[JuniorCRB]

how does GBA stand up to true 32-bit consoles like Playstation and Saturn ( i want a good saturn emu ahhhhhhh!! lol)
i know it can't do real 3d rendering but what are the specs of each and how do they compare. will gba ever look as good as the consoles?

 

[Woo]

GBA is more comparable to SNES. It's a neat little box. It's not overally powerful, but just try playing some GBA games on full screen and you'll see how good they can be.. It's early days and everything is still first generation. You pnly have to check out Ecks vs Sever to see a Doom beater... Mario Kart Advance, well you must have seen that on TV, it's closer to the N64 version than SNES..

It's not as powerful as a Saturn.. There's no real processing power for 3D, but all the same it does a good job.. Just wait for games like Tekken and Virtua Fighter to show what can be done, with some clever graphic tricks.

There are some exciting developments in GBA emulation. It already does a pretty good job of running emus of Sinclair Spectrum, Space Invaders Arcade Machine and Most notably NES. I also have it from people very active on the GBA Emu scene that shortly, a Sega Master System / Sega Game Gear emulator for GBA will be released.. The code is near complete, with some optimisation left to do.. Apparantly it runs at full speed. My source is a trustworthy one and is well respected on the GBA scene by users and programmers alike..

It may not have the classics like Panzer Dragoon, but with SEGA now developing for GBA, you never know what they'll squeeze out of the wee beastie.

 

[JuniorCRB]

good point

 

[takwu]

first of all, don't say "it can't do real 3d rendering"
technically, anything can be done in software. but i guess by "real" you mean "hardware".
the point is, as long as the "3d rendering" is simple enough, it can and will be done on the GBA, using software.

Now that we've got that clear (I hope), you should understand the GBA is better than a SNES. For comparison, you can look at Capcom's Final Fight and Super Street Fighter 2. The SNES has similar titles, but at lesser quality, in some sense.

I would describe the GBA as more like the other 32-bit consoles, just at a smaller scale (data-wise) and without the 3D hardware.

 

[Hairybudda]

Originally posted by takwu
first of all, don't say "it can't do real 3d rendering"
technically, anything can be done in software. but i guess by "real" you mean "hardware".
the point is, as long as the "3d rendering" is simple enough, it can and will be done on the GBA, using software.

Now that we've got that clear (I hope), you should understand the GBA is better than a SNES. For comparison, you can look at Capcom's Final Fight and Super Street Fighter 2. The SNES has similar titles, but at lesser quality, in some sense.

I would describe the GBA as more like the other 32-bit consoles, just at a smaller scale (data-wise) and without the 3D hardware.

The only 3d software rendering the GBA will be doing is cheap flat shaded polygons, the GBA just isnt powerful enough to run proper 3d(no, doom is not 3d)... Remember quake 1? It needed a P100 to run, and the processor in the GBA is just under 17Mhz? Okay, fair enough its a console game, it only has a screen resolution of 246x160 and it can be optimised for the hardware it runs for, but i dont think we can have full 3d texture mapped phong shaded 3d games for at least a while...