Hacking Slot-1 Cards GBA?

[EhMawn]

Do Slot-1 Cards (like R4DS M3DSS) work if i put a GBA backup rom in? I don't have any yet and am still considering. The main issue i suppose, is that Slot-1 Cards aren't read the same way as Slot-2 cards, therefore making GBA roms not able to run on Slot-1 cards.

 

[[M]artin]

You're absolutely correct. GBA games cannot be run on any Slot-1 cards as of today.

 

[EhMawn]

this might be a totally stupid question but, since they developed a NES emulator for NDS (homebrew for slot-1)... y can't they make a gba-emulator? I mean i'm probably gonna get replies like "if you want it, program it yourself"... but i'm a bit surprised that no one has really considered it yet,..as i've seen so far

 

[Fat D]

there are two problems. the first is memory speed and the second is that the gba processor (ARM7) is accessed differently in NDS and GBA mode.

 

[iwakura]

I have no idea myself, but I'd iassume the type of memory necessary to run NES and GBA games are completely different. (flash memory vs SRAM)

 

[EhMawn]

ah ok, yeah it's pretty logical. thx.

 

[takieda]

this might be a totally stupid question but, since they developed a NES emulator for NDS (homebrew for slot-1)... y can't they make a gba-emulator? I mean i'm probably gonna get replies like "if you want it, program it yourself"... but i'm a bit surprised that no one has really considered it yet,..as i've seen so far

Actually there has been some discussion about this on different boards. The unfortunate end result is that too little would be gained from said emulator, so few, if any, were interested in working on it. Most people don't see/feel the need for such an emulator, esp. considering just getting a slot-2 device would be all that's really needed, but there are some very healthy benefits to producing a GBA emulator for the DS.

The biggest difficulty lies in emulating the hardware of the GBA. One idea was to actually pass the commands for the GBA rom straight to the Arm7 processor and have them process as normal, then have the result passed to the Arm9 for further instructions. Unfortunately, none of the people I've talked to directly about this are either interested, or are good enough to code said emulator.

 

[EhMawn]

hahaha we should start a group here! i can't program/don't know where to start, but i mean, people have interest. i do ('cause it would save everyone a lot of money to buy just a slot-1...also it seems a lot more convenient). This thread's been up for an hour and a lot of people have replied to it already. We have interest.

 

[EhMawn]

eh, do u guys think it's a good idea to start trying to assemble people here?

 

[4saken]

eh, do u guys think it's a good idea to start trying to assemble people here?

It will not work well even if it was made. So it would be best not to bother, or get a slot 2 card.

 

[EhMawn]

why not? because of the arm7 issue?

 

[takieda]

why not? because of the arm7 issue?

SNES specs:
CPU: 16-bit 65816 (3.58MHz)
RAM: 128KB, 64KB Video RAM
Colors: 32768 (256 on screen)
Resolution: 512x448 pixels
Sound: 8-channel 8-bit Sony SPC700 digitized sound

GBA specs:
CPU: 32-bit RISC-CPU (16.78MHz)
RAM: 32KB, 96 KB VRAM (in CPU), 256KB external
Color : 32768 (511 on screen)
Resolution : 240 x 160 pixels

Seeing the difficulty of just getting SNES games running on the DS, sadly, the difficulty in emulating GBA games on the DS is that much more difficult. That's the reason for passing the GBA rom straight through (as in no actual emulation) but then sending the result to the Arm9 processor for further instructions, such as full screen enhancements, or wifi GBA-Link games, etc...

 

[arctic_flame]

You can't pass the GBA commands directly to the ARM7. It behaves completely differently in DS mode than it does in GBA mode.

Also, where would you put the GBA binary? The way a DS card is read is different to a GBA card, see GBATEK: http://nocash.emubase.de/gbatek.htm

 

[Costello]

there's already a pinned topic in the proper forum!
http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=50738