This is a followup on my footers thread, I have succeeded in getting back the original colors instead of the washed out/dark/mute colors every GBA VC has.

It's actually quite simple; every string of numbers that go like this: 00 00 00 00 00 00 in blocks of six are now changed to blocks of three until you reach FF FF FF.

I have already gone through the trouble of writing all the values out in a separate file ORIGINAL.bin
Simply go through the process of making a footer, open it in a hex editor and open original.bin as well, select everything in it and copy it to the footer starting at offset 0x24.

Should look like this:

Spoiler

Ideally the GBA footer generator should get updated with this option to avoid hex editing and name the other settings something more accurate than "Memory Config".

Comparison shots

Spoiler

Bonus: Remove or add more ghosting/blur
Edit byte at offset 0x20

0xFF/255 = No blurring/ghosting
0xF0/240 = Very little ghosting
0xC0/192 = Official value, standard ghosting
0x80/128 = Official value, more ghosting, highly noticeable
0x20/32 = Insane ghosting
0x01 = MAX

 

[Sizednochi]

Nevermind!

 

[herolarcio]

Ah. Very helpful! Now I can play Sonic Advance 1-3 without the damn blurriness.

BTW, I have a CIA of the official Ambassador Yoshi's Island sitting on my SD, and the code.bin won't extract from the exefs. How do I go about fixing the ghosting on it...?

 

[piratesephiroth]

Ah. Very helpful! Now I can play Sonic Advance 1-3 without the damn blurriness.

BTW, I have a CIA of the official Ambassador Yoshi's Island sitting on my SD, and the code.bin won't extract from the exefs. How do I go about fixing the ghosting on it...?

check my previous post (I'm supposing the CIA's contents are already decrypted)

 

[herolarcio]

check my previous post (I'm supposing the CIA's contents are already decrypted)

Ohhh I missed that. I read the thread earlier than you posted but then decided to ask that after patching a few CIAs.

 

[Robin64]

A few of us over on GAF has been tinkering with this, because it's awesome, but I wanted a share a post from another member there as a little thing to keep an eye out for.

"WARNING

BE VERY CAREFUL ON WHAT GBA GAMES YOU DISABLE BLUR FOR.

Some games, such as F Zero utilise a pseudo transparency mode, obtained by rapidly switching a layer on and off every other frame. Guess what happens if you turn the motion blur off? It fucks up your screen, and the 3DS lcd retains it.

See that map screen burn in? That's on my New XL. The same also happened on my sister's standard N3DS with a different GBA title that I installed earlier when I was round their place. I've just told her to uninstall it.

I've left a demo mode on a game running for a bit and now the burn in has faded on my console, but its made me wary of playing any other gba titles on it. Maybe the motion blur was there for an actual reason rather than Nintendo just being fucking stupid as usual.

I'm sure 99% of the library will be fine, but it looks like any title that uses the same effect F Zero does for its map screen will fuck your lcd up."​

Might be worth just keeping an eye out.

 

[piratesephiroth]

A few of us over on GAF has been tinkering with this, because it's awesome, but I wanted a share a post from another member there as a little thing to keep an eye out for.

"WARNING

BE VERY CAREFUL ON WHAT GBA GAMES YOU DISABLE BLUR FOR.

Some games, such as F Zero utilise a pseudo transparency mode, obtained by rapidly switching a layer on and off every other frame. Guess what happens if you turn the motion blur off? It fucks up your screen, and the 3DS lcd retains it.

See that map screen burn in? That's on my New XL. The same also happened on my sister's standard N3DS with a different GBA title that I installed earlier when I was round their place. I've just told her to uninstall it.

I've left a demo mode on a game running for a bit and now the burn in has faded on my console, but its made me wary of playing any other gba titles on it. Maybe the motion blur was there for an actual reason rather than Nintendo just being fucking stupid as usual.

I'm sure 99% of the library will be fine, but it looks like any title that uses the same effect F Zero does for its map screen will fuck your lcd up."​

Might be worth just keeping an eye out.

Are those IPS screens? Maybe that's the reason Nintendo stopped using them?
Plus I don't think it's a burn in (I'm pretty sure that's impossible on LCDs). Must be some image retention thing.

Also spoiler that image, it's huge...

 

[Robin64]

Are those IPS screens? Maybe that's the reason Nintendo stopped using them?
Plus I don't think it's a burn in (I'm pretty sure that's impossible on LCDs). Must be some image retention thing.

Yeah, it's not really burn in or it wouldn't eventually fade, would it? I always thought real burn in was permanent. Apparently one race was enough to get it to "burn" there, but it slowly faded over 20 minute of playing something else.

 

[piratesephiroth]

Well this is not a new thing for IPS displays.

You could probaly fix it by filling the screen with a white image and leaving it on for a while.

 

[SuperrSonic]

piratesephiroth on gbatemp, who discovered all this, says it's normal with IPS displays. That's a shame.

I discovered all of this, the colors and the ghosting. I hate neogaf.

 

[piratesephiroth]

I discovered all of this, the colors and the ghosting. I hate neogaf.

That's a shame indeed.
mfw:

Spoiler

 

[Fgamer]

Alright, I made a quick solution to fix your old GBA Virtual Console CIAs.
Just extract DRAG_AGB_CIA.bat and the "progfiles" subfolder then drag and drop you CIAs onto the bat file.
You can drag and drop multiple CIA files (just don 't abuse it, I'm pretty sure there's a limit for command line length)

The new ones will be placed inside the FIXED_CIA folder.

https://files.catbox.moe/01md6z.zip

It's outputting an empty FIXED_CIA folder for me, any ideas?

Also is it possible to edit the settings using the batch file, e.g. colour adjusment but keep ghosting settings? I'm slightly concerned about the screen 'burn in' or whatever it is!
Great work by the way, thanks.

 

[piratesephiroth]

It's outputting an empty FIXED_CIA folder for me, any ideas?

Also is it possible to edit the settings using the batch file, e.g. colour adjusment but keep ghosting settings? I'm slightly concerned about the screen 'burn in' or whatever it is!
Great work by the way, thanks.

Are the bat file and the "progfiles" folder together?
Is the CIA decrypted?

Also I don't think there's much reason for concern about this screen burn problem.
It is temporary, probably only caused by very few games and might only affect IPS screens, which only some old N3DS units have.

I tried F-Zero Maximum Velocity on my O3DS (TN screen) with the brightness set to maximum. No image retention at all.

 

[piratesephiroth]

It's outputting an empty FIXED_CIA folder for me, any ideas?

Also is it possible to edit the settings using the batch file, e.g. colour adjusment but keep ghosting settings? I'm slightly concerned about the screen 'burn in' or whatever it is!
Great work by the way, thanks.

I tweaked the batch file a bit. Try it again now.

 

[fitz420]

Are the bat file and the "progfiles" folder together?
Is the CIA decrypted?

Also I don't think there's much reason for concern about this screen burn problem.
It is temporary, probably only caused by very few games and might only affect IPS screens, which only some old N3DS units have.

I tried F-Zero Maximum Velocity on my O3DS (TN screen) with the brightness set to maximum. No image retention at all.

Wait.....I thought most or all N3DS XL's ship with IPS screens. What are they currently shipping with?

 

[herolarcio]

The image retension issue with F-Zero MV reminds me of when you try to play Sonic 2 multiplayer on Picodrive. The numbers stay in the corner because the HUD constantly flickers to account for the half resolution.
...and I have an o3DS from 2011 with a TN display, so I don't think that IPS is the issue. (5 years old and I just recently installed a PowerPak+ to keep it alive after its charger port died).

 

[piratesephiroth]

The image retension issue with F-Zero MV reminds me of when you try to play Sonic 2 multiplayer on Picodrive. The numbers stay in the corner because the HUD constantly flickers to account for the half resolution.
...and I have an o3DS from 2011 with a TN display, so I don't think that IPS is the issue. (5 years old and I just recently installed a PowerPak+ to keep it alive after its charger port died).

What?? You mean the image gets "burned" to the screen even on the O3DS? I never saw that happening.

 

[herolarcio]

What?? You mean the image gets "burned" to the screen even on the O3DS? I never saw that happening.

Yeah. It happened a long time ago, but it faded away after a while like the N3DSXL in the picture did.

 

[Sizednochi]

Just tried a good chunk of F-Zero (Maximum Velocity) and nothing happened to my screen. Using a 2DS.

 

[Sizednochi]

-snip- Double post.

 

[LittleXiao]

So, does the batch file change the ghosting to 0xFF? Sorry for the stupid question, I just want to be sure.
At any rate, the GBA VC is a lot more playable now. Thanks a ton.

 

[piratesephiroth]

So, does the batch file change the ghosting to 0xFF? Sorry for the stupid question, I just want to be sure.
At any rate, the GBA VC is a lot more playable now. Thanks a ton.

yep, disables ghosting and makes it use the original colors