#566 - maddoc - Wed Jan 08, 2003 9:02 pm
Hello Guys. I'm planning to buy one off the consoles in the near future because I want to develop on real hardware.
As far as I know the gp32 has much better hardware but not many commercial games available. For developing there is no extra hardware needed.
The new GBA-SP looks so cute and there are tons of games but for programming it I would need some extra hardware.
Also I think the community in gba development is much greater.
Sadly I found not many resources covering topics like programming the gp32. But the SMC Concept I like very much.
So what do you think?
#569 - Touchstone - Wed Jan 08, 2003 9:21 pm
Afaik the GP32 does not have better hardware than the gba. While the GP32 has a really powerfull processor compared to the gba it doesn't have any hardware support for rendering sprites, multiparallax backgrounds, rotating and scaling backgrounds and sprites etc. Saying the GP32 has better hardware than the GBA is basically like saying a tractor has better hardware than a Ferrari but you don't want to go to town in a tractor.
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#571 - maddoc - Wed Jan 08, 2003 9:30 pm
well I do not really want to code a game. I know this consoles were intended to be used as game machines but there are some many things you can do with this little computers.
SMC Card and USB Port for example are the most powerful pros of the gp32. But there are not many games (well sometimes I would like to play, too) and I can't find any good tutorials in the net
On the other hand the gba looks like a real fun machine to play with but it would be harder to use a keyboard for example [as an input interface (I know it's possible but it's much harder)]
The gp32 looks like a 486 with a harddrive (SMC) and 8MB RAM
Although I haven't read enough to be 100% sure at this point!
The gba architecture is more for the gaming purpose, right?
Correct me if I'm wrong! Thx in advance
#575 - Touchstone - Wed Jan 08, 2003 9:41 pm
The GameBoy Advance is all about gaming. I'm not really sure what the GP32 is about. Since it is called Game Park I think it's OK to assume that gaming was in someones mind but the specs looks more like a low-budged PDA. This is not a bad thing but you can't compare the two machines by just looking at the hardware, you'de have to think about what you want to do with the hardware. You will get better games with the GameBoy Advance, I'm sure of that, while I think the gp32 is more suited for like a portable MP3 player, scheduling stuff and that kind of stuff.
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#582 - maddoc - Wed Jan 08, 2003 9:55 pm
well I guess you are right! my attempts are to use the console
as a gaming station, pda and programming platform.
using the gba as a pda won't be a good idea, or?
for gaming it's the best thing I could get.
For programming it reminds me of good old DOS. I like
this fact. (except the ARM processor assembly ;-))
Progrmming the gp32? I don't know much about it. What I see here
is only the fancy (programmable) hardware.
Mmmmh but anyway thanks dude
#588 - ampz - Wed Jan 08, 2003 10:11 pm
I can only agree with all of you.
The gp32 hardware is exactly the same as any PDA out there...
Basic graphics hardware that only supports a basic bitmap mode, that's it.
Tiles, sprites, rotation, scaling, etc. -- If you want it, then you have to do it in software.
CPU, screen, graphicscontroller, primary memory, secondary memory, in/out ports are all the same as used in PDA's.
The only difference between the gp32 and a PDA is actually the name.
300MHz is a nice big number, surely it must be better than 16MHz??
What the ppl that promote gp32 forgot to tell you is that the 300MHz CPU power is needed to be able to do the stuff that the GBA do in hardware.
Of course, for raw CPU power applications like 3D games and mp3 players the gp32 is clearly superior.
I don't see the big "pro" in USB... USB is a incredibly complicated interface. There are NO hobbyist USB implementations whatsoever available on the net because no sane hardware/software developer will dig through the 1000page USB specification if he is'nt ordered to do so by his boss. Add to that the fact that USB isn't really any good, it's slow and it has tons of flaws.
Of course, on the GP32 there is probably a OS with keyboard API's that make sure game developers don't have to worry about USB stuff.
Keyboard support for GBA is easy!
alt 1: Try my ericsson chatboard hack, it's really cheap and simple.
alt 2: Connect any standard keyboard to the GBA comm port. PS/2 keyboards use 5V, GBA use 3.3V, but that's the only difference, the protocol is compatible.
#589 - Lord Graga - Wed Jan 08, 2003 10:17 pm
>>>alt 2: Connect any standard keyboard to the GBA comm port. PS/2 keyboards use 5V, GBA use 3.3V, but that's the only difference, the protocol is compatible.
I would really like to see a scematic for that!
#591 - maddoc - Wed Jan 08, 2003 10:23 pm
@ampz you are the guy with the ericsson chatboard??
respect man! Your work and the GPS Sytem for the gameboy of some other guy were so cool that I wanted to start working with the gba
If I remember correctly I had to open the gba to install it, not?
But I fear to breake something because of my terrible electronical skills.
So I thought the gp32 would help me because of the USB port.
I also think the is a libary in the SDK that deals with USE. But I'm not
sure.
#598 - imikeyi - Wed Jan 08, 2003 10:37 pm
http://www.snes9xgp.com02.com/
If this SNES emulator runs at the proper speed, I _am_ buying a GP32! :)
PS ampz, because of you, I'm buying one of those chatboards off ebay so I can use it on my program :)
#602 - Touchstone - Wed Jan 08, 2003 10:46 pm
I don't think the gba will make a good PDA, you are probably better of using the GP32 as a gaming platform then. However, I have deviced a rather simple and yet effective input method for the gba instead of using a keyboard and I've heard that the flash cartridges available are writable from the gba so if you have a 256 Mbit flash card you have 32 MB of storage space right there. It's supposed to be really slow though so it might not be feasible.
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#637 - Splam - Thu Jan 09, 2003 7:50 am
gp32 has 133mhz arm processor, 4 dma sound channels and pretty much non existant video hardware BUT it's that 133mhz that makes the difference, you could do most of the gba's video stuff using that extra processing time, certainly enough sprites and multi background "emulation", only thing that would slow it down would be transparencies. I don't really see it as a "games" machine though (not enough support from software companies) but for emulation, homebrew etc it's pretty good for the price.
My conclusion, if you want games, GBA, if you want emulators, gp32.
#648 - ampz - Thu Jan 09, 2003 11:59 am
If you want to do PDA software, then why don't you buy a Palm? :)
I'd love to know how much of that 133MHz CPU horsepower is needed only to do a mode7-style game (like mario cart). Rotation and scaling is tricky stuff, add to that the rendering of sprites and backgrounds.
#663 - Splam - Thu Jan 09, 2003 3:18 pm
Mode7 effect, not as much time as you'd think. Rotatation and scaling isn't THAT tricky (in fact it's pretty trivial), also, look at gba 3d games, yeah they run at about 15fps BUT they're plotting to a raw bitmap and doing a hell of a lot more processing than just a mode7 effect needs and in only 16mhz.. If someone wants to donate a gp32 to me then I'll do a mode7 demo PLUS other backgrounds scrolling around and loads of sprites..
#715 - ampz - Thu Jan 09, 2003 11:00 pm
I didn't say there would be a problom doing mode7 on the gp32, I just woundered how much CPU power will be consumed to do what the GBA does in hardware.
rotation, scaling, and rendering several backgrounds and sprites requires lots of memory accesses, scaling and rotation requires a bunch of multiplications and substractions/additions per pixel.
#1056 - tepples - Tue Jan 14, 2003 6:34 am
| ampz wrote: |
| I'd love to know how much of that 133MHz CPU horsepower is needed only to do a mode7-style game (like mario cart). Rotation and scaling is tricky stuff, add to that the rendering of sprites and backgrounds. |
A year and a half before I made TOD for GBA, I made TOD for PC. It uses a software rendered mode 7 style screen. It plus the game engine can do 10fps on a 486sx/25 at 320x200 pixels, and that's in C without any asm. I was able to get a simple scrolling engine with sprites running at over 30 fps on the same hardware. Given that even Quake 1 runs quite happily on a 100 MHz Pentium 1 processor, I'd assume that a 133 MHz ARM9 processor would have no significant problem with fillrate into a dumb frame buffer.
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#1094 - Lord Graga - Tue Jan 14, 2003 3:45 pm
OFF TOPIC:
Quake 1 rules :)
#1095 - Touchstone - Tue Jan 14, 2003 3:50 pm
Keep this in mind tho: "any abuse will lead to dismissal" ;)
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#1096 - Touchstone - Tue Jan 14, 2003 3:52 pm
Oh, it was posted in the GBA vs. GP32 thread. Pardon me, I was under heavy influense of medical drugs or something.
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#1178 - imikeyi - Wed Jan 15, 2003 2:02 pm
I agree
quake1 does rule
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#1464 - JonH - Sun Jan 19, 2003 2:37 am
heck if it runs snes games at full speed, i'll take 2!
#1718 - Malefactor - Tue Jan 21, 2003 10:35 pm
I remember seeing the scematics for attaching a pda keybaord to the gba.. It was some time ago though and I don't remember where I saw it..
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