Emulation Best device to play GBA games currently?

kuwanger

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Maybe yes, maybe not. With bluetooth gamepad. Can play everything. Any kind of gba games

Yes, I guess if you can tolerate the lag of your phone along with the lag of your bluetooth gamepad. Really, it's quite terrible on games that require any sort of real precision. There's plenty of videos on youtube that shows that lag can be ridiculous--one video showing Sonic for the Genesis on a phone with 9 frames of lag vs 5 on an LCD monitor on a PC. Real hardware tends to have between 1 to 3 frames of input lag--whatever the underlying game engine has. There's been some recent efforts to combat this--Retroarch incorporate some runahead emulation--and if you have a really low latency LCD monitor it can be as good as a CRT (or in the case of the GBA its LCD)--or maybe even better with Retroarch? On the other hand, you have to have a system basically capable of running the game at 200% (or more).

Put simply, good emulation should only introduce at most an additional frame of input delay, and that's definitely acceptable for the vast majority of people (including me in almost all cases). But there's a lot of emulation solutions like Android+Bluetooth that are just terrible for anything interactive. I guess you could through a lot of practice compensate for this with memorization, in most games, but it's really incomparable to real hardware or decent hardware with a decent screen and a decent input device. IMHO, anyways.
 
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blaisedinsd

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Wii U

I find I am preferring that over my DS lite EZ Flash IV combo for my current playthrough of minish cap.

The ability to play on TV or Off is nice and the pixel smoothing is kind of nice. Save states and configurable controllers are pretty good.

I found Wii U to be the best way to play Metroid Fusion and Zero Mission as well. I completed playthroughs of those on other systems but Minish Cap I never got very far on other systems till I started playing on Wii U, now I am unstuck and been playing the same sections on DS portable from the section I got stuck on years ago so I have been directly comparing the two methods recently. I have noticed emulation issues on PSP and Supercard DS TWO. I guess I should try on 3DS or N3DS but I don't think the screens would look as good as DS lite because I know they don't for DS games
 

hippy dave

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I've been happy playing GBA games native-ish via injection on my n3ds, but now I've got a Switch, I'm wondering whether to start Metroid Fusion on that with retroarch or one of the other emulators, or stick with the n3ds. Subjective opinions please!
 

_Xero_

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Well, currently web browser is the most comfortable device for me and you can find any game these days. Games works well, I can save/load anytime, no need to download any files. I can recommend especially if you like to play at work :)
 

SonicMC

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Depends on what other features I want. If any of the link cable features. Then gba sp bright one. If not 3ds xl injects. If game doesn't work as inject; then emulate on phone/Vita.
 

shadefoundry

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Personally I like my AGS-101 with an Everdrive in it, but if you're looking for a bigger screen I find that the PSP does GBA emulation pretty decently, and have heard good things about GBA emulation on the 3ds. I will say however that I haven't tested GBA emulation on the 3ds since I tend to use mine to emulate systems that aren't portable to begin with.
 
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hippy dave

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I've been happy playing GBA games native-ish via injection on my n3ds, but now I've got a Switch, I'm wondering whether to start Metroid Fusion on that with retroarch or one of the other emulators, or stick with the n3ds. Subjective opinions please!
Well I still didn't start Metroid Fusion yet but the GBA game I have played a bit on Retroarch Switch (Polarium Advance) has been playing great and looking nice and crispy with integer scaling turned on.
 

Hentaispyder

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I have been using the GBA on my SupercardDSTwo on my N3DS. But that's mostly because I'm a nostaglia wh***. It runs what I want well enough, and the only real downside is you can't activate cheats or at least I can't.
 

Ganglebot

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GBA4IOS for on the go gaming. The touch controls don't lend well to a lot of games, but pokemon/tactical/RPGs work great.

Visual Boy Advance on my PC plus a retro controller for everything else.

My o3DS runs them like an asthmatic kid in a 10k, so I don't even try anymore.
 

Alexander1970

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ez4-new-1-740x492.jpg

EZ Flash IV,still.:)

@Gericom´s GBARunner is becoming more and more a serious competition to it.:yay::yaysp:
 
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NachoBlzzy

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ldk game is really great for emulating gba games. It is an open source Linux machine that I have been using lately
 
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Deleted-236924

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I like front-lit SP better, it's a bit nicer on the eyes when playing in the dark since the light shines upwards at the screen, rather than shining from the screen into my eyes. Looks pretty nice under sun light too, where I can also turn off the light entirely. With backlit screens you'd have to crank up the brightness to see properly under sunlight, which only eats through battery quicker.

For sure, backlit screens have generally nicer image and color quality, but frontlit/unlit have enough advantages to be worth it, imo. There's also somewhat of a nostalgia factor, as these are the kinds of screens that we had to play these games on back in the days, unless you got into this stuff much later and had a backlit SP or even a DS already. Either way though, this is the type of LCDs these games were designed to be played on ;) remember the old LCD vs. CRT, and 4:3 vs. 8:7 debates?

Use what feels right for you, and in my case the original SP is the perfect balance between retro correct-ness and convenience. Clamshell design is awesome for portability, plus it protects the screen from external damage when closed; works with a rechargeable battery by default, don't need to mod it or mess with rechargeable AAs; uses the exact same charger as the og DS, so you only need one charger for both; clicky buttons are +++ (although rubber domes are more easily serviceable which is a plus, I suppose.)

The only problem is that it doesn't have a headphone jack, and you need to use an charger port adapter. Luckily I have one, a 3rd party one that lets you have both charger and headphones plugged in at the same time, but it's very silly nonetheless.
 

zxr750j

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I've got a 8bitdo Zero, it's a tiny controller that fits in every pocket, and is surprisingly comfortable (I've got "normal" hands, don't buy it when your hands are lager..). You can use it with android, pc etc. Due to it's size you also feels more like playing on a handheld!
 

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