#100098 - cppdungeon - Sat Aug 26, 2006 2:47 am
i would like to know more about the merits of these platforms, performance wise, and in regards to screen & sound
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#100099 - wintermute - Sat Aug 26, 2006 3:09 am
performance wise, zero difference.
The gba micro cannot run GBC games but the other two can.
The original GBA screen is unviewable in poor light conditions, GBA SP is lit but colors are washed out. The Micro screen is one of the best handheld displays I've ever seen
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#108758 - geminiwave - Sat Nov 11, 2006 10:23 pm
I'm pretty sure the SP is slightly faster. There was a huge problem with the original GBA and framerate issues in some games (like Golden Sun) These problems have been substantially decreased when playing the game on the SP.
Don't get me wrong. The platforms are the same...but I'm almost positive that the SP has a slightly ramped up clock speed.
#108789 - Dwedit - Sun Nov 12, 2006 2:36 am
There is no evidence to suggest that any GBA is faster than the other, even the DS in GBA mode is the same speed.
And the DS Lite is the best, since it has a very bright screen which displays extremely vibrant colors. It puts the screen of the original DS, as well as all the GBAs to shame. Unfortunately, the cartridge sticks out about a centimeter.
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#109104 - geminiwave - Wed Nov 15, 2006 3:47 am
I wouldn't say theres NO evidence. I remember back in the day before the DS was out that there were plenty of people who saw the change with Golden Sun. I ran the test myself today. The framerate is noticably higher when casting Ragnarok on the SP. I'll pull out my DSL and find out if its the same for that as well.
About the DSL though, I find the colors to be a bit off. when playing Advance Wars, Nell's uniform is quite different on the DSL. On the SP it is blue, but on the DSL it is purple.
#109107 - Ant6n - Wed Nov 15, 2006 4:29 am
how can there be a difference if the chipset is the same?
gbatek:
http://nocash.emubase.de/gbatek.htm#technicaldata
"GBA SP Notes
Deluxe version of the original GBA. With backlight, new folded laptop-style case, and built-in rechargeable battery. Appears to be 100% compatible with GBA, there seems to be no way to detect SPs by software."
#109120 - geminiwave - Wed Nov 15, 2006 6:48 am
I'd guess the clock speed is a tad better. I don't know though. I'm telling you though. Grab two copies of Golden Sun to make it a really good test. Put one in a GBA, and put one in an SP. Get into a battle. Set it up so you cast Ragnarok at the EXACT same time (might take a few tries but you'll get it) and watch. The framerate is better on the SP. I don't know the specifics of the hardware (obviously there were modifications made for it to fit in the SP so there IS a difference) but the slowdown is either eliminated entirely or greatly reduced. Seriously. Go try it right now. I'll bet you you'll notice the difference (I really dont see how you couldnt)
I even tried swapping the cards around to make sure that one card wasn't faulty. Then I grabbed another GBA to make sure the GBA wasn't faulty. I don't have another SP lying around to see if my SP was just super special, but its noticably faster in golden sun.
#109147 - tepples - Wed Nov 15, 2006 4:11 pm
| geminiwave wrote: |
| I remember back in the day before the DS was out that there were plenty of people who saw the change with Golden Sun. I ran the test myself today. The framerate is noticably higher when casting Ragnarok on the SP. |
All GBA models output frames at 59.73 Hz. It's just that some TFT LCDs switch their pixels faster than others, which may give the illusion of different frame rates.
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#109155 - Edelnutte - Wed Nov 15, 2006 5:46 pm
If the Sp would be faster than the normal GBA, wouldn't multiplayer games run asynchron?
#109166 - tepples - Wed Nov 15, 2006 6:57 pm
| Edelnutte wrote: |
| If the Sp would be faster than the normal GBA, wouldn't multiplayer games run asynchron? |
Multiplayer timing is based on the PPU speed and the serial port speed, not the CPU speed. But games still account for slight desyncs (ca. 0.1%) due to variations in CPU crystals.
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#109200 - geminiwave - Thu Nov 16, 2006 1:01 am
| tepples wrote: |
| geminiwave wrote: | | I remember back in the day before the DS was out that there were plenty of people who saw the change with Golden Sun. I ran the test myself today. The framerate is noticably higher when casting Ragnarok on the SP. |
All GBA models output frames at 59.73 Hz. It's just that some TFT LCDs switch their pixels faster than others, which may give the illusion of different frame rates. |
have you played golden sun? Seriously have you? Try playing it. thats not a TFT LCD deal. I'm well aware of LCDs and pixel switching. This is a framerate issue. When golden sun first came out it was a huge deal among a great many gaming forums. The framerate went down when casting Ragnarok. The game literally lags. But on the SP, the lag is greatly reduced or eliminated.
edit: after reading your post again I think maybe you misunderstood me. When I say "Framerate" I mean Frames Per Second. Theres the speed the screen is running at which is indeed 59.73Hz. Similarly my monitor runs at around 100 Hz. However games often run on my PC at fewer than 100 Frames Per Second. When the Frames Per Second (or Framerate) goes below a certain threshold (usually 25FPS but more or less depending on who you are and how fast your eyes register changes) then the game will seem to be chopping and slow down. The screen continues to put out 100 Hz but it is only receiving as many frames as the graphics card can push out. So then there will be gaps between each frame and you will notice a loss of smoothness (all the way down to practically a slideshow if your computer is too underpowered)
similarly when playing Golden Sun on the GBA, the processor (at least I assume its the ARM processor in this case) cannot render the frames fast enough for whatever reason and thus the framerate suffers. The LCD runs at 59.73 Hz still...but it is not getting all of those frames
There hopefully that explained things properly.