Any buddy have a good recommendation for an GBA emulator..

reason · 01-18-04, 07:21 PM

I have been looking everywhere for a good pocketPC GBA emulator and haven't really had any good luck. I have found one or two which seem promising but end up using entirely too much memory or other not so pleasant things like that.

Has anybody found a GBA emulator that truly works well on their PocketPC? Please include links for recommendations.

AchimH · 01-18-04, 07:36 PM

I tried also several GBA emulators but in the end I found out that it is clearly not much fun to play GBA on a PocketPC. To me the main reason is that the GBA games are developed for a specific way to control them and it is (to me) almost impossible to handle it with the limited PPC controls.

reason · 01-18-04, 08:03 PM

I just found/downloaded/installed morphgear from their homepage and ran it only once for the five minutes it let you in the trial version. It took a second for it to load secret of mana but once it did it ran pretty smooth. Couldn't get FF tactics to load but I think my rom might be bad. I'll let you know how how I feel once I look over it a bit more.

01-18-04, 08:12 PM

Most people who try and run GBA emulators end up being really disapointed. The PDAs just don't seem to have enough horsepower to run the games correctly.

01-18-04, 09:51 PM

what cagey said is right, but once and a while you will come across a game, golden sun, for example, that will run for some reason at full speed or close to it for some random reason

but the general rule for me is: if it looks like a really fun action packed game, it will probobly not work, but i can tell you for a fact that golden sun runs at a pretty good speed on morphgear version 1.5.sumthin (if you dont mind the characters dissapearing randomly)

reason · 01-18-04, 11:47 PM

Really, so far I'm into morphgear. I had to make some room for it but it runs much better then anything I had been using previously. The sound kind sucks on FF tactics but it plays, and not to slow either. Imma give that reg hack for increasing the video cache a try and see if I can squeeze a little extra go juice outta this bad fish.

deftech · 01-18-04, 11:53 PM

Notice that reason is running this on an X3. The X3's better graphics processing makes a world of difference on MorphGear (and probably on other emulators as well).

kpxgq · 01-19-04, 05:46 PM

if you goto pocketmatrix forums... all the asus a620 owners there say GBA runs full speed on their systems

01-19-04, 08:30 PM

that may be because the a620 and the a620bt tie for the fastest pocket pc to date

01-19-04, 09:55 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by mpbasher52
that may be because the a620 and the a620bt tie for the fastest pocket pc to date

Well they are barely faster than the X3i (its a statistical dead heat IMO). I hate to say those people don't know what they are talking about, but they do. Its not about the processor with emulators, its the emulator itself.

deftech · 01-19-04, 10:03 PM

I can say that the A620 slightly outperforms the X3i for GBA emulation, although only around 5fps higher. The A620 has slightly better graphics processing than the X3i, but again not by a large amount. Both of these PPCs are definately in a huge lead over the other PPCs on the market.

01-19-04, 10:59 PM

I've tried morphgear on the x3 and its still not acceptable. The emulator is not good enough for the PDAs at this time. No current PDA can handle any really detailed game. I fail to see how some "Asus user" could claim anything like they are since both PDAs are very close to each other in speed.

The fact is, and there is no way to get around this, the actual emulator is not able to handle the PPC hardware good enough to run most games well enough.

foxjohnc · 01-20-04, 12:28 AM

Using the latest version of Morphgear, I am able to play GBA games fine on my X3i. The sound really sucks but i'm sure that it can be fixed. I had to overclock to 472 to cut down on the lag but I can say that I get a 35-40 fps with a frame skip of 2. Its plenty fast for me but there is always room for improvement. I can play GB, GBC, and SNES games at a full 60fps with sound and no frame skip. As far as Asus 620 being better, I will believe it when I see it personally. I think they use the older 255 cpus anyway.

psj3809 · 01-20-04, 03:59 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by cageyjames
Well they are barely faster than the X3i (its a statistical dead heat IMO). I hate to say those people don't know what they are talking about, but they do. Its not about the processor with emulators, its the emulator itself.

I read a post by someone from here on the PocketMatrix forum which was very poor and didnt back up any facts they were saying.

'Apparently' the x3 is cheaper and just as fast as the Asus MyPal 620. If that is the case then thats great, unlike some geeks i'm not bothered what PPC i'm using as long as its the fastest etc. This isnt some geeky PDA war here ! The MyPal 620 was the fastest when it came out a few months ago and i presume in a few months time there will be another faster PDA and so on and so on.

At this moment in time i can play GBA games on Morphgear on my Asus MyPal full speed and without overclocking. Also SNES games run perfect and Genesis games and many many Mame games.

I've seen several charts regarding speed at the PocketMatrix forum and the Asus blows away every other PDA there was, maybe the next generation will be faster than the Asus but who really cares.

If this Dell is the same speed as the Asus then please lets see the charts to back that up instead of some biased views from Dell users.

At the end of the day i dont care if my PPC is Dell, Compaq or Asus as long as its the fastest.

01-20-04, 08:25 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by psj3809
I've seen several charts regarding speed at the PocketMatrix forum and the Asus blows away every other PDA there was, maybe the next generation will be faster than the Asus but who really cares.

Benchmark index: A620 - 1572, X3i - 1554, e805 - 1231, HP2215 - 1146

CPU index: A620 - 1858, X3i - 1798, e805 - 1755, HP2215 - 1784

Graphics index: A620 - 4033, X3i - 3245, e805 - 1162, HP2215 - 567

There is not a big enough difference between the X3 and the A620 for it to "blow" it out of the water. Both are the "next generation" PDAs. Is the Asus faster, yes, but you really coudn't tell they are so close.