Slashdot Mirror

Let people build homebrew apps but prevent people from playing warez.

How is that possible? Homebrew apps include emulators such as PocketNES, and emulators can play pirated ROMs. Homebrew apps include Tetris clones such as Lockjaw, and The TetriSCOmpany thinks those are pirated.

That's pretty much my overarching question: given that (as far as I know, anyway) there are no real technical hurdles to such things, why do they not exist?

It might have something to do with a dedicated set-top gaming PC being several times more expensive than a console.

I for one wonder why the console makers have never come up with official emulators.

At least Sega has, for its Sonic rereleases. Konami has the Castlevania and Contra collection for PC, which runs the NES games in emulation. Midway's Arcade Treasures and Namco's Namco Museum series for PC (and other platforms) are also emulators. Jaleco's GBA rereleases of NES games even use a customized version of PocketNES.

A lot of consoles had proprietary storage media. For your Super NES and Dreamcast examples, a cart copier or GD-ROM drive for PC might cost more than a refurbished console. And companies that still make consoles do re-release games on their own newer platforms: Nintendo runs NES games in emulation on GBA. But Nintendo doesn't want to be seen supporting Microsoft and the ROM pirates when it can sell its own games on its own platform.

although, the PSP has lumines which had kept my attention far more than the DS. I also had an NES emulator on there with more ROMs than I could ever play.

Lumines and PSP emulation are available on GBA (and by extension Nintendo DS) as well; see Luminesweeper and PocketNES.

Lumines is the only shining star

And it's shinin', shinin', shinin', shinin', shinin', shinin', shinin', shinin', shinin', shinin', shinin', shinin', better stop before the lameness filter kicks in...

I'll bet you they tag that on having to make an emulator for the portable

They didn't really need to develop their own.

No one will buy into this on a large scale if it isn't inexpensive enough.

They will if you compare $35 (half the price of an N64 game when new) with $150,000 (maximum statutory damages for copyright infringement).

Like playing your NES and SNES roms on the go? Tough luck; go buy a

...Nintendo DS. PocketNES for GBA and snesDS have come along rawther nicely.

And though Nintendo has released a new firmware in the Chinese "iQue DS" units and in the Japanese "Jump Super Stars Special Edition" units, those are 1. not yet sold in North America, 2. already cracked, and 3. irrelevant for emulators that also work on GBA such as PocketNES.

If Sony would just quit patching against it, it would become one hell of a platform for independent development. Of course all they're worried about is people playing Super Mario Bros. on a Nintendo emulator...

The GBA could play most NES games long before the PSP was even out.

That wouldn't be backwards compatibility would it? It would be compatibility with a completely different system.

Architecturally, the GBA is "a completely different system" from the GBC, but the GBA can play GB and GBC games. Nintendo also sold an adapter to let the Super NES play 99% of GB games and one to let the GameCube play 99% of GB, GBC, and GBA games.

How many games designed for a 4:3 TV screen would even be usable on a 16:9 handheld

The Game Boy Advance (3:2 display) in both its original and SP iterations can run games for Game Boy and Game Boy Color system (10:9 display) out of the box; by default, it draws a black border around the screen.

with a different control scheme?

The only thing that the PSP lacks vs. the PS1 digital controller is that L2 and R2 are missing. Sure, Ape Escape and other PS1 games that require both analog sticks wouldn't work, but those are few and far between because publishers wanted to target those who bought the PS1 in the first two years before Sony packed in the Dual Shock controller.

Does the DS play N64 games? Or Gamecube games? No. It plays

...most NES and many Super NES games, with a PassMe adapter and a GBA flash card. And unlike Sony, Nintendo doesn't play the cat-and-mouse firmware upgrade game.

Sony doesn't have any previous handhelds.

I beg your pardon?

I do think that GBA compatibility is an advantage of the DS, but as a GBA owner, it doesn't make me want to buy a DS.

If you buy a Nintendo DS, you can carry one device to play your DS games and your GBA games, unlike a GBA SP/PSP combination. This parallels the PSP fanboy argument that if you buy a PSP, you can carry one device to play your PSP games and your MP3 music, unlike a Nintendo DS/iPod Shuffle combination.

Unless there are good DS-only games, why should I upgrade?

There are good DS-only games.

I patiently await your rebuttal of the alleged FUD.

Why would a GBA be called NES Micro?

One reason, one reason only.

Ever tried PocketNES on a Game Boy Advance system? If handhelds don't count, then what about GameCube with Game Boy Player?

The only thing the DS has that got me to buy it was it's backwards compatibility with GBA games.

Not only that, but with the EFA-Linker (under $100 incl. shipping), you can play a boatload of NES games and many Game Boy games as well. So now the Nintendo DS is compatible with GBA games and unofficially compatible with many NES and GB games, but Sony couldn't be bothered to include a PS1 emulator with the PSP and uses code signing to prevent the free software community from stepping up.

the PSP isn't a general-purpose computing device

Turing say what? Or are you referring to signature requirements?

and its processor is quite a bit underpowered compared to a desktop PC.

333 MHz for PSP vs. 33 MHz for PS1 looks like it'd have the required tenfold margin of speed difference for interpretive emulation. Video (GPU and GTE cores) can be virtualized, as in PocketNES on GBA. True, the PS2 doesn't run PS1 games in emulation, but a 300 MHz PC managed to run at least some N64 games in emulation during the days of UltraHLE.

I felt the same way. But the DS really doesn't have any games going for it right now either. The only way I could justify it was by reasoning that Advanced Wars DS will be out for it soon. That game alone was enough to get me to buy a DS.

But until then I'll keep enjoying my DS with this and this.

Build an NES dumper, dump your Game Paks, and then use PocketNES with a GBA flash card.

I got a Chinese bootleg NES cartridge with 42 games on it (later I saw some with 100 or more games). Combining that with this player would be nice.

If you really want to be a pirate, then get a Game Boy Advance SP, an EFA flash card, the PocketNES emulator, and some NES ROMs.

You can emulate Smash TV and Battletoads on a GameCube if you have a Game Boy Player and a flash cart. See PocketNES to learn how.

Well, luckily since it is a 64-bit architecture it should be no problem to run Nintendo 64 games either.

You won't see people hacking the Xbox 2 and porting an emulator because the new Treacherous Computing technology, which may be used in the Xbox 2, is more powerful than the original Xbox lockout. Because most of the decent N64 exclusives are copyright Nintendo, which has a policy of not porting its titles to non-Nintendo platforms, you won't see companies adapting a community N64 emulator the same way Jaleco adapted PocketNES for its GBA ports of classic NES games.

There's another way, you know. How many of us owned these 'classic' games when they were released for the NES? I still have the carts sitting in my basement, so I feel absolutely no remorse about downloading the ROMs, and either playing them through an emulator or burning them to a flash cartridge. You can fit around 100 or more classic games on the GBA carts and use PocketNES to run them.

--trb

Flash carts are great, I own a 256Mbit one myself. If you do plan on buying one, I would recommend Jandaman's. That's where I bought mine. And I would suggest getting a 256 or bigger, some games wont fit on a 128Mbit card.

After you have your cart, check out these two projects. An NES emulator on the GBA, and an SNES emulator on the GBA.

Also PogoShell is great, it let's you store text and pictures that can be viewed on your GBA, as well as organize your ROMs and game saves.

The screen proportion feels a bit off

You're correct. The NES's pixel aspect ratio was 40:33, or 1.212:1, or roughly 6:5. I computed this given the official ITU pixel aspect ratio for digitized NTSC signals (10:11, defined in CCIR 601) and the fact that each screen pixel takes up 2/3 of a color clock. The GBA's pixel aspect ratio, on the other hand, is square; NES screens in both PocketNES (the unofficial emulator) and acNES (the official emulator, used in Animal Crossing and the e-reader) are scaled down such that the pixel aspect ratio is 4:3.

Just pick up a flash cart for your GBA, and then download PocketNES. Granted, flash carts run about $100, but then you have the whole library of NES games.

The GG also had a better speaker.

I've heard the Game Gear's speaker, and it's not all that good. Reading the specs, I discover that its tone generators can generate only 1/2 duty pulse waves, not 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, and arbitrary waveforms like the Game Boy could. In addition, the Game Boy's tone generators could go nearly an octave lower. Plug in headphones and listen to the soundtrack of, say, Zoop or any Mortal Kombat game for each system, and you'll notice that the Game Boy version's instruments sound marginally more differentiated.

It could play every Sega Master System game with an adapter.

That was good for its time. But now the Game Gear Advance can play Sega Master System games as well, not to mention NES games. (Yes, I'm calling the GBA the Game Gear Advance because it's the handheld that Sega develops for now.)

Except half of the titles you mentioned are already playable on the GBA. Super Mario World and Final Fight are ported to GBA. The PSOne has a car kit; Final Fantasy VI is ported to PSOne. Earthbound has a prequel for NES (called Mother) that was translated to English but never published on cart (the existing dump comes from a leaked proto); the GBA already emulates the NES.

SNES Advance was originally called PocketSNES (PocketNES is by the same author, loopy).
But after that ripoff site appeared he changed the name to SNES Advance and got the www.snesadvance.org domain.

What about PocketNES? It's not "official Nintendo" stuff, but it works. Ok, not all games - here's the compatibility list, anything tagged [P] is good to go. And, yes, you do need the ROMs, PocketNES won't provide them for you... But that what we have the Internet^W backups at home for!

What about PocketNES? It's not "official Nintendo" stuff, but it works. Ok, not all games - here's the compatibility list, anything tagged [P] is good to go. And, yes, you do need the ROMs, PocketNES won't provide them for you... But that what we have the Internet^W backups at home for!

Yes, but they can't patent something that has prior art... and they won't be able to stop emulation of the GBA with patents. It is far too late for that.

By the way, you better not be using a PC, otherwise you are a hypocrit. Oh, and your Nintendo-fanboyism is really obvious. Tone that down a notch, ok? Nintendo took forever to give us inferior emulation to stuff we already had for years. Screw Famicom minis. Nintendo is too little, too late.

WRONG! PocketNES existed far before Nintendo's trading card emulator. It does a better job at emulating the NES on the GBA than any of Nintendo's crap.

No. The e-reader NES emulator isn't copied from PocketNES.

Interesting, since the GBA has barely enough power to emulate the NES. I'm thinking you'd have more luck with that porting technique discussed here a couple months back. Wish I could find the article.

PocketNES has been around since 2001, long before Nintendo thought of emulating NES on GBA.
In fact it looks like Nintendo was inspired by PocketNES to make their own emulator for Animal Crossing and the e-Reader.

Well, you can have portable NES, if you have a GBA and a flash card:

www.pocketnes.org

Use PocketNES, then you can link up!

The Finding Nemo game is already available for Game Boy Advance.

However, I'd suggest that you get a copy of Little Nemo the Dream Master for NES (90 percent less fishy than Disney's version) and run that in PocketNES instead.

I'd like to see a game for PSP based on Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

ezfa actually works like crap with pocketnes:
http://www.pocketnes.org/faq.html#cartbrands

Buy a rewriteable GBA cart from a place like this. I like the EZ-Flash Advance. Download pocketNES and one of the utilities to build GBA ROMs from pocketNES and a few old NES games. Assemble them together, burn to cart, and knock yourself out. You can fit hundreds of NES games on a 128Mb cart.

Ok, there's the cool factor of this, but not only would these be unwieldy (even with the smaller Famicom carts, you aren't going to carry these around in your pocket) but also resolution problems. The NES had a resolution of 256x240 while the GBA has 240x160 (http://www.pocketnes.org/faq.html. That means that right from the starta conversion has to be done and/or cropping. In fact, elsewhere on the PocketNES site, the emulator's author explains that scaling down to that resolution actually makes nearly all game text unreadable.

Straight ports are the way to go, although many of my favorite games probably will never see play on a GBA simply because they're too old and weren't released by Nintendo, who seems to be one of the few (if not the only) developers to release their classic games on the handheld.

Actually, I've heard that you can install an NES emulator and a good many games on one of these. There's an emulator here

The screenshots look pretty darn good and certainly readable. BTW, they are scaled OR cropped, but the cropping mode allows the screen to scroll up down as needed (called "following"). This can be done automatically for you, similar to some games where when you jump the screen scrollsup.

How many games you can use with the menu?
There are no limits in the menu program or otherwise in how many roms you can include, so the limit is with the space of the flash card. Considering most NES games are between 25-300kB you could fit 25-300 games on a 64mbit card, 50-600 games on a 128mbit card, 100-1200 games on the 256mbit card, or 200-2400 games on the 512mbit card! Note that the Gameboy Advance itself can't handle roms over 256mbit, so if you have a 512mbit card you need to split PocketNES up into at least two separate roms. If you have problems getting a large amount of roms to work, it is most likely that some of them are corrupt, check out the troubleshooting Also, emulators doesn't seem to be able to use roms over 128mbit, so if you have a large PocketNES rom that won't load on an emulator, chances are it will be fine on a flash card.

Don't forget about the PocketNES emulator for the GBA that allows you to play over 8000 NES games on the GBA in full speed. One 256Mb flash cart can hold over 1000 NES games.

That said, the GBA has a big developer community. GBAdev.org for one (note that they have a little memorial page up today, just click through it at the bottom). There are forums, other sites, tutorials, even a book (can't find the link right now, and I've been having a hard time trying to buy it, but it exists).

Don't forget to check out Pocket NES.

Does it just have some kind of logo on it and has a different color, like the special edition pokemon etc. GBAs?

Is it shaped differently? Like a Famicom, or a Famicom controller?

Can it run Famicom games? Oh wait, all GBAs can do that.

Pocket NES, or the other emulators covered on this site.

It is also very possible that SNES on GBA stuff will exist soon.

I have dr mario on gba as well as a hundred other classic NES games.

How could you afford to purchase genuine copies of "a hundred other classic NES games" without being independently wealthy?

And how did you build your NES cartridge dumper?

but playing mario 1 on a handheld is priceless

You don't need PocketNES to do that because all Super Mario Bros. games except SMB 3 have been ported natively to a Game Boy platform (SMB 1 and The Lost Levels to GBC; SMB2, SMW, and Yoshi's Island to GBA).

In fact, here's a GPL'd homebrew port of Dr. Mario to GBA.