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Announcements And Comments > GBAccelerator is released!

#40734 - ABHQ - Fri Apr 22, 2005 12:55 am

Update 4/19/05
GBAccelerator is released!

GBAccelerator is our latest and most innovative modification for the Game Boy Advance & GBA SP. GBAccelerator allows you to change the speed of the GBA to one of four speeds including: normal, fast, ultra and slow-motion by simply simultaneously pressing three GBA buttons. GBAccelerator is useful for quickly bypassing text in games, speeding up games when they experience 'slowdown', for slowing down the action in tough games and for custom homemade games (including SNES Advance and PCE Advance) made to use the faster processing power that GBAccelerator provides.

Here are some videos of GBAccelerator in action:
www.aheadgames.com/media/gba/GBAcceleratorDemo1.wmv
This is a video of cycling thru all four speeds using the GBA buttons - starting at normal speed, then fast, then ultra then slow-motion and finally back to normal. Notice how the Power LED blinks indicating which speed you are using.

www.aheadgames.com/media/gba/GBAcceleratorDemo2.wmv
Here is some in game action first showing normal speed, then going to ultra speed, then to slow-motion.

(Sorry for the line effect on the screens in the video, this is simply a side effect of recording, in person the games look completely normal.)

I've just finished putting the final touches on the GBAccelerator website as well as the rest of our new ABHQ.com site. ABHQ.com will be our showcase site to feature all of our new console and handheld modification services.

[Images not permitted - Click here to view it]
[Images not permitted - Click here to view it]

GBAccelerator is finally finished, and we've begun shipping and installing them. The final features include:
-use the Select, B and L buttons simultaneously to cycle thru 4 speed settings: normal, fast, ultra and slow-motion
-as you change speeds, the power LED will blink different codes according to which speed you are using
-GBAccelerator is compatible with all retail GBA, GBC and GB carts as well as most development carts. (see compatibility chart on the website - if you have a cart on our chart and would like to help test, please contact us)

Further information and usage instructions can be found on the website. We tried to cover everything there, but if anyone has any further questions, let me know and we'll add them to the FAQs.

We are offering Professional GBAccelerator installations, 7 wire installation kits, as well as brand new pre-modified GBA SP systems.

Speaking of the GBA SP, I've just finished our latest modification for that as well, the SPilluminator Advance. This mod circuit increases the brightness of the SP's internal frontlight by about 25%. We've had lots of requests for this, as the SP's light wasn't quite as bright as the old Afterburner internal light for the original GBA, and I was glad we were able to do this.

The latest build of SNESAdvance with waitstate selector is available here. More information concerning waitstate settings can be found on the GBAccelerator website. This release of SNESAdvance also includes support for our SNES Advance Controller and Adapter modification. This mod allows you to connect a real SNES controller to the GBA link port and play SNES games with full button support. These adapters are on pre-order and should be shipping next week (as soon as we receive our GBA link connectors). You can preorder the SNES Advance Controller & Adapter or just the SNES Advance Adapter if you want to use your own SNES controller.

We have a review of GBAccelerator as well as some of our other mods going up on Emuholic very soon, so be sure to watch for that. We're also working with some developers on some GBAccelerator enabled projects, so I'm excited to see what they can come up with. If you are a developer and are interested in developing with GBAccelerator, please contact me, as we can set you up with a GBAccelerator sample. Also if any other websites or publications would be interested in reviewing GBAccelerator or any of our mods, please contact me.

Thanks again to everyone who helped us create and test this mod including Scott at Division-6.com and Loopy and Flubba for their excellent development work and making a use for GBAccelerator. Also tremendous thanks to those who sent in their carts to help test compatibility with GBAccelerator.

I'm looking forward to everyone's feedback and reactions! Let me know if you have any questions.
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#40755 - Dwedit - Fri Apr 22, 2005 4:12 am

Does it change the frequency of outputted sound, or change the vblank rate?
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#40839 - caitsith2 - Sat Apr 23, 2005 3:12 am

I believe it changes the global clock rate of the system. Anything that depends on the master clock will be affected by it. So, it will likely change both the vblank rate, and the sound frequency. Even linking 2 systems is only possible if they are both done at the same speed.

#40896 - Lord Graga - Sat Apr 23, 2005 11:38 am

Yes, it is simply the clock rate that is changed. I wonder how it is when it comes to heat, etc. If it's just fine, then a GBA with above 64 Mhz will be pretty damn funny to play around with :)

#40899 - Lupin - Sat Apr 23, 2005 12:12 pm

that's really nice, will there be a version of the GBAccelerator that allows to set any clock speed? A 4 GHZ GBA sure would be interesting... :)

seriously, can the GBAccelerator damage my GBA or crash it? If it's no problem to clock the GBA higher i wonder why nintendo didn't do that by default or allow developers to set clock speed in software (just like the GP32/PSP)?
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#40905 - tepples - Sat Apr 23, 2005 1:54 pm

Lupin wrote:
If it's no problem to clock the GBA higher i wonder why nintendo didn't do that by default or allow developers to set clock speed in software (just like the GP32/PSP)?

Nintendo products are engineered for reliability and battery life.
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#40942 - ABHQ - Sat Apr 23, 2005 8:47 pm

Correct, it changes the global clock rate of the system, so everything (video, sound, link port etc) is still in sync with each other. GBA linking is still possible as long as both systems are running at the same speed.

We've been testing this idea for nearly a year now and have compiled it into chip form to allow the GBA buttons to change speeds. There are no side effects such as heat, or a major loss of battery life etc. Check out the faqs.

As stated in the faqs, fast speed is about 1.5x normal speed, ultra speed is about 1.75x normal speed, and slow-motion is about 0.85x normal speed. The GBA could run at 2.0x normal speed, but we started to see slight particle effects in the video on games like f-zero and super mario kart when overclocking that high. So we lowered the maximum speed to keep things stable.

We decided to limit the selection of speeds to the four that we chose to keep compatibility issues down. Not to mention trying to make a completely user selectable clock rate would hard to implement control wise (then trying to sync two GBA's together, or trying to change a GBA back to a certain exact speed would be tough). We felt the speeds we chose would have the highest compatibility and most usability.
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www.ABHQ.com - Professional Console Modifications

#40948 - caitsith2 - Sat Apr 23, 2005 9:23 pm

Would have been nice though to have 2 slow speeds, something like 0.5, and 0.75, along with normal speed, and 2 fast speeds, 1.5, and 1.75.

#40949 - Kyoufu Kawa - Sat Apr 23, 2005 9:33 pm

ABHQ wrote:
The GBA could run at 2.0x normal speed, but we started to see slight particle effects in the video on games like f-zero and super mario kart when overclocking that high. So we lowered the maximum speed to keep things stable.
Now why in the name of all things fluffy would you want to make F-Zero even faster?

#40957 - tepples - Sun Apr 24, 2005 12:22 am

It's not like F-Zero for GBA is all that fast in the first place. If you want fast, try playing F-Zero X for N64 or F-Zero GX for GameCube.
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#41026 - wintermute - Sun Apr 24, 2005 9:39 am

Installation guide for Game Boy Advance wrote:

Step 4: First we need to remove the GBA's old crystal before installing GBAccelerator. (Sometimes the crystal looks round and chrome like this, or sometimes it's ceramic and looks more rectangular and flatter. If you have a ceramic crystal, please see below.) This is pretty easy. Firmly grab the crystal as shown in the picture with a pair of needlenose pliers...

And bend it to the side. It should 'pop' off as shown. This shouldn't take too much effort.

If you have a ceramic crystal like this, grab it vertically with the needlenose pliers and bend it upwards until it pops off. (The ceramic crystals can be a little more difficult to remove. If it breaks into pieces, you should be able to pry off the pieces with your pliers without too much problem.)



!?!

O_O

#42997 - strager - Tue May 17, 2005 10:55 pm

Not to disturb this post in its resting, but couldn't you implament a switch-type thing on say, on the bottom of the GBA (between the sound and power switches)? It could lock into different modes or something.

For homebrew games, it would be nice if the chip changed an address somewhere (like unused memory in the I/O space), so the game would syncronize the sound, etc. Anyone agree?

Maybe like this:
Code:

Mode | Multiplier
-----+-----------
0    | 1x
1    | 1.25x
3    | 1.5x
4    | 1.75x
5    | 2x
6    | 0.75x
7    | 0.5x

< May "mode" be the switch lock # and register value. >


Worth a try, no?

#43016 - tepples - Wed May 18, 2005 6:12 am

The only "unused" I/O space visible outside the main CPU is the serial port.
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#44491 - luna_s - Thu Jun 02, 2005 6:59 am

I made a quick review - read it here http://www.gbadev.org/gbaccelerator/ahead.htm