Homebrew mGBA official standalone Wii port

[niuus]

@niuus I don't know if you refer by "heavy" to games that take a large amount of space or heavy as in technically complex.

I booted up Mother 3, which has a size of 32MB (the biggest size on GBA I think) and it seems to work well, frame rate is stable, I started a new file and played for around 25 minutes, in and outside of battles everything seemed fine.

Ninja Five-O, Donkey Kong: King of Swing, the Castlevania games, Astro Boy: Omega Factor, Konami Krazy Racers (this one had issues in the past, but now seems to work well!), the Mario Advance games (Even Yoshi's Island works full speed, at least what I tried!) and a few others I've tested and worked great. Rayman Advance was another one with issues, but in the quick check I did earlier it seemed to work fine too (although I'd recommend play other version of it, personally).

Now, the video options seem to have changed with the jump to 0.7, and I have to find a setup that I like, but I really have only good things to say about mGBA on Wii. Not everything is perfect, and issues pop up here and there as the github page shows, but not only is an emulator constantly being developed, it's not even a 1.0 release still and it works like a charm.

The GB side works than before too, sound has been improved and it's quite nicer!

Oh, being more specific, i meant heavy as in "cpu intensive" which are those typical games that can not run at full speed without frame drops or frame skips.

Judging by Dodain47 comment and your report, it's pretty much safe to say that this is an almost perfect release, which is great!

GB should work like a charm! I'm eager to play on the CRT again, and test this new version

 

[Maeson]

I'm sure that there will be some games that will drop some frames here and there, but in my experience I really don't have much to complain about. Now that I remember, the Sonic Advance trilogy also worked really well, although I played those back in early 2018.

...Ah, what the heck, I'm going to replay some SA2 levels, I'm in the mood and I miss those aerial tricks.

 

[RunningSnakes]

I'm sure that there will be some games that will drop some frames here and there, but in my experience I really don't have much to complain about. Now that I remember, the Sonic Advance trilogy also worked really well, although I played those back in early 2018.

...Ah, what the heck, I'm going to replay some SA2 levels, I'm in the mood and I miss those aerial tricks.

Yes, a few games i tested that had quick frame drops: Moto Racer = 57 FPS, Payback = 55 FPS. Steel Empire flickers in Start Up, but does this on Genesis/Mega Drive as well. Driv3r, Max Payne, V-Rally 3, Iridion, Moto GP, Mega Man Zero 4, Wings, at least 30 others I tested all run great.

 

[justjack]

I still like Enhanced mGBA better.

 

[Maeson]

Isn't "Enhanced mGBA" last version from 2017?

 

[LumInvader]

I still like Enhanced mGBA better.

Any particular reason(s)?

 

[RunningSnakes]

I still like Enhanced mGBA better.

I used Enhanced mGBA a few years ago also. It was nice for what it was, but isn't being maintained AFAIK.

Isn't "Enhanced mGBA" last version from 2017?

I believe it is a fork of mGBA 0.6.0 or 0.6.1 IIRC.

Any particular reason(s)?

Must be jest preference i would think. It is an outdated fork of the same emulator, that has no benefits over
the original mGBA emulator. It does have a forwarder channel which is moot since there hasn't been a new
version of the emulator since July 2017.

 

[justjack]

Any particular reason(s)?

I prefer its gba color palette, which has softer colors and looks more like an actual gba (you can choose other palettes too). I also like that I can use the Gameboy Player borders. The video stretching option is simpler too.

 

[Deleted User]

I began updating the mGBA Wii compatibility list with the test results from the latest build (0.7.1).

https://wiki.gbatemp.net/wiki/MGBAWii

 

[justjack]

New Enhanced mGBA is out.

https://files.extremscorner.org/gamecube/apps/mgba/latest

 

[the_randomizer]

New Enhanced mGBA is out.

https://files.extremscorner.org/gamecube/apps/mgba/latest

What's the diff between this and the other?

 

[Extrems]

What's the diff between this and the other?

This is the difference, among others: https://www.gc-forever.com/wiki/index.php?title=Game_Boy_Interface/Standard_Edition#Image_doubling

These have no performance impact.

 

[the_randomizer]

This is the difference, among others: https://www.gc-forever.com/wiki/index.php?title=Game_Boy_Interface/Standard_Edition#Image_doubling

These have no performance impact.

Huh, cool cool, alrighty then

 

[Maeson]

Should the Image Doubling options be accessed through the configuration menu? Because I see no option for that. Maybe I'm missing something, the only option resembling that is Screen mode, with Default/Normal/Full/Stretch choices.

I've never tried this fork, so maybe they're that and I don't know.

 

[Extrems]

Should the Image Doubling options be accessed through the configuration menu? Because I see no option for that. Maybe I'm missing something, the only option resembling that is Screen mode, with Default/Normal/Full/Stretch choices.

I've never tried this fork, so maybe they're that and I don't know.

It's a janky amalgamation of 2 programs. You have to pass arguments such as "--filter=scale2xex".

https://wiibrew.org/wiki/Homebrew_Channel#Optional_meta.xml_XML_nodes

It's also technically not a fork, it's a separate port.

 

[rafaelsb]

Can i use Enhanced mGBA and mGBA without conflict?

 

[Extrems]

Can i use Enhanced mGBA and mGBA without conflict?

Yes, the configurations are separate, as this is a GameCube-focused port.

 

[Maeson]

Oh, I see! I didn't even realized arguments were a thing on the homebrew channel. Thank you!

Which doubling effect is your favourite?

The GBA palette looks very nice. I'll try stuff.

 

[Extrems]

Which doubling effect is your favourite?

The most technically impressive and nicest is Scale2xEx. Regular Scale2x is good if you're looking for something sharper, and can be combined with "--scaler=oversample".

 

[Maeson]

Awesome. I personally like my pixels, but Scale2xEx could be great for games with heavy use of pre-rendered sprites!