ROM Hack Interested In GBA Development!

[JakePsycho]

See, I want to create some homebrew for my GBA to play, but i dont know how. Any advice. Please help cause I'm getting bored with commercial nintendo games that are boring. I have some awesome ideas for gba but cant develop. PLEASE HELP!!!

 

[Psyfira]

You need to learn C first, you'll find books on that in your local library or sticking it into google should pull up a tutorial. It'll take a while, but after that you can then take a look at http://www.coranac.com/tonc/text/ .

 

[JakePsycho]

You need to learn C first, you'll find books on that in your local library or sticking it into google should pull up a tutorial. It'll take a while, but after that you can then take a look at http://www.coranac.com/tonc/text/ .

Thanks, This should help. Although it will be hard to learn C, but hey, who said it was easy.

 

[Overlord Nadrian]

For more help, you can always ask FAST. He's a really helpful guy.

 

[Hitsuagaya]

gl but keep in mind ur doing illegal thing by HB

 

[Overlord Nadrian]

gl but keep in mind ur doing illegal thing by HB

Wrong. Homebrew isn't illegal.

 

[santorix10]

You need to learn C first, you'll find books on that in your local library or sticking it into google should pull up a tutorial. It'll take a while, but after that you can then take a look at http://www.coranac.com/tonc/text/ .

Also, Java is easy to learn, and is similar to C++...

 

[mrgone]

You need to learn C first, you'll find books on that in your local library or sticking it into google should pull up a tutorial. It'll take a while, but after that you can then take a look at http://www.coranac.com/tonc/text/ .

Also, Java is easy to learn, and is similar to C++...

oh, you have a java virtual machine for gba ?

 

[DanTheManMS]

oh, you have a java virtual machine for gba ?

http://blog.davr.org/2007/08/08/java-for-nds/ >_>

Not the most fully-featured, but still...

 

[ArugulaZ]

Come now, you don't HAVE to learn C++ to program on the GameBoy Advance. Dragon BASIC is an excellent starter tool that supports much of the GBA functionality. Do a Wiki search and you'll find it. Sniff around a little more and you'll find the registration file creator Jeff Massung released that lets you make games over 128K.

If you really want to blow the doors off the GameBoy Advance, you probably WILL have to program in a lower level language, but if you're a first-timer or just intimidated by C++, there's nothing wrong with starting out on Dragon BASIC.

 

[JakePsycho]

Ok, these all seem like wonderful applications, but were do I download Dragon Basic. Also, how do I make games in C and C++? How do I patch it with supercard sd patcher?

 

[how_do_i_do_that]

This seems long in the tooth for a real answer to the basic question.

What you will need:

The compiler: devkitpro ARM compiler
http://www.devkitpro.org/

example code sites:
http://forum.gbadev.org/
http://www.dev-scene.com/Main_Page


With the compiler you can compile code for any ARM based platform which includes GBA, NDS, PSP, etc.

Your code is going to be a mix of ASM and C in any real world app.

Dragon basic:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DragonBASIC

 

[zuron7]

You can try the palib forums too.
www.palib.info
most of it is NDS though.

 

[how_do_i_do_that]

palib is already integrated into the devkit. you would already know that if you actually used it.

 

[DanTheManMS]

palib is already integrated into the devkit. you would already know that if you actually used it.

Wait what? Wintermute (the maintainer of DevKitPro) has been against PAlib since the beginning, and has actively recommended people not to use it. My own installation of DevKitARM has nothing related to PAlib in it. Perhaps you're thinking of the reverse situation by mistake. PAlib contains (some revision of) DevKitARM, but not the other way around.

 

[how_do_i_do_that]

hmmm...must be. got everything installed can't tell

 

[FAST6191]

Just to save it being relegated to the bit rot that is my inbox:
Creating homebrew on the GBA.

There are not many (any?) worthwhile interpreted languages on the GBA (the DS has a handful) so it is coding "proper" or nothing.
C and ASM are the main two as C++ can get a bit bulky for the limited resources of the GBA (it can still be done just do not expect a high performance piece of code).

Devkitpro ( http://www.devkitpro.org/ )does have libraries which abstract most of the hardware but I still suggest you have a fair familiarity with it:
http://nocash.emubase.de/gbatek.htm and http://www.cs.rit.edu/~tjh8300/CowBite/CowBiteSpec.htm

http://www.coranac.com/tonc/ (covers the basics and more advanced stuff while being somewhat readable unlike the links above which are nearly a pure reference guides). A note, it mentions different libraries and before devkitpro became the de facto standard there were a whole bunch of toolchains which could get a bit interesting if you want to pull things apart.
And as they make for good thinking points:
http://www.pineight.com/gba/managing-sprite-vram.txt
http://members.iinet.net.au/~freeaxs/gbacomp/
http://ekid.nintendev.com/mod/index.php

http://www.gbadev.org/index.php is a good source of other tools, games and source code (pull anything and everything apart).

Also ironically the DS might be worth a look in (for years we told hopeful DS coders to look at the GBA) as much is the same there.
http://forum.gbadev.org/viewtopic.php?t=8353
http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=164...p;#entry2085550

 

[mrgone]

i once used the HAM devkit for programming the GBA

 

[ChrisMims]

gl but keep in mind ur doing illegal thing by HB

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! ILLEGAL? That's only for downloading ROMs.

 

[elyk1212]

Ok, these all seem like wonderful applications, but were do I download Dragon Basic. Also, how do I make games in C and C++? How do I patch it with supercard sd patcher?

I use SuperCard CF and when I develop a game, I don't even need to run through the patcher. Your millage may vary I guess. Keep in mind I am not doing any saves at the moment, etc that would require the patch.

With the compiler you can compile code for any ARM based platform which includes GBA, NDS, PSP, etc.

Actually PSP is a MIPS architecture, so gcc ARM will not produce a usable binary for PSP. But they do have a mips compiler in the devkitpro tools set somewhere. However, I use psptoolchain as my PSP gcc tool set of choice. Many many libraries have been ported and are kept up to date via svn repositories.

If on linux:
CODE

svn co svn://svn.ps2dev.org/psp/trunk/psptoolchain

If on WinBloze, get Cygwin or one of those emulators (been years) and you can use the same toolchain, but IMO it's way easier in Linux.

For GBA, DevkitArm with libgba all the way. Good stuff. Also, check out gbadev.org. Great community.

I have a great deal of formal CS CSE and C/C++ experience, so hit me up if you hit a wall.

I recommend getting a basic C or C++ book from the library and start be doing the tutorials and little projects.

HAVE FUN!