Well you might deem this unworthy for the forum, but for me it's quite interesting since the original GBA was my favourite handheld. It was really comfortable to use, had great games and was robust to boot. The problem for me was that it had no light, whereas this fake looks like it actually does have a light.
Whats more, it apparently plays original GBA/GBC carts AND has 2GB internal storage for storing GBA ROMs. And it appears to be using actual GBA casing as well since it even has the Nintendo sticker on the back lol. What i'm interested in is whether or not it relies on emulation to run the games - what are the chances of it having some (or all) of the original (or compatible with the original) GBA hardware inside it? I'm really tempted, but i think £30 is too much for it if its emulating the games (at an FPS cost and some compatibilty issues). I know nothing about processors, but someone on another forum stated that the processor is similar to something that the original GBA had, and probably wouldnt be up to the task of emulating the games, so perhaps it is running them natively?
I will probably buy one anyway, if for nothing other that the novelty value - but im interested on an experts opinion on what it exactly is inside there.
I'd say that's too similar to be emulating a GBA. Why to go all that effort and then not make it a "all-in-one" kind of device. There is another device like this on dealextreme, people have bought it and confirmed it's an actual GBA clone, except the main CPU is slightly slower, so games run slightly slower also, 5% slower or something to that effect is what people suggested.
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Posted 02 November 2009 - 10:11 PM
I've been curious about this one too. I saw the GBA SP copying versions a while ago. The clone chip is a BGA. I was wondering if it were in fact an FPGA instead of an actual ASIC. It seems strange that a company would be able to fab a chip for such a relatively limited market that's probably illegal anyway. Still, whether done on an FPGA or in a real hardware design cloning the GBA is pretty impressive. I wonder if the speed is wrong due to the wrong oscillator being used. Timing errors in the CPU for instance wouldn't make such an immediately obvious speed difference across the board. And if the audio output rate wasn't synchronized properly with the vsync rate then you'd hear sound glitches instead of an overall slower playback rate. It also seems strange to get so much else right in reproducing functionality then screw this up.
Well, i'm a sucker and i ordered myself one. Currently waiting for supplier so god knows how long it'll be, but once it arrives i'll try and do some comparisons with an original GBA if anyone is interested? I'm guessing it'll suffer the same 5% hit as the SP clone but we'll see :-)
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Posted 03 November 2009 - 06:26 PM
gibberish, on 03 November 2009 - 10:02 AM, said:
Well, i'm a sucker and i ordered myself one. Currently waiting for supplier so god knows how long it'll be, but once it arrives i'll try and do some comparisons with an original GBA if anyone is interested? I'm guessing it'll suffer the same 5% hit as the SP clone but we'll see :-)
I'm interested. Could you let us know just what it impacts?
im going to try and do a side by side with the same game on the clone and on an original (but it might have to be a micro), i'll be sure to update with results.
unfortuneatly thats about as far as my technical knowledge goes. though if its painless to dis-assemble and if it would be useful in any way, i guess i could take a hi-res photo of the board too.
This post has been edited by gibberish: 03 November 2009 - 07:47 PM
I picked up the gold SP clone ("SP2") from DX a couple of weeks ago but haven't had a chance to really test it out.
First impressions are not particularly good - crappy plastic (what do you expect for 60 bucks? :-), GBA emulation is choppy, negeo emulation is OK but suffers lag, NES is good (heck, the GBA emulated NES extremely well). I assume this just uses the standard chipset and emulators that the rest of the cheap Chinese knock-offs use.
Will give it a good testing this weekend and report back with more impressions.
it arrived today and i've had a bit of a play with it.
i've never reviewed anything on tinternet before, so if i've missed something blindingly obvious or made some kind of horrendous faux pas then please let me know (and forgive me).
packaging -
the box is a reproduction of a usa gba box. its quite obviously not a real box as the cardboard is cheap, colours are washed out and there is no glossy finish. it does look quite nice though, and theyve even added some of their own info to it.
Quote
1. a new generation high definition screen, colourful and clear image
2. improve control system, smooth and durable
3. built in direct save technology
4. built in clock supported for the seam convergence of clock games
5. built in real time save system
6. built in real time game guide
7. built in soft reset
8. built in multi languages
9. built in 2gb - 8gb FLASH
10. built in multimedia playback system
the gba itself comes in a clothlike plastic sleeve, and has a thin plastic film covering the screen which i had to remove because it was all runkled up.
accessories -
aside from the gba, it comes with some instructions which seem to just be a photocopy of the original gba intructions. also a usa mains adaptor that plugs into the ext port, and a usb to ext cable for both adding/deleting roms and charging the unit. might be worth noting that the mains adaptor has 'nintendo' logo on it, and seems to be the same charger as that the gba sp uses (it says "for use with ags-101" on it). i couldnt get the battery cover completely off for whatever reason, but i managed to prise it open and can see that its the same battery from the gba sp, complete with nintendo branding. so with some force to get the cover off, it shouldnt be difficult to replace the battery if it goes tits up.
build quality -
amazing... it looks and feels exactly like a real gba. in fact, if it wasnt for what must be a modified battery compartment id be convinced it was a real gba case. maybe it is, who knows. the unit doesnt rattle or creak or bend under pressure and it has logos and branding in all the same places as a real gba. its not all good though. firstly, the screen: gba has a res of something like 240x160, but i think this device has a 320x240 screen in it, with slightly different shaped pixels. you cant notice until you turn it on that the screen is actually a tiny tiny bit too big for the window that it sits behind, thus 0.5mm of the picture is lost on some sides. also, if youve ever played on a dingoo or wiz you'll no doubt have noticed the slightly ugly scaling/filtering used to make the 240x160 image stretch to 320x240 - well its the same on this thing. the main menu is coded in 320x240 and the gba bios splash is displayed at its original res (hence why it looks slightly smaller than usual) but the games are all stretched to fit. i dont think its possible to display in the original resolution (no notes in the instructins to say what buttons do what in game, and aside from the shoulder buttons (date and time / language) no buttons seem to do anything in the main menu). secondly, the buttons are noticeably more stiff than the original gba buttons. its not a problem, but its noticeable. the d-pad, for me at least, is really nice to use. oh yes, the screen is back(?) lit and looks wonderful :)
gaming -
a speed comparison of gradius galaxies (the only cart i could find for the time being) shows that the real gba and the fake gba run at the same speed. however, i loaded tony hawks 3 onto the device with the usb/ext cable and it doesnt really run at all. it stutters and jolts and is basically unplayable (i found this in the dingoo emu too, as well as on some gba flash carts). the graphics and sound seem perfect in all the pre-loaded gba games that i have tested so far. i tested a save in lotr and in gradius and both worked fine after restarting the unit. you can access the .sav files when you plug it into a pc. it is not possible to play whilst the device is plugged in to the pc. holding select and pressing R opens an in game menu. from there you can real time save, soft reset or open a game guide (game guide doesnt appear to do anything, i assume you have to load the file manually before hand).
you can find a list of the games here: http://pastebin.com/fa20f4b8
098 is the last gba game, the rest are nes. i have added racing gears advance and f zero myself (not in the list) and they both work fine.
i have loaded a handful of games onto it now, including racing gears advance, f zero, mario kart, mother 3 translation, turok and all appear to run just as well as the preloaded games and at full speed. i have noticed the occasional millisecond "glitch" in some games, where the game appears to freeze for a miniscule amount of time. the good news is that it only really happens in the menus, and isnt really noticeable anyway. it wasnt until today that it even registered that it was happening at all, and ive been playing everyday since it arrived.
other bits -
there are ~490 preloaded games and 1 video. about 100 of the games are gba, the rest are nes games (with a gba file extension) that run under pocketnes. as such, quite a few of them dont run properly. the unit functions as a mass storage device when plugged into a pc, and you can add/remove/change the roms and artwork as you please. i did notice though that the roms appear to be sorted by "date modified" as the ones i added myself did not sit in line with the rest of them even when numbered in the same way (that could get tedious...). there is a file called games.bin, which i assumed was the o/s but actually i think it contains the database that links rom titles to imagess... the rest, i think, is explained in the video. the battery does seem to only last for around 3 hours. the original gba didnt last very much longer than that on 2x AA batteries, and that was without a backlight. it is a downside, but it's not the end of the world.
and in summary -
if you cant be arsed to read all that crap above, heres a summary.
pros -
excellent build quality
functions as mass storage device
can replace roms with ease
back lit screen unlike the original
seems to play the preloaded games at full speed (from what ive seen so far)
can charge via mains or usb
cons -
evidently some games are not going to work properly
the screen res makes games look slightly uglier than on a real gba
roms appear to be organised by 'date modified' rather than alphanumerically
no relevant documentation
i am trying to encode the video, but windows live movie maker crap keeps adding huge borders around the entire bloody thing. i think i'll have to live with it though. i'll post a link when its done.
edit: video is sorted now, it was my fault after all.
view in youtube for HD
This post has been edited by gibberish: 24 November 2009 - 09:15 PM
thanks firefox, it's appreciated :)
aside from the fact i would have slowly gone mental with curiousity if i hadnt bought it, i think it was worth the money anyway. it's both a novelty item and a functioning toy which im sure i'll get some use out of. it has its flaws as i suspected, but on the whole i think they did an excellent job with it.
This post has been edited by gibberish: 21 November 2009 - 11:21 AM
That is a really good price for gifts for nieces and nephews like Firefox said. If they have a DS it's cheaper/more fun getting them a Acekard or a cart like it. $15 bucks for a Acekard2i and $30 for a 8GB mirco SD = $45. If they don't have a DS or want to play GBA/GB/GBC games then this is the way to go.
I really really want to play the translation of Mother 3 and have been debating getting a Dingoo, a slot 1 fash cart for my DS, or just waiting for the Pandora, but this seems like it would be cool to use because it would be like playing a GBA.
This post has been edited by second exodous: 21 November 2009 - 10:24 PM
second exodous, on 21 November 2009 - 10:14 PM, said:
I really really want to play the translation of Mother 3 and have been debating getting a Dingoo, a slot 1 fash cart for my DS, or just waiting for the Pandora, but this seems like it would be cool to use because it would be like playing a GBA.
the translated mother 3 rom works fine on this, in case you were wondering. in fact the only games ive had a problem with are the tony hawks series which stutter terribly.
i added:
racing gears advance
mario kart
f zero
mother 3
gt advance
tyrian 2000 (is this homebrew?)
turok evolution
all of which run fine, and apparently at full speed.
so if this is made by the same people that did the GBA SP, then it seems they improved the hardware somewhat for this one.
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