pouët.net

kusma or someone else: any experience with the EFA cards I posted a link to? I'd like to get one, but wanna be sure they have decent speed (lowest wait states)...

The last flash linker I linked on Dealextreme for $21 is the same as the one rarefluid linked (EFA 512Mbit) and it has run all SFC demos without problems for me so far, so I think it's probably a good choice. :)

hows the gba itself? i somehow remember graga's ds having a better screen. are there good cheap gbas with good screens? cause your post got me thinking - a gba hw dev setup for less than 80 euros or sth, sounds good :)

I think I paid 60 euro total (45euro for the micro, $21 = 14 euro for the EFA).
The screen on my GBA seems just fine, but I have never seen a DS in action, so I can't compare.

Rarefluid/Sdw: EFA is the card I personally use, and it works like a charm for me. I don't have much real-world experience with other carts, except from having to make crippled versions of my own demos for them.

Skrebbel: A real GBA is AFAIK better at running some demos (including yours from BP) than an NDS, mostly because the NDS doesn't support overcloking of EWRAM. We never did that in any of our GBA-demos (neither did Newton), but we might in future demos. The screen is better (as in brighter) on a NDS, but the gamma is very different, causing some stuff that looked good on a real GBA to look crap on the NDS. I'd like to stress that the GBA (SP?) is the reference here, not the NDS.

Get a GBA SP for the backlight for games and demos. If you wanna do some nanoloopin' or LSDJ stuff the older GBA has a better key layout (or you moght get a old grey brick :)

And holy shit: Dealextreme has worldwide free shipping without extra charges. how cool is that??? Too good to be true...

I have an original GBA with an Afterburner build in, a GBA Micro and a first generation DS. The Micro has by far the clearest screen, but is relatively small. I got the thing for 50e in the store when they were trying to get rid of 'm, so that was quite lucky. I'm not sure if you can still pick one up. SP's tend to still be quite expensive for their age (around 80e or something?)

I got my SP for ~30€ on Ebay in excellent condition...

IIRC an improved SP (even better screen) was released around the same time as the micro (and DSL?) was released.

I just order a linker from Dealextreme. YAY!!!!

21 dollar for a flashlinker? Fucking hell, that's like 12 euros or something! I'm definitely going to order one!

Yeah. Dirt cheap for europeans!

Note that it takes a while for stuff from Dealextreme to get delivered. I think I had to wait 14 days or so for my EFA. However with those prices and free shipping, it can be worth the wait.

Regarding that wait-state issue - does the problem only appear when you tamper with the wait-states from your code (ie. set non-standard values)? The stuff I'm working on now is just very simple, so a little performance penalty wouldn't be a big deal, I would prefer to keep it running on ALL flash-cards if possible.

The default wait-states should work on all carts.

Thanks for the info, it's really cheap I see. I have the old GBA, maybe I should also get that SP or micro for the lit screen..

A 2-3 months ago I bought a GBA SP too, with X-ROM 512Mbit stuff for ~70€. For simple coding and fun.
A little bit shabby on the case but without a scratch stuff. And hafta admit that it is a very nice platform... execpt its darn slow x-rom pc to card transfer (%$#@& !!!!).
The cardsize and its SLOW transfer cooled me down a little..

I have a M3 slot-2. It loads SD cards, but it doesn't have shitty wait states like supercard afaik.
If you are right about the EWRAM overclocking, Kusma, then I think I'll get myself a new SP or Micro and use those for future reference (or I could just get a craddle for my afterburned GBA).

Worst thing with GBA + NDS: no way to watch the releases on a big screen. (Unless with the crappiest captures ever)

(People suggested a gamecube + gameboy player earlier, however I have doubts it's actually hardware?)

Best thing with GBA + NDS demos: watching them in the metro. Demos are perfect for commuting ;)

f2a ftw! :D

Hmm, my friend has an old GC that he doesn't use, then I'll just need a player. Do you know anything about RAM timings on it, Kusma?

I'm trying to get one of those GBA video output thingies cheap. If it works out, there'll be videos of GBA demos captured on the real hardware on wurstcaptures for sure!
Does anyone have suggestions for a USB video capture card for composite video that doesn't suck and isn't too expensive?

LordGraga: At least that's what gbatek claims. I trust Martin to be accurate ;)
knos: There are modded GBAs that output composite video, so capturing isn't that bad. They are a bit hard to come by, but at least Annie, Slummy and me all managed to get hold of one.

rarefluid: I bought an usb-video capture thingie for next to nothing on radioshack the last time I was in the states. I wasn't able to find any here in Norway, though.

Graga: no, I haven't touched a GBA Player ever.

kusma: I was looking around on ebay and some other shops for those, but the really cheap ones are probably crap, no sound input and stuff. Also full frame rate would be neat... Hard to tell if a card is good or not just from the featrue list. I'll have look around some more I guess...