Do you have experience with 3rd-party IPS displays from eBay? Either on regular-GBA or SP. Would you prefer one over AGS-101? There seems to be "V2" models which should fix some issues older models have had. How easy or hard was it to install one?
I can only talk about the funnyplaying IPS screens. They are pretty good and much brighter than the AGS 101. And theyre sharper because the resolution is higher and they show 1 pixel on 4 pixels. I think theyre better than AGS 101 because the AGS 101 suffers from sleight motion blur. There is some motion artifacts on the IPS but its not as significant. For example, when you play Mario, on the AGS 101 the black border around Mario becomes much thicker and harder to see, that does not happen with IPS.
The IPS screen draws more battery however, I dont know how much exactly.
If youre interested to see some IPS screens, check the gameboy reddit
The IPS screen draws more battery however, I dont know how much exactly.
If youre interested to see some IPS screens, check the gameboy reddit
Last edited by twicefalles,
I hope you ordered from funnyplaying site because there are other manufacturer which copy and they might have slight problems
https://funnyplaying.com/blogs/gameboy-advance-news/copycat-gba-gbasp-lcd-announcement
Of course they might be biased but some youtube videos confirmed frame skip
Yea, in normal circumstances I would have ordered from FP. But since the Corona has messed up post services from mainland China to where I live, I tried to be clever and ordered from seller in Hong Kong with good rep and same PCB design in listing images. To be seen if it arrives any faster but at least they claimed that it was shipped.
Some sellers have that clearly copy design in their images. If the PCB differs from the listing there is a chance that refund/dispute works. In worst case I take my bet as a loss and just order other one from FP.
I'll post my findings whether or not the seller is worth the trust.
Yea, in normal circumstances I would have ordered from FP. But since the Corona has messed up post services from mainland China to where I live, I tried to be clever and ordered from seller in Hong Kong with good rep and same PCB design in listing images. To be seen if it arrives any faster but at least they claimed that it was shipped.
Some sellers have that clearly copy design in their images. If the PCB differs from the listing there is a chance that refund/dispute works. In worst case I take my bet as a loss and just order other one from FP.
I'll post my findings whether or not the seller is worth the trust.
I ordered from ebay too with original fp images but copycat arrived.
Honestly, I just built it and I dont see a difference. There is no issue in F-Zero and I can't see frame drops. I even captured slow-motion in Pokemon Emerald and everything is smooth. Now possibly, yes it might be 59.7 hz instead of something like 60 hz, but my eye can't really tell it apart. And the copycats even store the brightness level, which is really nice.
Someone on reddit even measured the power draw of original and copycat, and they were similar because its the same screen but on different brightness levels. One difference is the levels of brightness and their luminosity on the highest/lowest level.
Cool, thanks for the info. I actually wrote a test ROM for checking the frame drop. It can be verified with slow-mo video with modern phone. I'll release it as open source once I have been able to put bit of time to it for cleanup. Hopefully this weekend.
I released a frame drop test ROM which could be used to check if there are any dropped frames.
Here is an example how it looks like on original GBA SP AGS-001 on 480 FPS slow motion
It would be awesome if you could record your display and post it for others to see as well. You can find the ROM, source code and information from https://github.com/veikkos/gba-frame-test.
Last edited by veikkos,
Neat, I'm using your omega custom kernel btw.
Here are some videos, I don't know why my phone rotated them:
I recorded better ones
FIPS
Chinese
Chinese
I don't see a problem with the chinese one
Last edited by twicefalles,
Thank you very much!
Looks awesome! Old original displays just cannot technically compete with current technology. Lightyears of difference and no visible issues at all. Very nice.
Well, the motion blur could be better. AGS 001 only shows 1 perfect line in your test.
Fun fact: the AGS 101 has nearly 3 lines in your test
Video AGS 101
Fun fact: the AGS 101 has nearly 3 lines in your test
Video AGS 101
Last edited by twicefalles,
Hmm, yes, true. I guess only real gaming tells the full story.
Lets hope someone with AGS-101 and Funnyplaying displays could post theirs for comparison. I've been having the impression that good aftermarket display could have better motion handling than 101, but I wonder if that is true. It seems that 001 did well in that regard. Unfortunately every other aspect of it sucks pretty bad.
I edited my post with AGS 101 video, my Funnyplaying videos are called FIPS
Very nice comparison, thank you again!
So indeed modern displays clearly beats 101 in motion as you noticed. Based on these I have no doubt this particular Chinese display would do very well in gaming use.
If someone happens to have badly performing Chinese model it would be also interesting to see how they perform.
So indeed modern displays clearly beats 101 in motion as you noticed. Based on these I have no doubt this particular Chinese display would do very well in gaming use.
If someone happens to have badly performing Chinese model it would be also interesting to see how they perform.
I think I managed to record one frame skip in Ruby. They occur so rarely that 0,4s of slow motion would be lucky to hit it.
Its around the 10 second mark.
Its around the 10 second mark.
Yea, hard to say for sure. Ruby does have similar stutter when roaming from area to another at least when the town/route label pop-up shows. I tried to look the video frame-by-frame and I might be wrong but for me it almost looked liked it doubled a single frame instead of dropping one. Could be the game, could be the display. Would be bit tricky to experiment with a reference device.
Edit: Maybe try with frame test ROM but using like 120 Hz or so that you could record for longer? I would assume that if there are any desync causing frame-drop/doubling it would be visible in 10 seconds or so. Hard to see why it would be sporadic.
Last edited by veikkos,
I think youre right that its the game. I ran the same test on Funnyplaying IPS and I can see the stutter when it loads. It also is really random and not not in a specific interval.
My old videos have a longer test of chinese and funnyplaying included (1 minute 24 seconds, probably 240 Hz) and there was no stutter there.
My old videos have a longer test of chinese and funnyplaying included (1 minute 24 seconds, probably 240 Hz) and there was no stutter there.
Alright, so I got my eBay gamble from seller called xinyanwei151982. It was sent from Hong Kong as was my requirement as mainland China's postal services are not in a good shape right now due to the virus. Display arrived quickly in just two weeks.
The listing advertises same looking model (many small chips) than Funnyplaying with 5 brightness levels. In reality they ship the copy model with one big chip and 10 brightness levels... Not a huge surprise that the listing is not accurate but unfortunately this seems to be expected with many Chinese sellers.
Above is the installed display compared to AGS-001
I'll have to say that the installation wasn't the easiest one but manageable if you have basic electronics fixing skills. I mainly used these instructions but it's worth checking YouTube as well. One of the most stressful parts was removing the rubber caps from above display screws as it's hard to avoid any damage to the frame. I used very small screwdriver with fairly good results. Dremeling the case took bit of time but wasn't that difficult. Soldering the brightness selection wire was suprisingly tricky because of short flex and tight spot.
So does it frame drop? It does...
480 FPS slow motion recorded quickly in the dark but shows the point
The frame dropping is surprisingly sporadic. As you can see in the video that there was many drops in just a short period of time. My first recording was longer and I didn't see any drops in that one. So far in my gaming use I haven't noticed the frame drop, so in real-world it ain't huge issue, but ofc it's not good.
The more annoying issue is that sometimes there is some kind of scanline/color glitch on top side of the display for a second or so. It doesn't make the display unusable but is clearly a bummer.
Pros
The listing advertises same looking model (many small chips) than Funnyplaying with 5 brightness levels. In reality they ship the copy model with one big chip and 10 brightness levels... Not a huge surprise that the listing is not accurate but unfortunately this seems to be expected with many Chinese sellers.
Above is the installed display compared to AGS-001
I'll have to say that the installation wasn't the easiest one but manageable if you have basic electronics fixing skills. I mainly used these instructions but it's worth checking YouTube as well. One of the most stressful parts was removing the rubber caps from above display screws as it's hard to avoid any damage to the frame. I used very small screwdriver with fairly good results. Dremeling the case took bit of time but wasn't that difficult. Soldering the brightness selection wire was suprisingly tricky because of short flex and tight spot.
So does it frame drop? It does...
480 FPS slow motion recorded quickly in the dark but shows the point
The frame dropping is surprisingly sporadic. As you can see in the video that there was many drops in just a short period of time. My first recording was longer and I didn't see any drops in that one. So far in my gaming use I haven't noticed the frame drop, so in real-world it ain't huge issue, but ofc it's not good.
The more annoying issue is that sometimes there is some kind of scanline/color glitch on top side of the display for a second or so. It doesn't make the display unusable but is clearly a bummer.
Pros
- Image quality is outstanding, completely uncomparable to AGS-001
- Lens quality is good, though the font in the text isn't super accurate
- Available brightness range is good. Dark enough for evenings but also bright enough for daytime use
- Brightness level selection is persistent over reboots
- Display arrived with screwdrivers (one was bent from the factory but works ok). Normally I'd use my own tools but SP needs special tri-wing
- Occasional scanline/color glitching
- Random frame drop
- Display doesn't quite fit to the front display housing but slightly bends it from the sides (see image)
- 10 brightness levels are bit too much to scroll through, 5 or so would be better
- Left side of the display has slightly uneven backlight. Could be pressure related from factory or from installation. Within tolerance I would say, not a biggy
Last edited by veikkos,
That's a bummer. My GBA has the same 10 levels, 1 chip version but its not a SP. I could not notice/record any drops with my GBA version. Makes me wonder if the SP version is flawed or maybe different boards handle screen timing differently.
My GBA had a 40 pin board iirc. I think I would have noticed such obvious skips that your video shows. Can you check the fzero map flimmering on your SP?
I ordered another chinese GBA IPS from seller speedtechido, since there was no stock on funnyplaying.
Now the screens are back in stock on funnyplaying (no drops, 5 levels, does not store previous brightness)
Last edited by twicefalles,
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