#40061 - varth - Thu Apr 14, 2005 9:25 pm
Ok, I know crap about hardware, much less the Nintendo DS's hardware, but my question is: given the setup of the machine, would it be possible for someone to put a graphics card or an external processor into a Gameboy Advance cart, that could be put into the GBA slot on the DS to allow compatible software to recieve a graphics boost? Like say you put some kind of external processor to help out with some of the rendering or put extra RAM into it, so games designed to use the expansion pak could have an enhanced graphics mode (like the SNES did with the FX chip or the N64 with the expansion pak).
I've heard of how DS code can be read from the GBA slot, but can the machine use both ports at the same time, thus allowing a possible future graphics expansion pak?
#40062 - Dwedit - Thu Apr 14, 2005 9:31 pm
Seeing as the GBA can display any video input signal by DMAing it to a bitmap, the only thing stopping you is price and form factor.
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#40064 - tepples - Thu Apr 14, 2005 9:36 pm
And battery consumption. Having to recharge often would eliminate one big advantage of the Nintendo DS over the Sony PSP.
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#40076 - PhoenixSoft - Thu Apr 14, 2005 10:46 pm
Rather than a whole new processor, Nintendo is more likely to chuck an extra 4 MB of RAM on a cartridge. It would be just like the N64's expansion pak.
#40077 - caitsith2 - Thu Apr 14, 2005 10:49 pm
Actually, the exact amount of ram they could put into the expansion pack cart, is up to 32MBs, in the gba mapping, and 64KBs in the GBA sram mapping area.
#40085 - tepples - Fri Apr 15, 2005 12:30 am
| caitsith2 wrote: |
| Actually, the exact amount of ram they could put into the expansion pack cart, is up to 32MBs, in the gba mapping |
It can go higher than that, given that GBA cart space is bankswitchable. Otherwise, how would there be 512 Mbit (64 MB) and 1 Gbit (128 MB) flash carts? But still, given pricing and power consumption limitations, I can see the expansion pak being no bigger than 4 MB.
_________________
-- Where is he?
-- Who?
-- You know, the human.
-- I think he moved to Tilwick.
#40110 - darkfader - Fri Apr 15, 2005 5:23 am
What about storage for custom firmware, programs etc...
I just built my own CompactFlash adapter: http://darkfader.net/ds/
I don't need a movie player cartridge to do this :)