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Overclocking your Gameboy Advance

Posted by Hemos on from the we-can-rebuild-you dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The guys over at Ahead Games are working on an overclock mod for the GBA. They've been able to run it at up to 2x the regular operating speed without any major heat or battery life problems. Now, you're probably asking yourself "Why the hell would anyone want to overclock their Gameboy?" Answer: Super Nintendo emulation. There's already a working beta of a SNES emulator out for the GBA called SNES Advance. The big problem is there's just not enough horsepower under the GBA's hood to emulate the SNES sound chip. This mod will hopefully remedy that."

7 of 295 comments (clear)

  1. I would think an even bigger problem would be... by tuffy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...a lack of buttons. A SNES pad has two more of them than a GBA.

    --

    Ita erat quando hic adveni.

  2. Is there really a big market for this? by spidergoat2 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's a bit like the re-release of the old Atari games for new PC's. How many times can we really sit and play Frogger now? Isn't the progression to new tecnology so we can play better games, not reheat the old ones?

    1. Re:Is there really a big market for this? by solojony · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You are mistakenly taking technology for better games. I know a lot of games who need a PC in the order of 1000$ to play nicely and still they aren't remotely as fun as pac-man. Better graphics Better games.

    2. Re:Is there really a big market for this? by Maarek_1 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The problem with your thinking here is that you seem to regard the SNES as being made in the infancy of video games, and that is hardly true. The SNES (and the Sega Genesis) was the system that turned the corner for the gaming industry. It was the SNES that helped convince Sony that real money and real entertainment could be had through video games again (since the crash in the early 80's many still regarded the industry as very risky). I love my modern technology and games, but many SNES games continue to shine a decade after their release. It's like books, no one says "Why read classic books, how many times can we sit and read 'A Tale of Two Cities' now? Isn't the progression to new literary techniques so that we can read new stories, not reheat old ones" Not trying to mock, just making a point.

    3. Re:Is there really a big market for this? by barryfandango · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I saw a copy of "Casablanca" on DVD the other day. Why are we bothering to port these old, technologically inferior works to new technology when we could be watching the newest and therefore best movies instead?
      </sarcasm>

      --
      In all matters of opinion, our adversaries are insane. -Oscar Wilde
  3. For a 0.1 version emulator? by galtenberg · · Score: 5, Insightful

    How about they get the emulator past v0.1 before I start mucking with my hardware.

  4. Chess, Super Mario Kart and other classic games... by Jagasian · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I still play Super Mario Kart battle mode for the SNES, on a regular basis, with my friends. The games are short, action packed, full of strategy, and lots of fun. So you can squeeze in a few games every now and then with your friends. Super Mario Kart is over 10 years old!

    Another perfect example is Chess. It is hundreds of years old, and people still play it today as they find it entertaining to do so. Board games can be seen as the precessor to video games. They are visual games that require manual human intervention to enforce the rules and update the board layout.

    In fact, it could be argued that some games get better with time. When Chess was first invented, everyone was equivalent to how you and your friends were when you first tried to play it: they all sucked. Games were won basically by luck in the begining. As time went on, what people knew about Chess and how to play it improved. So the games of Chess that were played when it was first made are not nearly as good as some of the games played hundreds of years later.

    I notice the same thing with many of the video games that I play for more than a year: Tetris, Quake, Super Mario Kart, etc... my enjoyment of them has increased over the years because my knowledge of the games has improved.

    For multiplayer videos games, my skills as well as the skills of my opponents have improved. Hence our matches are more entertaining than the early years, when matches were won mostly by luck of a player stumbling onto on aspect of the game that had yet to be discovered.