but then itll take you very long before you get things done. |
Thanks
I was looking at the KevKItArm/DevKitPro or whatever its named now :). using windows. Can i get away with just running under an emulator? Do i need real hardware to test on.. Can i "deploy" files easily to the supercard? Ive read i need to patch my files or something?
Do i need one of the multiboot cables etc.. I guess im more interested in what combination of hardware people use for deving/testing etc..
Cheers
#121404 - Ant6n - Mon Mar 12, 2007 5:25 am
well, i use the supercard cf. Usually i just put the roms on there. Certain roms dont work, they have to be patched with some software that comes with the supercard. I also have have some flash roms that can be written to using some lpt cable. But I havent had the chance to use it yet, since my laptop doesnt have lpt and the computer is down. So yeah, memory card for me.
#121455 - gauauu - Mon Mar 12, 2007 3:19 pm
| mrhaboobi wrote: |
Can i get away with just running under an emulator? Do i need real hardware to test on.. |
Yes, and Yes. I tend to test mostly on an emulator, and every once in awhile, flash it to a cart and test on actual hardware. It's just so much faster of a dev cycle to run in an emulator, and is 99% accurate. But that 1% difference can get you, so you should check semi-regularly on hardware as well.
#121486 - tepples - Mon Mar 12, 2007 7:01 pm
If you're debugging game logic, an emulator is fine, and so is a PC version developed in parallel (as I'm doing for LOCKJAW). If you're debugging I/O code (graphics, sound, serial, etc.) then you'll need to cross-check your work on a GBA every once in a while. You'll need to perform these cross-checks much more often on the DS because DS emulators are not nearly as mature as GBA emulators.
You don't need to patch GBA homebrew for SuperCard unless you're using a ROM timing faster than the default 4n/2s. There are issues with saving, as SuperCard doesn't hold (normally battery-backed) SRAM saves for longer than a couple seconds while the power is off, but those can be worked around.
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#121487 - Sausage Boy - Mon Mar 12, 2007 7:02 pm
| Quote: |
| I was looking at the KevKItArm/DevKitPro or whatever its named now :) |
DevkitPro is a collection of toolchains and libraries for different platforms. DevkitARM, on the other hand, is the toolchain for ARM based things.
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#121525 - mrhaboobi - Mon Mar 12, 2007 10:22 pm
Thanks for the replies..
So i need to look into getting a suitable Flash card.. i have been looking at the Supercard Mini SD version. Any issues with this option, can it be used if i decide to do DS coding at a later stage ( once i have the basics running for GBa ).. or am i best to start with DS first.. Ive read various comments about the super cards ( non cf versions ) having issues.. i assume this effects pirates thought and should not be an issue for coding?
Thanks