# Gameboy Player vs Super Gameboy?



## suppow (Oct 29, 2012)

i've been curious about the GameCube GameBoy Player ever since i knew it existed,
but i'm wondering if it has any of the Super Gameboy enhancements for GB mono games,
or if it just ignores that and plays them like a GBC (?)


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## Hadrian (Oct 29, 2012)

Nope, just plays them like a regular GBA would.


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## Sora de Eclaune (Oct 30, 2012)

Hadrian said:


> Nope, just plays them like a regular GBA would.


Adding on to this...

A GBA plays them like a Super Game Boy without a border, if I remember correctly. It gives the color, just not the border.


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## Hadrian (Oct 30, 2012)

Sora de Eclaune said:


> Adding on to this...
> 
> A GBA plays them like a Super Game Boy without a border, if I remember correctly. It gives the color, just not the border.


Super Gameboy had more options.

For example it allows SGB enhanced games like Kirby Dreamland 2 & Donkey Kong, some titles had "full colour" for some parts of the games (mostly maps & menus). This full colour won't show on GBP/GBA.  I believe that Super Gameboy used the Super Nintendo as well as actual GB hardware to do this. GBP however only uses the hardware inside it and only uses the GC for playing with a GC pad and of course displaying games via a TV. You could use a GBA as a controller too.

SGB also allowed you to change the colours around with mono GB games (GBP/GBA only allowed you to change the palette) , choose your background, create your own background and I think you could change the control scheme to suit your own liking. You could also use the GB camera...though it was pretty useless. 

For playing GB titles, Super Gameboy is far superior plus the SNES controller was so much better for the games than the GC controller. Outside of emulation and Pokemon Stadium, SGB enhancements could only be accessed on a Super Gameboy.  Of course the downside is that you cannot play GBC or GBA titles.


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## suppow (Oct 30, 2012)

(well, i havent figured out how to quote on the new layout yet, so i'll just reply)

that really seems like a cheap move from nintendo no including the SBG capabilites into the GBP which they obviously could have, just like leaving GB/GBC compatibility out of the GBM and the DSi.

i was thinking that the GBP would just play GB mono games just like a GBC,
i know that some games like Zelda, Donkey Kong, Pokemon are supposed to have more stuff on the SGB than just on the GBC,
now i'm confused as to whether the GBP plays them with the enhancements but no border, or just no enhancemens more like the GBC,
for example does Metroid II have the special palette?

idk, i think i got confused again at the last post, maybe i misread it


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## DanTheManMS (Oct 30, 2012)

There were so few games that actually used the Super Game Boy features that it wouldn't make economical sense to include the full SNES guts on the GBP, which is itself basically the GBA guts minus a screen and buttons. Same thing with the Micro - removing the GB/GBC guts allowed them to make the machine as small as it is, which is of course the entire point of the Micro in the first place.

I'd also like to point out that playing a GB game on the GBC/GBA/GBP is usually much more enjoyable than on the Super Game Boy.  The GBC's BIOS contains a database of color combinations for most GB games, while the Super Game Boy only has its own built-in set of palettes, plus one more if the game was designed with the SGB in mind and included its own SGB-specific palette.  It gets even more confusing when you're thinking of a dual-mode game (black cartridge) since it will function differently in a Game Boy, the Super Game Boy, and a GBC/GBA.


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## suppow (Oct 30, 2012)

actually, i'm pretty sure the "gameboy" parts of the GBA would have to be in the GB Micro, since the GBA itself runs on a ARM7 (or 8 i think it is) as main processor, and a Z80 as a secondary co-processors mostly used for sound, and as a main processor for GB/GBC games, which is the same processor that the GBC had, sooooo i doubt that the GB Micro wouldnt have that since the GBA uses it for sound and etc. 
i think that the Micro even has the GBC bios and boot in it, just not enabled, 
the only difference i'd see is that GBA runs on 3volt and GBC on 5volt, so it would need a power regulator/converter, which is the only thing i think they would have removed =/

as for the GBC palettes, i think it only has like 10 specific palettes (where it checks the game's header) and then 12 basic all purpose palettes (the ones you set with D-PAD + A/B combiations) which i thought the SGB would also have.

it also disappointed me when i found out the SBG2 didnt support GBC games -_________-

so yeah, idk


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## DanTheManMS (Oct 30, 2012)

You're close.  You can in fact crash the GB Micro into GBC mode to get the BIOS logo, but that's it.  All the other parts of the GBC, other than the BIOS and sound hardware, were removed entirely. 

There are far more than 10 specific palettes stored in the GBC BIOS, but yes it also has the 12 all-purpose palettes that you can manipulate with the D-pad and A/B buttons.  The SGB operates in a similar way -- if the game doesn't have an SGB-specific palette, it reverts to one of its own ~10 premade palettes.  But again, the two are entirely separate, and the SGB generic palettes are not the same as the GBC generic palettes.


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## suppow (Oct 30, 2012)

DanTheManMS said:


> You're close. You can in fact crash the GB Micro into GBC mode to get the BIOS logo, but that's it. All the other parts of the GBC, other than the BIOS and sound hardware, were removed entirely.


like i said, i'm pretty sure the GBC use the same processor (Z80) for main purposes AND sound, like the NES did (with the 6502)
and since the GBA uses the GBC CPU as sound hardware, i doubt they'd remove that.

specially if the BIOS is still there, and since you can still crash to the BIOS, i guess the only reason it wouldnt boot games is lack of 5volts, so again i'm *guessing* what they did remove is a power regulator and it's connections. since i doubt nintendo would go thru all the trouble of redisigning all custom hardware just for the micro, specially that late a date. so my guess is that only the power regulator mostly might be missing.

i havent compared a GBA and a GB Micro board, so this is just all i'm speculating. 



DanTheManMS said:


> There are far more than 10 specific palettes stored in the GBC BIOS, but yes it also has the 12 all-purpose palettes that you can manipulate with the D-pad and A/B buttons. The SGB operates in a similar way -- if the game doesn't have an SGB-specific palette, it reverts to one of its own ~10 premade palettes. But again, the two are entirely separate, and the SGB generic palettes are not the same as the GBC generic palettes.



so then, aside from the SGB specific enhancements it would have all the same game-specific  palettes as the GBC?


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## DanTheManMS (Oct 30, 2012)

As far as I know, it will have the same game-specific palettes that the GBC did, yes.

http://www.pocketheaven.com/ph/boards/viewtopic.php?t=6189 might be an interesting read for you.


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## suppow (Oct 30, 2012)

DanTheManMS said:


> As far as I know, it will have the same game-specific palettes that the GBC did, yes.
> 
> http://www.pocketheaven.com/ph/boards/viewtopic.php?t=6189 might be an interesting read for you.


 
i'm very tempted by thread necromancy. specially since it ended in a "*to be continued*" status.

i'm guessing that pins 1 and 32 are 5/3volt and GND,
so if those arent closed then no power's going from the GBM to the cart, except from the 5volt directly on the cart.
maybe it wouldnt boot couse pins 1 & 32 werent closing the circuit?
perhaps if they were bypassed (idk), or if the cart was given only 2 volts instead of 5, and (maybe all that could fry the GBM lol)

very interesting anyways.


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## futaris (Dec 29, 2012)

Would the Gameboy Bridge with a Flash2Advance work on the Gameboy Micro?


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## Arm73 (Dec 29, 2012)

futaris said:


> Would the Gameboy Bridge with a Flash2Advance work on the Gameboy Micro?


I have the bridge and when I try to play GB games on my GBA SP2 I get screwed up colors because putting several games on the card messes up with the game headers on startup and the wrong palette gets loaded....that's because of the per-memorized palette in the GBC bios perhaps ?
Anyway, I gave up long ago and if I must I just use a GB emulators that allows me to use custom made palettes or even customize it myself.

Sure, it's nice to have the real hardware, but I just couldn't get around the issue of the weird palette being loaded.....


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