#29321 - Abscissa - Wed Nov 17, 2004 9:43 pm
Hooray! They had a demo machine set up at the local Best Buy :) It had PicoChat and the Metroid demo. The system's setup/boot interface is really nice. You should go check it out at your local Best Buy. :)
BTW, Not there's really any doubt anymore, but the Metroid seqences with Samus on both screens are *definately* pre-rendered: you can see the compression artifacts.
#29325 - dagamer34 - Wed Nov 17, 2004 10:36 pm
I don't think anyone ever argued about the scene being pre-rendered.
Hey, were the buttons small compared to a GBA?
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#29329 - wombatman - Wed Nov 17, 2004 11:54 pm
I had a chance to play it as well and it was amazing. the buttons are smaller but generally easy to use and the touch screen is amazing.
I would like to see a ocarina of time port done with this beauty of a machine or a new zelda in the same style if not slightly updated.
Now for something a bit offtopic. Does anyone know if the multiboot ram
is really 4 megabytes? That is what ign is indicating and if thats true Nintendo has made a dream machine though piracy instantly becomes a big concern as well. Second anyone know the pricing for the carts? I've read the page of the manufacturer of the carts and they list $9 for a 64mB
cart and I was just curious if Nintendo was receiving any additional discounts and possibly passing some of it on.
#29333 - dagamer34 - Thu Nov 18, 2004 12:46 am
| wombatman wrote: |
I had a chance to play it as well and it was amazing. the buttons are smaller but generally easy to use and the touch screen is amazing.
I would like to see a ocarina of time port done with this beauty of a machine or a new zelda in the same style if not slightly updated.
Now for something a bit offtopic. Does anyone know if the multiboot ram
is really 4 megabytes? That is what ign is indicating and if thats true Nintendo has made a dream machine though piracy instantly becomes a big concern as well. Second anyone know the pricing for the carts? I've read the page of the manufacturer of the carts and they list $9 for a 64mB
cart and I was just curious if Nintendo was receiving any additional discounts and possibly passing some of it on. |
The only way of pirating GBA games on the DS is if the game is smaller than 4 MB and someone cracks the Nintendo DS wireless protocol (not likely to happen...)
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#29335 - Cupcakus - Thu Nov 18, 2004 3:00 am
| dagamer34 wrote: |
The only way of pirating GBA games on the DS is if the game is smaller than 4 MB and someone cracks the Nintendo DS wireless protocol (not likely to happen...) |
Why is it that GBA flash carts won't work on the DS?
#29336 - Krakken - Thu Nov 18, 2004 4:21 am
| dagamer34 wrote: |
| wombatman wrote: | I had a chance to play it as well and it was amazing. the buttons are smaller but generally easy to use and the touch screen is amazing.
I would like to see a ocarina of time port done with this beauty of a machine or a new zelda in the same style if not slightly updated.
Now for something a bit offtopic. Does anyone know if the multiboot ram
is really 4 megabytes? That is what ign is indicating and if thats true Nintendo has made a dream machine though piracy instantly becomes a big concern as well. Second anyone know the pricing for the carts? I've read the page of the manufacturer of the carts and they list $9 for a 64mB
cart and I was just curious if Nintendo was receiving any additional discounts and possibly passing some of it on. |
The only way of pirating GBA games on the DS is if the game is smaller than 4 MB and someone cracks the Nintendo DS wireless protocol (not likely to happen...) |
Why is that not likely to happen? People will find a way, just like they did with the GBA.
#29338 - tepples - Thu Nov 18, 2004 4:53 am
| Cupcakus wrote: |
| Why is it that GBA flash carts won't work on the DS? |
No serial port. The F2A and EZFA linkers, which multiboot the GBA and flash the cart in the Game Pak slot, won't work with the DS. Only Visoly FA, EZ-FLASH, and EFA linkers connect directly to USB without involving a GBA serial port.
Or perhaps Nintendo updated the GBA BIOS to search for the current brands of flash carts.
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#29340 - Abscissa - Thu Nov 18, 2004 5:05 am
| tepples wrote: |
| No serial port. The F2A and EZFA linkers, which multiboot the GBA and flash the cart in the Game Pak slot, won't work with the DS. Only Visoly FA, EZ-FLASH, and EFA linkers connect directly to USB without involving a GBA serial port. |
Really? I didn't notice that. That sucks :(
| tepples wrote: |
| Or perhaps Nintendo updated the GBA BIOS to search for the current brands of flash carts. |
I don't quite understand.
#29341 - dagamer34 - Thu Nov 18, 2004 7:15 am
I was responding directly to wombatman's statement. It's highly likely that GBA flash carts will work on the DS, in fact, I'm hoping it does. I am selling my GBA and GBA SP as I don't play multiplayer titles anyway.
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#29342 - DiscoStew - Thu Nov 18, 2004 9:45 am
| tepples wrote: |
| No serial port. The F2A and EZFA linkers, which multiboot the GBA and flash the cart in the Game Pak slot, won't work with the DS. Only Visoly FA, EZ-FLASH, and EFA linkers connect directly to USB without involving a GBA serial port. |
I guess there will still be reason to keep my GBA when I have my DS in relation to personal development with my EZFA. It will sit by my computer and will now act as a "GBA Temporary Upload Bulk Unit", "GBA TUPU" for short. No other way for me to get my GBA stuff onto a DS than through my old GBA without paying for another Flash Cart brand.
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#29348 - tepples - Thu Nov 18, 2004 5:01 pm
| Abscissa wrote: |
| tepples wrote: | | Or perhaps Nintendo updated the GBA BIOS to search for the current brands of flash carts. |
I don't quite understand. |
The flash linkers engage in a "secret handshake" with each flash cart to detect whether the cart is writable or whether it's an official GBA Game Pak. If the DS's GBA subsystem performs each well-known flash cart's secret handshake, it can detect whether you're using an official Game Pak or a flash cart, and it can exit back to DS-DOS if you're using a flash cart.
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#29356 - wombatman - Thu Nov 18, 2004 11:02 pm
I somehow doubt nintendo would waste the time. Nintendo wants developers licensed and they dont want people able to easily pirate their products however they have also been in the console/portable market for a long time and realize that anything they can do to protect their consoles can be circumvented. They may for kicks detect the handshakes but is that really going to stop the new flash carts from using new tricks?
#29471 - Abscissa - Sat Nov 20, 2004 8:20 pm
| tepples wrote: |
| The flash linkers engage in a "secret handshake" with each flash cart to detect whether the cart is writable or whether it's an official GBA Game Pak. If the DS's GBA subsystem performs each well-known flash cart's secret handshake, it can detect whether you're using an official Game Pak or a flash cart, and it can exit back to DS-DOS if you're using a flash cart. |
But wouldn't that only apply to the ones that have their own writer and not the ones like the EZF Advance that just use the GBA? Without the link port, I can see how you wouldn't be able to write to those in the DS, but as far as playing them (after writing one on a GBA), I don't see why they they would need a handshake. If the software on the flash cart is being run, then it knows it's a writable flash cart - no need to check, hence no need for a handshake, hence no way for the DS to know. Only thing I can think of is if the DS were to attempt to write to the cart and see if the write succeeds or fails, but I'd bet that could crash a lot of commercial GBA carts (and be a heck of a lot of work to get such an effect).
Hmm, just thought of this: even though the DS doesn't have the link port, could the DS just detect that the cart is attempting to use a known handshake through the link port (as opposed to the regular cartridge port)? Or is that what you meant in the first place? The problem I see with that, though, is that there could be the possibility of false positives. Although, maybe that's one of things that's meant by "compatble with *most* GBA games".
I think wombatman has a point, too. Any of these things would take a lot of effort to implement. I can see the reasons for a company considering them to be worth it, but I think Nintendo is by far the *least* likely of all the console manufacturers to bother with this sort of thing. First, we all know how little emphasis they tend to place on regional lockouts: oftentimes just a plastic tab, or sometimes no lockout at all as in the case of the GBA (and likely the DS as well, judging by the presence of Japanese Hiragana and Katakana in the North American PicoChat). Second, the extra work the DS would have to do would take up extra silicon in the chips, and we all know how big Nintendo is (particularly compared to Sony and MS) on minimizing hardware costs.
Damn, I'm really curious now :)
#29472 - Abscissa - Sat Nov 20, 2004 8:40 pm
Oooh, and I thought of another reason it might not be worth it for them to bother: If the flash cart manufacturers already have secret handshakes going, it would probably be trivial for them to just change that handshake to something the DS doesn't already know about. So they'd do all of that work, and use extra silicon, but for a very very limited effect.
#29474 - tepples - Sat Nov 20, 2004 9:53 pm
| Abscissa wrote: |
| But wouldn't that only apply to the ones that have their own writer and not the ones like the EZF Advance that just use the GBA? Without the link port, I can see how you wouldn't be able to write to those in the DS, but as far as playing them (after writing one on a GBA), I don't see why they they would need a handshake. If the software on the flash cart is being run, then it knows it's a writable flash cart |
Actually, last time I checked, the F2A and EZFA linkers multibooted with Select+Start, so that even if you write a single ROM to the whole cart (as one would do in PogoShell), the writing software is in EWRAM. The only cart with the writing software stored on the cart is EFA, which has a USB port at the top that becomes active when the cart is removed from the system. However, there's another handshake that the DS could intercept: the handshake to change the program bank when launching one of multiple proprietary programs stored on one cart.
| Quote: |
| Only thing I can think of is if the DS were to attempt to write to the cart and see if the write succeeds or fails, but I'd bet that could crash a lot of commercial GBA carts |
Is that the case? Only flash carts have the possibility of crashing on random writes to the data area.
| Quote: |
| could the DS just detect that the cart is attempting to use a known handshake through the link port (as opposed to the regular cartridge port)? |
If I boot directly into the cart, there is no link port activity until I launch the multiplayer game. However, it could detect the handshake that the
| Quote: |
| maybe that's one of things that's meant by "compatble with *most* GBA games". |
"Most" meaning "not Four Swords".
| Quote: |
| If the flash cart manufacturers already have secret handshakes going, it would probably be trivial for them to just change that handshake to something the DS doesn't already know about. |
Then watch Nintendo put BIOS updates in each new game, as Microsoft is doing with the dashboard in newer Xbox games.
With corporations capable of flexing the DMCA, it's best to assume that their hardware is as "protected" as possible until proven otherwise. On Pocket Heaven, I have a heck of a time tempering the irrational exuberance among SNES Advance fans over the Nintendo DS. Until I see pictures of a retail DS copier that don't look photochopped, I'm not holding my breath.
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#29479 - bertsnks - Sat Nov 20, 2004 11:33 pm
| DiscoStew wrote: |
| tepples wrote: | | No serial port. The F2A and EZFA linkers, which multiboot the GBA and flash the cart in the Game Pak slot, won't work with the DS. Only Visoly FA, EZ-FLASH, and EFA linkers connect directly to USB without involving a GBA serial port. |
I guess there will still be reason to keep my GBA when I have my DS in relation to personal development with my EZFA. It will sit by my computer and will now act as a "GBA Temporary Upload Bulk Unit", "GBA TUPU" for short. No other way for me to get my GBA stuff onto a DS than through my old GBA without paying for another Flash Cart brand. |
would that not be GBA TUBU instead of TUPU?
#29480 - bertsnks - Sat Nov 20, 2004 11:38 pm
| tepples wrote: |
| Cupcakus wrote: | | Why is it that GBA flash carts won't work on the DS? |
No serial port. |
That's a misrephrased question though, this only means the GBA flash carts will not be flashable from a DS, however the flashcarts itself containing a GBA program would still work on a DS, right?
| tepples wrote: |
| Or perhaps Nintendo updated the GBA BIOS to search for the current brands of flash carts. |
That has been a widely known method now for GBA, and not a single GBA game uses this technique. Ofcourse, software hackers might circumvent this, and neutralise the protection. However, I see no reason why DS would use this.
#29482 - Abscissa - Sat Nov 20, 2004 11:56 pm
tepples: Ok, I can see how it could be possible to block them from the DS hardware.
Although, given how less-protected many of their systems tend to be compared to other console manufacturers, and given the legal history of Nintendo, it still seems to me that defending against piracy through litigation would be more Nintendo's style than doing it through hardware, even if they have the technical ability. But, I'm not really counting on it or planning to depend on it in any way, just having fun speculating :)
#29485 - ampz - Sun Nov 21, 2004 12:16 am
| Abscissa wrote: |
tepples: Ok, I can see how it could be possible to block them from the DS hardware.
Although, given how less-protected many of their systems tend to be compared to other console manufacturers, |
All modern consoles "suffer" from piracy, except the GameCube (ok, there is some GC piracy, but it is highly inconvenient and far from widespread). I would say Nintendo protect their console fairly well compared to Sony and MS.
| Quote: |
| and given the legal history of Nintendo, it still seems to me that defending against piracy through litigation would be more Nintendo's style than doing it through hardware, even if they have the technical ability. |
How many flashcard makers have been shut down by Nintendo? Is there even anyone but Visoly? As I understand it, Visoly was shut down mainly by MS. Nintendo just enjoyed the free ride.
GBA flashcard defense would not be implemented in hardware. It would be implemented in the DS software.
#29494 - tepples - Sun Nov 21, 2004 2:30 am
| ampz wrote: |
| As I understand it, Visoly was shut down mainly by MS. |
How? I thought the Microsoft lawsuit shut down the modchip and flash cart operations of Lik-Sang, one of the importers that sold Visoly's products. Did Microsoft have any published GBA titles in order to have an interest in shutting down Visoly?
_________________
-- Where is he?
-- Who?
-- You know, the human.
-- I think he moved to Tilwick.
#29498 - ampz - Sun Nov 21, 2004 2:50 am
Not sure, it was just something I read somewhere. Supposedly lik-sang and Visoly worked closely together.
#29502 - DiscoStew - Sun Nov 21, 2004 5:54 am
| bertsnks wrote: |
| would that not be GBA TUBU instead of TUPU |
DOH! I forgot to change the 'P'. I had used a different word before going with 'Bulk'.
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