GBA games on an r4 with out a slot 2 device.

I know there are several slot-2 devices that can do this, but i'm poor. is there any way to run or convert a gba game for the r4 so that it will play on a slot-1 device? or at least does anyone know if people are starting to since the dsi no longers has a slot 2

 

NO! And a simple search would have answered your question.

 

I heard of these gba emulators for the ds as well, but they are not functional. Snes would also be hard to run on the Ds. The simple reason is because the system is not made to run these games. GBA and SNES games are cartridges that have hardware within them that their corresponding systems work/read. Reason why ds cartridges are small because it is simply data being read. So it is highly unlikely that there would be a fully functional gba emulator for the ds.

 

searching has only showed me outdated post where people responses are "if you wanna play gba, get a slot-2 reader" instead. and as for the second comment i have played a couple of snes games on my ds and there have only been a few glitches. other then physical functions anything the snes or gba can do the ds can do better.the major reason it hasn't been done yet is cause they have gba slit emulator out that work with the ds. my point is with the dsi out that might start to change since people would most likely going to trade in their ds for a new dsi so they will lose the ability to play gba. i would have worded based on if i had a dsi but i was afraid i might get back "you can do it with the new r4isdhc card" which would be the same result.

 

I'm sorry, I tried to get through your one long run-on sentence but it hurt my brain too much.

The answer is still NO. there are several architectural (hardware) reasons for this.

I highly doubt that just because the DSi has been released that this will change. The DSi was built from the ground up knowing that GBA games would not be supported.

 

well the nes, sega, snes, and gameboy are not supported and yet i can play them. How are there hardware problems? The DS is made to support the gba natively. There has to be a way to redirect the where it pulls the data from.


P.S. I hope you like the sentences.

 

you cant compare a ds cart with a gba cart. the ds simply reads data from ds carts. the DS is hardwired to work to process the data. As for gba carts the ds depends on the gba cart to work hand and hand (extra ram processing). Gba is heavy system to emulate. To clear things up it is that device 2 needs additional ram to run game, hence, the bulky gba cart.DS games are streamed from the cart. Gba reads directly from the cartridge instead from ds RAM as the ds (gba games already have RAM). Again, it is a hardware conflict. As emulators are being worked on nowadays it is iffy if they will ever run smoothly.

 

but then how come the ds can render a 3d graphic game like ff4 but it can't handle simple 2d games like ff5a?

 

This has nothing to do with rendering "good graphics". the GBA technology is too advanced to be emulated on DS in a sense. There is no RAM which the GBA games need and the slot 1s only support FLASH memory. Maybe gba games will run one day at a decent speed (not soon), but ppl need to understand that it is not as simple as it sounds to just toss a gba emu on a flash cart.

 

well how much ram are we talking about? and couldn't a high speed flash card with a ram drive be used to make up the difference?

 

What flash card are we talking about. slot one flash cards simply read flash memory. Ram is in DS already.

 

what I'm suggesting is. if one of the problems is that gba carts have ram on them, then the solution would be to use space on the sd card to make a ram drive to increase the ram needed to play a gba rom.

 

Flash memory is not equivalent to RAM. RAM operates at a MUCH higher speed, as well as simply functioning differently in ways that I'm not going to go into right now.

Basically, you cant run GBA roms using only the DS's 4mb of internal RAM and the flash memory on the SD card. It just does not work. Perhaps if someone sat down and really worked on an emulator we might get something that could handle GBA roms up to 4mb, but no larger.

The DSi is a different story though. With 16mb of RAM memory a GBA emulator would probably be able to run most GBA games... Theoretically anyway.

 

i do under stand that ram operates faster then flash. that's why older slot one devices required faster flash cards to run. but as for the amount of ram needed, the gameboy advance had less then 512 Kilobytes of ram. The Nintendo DS has 4 Megabytes of ram. now i will admit i am having trouble finding out how much ram is in the gba cart, but with only a 16mhz cpu in the gba the 33mhz co-cpu used for pure gba games let alone the 66 mhz main cpu, there should be enought power to emulate the gba. even if it takes an extreme 3 micro sd card it should be possible to done.

 

We've explained it already its not possible for now.Penguin98 said it nicely. Besides the ARM9 processor that is needed SLOT-1 device is too slow to emulate GBA roms. writing an emulator, again, is a possibility--especially if its coded to compensate for speed. Half of the ppl capable of doing this wont since slot2 is accessible, it's not a priority as of now.


I've read.
1. GBA carts have onboard RAM
2.slot-1 cards can't be accessed in GBA mode
3.NDS streams it's content off the card--whilst GBA sort of dumped it's game into a on-board ram space, where they worked. ( which explains the random fade of screen if u pull a GBA game out when its playing. )


Like mentioned maybe the DSI has a better chance.
5.

 

512kb ONBOARD RAM. The GBA cart contained its own RAM expansion, up to 32mb depending on the game you were playing. The GBA couldn't run GBA games without that extra ram, and neither can the DS. There are other issues as well that prevent this, erenix mentioned three of them and is correct, they are all problems as well, but that's the main one. No system, GBA, DS, PC or Wii emulators, etc, can run a GBA game without enough RAM to load the rom into.

It's not a matter of CPU speeds, that has absolutely nothing to do with it. The problem is where to store the game while it's in use. It's simply not possible to run the game unless it's running from RAM memory. Flash memory will not cut it. I'm sorry but that's just the way it is.