#6923 - hey_suburbia - Wed Jun 04, 2003 3:56 pm
Does' anyone have the Gameboy Player for the Gamecube? Does it work with pocketnes, Flash cards and homebrewed games? Just wondering what people thought of this thing and if you can order it (US version) somewhere for less than 60$?
Thanks..
i know the japenese one is out there, if you use the Freeloader disc does that work?
what i'm talking about >> http://www.gameforms.com/news/?606
#6928 - torne - Wed Jun 04, 2003 5:28 pm
Yes, it works with flashcarts, pocketnes..etc, anything that works on a real GBA. The Japanese one will work fine if you have a Freeloader.
T.
#7127 - jerome187 - Tue Jun 10, 2003 6:47 am
its commin to USA pretty soon, 6/29 i think. anyone think gamecube will finally be hacked because of it? i think somone smart will write a GBA app that allows the data on the gamecube disk to be read through the network adaptor. sorta like xbox. that'll be cool!
#7658 - debug77 - Sun Jun 22, 2003 6:39 pm
Not much change of someone being able to write an app that reads off via the network adapter. Mainly due to the GB Player plugging into that port itself :( The player covers up all the ports on the bottom of the machine.
#7827 - jerome187 - Thu Jun 26, 2003 12:53 am
doh!
:P
#7833 - Quirky - Thu Jun 26, 2003 7:33 am
you can still attach a network adapter, I thought? The player covers the "hole" but the adapter can still be attached before the player. Or something like that.
#7868 - tepples - Fri Jun 27, 2003 7:16 am
I got a Game Boy Player today, and I can confirm that it works beautifully.
Homebrew
It runs my games just fine from flash and from MBV2. Let me put to rest all the speculation about flash cart detection: Nintendo put no extra copy protection into the thing beyond the header check that all Game Boy systems have done since 1989. (However, whether it is possible for GBA-side code to read or write GCN memory through the GB Player, as the Super Game Boy accessory for Super NES did for the USA version of Space Invaders for Game Boy, remains an open question.)
Graphics
With the video zoomed in, the screen looks a little like the result of the
"blurry" default interpolation filter used when running VBA in 2x or 3x mode on a machine with 3D hardware. There is no 2xSaI-type smart interpolation (which would have been nice). The "screen filter" in the Z button menu (Z == R1) actually turns motion blurring on or off.
Sound
Bass came through beautifully. The tone generators sounded almost as good as they ever had on the NES. But frequency aliasing on the GB Player (audible as beats between the square wave generator frequency and the PWM sampling frequency) sounds exactly like that on the GBA: not noticeable in practice, but with high-pitched test tones, I can still coax it out.
PocketNES
It works with both Balloon Kid for Game Boy and my copy of Hello Kitty World for PocketNES in PogoShell. I demonstrate to parents that they're the same dang game. However, when using scaled mode, use the "Soft" motion blurring mode so that the PocketNES graphics engine's fake interpolation can work properly.
Yes, this means that all major Nintendo consoles plus the GBA can run NES games. There have been independently manufactured NES adapters for both the Super NES and the N64, and the GameCube Game Boy Player runs PocketNES.
Left+right
Left on control pad + right on control stick just canceled out. The only controller I have that's capable of generating left+right on the control pad is a PSX dance pad. Apparently, the nYko Play Cube adapter doesn't recognize PSX digital controllers, so I couldn't test it.
Flashing with MBV2
Select+Start (on the GCN, Y is the select button) works to enter multiboot slave mode with a Pak inserted. I have tried to use my MBV2 cable to flash a Visoly cart inside the GB Player, and it worked. However, using the -e option to execute the cart after programming it produced a glitch once, but it was fine upon reset. Best to flash the cart and then reset the GBA (which is mapped to the GCN's reset button).
My rig
I started with the following:
- Nintendo 64 controller with Adaptoid USB adapter
- Dell Dimension 4100 computer with display
- Game Boy Advance system (Glacier)
- Nintendo GameCube system with display
- VisualBoyAdvance emulator
- DevKit Advance compiler kit
Then I added the following, in order:
- MBV2 cable
- Visoly Flash Advance parallel linker and one Flash Advance 256 Mbit cart
- PlayStation digital controller with EMS USB2 adapter (I bought it for my dance pad, and now I use it for VBA as well)
- Game Link cable (for use with borrowed Game Boy)
- Sony Dual Shock 2 controller with nYko Play Cube adapter (sucks for Smash Bros. but works better than N brand for games that use the digital pad)
- GameCube Game Boy Player (now I don't have to borrow somebody else's GBA to develop multiplayer games, and I don't have to run VBA to show off my work)
_________________
-- Where is he?
-- Who?
-- You know, the human.
-- I think he moved to Tilwick.
#7875 - Quirky - Fri Jun 27, 2003 7:56 am
Nice write up. I am quite tempted to get one, but I know once the novelty wears off, I'll hardly use it. Plus they don't come in purple to match my 'cube. ;-)