GB Emulation on the DS

[fcw3]

Maybe some of you that are in the know more than I can offer some information.

I was thinking the other day of why the DS can't play the older Gameboy and Gameboy Color games. The carts should fit since the GBA and the GB carts share a port on the GBA. I know that Nintendo didn't include the Z80 processer needed for them in the DS, but it was included on the GBA.

So what I was thinking is why doesn't someone release a DS cart that has a Gameboy emulator. Have the DS power up to the GB Emulator and then have it tap the cart slot for running the game. Sure, you'd lose the connection capability (unless someone got really, really clever and emulated the cable connection thru the wireless port), but wouldn't it be great to have total access to the entire Gameboy library on a single machine.

The DS should have enough processing power to pull this off.

Any thoughts ?

FRED

[PentiumMMX]

Yeah. I really wanted to play Zelda: Link's Awakening on my DS, but can't. They could do something similar to Wii Virtual Console...

[NickmasterX]

Get a supercard: http://supercardstore.com/
has emulation for Gameboy, sega master system, tubrographx16

[fcw3]

Get a supercard: http://supercardstore.com/
has emulation for Gameboy, sega master system, tubrographx16

What I'm thinking of is something that would allow one to play Gameboy carts plugged into the DS's slot, not something that allows the playing of roms downloaded to a memory card.

But this does show that GB emulation is possible...

[BocoDragon]

People have been doing this for a long time :)

[mills]

What I'm thinking of is something that would allow one to play Gameboy carts plugged into the DS's slot, not something that allows the playing of roms downloaded to a memory card.

But this does show that GB emulation is possible...

I understand your dilemma, I wish I could play my GB games on my DS also.

But, you did put "emulation" in the title, maybe you should change it.

[fcw3]

But, you did put "emulation" in the title, maybe you should change it.

I can see what you mean. What would one call it other than "emulation" ? It is the emulating of the Gameboy processor on the DS that I'm interested in seeing happen.

I guess most people, myself included most of the time, link emulation with downloaded roms. Not many systems have the capability to connect the real cartridges to the system looking to run emulation. (i.e. a PSP runs its emulator from memory sticks)

FRED

[agbulls]

Wouldn't the ultimate combination be a super card lite micro (sits flush to the gba slot) with an R4 for the DS slot??

This would let you:
-play GBA roms and GBA emulation on the DS
-play DS roms and DS homebrew

[NE146]

I dunno man. To me emulation of the GB/GBC via Goomba pretty much sucks. For example, does Donkey Kong show the totals whenever you clear a screen? Also I dont like how you can't stretch the screen like you can on a real cart (which keeps games like Mario Picross real tiny :()

And I don't know about you guys, but the Supercard doesn't do saves for the GB emulator properly.. You can do save states for a while but once you turn off or play another game, it's gone. Maybe this has changed?

[Sweater Fish Deluxe]

Well, Goomba is actually running on the GBA, not the full DS hardware. A native DS emulator could be much better. However, I wouldn't say Goomba sucks, it has some graphics problems in a small number of games such as Donkey Kong '93, but it's generally very nice for B&W games. I don't have any trouble with saving and I always personally hated the stretch screen option anyway.

There's two reasons why you're not likely to ever see a Gameboy emulator for the DS that can boot real cartridges (even though slot-1 flash cards would othersie make it possible even if Nintendo's not interested in doing it themselves). First, have you ever tried sticking a Gameboy cart in your DS? They don't fit. The GBA slot on the DS is shaped in such a way that only GBA carts will fit, not B&W Gameboy or GBC carts. Of course, you could mod either the slot or the carts to get around that problem. The bigger problem is that the GBA-slot on the DS only provides 3.3V, while original Gameboy games need 5V. So, yu'd need some kind of external power supply to provide enough power to access the data on a Gameboy cart. I suppose you could hack something like that up, too, but it would be pretty ugly.


...word is bondage...

[DeputyMoniker]

Maybe some of you that are in the know more than I can offer some information.

I was thinking the other day of why the DS can't play the older Gameboy and Gameboy Color games. The carts should fit since the GBA and the GB carts share a port on the GBA. I know that Nintendo didn't include the Z80 processer needed for them in the DS, but it was included on the GBA.

So what I was thinking is why doesn't someone release a DS cart that has a Gameboy emulator. Have the DS power up to the GB Emulator and then have it tap the cart slot for running the game. Sure, you'd lose the connection capability (unless someone got really, really clever and emulated the cable connection thru the wireless port), but wouldn't it be great to have total access to the entire Gameboy library on a single machine.

The DS should have enough processing power to pull this off.

Any thoughts ?

FRED


Great idea. Now click here and join the conversation. (http://www.digitpress.com/forum/showthread.php?t=95451&page=5) :P

[NE146]

I don't have any trouble with saving

You didn't mention your flashcart though. Yeah I have no problems saving in Goomba on my regular GBA flashcarts (I have 2. A XG-Flash and an EZ-Flash)

However, what I'm talking about is the built in goomba on a Supercard, or even a newer Goomba put on it in GBA mode. It doesn't save right.. apparently it uses a key combination for a save state, but you can't save normally (i.e. multiple games). At least on mine it's this way.. are you using a Supercard? And by that I mean this.

http://eng.supercard.cn/products_sd.htm

[DefaultGen]

.....

[Sweater Fish Deluxe]

I'm using a G6. I have a Supercard, too, but I use the G6 for stuff like emulation. So that could be it.

I'm also using an unofficial build of Goomba that has the ability to make custom palettes and had some other changes,too, maybe includoing better save emulation. Look for "Unofficial Goomba 2.31"


...word is bondage...

[PapaStu]

*Boot to Modern Gaming*