thoughts about retro advance adapter

[Sakitoshi]

surfing a store that sells retro stuff I stumbled upon this adapter called Retro Advance.
I've seen a review on youtube and seems quite good, but I'll feel more confident if fellow tempers gives their approval.

Spoiler: video review

 

[Radiobread]

So basically it means you can play GBA games on a SNES? You can already do that on a Gamecube

 

[Foxi4]

It's basically a whole GBA stuffed into a few IC's, it piggy-backs on the SNES to draw power from it and use the controllers. I suppose it's a fun gadget, but I'm not sure about its compatibility with software or reliability.

EDIT: Thank you for the correction, tbb043!

 

[tbb043]

it piggy-backs on the SNES to display the graphics

It doesn't use the SNES to display the graphics, it's got its own special composite a/v out. That's one of the problems I have with this sort of adapter. No S-video (or RGB) for you! All the SNES is used for is power and controls.

 

[Foxi4]

It doesn't use the SNES to display the graphics, it's got its own special composite a/v out. That's one of the problems I have with this sort of adapter. No S-video (or RGB) for you! All the SNES is used for is power and controls.

Oh? I didn't know that, I guess I should've taken a closer look. So... for all intents and purposes, if you fed it power and a controller, you can cut the SNES from the equation altogether? That sounds... like an incredibly inefficient way to make a console, it's not really an "adapter" if the SNES isn't doing anything (or at least it's not doing much).

 

[migles]

It's basically a whole GBA stuffed into a few IC's, it piggy-backs on the SNES to draw power from it and use the controllers

wasn't the super gameboy the same thing? a stuffed game boy inside the card using the snes for power controllers and output the video?

 

[Foxi4]

wasn't the super gameboy the same thing? a stuffed game boy inside the card using the snes for power controllers and output the video?

It's somewhat similar, but there are differences. The Super Game Boy actually fully interfaced with the SNES, hence the borders etc. - this only draws power and uses the controller interface, it appears to have its own hook-ups.

 

[Sakitoshi]

I see... I also did some research and found this review. they say this:

As is, the included cable is required when using an actual Super Nintendo or Super Famicom. However, this is only true of the original Nintendo hardware and older, non Retro-Bit clone consoles. Newer Retro-Bit clones such as the Retro Duo Portable and the upcoming Super Retro Trio will pass the video feed directly to it's own video output jacks without the need of the additional cable.

the RetroDuo Portable and the RetroTrio can output video without the cable, I'll like to know if the RetroDuo can as well(since is very easy to grab one of these), but they don't mention it.

well I'll try to snipe a Gameboy Player if I can(GBP are very rare where I live), in the meanwhile this thing will do the job just fine. and the SNES controllers are way better to play GBA.
once I got my hands on it I'll make a post with a little review and Ez-Flash IV compatibility. also will open the thing and see if I can find the Y and C lines to output S-Video.
I'm also looking at the Super UFO Pro 8, since the same retro store import it.

 

[Lumstar]

wasn't the super gameboy the same thing? a stuffed game boy inside the card using the snes for power controllers and output the video?

SNES code stored on a game boy cart was doable. In practice almost never done, except to allow 16bit Space Invaders.