Game Gear Converter

[MarioMania]

I really don't knnow were to put this, it's for the GBA but anyways..if it's in the wrong thread move it

You know how they have the Famicom Time Machine...Would you want a Game Gear Converter on the GBA..So playing GG Cart on the GBA SP

[Pantechnicon]

I really don't knnow were to put this, it's for the GBA but anyways..if it's in the wrong thread move it

You know how they have the Famicom Time Machine...Would you want a Game Gear Converter on the GBA..So playing GG Cart on the GBA SP

A secondhand Game Gear would still be a lot cheaper, methinks...

[DigitalSpace]

If anyone managed to pull it off, that would be one hell of a product.

[Ze_ro]

Go buy a GBA flash card (like the M3, SuperCard, EZ-Flash Advance, etc) and get a SMS emulator (http://www.ndsretro.com/gbadown.html). Flash cards are far cheaper than you could ever make a GG-GBA adapter for, you wouldn't have to carry any cartridges around, plus you get all the other features of having a flash card (ie, tons of other emulators, pirated games, MP3 and video playback, etc).

--Zero

[heyricochet]

Yeah two COMPLETELY different chip-sets/technologies. Thats like asking to play a nes game on your genesis, it just wouldn't work at all and you might as well get a flash cart at that point because the conversion circuit would be the same price.

[Cryomancer]

Personally I think there needs to be more ways of playing handhelds on TVs. the Gameboy Player / Super gameboy are awesome. We need a "DS Player" badly...maybe for Wii? Could it render it onscreen properly via wireless connection?

The Game Gear and Master System are MOSTLY the same parts right? Is there a cart converter somewhere to run GG games on an SMS or Genesis? That would be pretty rad. I do beleive there's a converter to play SMS games on the GG, if I'm remembering right...

[CosmicMonkey]

The GG uses a better version of the Z80 which has maaany more colours than the MS Z80. Hence it's possible to play MS games on a GG, but not the other way round; all the colours are off and the game is unplayable. Same deal with a MD: it uses the same Z80 as the MS.

It is possible to mod a GG to output RGB that can be displayed on an RGB Scart TV. Check over on the www.smspower.org forums.

You guys obviously haven't heared of the Super Magic Ultra Converter 3. I can play MD, SNES, PCE, GB and GG games on my NeoGeo with this wonderful converter. No, really.

Worst thread ever.

[Sweater Fish Deluxe]

Yeah two COMPLETELY different chip-sets/technologies. Thats like asking to play a nes game on your genesis, it just wouldn't work at all and you might as well get a flash cart at that point because the conversion circuit would be the same price.
Is asking to play NES games on your Genesis like asking to play Famicom game son your GBA? Because as the original poster mentioned, there's a Famicom adapter for the GBA already. I've never been clear whether it uses a Famicom-on-a-chip with video outputted in digital RGB to the GBA screen or whether it simply uses the PocketNES emulator and has a cartridge interface instead of a ROM menu. Either way, the same could be done for SMS/GG. There's existing SMS-on-a-chip designs that could be incorporated into something that interfaces with the GBA (I'm pretty sure the designs are SMS, not Game Gear hardware, but that'd be just about as good if not better in my opinion) and of course there's emulators that could work with a cartridge interface.

The DS would be a better candidate for it, by the way, since its screen resolution is the same as the Master System's so SMS games would look perfect on it, whereas the SMS's screen has to be manhandled to fit properly on a GBA.

As long as we're asking this, though, why not ask about a Genesis adapter? That would be possible with an on-a-chip solution and maybe through emulation on the DS if not the GBA. And would be pretty cool, I think.

Yes, there's always the answer that you could just buy a Game Gear or a Nomad, but the newer systems have better battery life and better screens, so there'd be some advantage to playing the games on a GBA or DS instead of a Game Gear or Nomad. As for the suggestion of just getting a flash cart, that's a good idea and I already have one in fact and enjoy playing emulated 8 and 16-bit games on it a lot, but being able to play the original cartridges thorugh an adapter (even if it uses an emulator internally) is just kind of cooler than picking your ROM from a list on a flash cart. Of course, I don't think there's actually much chance of adapters like this coming out, but if they did, I'd probably buy them. In the meantime, I'll make do with me flash carts.

The DS also ought to have a Gameboy/GBC adapter, by the way. If Nintendo didn't want to build the original Gameboy hardware into the DS like they did with the GBA, they still could have put in an emulator and left the GBA port open to original Gameboy games. I guess they were trying to separate the DS from the Gameboy line somehow, though.


...word is bondage...

[MarioMania]

Well I learned something about the GG & the SMS or even the Genesis....I thought a Game Gear Adapter would work on the Genesis..I thought Colors on screen..Wrong again, it's the Maximum Available Colors that counts the GG has 4,096 while the Genesis has 512 it wouldn't work...But the Adapter for the 32X will work

[Sweater Fish Deluxe]

The 32X wouldn't really be any more capable of playing Game Gear games than the Genesis would, regardless of how large its color palette is.

When you're talking about an "adapter" for playing the games of one system on another, the specs of the second system don't really matter at all because the entire system that you're "adapting" is built into the adapter. That's how the Super Gameboy works, how the Coleco's 2600 Module works, how the Tristar and Tristar 64 work, probably how the Famicom adapter for the GBA works and even how the backwards compatibility in the GBA and Playstation 2 work. Ultimately it's even how the Power Base Converter works, though that's a little complicated. With newer systems, emulation becomes a possibility, but if you wanted to make a Game Gear adapter for the Genesis, you'd simply be taking the Game Gear architecture and putting it into an adapter on the same model as the all the other adpaters I mentioned. The only thing the Genesis would be doing is providing the controller interface and encoding RGB to composite video.

There was many rumors that Sega was working on just such an adapter in the mid '90s. They certainly could have made one, but they must not have thought there enough of a market for it.


...word is bondage...

[bangtango]

The 32X wouldn't really be any more capable of playing Game Gear games than the Genesis would, regardless of how large its color palette is.

When you're talking about an "adapter" for playing the games of one system on another, the specs of the second system don't really matter at all because the entire system that you're "adapting" is built into the adapter. That's how the Super Gameboy works, how the Coleco's 2600 Module works, how the Tristar and Tristar 64 work, probably how the Famicom adapter for the GBA works and even how the backwards compatibility in the GBA and Playstation 2 work. Ultimately it's even how the Power Base Converter works, though that's a little complicated. With newer systems, emulation becomes a possibility, but if you wanted to make a Game Gear adapter for the Genesis, you'd simply be taking the Game Gear architecture and putting it into an adapter on the same model as the all the other adpaters I mentioned. The only thing the Genesis would be doing is providing the controller interface and encoding RGB to composite video.

There was many rumors that Sega was working on just such an adapter in the mid '90s. They certainly could have made one, but they must not have thought there enough of a market for it.

It would have been another failed Sega product from that era with just enough kitsch value to sell for $20-50 on Ebay.

[Sweater Fish Deluxe]

That's one way of looking at it. I prefer the less cynical stance that it would just be a cool thing to have, in 1994 as well as today.


...word is bondage...

[vintagegamecrazy]

I wish it was possible, my GG games would definitely get more use.

[fishsandwich]

The 32X wouldn't really be any more capable of playing Game Gear games than the Genesis would, regardless of how large its color palette is.

When you're talking about an "adapter" for playing the games of one system on another, the specs of the second system don't really matter at all because the entire system that you're "adapting" is built into the adapter. That's how the Super Gameboy works, how the Coleco's 2600 Module works, how the Tristar and Tristar 64 work, probably how the Famicom adapter for the GBA works and even how the backwards compatibility in the GBA and Playstation 2 work. Ultimately it's even how the Power Base Converter works, though that's a little complicated. With newer systems, emulation becomes a possibility, but if you wanted to make a Game Gear adapter for the Genesis, you'd simply be taking the Game Gear architecture and putting it into an adapter on the same model as the all the other adpaters I mentioned. The only thing the Genesis would be doing is providing the controller interface and encoding RGB to composite video.

There was many rumors that Sega was working on just such an adapter in the mid '90s. They certainly could have made one, but they must not have thought there enough of a market for it.


...word is bondage...

The PS2 has the original PSone chip serving as the I/O chip and taking over when PSone games are inserted. It's built into the PS2... no adaptor required.

Same for GBA... the original processor for the GB/BGC is built in. It was taken out of the DS but the GBA processor was added.

The Genesis has the Z80 chip in it already but the carts for the SMS won't fit... the convertor is a simple pass-through.

He's right about the Super Gameboy, the various 2600 players, etc.

Like it's been said... to play GG carts on any console would mean an adaptor with the GG hardware built in and the console just acting as a means to display it on the TV.

I emulate the GG on the N-Gage. Works great.

[bangtango]

That's one way of looking at it. I prefer the less cynical stance that it would just be a cool thing to have, in 1994 as well as today.


...word is bondage...

The second thread of yours I've quoted in ten minutes..........

I'll beat a dead horse and say Sega's biggest priority shouldn't have been a converter to play Game Gear games on the Genesis. Don't get me wrong, though, it'd have been a treat to have.

I just wish they'd put more energy into finishing some of the Sega CD and 32X games they cancelled and then had the sense to make them compatible on Saturn, so people didn't have to trade in their old games or toss them into thrift store bins out of frustration.

[Jorpho]

Considering that there were so many SMS games that were much like their Game Gear counterparts (except less colorful), a Game Gear adapter for the Genesis would be superfluous indeed.


The GG uses a better version of the Z80 which has maaany more colours than the MS Z80. Hence it's possible to play MS games on a GG, but not the other way round; all the colours are off and the game is unplayable. Same deal with a MD: it uses the same Z80 as the MS.

While the Game Gear does display more colors, I do not think the new technology is part of an enhanced Z80 CPU. Do you have more documentation on this?


We need a "DS Player" badly...maybe for Wii? Could it render it onscreen properly via wireless connection?

Someone posted about one of those a while ago. It is apparently not so great to see the graphics blown up to TV size, and it makes the touchscreen control awkward.

[blue lander]

The GG and SMS use the same Z80. In fact, Somebody built and adapter and proved that GG games will run on an SMS, but the colors are all screwed up.

[Ed Oscuro]

I just wish they'd put more energy into finishing some of the Sega CD and 32X games they cancelled and then had the sense to make them compatible on Saturn, so people didn't have to trade in their old games or toss them into thrift store bins out of frustration.
I would have rather they had a comprehensive forward-thinking strategy. The GG player would've been a close second.

[EmOneGarand]

Well.. Coleco (the people who have the name now) released a SMS/GG handheld, it has an GG-on-a-Chip in it apparently so if you knew how to get past the epoxy globs you might be able to solder a cartridge slot and voila.. a GameGear with a nice TFT LCD screen.

[Ed Oscuro]

The GG uses a better version of the Z80 which has maaany more colours than the MS Z80. Hence it's possible to play MS games on a GG, but not the other way round; all the colours are off and the game is unplayable. Same deal with a MD: it uses the same Z80 as the MS.
While the Game Gear does display more colors, I do not think the new technology is part of an enhanced Z80 CPU. Do you have more documentation on this?
Cosmic has the right general idea, but has the details wrong. The Z80 is simply a microprocessor and does not have any dedicated functionality for colors. While it would be possible to add it, the expense of retooling the chip would be phenomenal - better to just make a little extra chip to do this. As far as I know, not even the 35MHz R800 (super Z80 clone for the MSX Turbo-R) has anything dedicated to graphics (although it might have memory handling functions that improve loading of data into the V9990, etc.). All graphics circuitry is separate from the CPU.

[Jorpho]

The Game Boy Color (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_Boy_Color) also used a chip that differed significantly from the original Game Boy's Z80, but then, again, it was also not explictly redesigned for extra graphics functionality.

[Ed Oscuro]

I wouldn't say it differs significantly. It's missing two 16-bit index registers, which weren't especially great until more recent versions of the Z80, especially not for the programs that the GB games run. So really it was just a cost and power saving move.