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Hardware > Offical Intelligent Systems GB Advance Dev Kit

#115166 - C64CODER - Sat Jan 13, 2007 2:11 pm

Hi All,

I use to programme games for the C64 in the late 80s and early 90s for very well known software houses. Since then I have been involved in marketing and now I am looking to get back into the games industry.

I have a complete knowledge of the industry (even now):

Getting a license agreement
Distribution
Putting a title through a Publisher
How to programme a complete project successfully etc.

I am fluent in C/C++ and pretty much can programme in any language.

I have the option of buying the 'Intelligent Systems official GB Advance Dev kit" for under 300 euros. It is complete with all sdk cds, GB advance test unit, etc etc.

Question is do I buy that or save my money and use the devkitpro? Can anyone help on this.

The reason I am attracted to buying it is - it may be better then devkit pro, its cheap and I am looking to programme a commercial game for the GB Advance before going onto the DS (and hopefully signing up as a licensed developer-and believe me that can be done, if you know how to deal with Nintendo).

In my eyes this is the last year of commercial games being released for the GB Advance, and I am looking to finish the GB games catalogue with a title that blows people away (not literally).

So is anyone familar with Intelligent systems official dev kit?

Thanks

#115201 - sgeos - Sat Jan 13, 2007 5:57 pm

C64CODER wrote:
I have the option of buying the 'Intelligent Systems official GB Advance Dev kit" for under 300 euros. It is complete with all sdk cds, GB advance test unit, etc etc.

How many flash carts? Testing with the hardware debugger is cute and all, but you want to be able to hand flash carts off to testers.

Quote:
Question is do I buy that or save my money and use the devkitpro? Can anyone help on this.

You probably don't need it. There is no proprietary non-Nintendo technology (wifi) on the GBA, so you are free to use third party tools.

Neat things that should come with the devkit- docs (gbatek may be better at this point; I hear the translation turned out crpytic), graphic development tools (nice for pixel artist, but do you need them?), and there should be something that allows you to play midis (more midi musicians than mod or s3m musicians). I'd ask if it comes with the graphics and sound packages.

Quote:
The reason I am attracted to buying it is - it may be better then devkit pro,

The compiler will probably be better than gcc. The hardware debugger is also really neat. It is, afterall, a commercial hardware debugger.

Quote:
its cheap

As far as these things go, yes- because it is more or less commercially obsolete.

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and I am looking to programme a commercial game for the GB Advance before going onto the DS

You will not need the official devkit to make a commercial game for the GBA. Developers are advised to work through the SDK on the DS.

Quote:
(and hopefully signing up as a licensed developer-and believe me that can be done, if you know how to deal with Nintendo).

Having tools may help in this regard. I've never signed up as a licensed developer.

To recap- the hardware debugger is cute. You won't need it, but it is probably worth the money if you are serious. I'd double check exactly what software you are getting and the status of any registration keys, etc.

-Brendan

#115203 - tepples - Sat Jan 13, 2007 6:23 pm

sgeos wrote:
Neat things that should come with the devkit- docs (gbatek may be better at this point; I hear the translation turned out crpytic), graphic development tools (nice for pixel artist, but do you need them?), and there should be something that allows you to play midis (more midi musicians than mod or s3m musicians). I'd ask if it comes with the graphics and sound packages.

And libraries that allow your program to save to EEPROM or flash.

Quote:
Quote:
and I am looking to programme a commercial game for the GB Advance before going onto the DS

You will not need the official devkit to make a commercial game for the GBA.

As I understand it, if you do not use the official devkit, you will need to have SRAM (32 KiB, expensive) or no save.
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#115208 - sgeos - Sat Jan 13, 2007 6:41 pm

tepples wrote:
Quote:
Quote:
and I am looking to programme a commercial game for the GB Advance before going onto the DS

You will not need the official devkit to make a commercial game for the GBA.

As I understand it, if you do not use the official devkit, you will need to have SRAM (32 KiB, expensive) or no save.

Is this because unofficial flash carts don't use EEPROM/flash? The source can always be patched later, although I suppose you risk strange save related bugs.

-Brendan

#115210 - tepples - Sat Jan 13, 2007 6:53 pm

sgeos wrote:
tepples wrote:
As I understand it, if you do not use the official devkit, you will need to have SRAM (32 KiB, expensive) or no save.

Is this because unofficial flash carts don't use EEPROM/flash?

Correct. All the pirate carts and homebrew carts for GBA have SRAM.

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The source can always be patched later

At which point you will need to buy a devkit, if they're still made.

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although I suppose you risk strange save related bugs.

Especially because while SRAM is written in 8-bit units, while flash and EEPROM are written in larger blocks: 8 bytes for EEPROM and even bigger for flash. Code that relies on small transfers will need to be rewritten to either read-modify-write or use different data structures entirely. EEPROM and flash also wear out faster than SRAM, and their lower transfer rates pose a greater risk of losing power before completing a write.
_________________
-- Where is he?
-- Who?
-- You know, the human.
-- I think he moved to Tilwick.

#115226 - sgeos - Sat Jan 13, 2007 10:31 pm

tepples wrote:
Correct. All the pirate carts and homebrew carts for GBA have SRAM.

I did not know that. (Why?)

Quote:
At which point you will need to buy a devkit, if they're still made.

I doubt that they are still made, but that does not mean that they can not be had. GBA development is coming to a close and I'm sure that there are a bunch of unused units even now. The question is, can they be had?

tepples wrote:
Code that relies on small transfers will need to be rewritten to either read-modify-write or use different data structures entirely.

You'll have to rewrite the module... or function, as the case may be. As I'd use this prototype:
Code:
bool save(u8 *pData, int pSize);

The change would not be huge.

-Brendan