NEED TO KNOW A FEW THINGS ABOUT GBA....

GamerWeeb · Jan 16, 2022

HI,

I WANT TO PLAY GBA AND GB GAMES AT A HIGHER SPEED THAN THEIR USUAL SPEED, HOW SHOULD I DO THAT, SHOULD I GET A FLASHCART OR SHOULD I GET ORIGINAL CARTRIDGES AND THEN MOD THEM BY CONNECTING TO CABLE WITH PC, BASICALLY I WANT TO RUN GAMES AT A HIGHER SPEED ON A GBA HOW SHOULD I DO THAT ...

Nikokaro · Jan 16, 2022

First of all, don't shout (namely write in all caps) since we're not deaf...and many of us are still asleep at this hour.

GamerWeeb said:
SHOULD I GET ORIGINAL CARTRIDGES AND THEN MOD THEM BY CONNECTING TO CABLE WITH PC

This is an absurdity...or better, it can maybe be possible if done by a computer genius (I don't think it's your case) but it requires technical knowledge, resources and available time...all this for a useless thing.

GamerWeeb said:
BASICALLY I WANT TO RUN GAMES AT A HIGHER SPEED ON A GBA

It is not currently possible (to my knowledge). The best gba flashcarts struggle to reach normal game speed, let alone go beyond it....

The most reasonable solution is to play with a GBA emulator on PC that has the feature you want.

Jayro · Jan 16, 2022

Change out the crystal oscillator with a faster one, like 20MHz or so.

assassinz · Jan 16, 2022

Yeah, just use an emulator to speed up the gameplay.

raisinsinspace · Jan 16, 2022

Well, there's this, but they're out of stock. Maybe you can find one elsewhere.

Thing is, it's not a good idea. The GBA is pretty resilient and flexible, but the game cartridges were made as cheap as possible. Running them faster than they're spec'd for, even just a bit, can cause damage from overheating and electrical errors.

As has been said, you're better off emulating. That way, you can turbo up as fast as you want, totally risk-free!

GamerWeeb · Jan 16, 2022

Thanks , but if i wanted to use the emulator , i wouldnt have asked the question in first place , also can u increase the speed in ezflash or everdrive

ZoeLain · Jan 16, 2022

GamerWeeb said:
Thanks , but if i wanted to use the emulator , i wouldnt have asked the question in first place , also can u increase the speed in ezflash or everdrive

ezflash has no speed controls as far as i'm aware (I own an EZFlash ODE)

raisinsinspace said:
Well, [link snipped due to account restrictions] but they're out of stock. Maybe you can find one elsewhere.

Thing is, it's not a good idea. The GBA is pretty resilient and flexible, but the game cartridges were made as cheap as possible. Running them faster than they're spec'd for, even just a bit, can cause damage from overheating and electrical errors.

As has been said, you're better off emulating. That way, you can turbo up as fast as you want, totally risk-free!

retromodding has them in stock but yeah I wouldn't recommend messing with game speed outside of emulators or spare devices/carts.
EDIT: reading a bit more on the listing on retromodding using this mod to change speed while running flashcarts just freezes the flashcart.

raisinsinspace · Jan 16, 2022

GamerWeeb said:
can u increase the speed in ezflash or everdrive

Not without overclocking the GBA, and it will still lag a lot, definitely cause glitches, frequently corrupt the SD card, and possibly damage the flashcart, sooo... Not worth it.

There are "retro gaming handhelds" from companies like Anbernic and Powkiddy that would accomplish what you're asking for without all the fuss. It's technically still emulation, but you're not gonna get turbo on original hardware. You need more modern hardware for that, and you can get that in a GBA-esque form factor. There are literally thousands of review/comparison videos on YT to help you choose one.

FAST6191 · Jan 16, 2022

Short version. Not going to happen.

The GBA is way too slow to take video in from the PC and use the controls as controls (what I presume you were heading for with the wire thing). If you are big enough and ugly enough to mod a GBA to do this (you would be doing it mostly from scratch) then you don't need my help, though frankly I would probably replace the screen with my own custom one (sure to be some easy HDMI screen in the right size) and tap off the buttons a la a turbo hack or conventional my first usb controller adapter via teensy/arduino where you tap off debug points and feed that to a USB virtual controller). Though with prices of GBAs these days that is an expensive hobby (not like you can buy a broken one for nothing or get them for £5 any more). To that end those emulator based devices seem pretty compelling,
If you saw something like the GBA multiboot hacks or looked at a GBA-GC link cable with something like Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles then no -- both of those are basically link games and thus can get away with slightly delayed packets at a few hundred kilobytes a second, not the far more needed for even a GBA res video stream.

Still methods potentially available to you

Overclocking (and there was even a commercial option linked above) is fraught with difficulties as everything is tied together and most things are not possessing much in the way of extra capacity to be run faster.

There are potentially software approaches.
They come in three main flavours.
1) You mess around with vblanks. Actually dangerous for the hardware, more so than a moderate overclock from where I sit.
2) You mess with the animations. Walk animations might involve restricting timings of things to have them "look" right. Find these timings (more space in same time is easier but risks an accidental walk through walls cheat) and you can make things go faster. Do this for everything in the game, or at least enough to matter.
3) There might be some internals you can mess with, or possibly even break -- if the game offers the classic low med high text speed then find this (you might want to find it for 2 anyway) via a conventional cheat search and see what you can change here as you might be able to input a higher number and make things go faster still. If there are options to disable animations then might want to consider those as well.

WIth the exception of 3), which is far from assured, these are not inconsiderable hacks and would have to be made for each game. Technically they are not turbo mode in the same way emulator turbo or overclocking might get you but would be a faster means of playing a game. I don't think I have ever seen such a hack released either -- there is that pokemon bike speedrunning glitch, various things that make a main character move faster in some games (sometimes hacked internal items or cheats to get it before gameplay would allow, others more conventional hacks) and the odd text tweak (usually operating within parameters) but as a whole "for fans of emulators with turbo buttons" hack set... nothing I am aware of.

Re: the best carts struggle to reach full speed then I would say not so much. supercard, its clones and some of the earliest flash carts (which were slightly tweaked GB/GBC offerings) did but everything else was fine really.

GamerWeeb · Jan 16, 2022

THANKS

NEED TO KNOW A FEW THINGS ABOUT GBA....

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