Homebrew OPEN_AGB_FIRM discussion thread

[cugel]

I leave brightness and contrast on default. Backlight is max (142?) and currently outputgamma 1.8

You could mess with brightness/contrast but they seem kind of "destructive" in that they should degrade image quality. I wouldn't touch it unless I really wanted to raise the minimum brightness in bright environments, and I would start by raising outputgamma to 2.2 first (i.e. unmodified) if I really wanted that.

Thanks for this - I turned my outputgamma down from 2.2 to 1.8 and it looks way better.

 

[Rahkeesh]

You can drop the number lower to increase color saturation, but it also darkens things. I choose 1.8 to still keep things fairly visible in bright areas. Also not all GBA games had that huge brightness boost baked in.

 

[AleronIves]

Are these options available in profi's current build or only in HTV's fork?

 

[Rahkeesh]

I got curious about the different refresh rates of these systems and am having a hard time finding anything.

The GBA runs at 59.73hz, looks like the DS is 59.82. Can't find the 3DS refresh rate.

What Im wondering is how these systems handle the discrepency in backcompat, especially open_agb_firm. Does it run at original GBA speed and framebuffer the difference? Does it raise the clock slightly to match the system's own refresh rate? Does it somehow lower the display panel's refresh to match?

 

[ghjfdtg]

The DS will double a frame sometimes (you can see this with rapidly flickering tiles/sprites). AGB_FIRM and the reimplementation seem to just alternate the LCD refresh rate between a slower and faster setting to match the GBA hardware output.

 

[zosxavius]

I believe I have an older build since it crashes with brightness over 64 set. The problem I have with this build is that it only shows so many GBA games. Looks like there is a hard limit to how many. I have like over 1000 in a folder and its showing up to letter H or so.

 

[kid sampson]

How does this compare to VC injects and GBARunner2? Does it allow remapping buttons/inputs? (i.e. Y/B for B/A)

 

[Kwyjor]

How does this compare to VC injects and GBARunner2? Does it allow remapping buttons/inputs? (i.e. Y/B for B/A)

It is pretty much equivalent to standard VC injects, so it should be more compatible than GBARunner2.

I don't think anything has been said about button remapping yet.

 

[BETA215]

How does this compare to VC injects and GBARunner2? Does it allow remapping buttons/inputs? (i.e. Y/B for B/A)

VC injects and OPEN_AGB_FIRM are essentially the same thing, both use GBA hardware inside the 3DS to run perfectly GBA games. But, OAF is like another operative system where you can choose which GBA game to boot instead of having to do a CIA for each game you want, without having to wait long times for games to boot.

Also, I'm sure in future versions there'll be some QOL enhancements added like button remapping. So it's an interesting project to keep track of, even if you don't find it quite interesting nowadays.

 

[kid sampson]

If button can eventually be remapped and it retains the compatibility of VC titles, this would be perfect! For now, I guess I'll stick with VC titles/injects for ease of launching games since they're accessing the same hardware.

 

[ghjfdtg]

Digging through the source it seems possible but might introduce input lag? https://github.com/profi200/open_agb_firm/blob/kernel_experiments/source/arm11/hardware/lgy.c#L125

 

[Hammyface]

I could have sworn I read somewhere that with OPEN_AGB_FIRM there was a way to change the display settings, namely making it so it doesn't take up the whole screen or even applying that "pixel grid" look so it looks more like a real GBA screen and closer to a 1:1 pixel ratio.

Is there any way to do this or did I read it wrong?

 

[BETA215]

I could have sworn I read somewhere that with OPEN_AGB_FIRM there was a way to change the display settings, namely making it so it doesn't take up the whole screen or even applying that "pixel grid" look so it looks more like a real GBA screen and closer to a 1:1 pixel ratio.

Is there any way to do this or did I read it wrong?

Use this build: https://github.com/profi200/open_agb_firm/files/5816762/open_agb_firm.7z.zip. Rename .7z.zip to .7z and extract it.

 

[SIXXBAL]

Can you share a compiled version with your PR ?

Thank you, stranno
Is there a filtering version of this build?
I really like the previously posted "open_agb_firm1.firm"

 

[SIXXBAL]

I feel bad. I think my post was hard to understand.
In the filtering version "open_agb_firm1.firm", the backlight cannot be set to "64" or higher.
So the question was if there was a filtering version in the latest build.

 

[AxlSt00pid]

I wonder if this homebrew will include link cable/multiplayer capabilities in the future, even though I remember it being hard to emulate and things like that

 

[Lv44ES_Burner]

I wonder if this homebrew will include link cable/multiplayer capabilities in the future, even though I remember it being hard to emulate and things like that

If I remember correctly, it doesn't have the bare-metal access to those features in the GBA_FIRM mode. This is mainly just a way to boot games in that mode right now, and profi200 states on his Github page for the project that it's among a list of items that are unfeasible at the time to pull off with current understanding of how the software access works.

Not to say it isn't doable, as the list shows it just plainly states it instead of giving a direct reason, but it might take a long while. Such support will have to be baked in much, much later down the line. So we'll all be waiting patiently for it, it seems, a while longer now.

 

[epistaxis]

Larger brightness range is coming if my pull request is merged, but in the meantime you can also set the outGamma to 2.2 for a brighter/more accurate color scheme

Is there a way to manually edit your gba_db.bin?

 

[thereandback]

ok first of all, I really love the idea. I have now 2 different payloads, one where there is no scaling done ie. it plays games in 'pixelperfect' resolution from this post and another payload which has a save type detection built in from this post.

Now in this example I have used TMNT, and I was able to get it to save using the save type detection version. BUT, how can I now play TMNT in 'pixelperfect' mode while also being able to save? Because if I create a save file with the 'save type detection' payload, it still doesn't recognize it in the 'pixelperfect' payload.

 

[Hark0n]

ok first of all, I really love the idea. I have now 2 different payloads, one where there is no scaling done ie. it plays games in 'pixelperfect' resolution from this post and another payload which has a save type detection built in from this post.

Now in this example I have used TMNT, and I was able to get it to save using the save type detection version. BUT, how can I now play TMNT in 'pixelperfect' mode while also being able to save? Because if I create a save file with the 'save type detection' payload, it still doesn't recognize it in the 'pixelperfect' payload.

Well, I do hope that some day in the not too distant future those two versions will be merged into one and your question will be answered.... both are alpha builds after all... do not expect full functionality anytime soon.