Please create an account to participate in the Slashdot moderation system

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Portables (Games) Entertainment Games Hardware

Overclocking your Gameboy Advance 295

Posted by Hemos from the we-can-rebuild-you dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The guys over at Ahead Games are working on an overclock mod for the GBA. They've been able to run it at up to 2x the regular operating speed without any major heat or battery life problems. Now, you're probably asking yourself "Why the hell would anyone want to overclock their Gameboy?" Answer: Super Nintendo emulation. There's already a working beta of a SNES emulator out for the GBA called SNES Advance. The big problem is there's just not enough horsepower under the GBA's hood to emulate the SNES sound chip. This mod will hopefully remedy that."
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Overclocking your Gameboy Advance More

Overclocking your Gameboy Advance

Comments Filter:

  • Hmmmm.... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Have they gotten past the timing issues involved with overclocking the clock speed?

  • Size matters (Score:5, Funny)

    by Zweistein_42 ( 753978 ) * on Monday April 26, 2004 @10:31AM (#8972249) Homepage
    Of course, by the time you add liquid cooling, Lexan case sides, LAN carrying straps, enhanced power supply etc, it's going to be somewhat larger that Super Nintendo ;)

  • I would think an even bigger problem would be... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by tuffy ( 10202 ) on Monday April 26, 2004 @10:32AM (#8972267) Homepage Journal
    ...a lack of buttons. A SNES pad has two more of them than a GBA.

  • Battery life (Score:3, Interesting)

    by taybin ( 622573 ) <[moc.nibyat] [ta] [nibyat]> on Monday April 26, 2004 @10:33AM (#8972278) Homepage
    Wouldn't the biggest problem be the shorted battery life?
    • Probably true, but even cutting the time in half isn't too bad. A stock GBA gives about 12 hours from 2 AA batteries

      • Re:Battery life (Score:3, Informative)

        by real_smiff ( 611054 )
        if you RTFA, you see apparently battery time is hardly affected, because the CPU is not the major battery drain. i would guess something else like the screen is.. and probably the flash cart if you have one. IIRC the GBA has an ARM7, I don't have the specs to hand. but they (the OCers) say there is very little heat build up and no need for cooling, and since heat=power everything tallies. this is very different from PC overclocking huh :)

  • Timeline (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 26, 2004 @10:34AM (#8972282)
    1990: The SNES was out, Bush was president, the US was at war with Iraq and the economy sucked

    2004: The SNES emulator is out, Bush is president, the US is at war with Iraq and the economy sucks

    • Re:Timeline (Score:5, Funny)

      by DaHat ( 247651 ) on Monday April 26, 2004 @10:38AM (#8972326)
      2018: The GBA emulator will run the SNES emulator, Bush (Jeb) is president, the US will be at war with Iraq and the economy will suck
      • 2018: The GBA emulator will run the SNES emulator, Bush (Jeb) is president, the US will be STILL at war with Iraq and the economy will suck

        It is following the Afganistan scenario so far:

        T +00 days: The liberators are met with flowers

        T +90 days: "Liberation fighters" blow up hospital and shoot medical personnel

        T +1 year: Polish (yes they were in Afganistan as well as the Bulgarians) pull out and everyone starts fighting everyone

        T +14 years: Biggest drug generating minefiled in the world...

      • Re:Timeline (Score:3, Funny)

        by mrscorpio ( 265337 ) *
        No way. Jeb will be president from 2008 - 2016. Jenna Bush will be prez from 2016 - 2024. Get it straight!

        Chris

    • Re:Timeline (Score:2, Interesting)

      by DR SoB ( 749180 )
      I hear next year they will be overclocked the chip in my cell phone so I can emulate pac-man on it, concidentally, pac-man era = good economy, does this mean we should be seeing the NYSE sky-rocketing soon? :P

    • Re:Timeline (Score:4, Funny)

      by henriksh ( 683138 ) <hsh@freecode.dk> on Monday April 26, 2004 @12:57PM (#8973689) Homepage
      1990: The SNES was out, Bush was president, the US was at war with Iraq and the economy sucked.

      2004: The SNES emulator is out, Bush is trying to emulate the old Bush, the US is at war with a modded Iraq and the economy sucks.

      • Re:Timeline (Score:3, Informative)

        by BTWR ( 540147 )
        joke stolen from a Will & Grace episode from over a year ago:

        The last time I went on a date... Bush was president and we were about to go to war with Iraq!

  • Its only a little scarry (Score:5, Interesting)

    by doublebackslash ( 702979 ) <doublebackslash@gmail.com> on Monday April 26, 2004 @10:34AM (#8972285)
    I'm not sure if I'm comfortable with the fact that now I can get as much horssepower into a few AA batteries and the palm of my hand as I could in the entire SNES+TV combination.
    I really wonder why Nintendo couldn't have done this so that they cold just re-release all the old SNES games in GBA format?
    Makes me think theres a reason they didn't.

    • Re:Its only a little scarry (Score:4, Informative)

      by womprat ( 154589 ) <davidNO@SPAMdavidhogue.com> on Monday April 26, 2004 @10:41AM (#8972359) Homepage
      They do rerelease snes games on the gba. Mario Kart, Yoshi's Island, and many, many more. It's just that they are ports, as there is not enough horsepower to run it through emulation.

    • Heights of human evolution. (Score:5, Funny)

      by juuri ( 7678 ) on Monday April 26, 2004 @10:47AM (#8972429) Homepage
      Last year I spent quite a bit of time flying the route from SF to ATL. During one of these trips I reached what can only be one of the highest pinnacles of human evolution.

      There we were at 35,000 feet cruising over the vast country of America. There I was in the toilet taking a rather righteous dump all the while playing Phantasy Star II, a game from my childhood, with the GBA.

      There's nothing like soaring through the sky, shitting and reliving moments of your childhood all at once.
    • "I'm not sure if I'm comfortable with the fact that now I can get as much horssepower into a few AA batteries and the palm of my hand as I could in the entire SNES+TV combination. I really wonder why Nintendo couldn't have done this so that they cold just re-release all the old SNES games in GBA format?"

      I'm guessing they wanted to keep the great battery life. I know it isn't linear, but I bet this will reduce battery life by a significant amount.

    • i think they are working on the cart adapter as we speak!

  • Disk Space? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Steamhead ( 714353 ) on Monday April 26, 2004 @10:35AM (#8972289) Homepage
    This is all well and good, but how would you get the games TO the GBA?

    On a slightly more humical(is that even a word?) note, where is my genesis emulator I want to play zero wing :( .

    • Re:Disk Space? (Score:5, Informative)

      by lotsofno ( 733224 ) on Monday April 26, 2004 @10:39AM (#8972340)
      This is all well and good, but how would you get the games TO the GBA?
      Use a flash cart (questionably legal). For more information on how to write GB/GBA/GBC/NES/SNES games to a cart and play them on your GBA, try Gameboy Advance [gameboy-advance.net].

      Lik-Sang sells carts and cart writers, but I've always used Jandaman's reliable service [jandaman.com].
    • There are cartridges available for GBA's that are upwards of 256 megs of flash memory, writeable from PC's and such. Pretty neat.

      someoen post an example.

    • Re:Disk Space? (Score:2, Informative)

      by DanThe1Man ( 46872 )
      with one of these [consoleoutlet.com].

    • Re:Disk Space? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Talonius ( 97106 ) on Monday April 26, 2004 @10:44AM (#8972381)
      Burn them to a ROM. Check out the Advance Linker or any other linker at Bayside [mybayside.com]. (No, I'm not an owner or even a customer, but they're one of the few places that seem to reliably offer information. Most other sites get shut down for one reason or another; generally, they're offering ROMs when they shouldn't, or products which skirt the line of the law as well as those which don't.) There's also a huge number of public domain cartridges available including a remake of my favorite, Barbarian. (Heh, cut the guy's head off and a little laughing demon comes out and drags it away.)

      Combine that with a ROM dumped from the S/NES and multiboot / emulator autorun and you're set. Basically at boot the ROM prompts you what game you want to play. You choose by cycling through a menu, hit A, whammo.

      Playing S/NES games on the go.

      Pretty fun too. That's what scares me. These games from the S/NES, PCE, Genesis era are a whole lot more fun to me than most PS2 games.

      (S/NES represents Super Nintendo and Nintendo Entertainment System. Most everything above applies to both.)

  • Yay (Score:4, Funny)

    by GFLPraxis ( 745118 ) on Monday April 26, 2004 @10:36AM (#8972302) Homepage Journal
    What I've always wanted...
    An overclocked gaming machine that will be so fast and so hot that in the winter I can use it as a portable heater...

  • great... (Score:5, Funny)

    by DanThe1Man ( 46872 ) on Monday April 26, 2004 @10:36AM (#8972305)
    Great, I can't wait to play Mortal Kombat with oven-mits.

    • Re:great... (Score:2, Insightful)

      by lambent ( 234167 )
      Sweet merciful crap, I know nobody reads the damn article, but why the hell not even the front page synopsis?

      "They've been able to run it at up to 2x the regular operating speed without any major heat or battery life problems."

      As for a followup in the forum ... user 'ahead games' says on Thu Mar 25, 2004 7:33 pm (approximately a quarter of the way down page 2 right now)

      "I haven't directly measured battery life yet, but I've left a GBA running Accelerated overnight and I don't see it having a huge impac

    • Re:great... (Score:5, Funny)

      by DroopyStonx ( 683090 ) on Monday April 26, 2004 @10:57AM (#8972518)
      Toasty!

  • And my next question... (Score:4, Funny)

    by goldspider ( 445116 ) on Monday April 26, 2004 @10:36AM (#8972306) Homepage
    "Now, you're probably asking yourself "Why the hell would anyone want to overclock their Gameboy?" Answer: Super Nintendo emulation."

    ...would have to be "Why the hell would anyone want to eumlate the SNES on a GBA?"

    • ...would have to be "Why the hell would anyone want to eumlate the SNES on a GBA?"
      Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, Earthbound... The GBA is already great for portable RPGs, but add in some SNES titles, and you've just doubled the awesomeness content for the system.
    • ...would have to be "Why the hell would anyone want to eumlate the SNES on a GBA?"

      Gee genius. Perhaps its so that they can play SNES games on the road, in class, or what have you. Perhaps you don't enjoy such fine games as Secret of Mana, Final Fantasy III (US), Super Mario World, Super Mario RPG, Final Fight, Secret of Evermore, Earthbound, or the whole host of great games that were out on SNES. Still, a lot of people do, myself included.

      • Except half of the titles you mentioned are already playable on the GBA. Super Mario World and Final Fight are ported to GBA. The PSOne has a car kit; Final Fantasy VI is ported to PSOne. Earthbound has a prequel for NES (called Mother) that was translated to English but never published on cart (the existing dump comes from a leaked proto); the GBA already emulates [pocketnes.org] the NES.

  • Is there really a big market for this? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by spidergoat2 ( 715962 ) on Monday April 26, 2004 @10:37AM (#8972308) Journal
    It's a bit like the re-release of the old Atari games for new PC's. How many times can we really sit and play Frogger now? Isn't the progression to new tecnology so we can play better games, not reheat the old ones?

    • Re:Is there really a big market for this? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by ThePretender ( 180143 ) on Monday April 26, 2004 @10:40AM (#8972352) Homepage
      I'd say the answer to your last question is: BOTH. I am sure I am not the only one who does sit and play Frogger quite a few times more than I'd like to admit. But I also enjoy some of the cutting-edge fare that is available today. I think there is an audience for this but also think there are many who enjoy things just because it can be done.

    • Re:Is there really a big market for this? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by solojony ( 774539 ) on Monday April 26, 2004 @10:55AM (#8972489) Journal
      You are mistakenly taking technology for better games. I know a lot of games who need a PC in the order of 1000$ to play nicely and still they aren't remotely as fun as pac-man. Better graphics Better games.
    • The answer to your question is at your local used video game store. Original NES consoles are going for $50+ at many places. And people are paying it. The gaming experience is about more then graphics and sound. For me, I have yet to find a game more fun then Tyson's Punch-Out or Top Gun.

    • Re:Is there really a big market for this? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Maarek_1 ( 740578 ) on Monday April 26, 2004 @11:10AM (#8972645)
      The problem with your thinking here is that you seem to regard the SNES as being made in the infancy of video games, and that is hardly true. The SNES (and the Sega Genesis) was the system that turned the corner for the gaming industry. It was the SNES that helped convince Sony that real money and real entertainment could be had through video games again (since the crash in the early 80's many still regarded the industry as very risky). I love my modern technology and games, but many SNES games continue to shine a decade after their release. It's like books, no one says "Why read classic books, how many times can we sit and read 'A Tale of Two Cities' now? Isn't the progression to new literary techniques so that we can read new stories, not reheat old ones" Not trying to mock, just making a point.
      • I understand your point, but I don't exactly buy it. We read old books because they important in their style and language, and their impact on books that follow. We listen to older music to understand it and the music that follows. Same with art. But video games? These are stricly entertainment. Aren't these supposed to waste time in a more eye-catching and faster manner? That said, I should confess to playing PC games that are several years old, and not being impressed but most new ones, but SNES never did

        • the legend of Art? (Score:2, Insightful)

          by tepples ( 727027 ) *

          But video games? These are stricly entertainment.

          That seems to imply that you do not consider video games artistic. Could you please back up that view?

          • I didn't mean to imply that. I've tinkered with video games enough to know that I don't have the talent to produce one, and I know folks that do produce art for video games. Simply, video games are just that, games. They are diversions, and as much, if not more, than any other pastime. The point is this. Is there enough interest to overclock a current game system to play older games. I just put away my Amiga 1000, not because I didn't like playing some of the 15 year old games I had, but because it just was

            • Re:the legend of Art? (Score:3, Interesting)

              by Fancia ( 710007 )
              You seem to have lost your point sometime along the way. The GBA is new technology, not old technology. Why *not* use it if you can enjoy the old games easily without investing in old technology?

              Furthermore, games don't just *have* to be simple diversions. Gaming *is* an art form and it's slowly maturing. Recall that video games are perhaps only 30 years old; they're speeding to maturity much faster than other artforms. Already, there are a few games that not only entertain and divert but also are undoubte

        • I would argue that although video game's primary purpose is to entertain, that many could be considered to be art in their own right. Most books are written to entertain, it is the rare classics that transend entertainment. Not to mention, the most popular video game of all time is Tetris, and that hardly could be called "eye catching"... it's how fun the game is that makes it worth playing.

        • Chess, Super Mario Kart and other classic games... (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Jagasian ( 129329 ) on Monday April 26, 2004 @03:26PM (#8975302)
          I still play Super Mario Kart battle mode for the SNES, on a regular basis, with my friends. The games are short, action packed, full of strategy, and lots of fun. So you can squeeze in a few games every now and then with your friends. Super Mario Kart is over 10 years old!

          Another perfect example is Chess. It is hundreds of years old, and people still play it today as they find it entertaining to do so. Board games can be seen as the precessor to video games. They are visual games that require manual human intervention to enforce the rules and update the board layout.

          In fact, it could be argued that some games get better with time. When Chess was first invented, everyone was equivalent to how you and your friends were when you first tried to play it: they all sucked. Games were won basically by luck in the begining. As time went on, what people knew about Chess and how to play it improved. So the games of Chess that were played when it was first made are not nearly as good as some of the games played hundreds of years later.

          I notice the same thing with many of the video games that I play for more than a year: Tetris, Quake, Super Mario Kart, etc... my enjoyment of them has increased over the years because my knowledge of the games has improved.

          For multiplayer videos games, my skills as well as the skills of my opponents have improved. Hence our matches are more entertaining than the early years, when matches were won mostly by luck of a player stumbling onto on aspect of the game that had yet to be discovered.

    • Re:Is there really a big market for this? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by barryfandango ( 627554 ) on Monday April 26, 2004 @11:19AM (#8972741)
      I saw a copy of "Casablanca" on DVD the other day. Why are we bothering to port these old, technologically inferior works to new technology when we could be watching the newest and therefore best movies instead?
      </sarcasm>

  • You know you're a nerd when.. (Score:5, Funny)

    by paranode ( 671698 ) on Monday April 26, 2004 @10:37AM (#8972310)
    You overclock your latest expensive gadget to emulate an outdated, less expensive gadget just for the hell of saying you overclocked it.

  • gba mod (Score:5, Informative)

    by junkyinny ( 749201 ) on Monday April 26, 2004 @10:39AM (#8972338)
    lack of buttons will be made up by a 2 button combo l1+a l2+b etc.. the forums at http://www.pocketheaven.com/boards/viewforum.php?f =33 have the info. The tests so far are great

    • Re:gba mod (Score:3, Insightful)

      by zapp ( 201236 )
      I don't see this working very well honestly...

      What about times when you need to run (b button), look up(L button), and fire your weapon (X button), for example?

      There are many times when multiple buttons are pressed at the same time.

      • Re:gba mod (Score:3, Informative)

        by BTWR ( 540147 )
        You're correct, so I'm assuming that games like Street Fighter II (in which you could use any/all 6 buttons almost simultaneously) will not be portable. However, the vast majority of games did not use all 6 buttons closely (if they used 6 at all), so a shift-button will probably work fine.

        So just the same way as you can't "emulate" the light gun for the NES, you can't emulate every game for SNES...

  • Get a GP32 (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 26, 2004 @10:40AM (#8972343)
    Why not just get a GP32, you can emulate loads more machines and it looks like GBA soon (it's an ARM as well as the GBA)..

  • more mods (Score:3, Interesting)

    by sleepypants ( 599905 ) on Monday April 26, 2004 @10:40AM (#8972354)
    I like the idea, especially if the mod is internal somehow. With video, audio, and TV players for the GBA available, maybe the higher horsepower will improve the resolution/quality if players are also modified to take advantage of the speed increase.

    Still, reminds me of the overkill feeling when I heard about overclocked, dual sound chipped, hard drive equipped C64 machines that were being modded back in the day...

  • Overclock your house (Score:5, Funny)

    by Chairboy ( 88841 ) on Monday April 26, 2004 @10:47AM (#8972421) Homepage
    You guys are chumps, overclocking everything independantly. I just skipped the middleman and overclocked my house.

    Normal AC power is at around 120 volts and 70hz here in the USA, so I put in a frequency multiplier and upped it to 105hz and 160 volts AC. Now, all my lights are brighter, TV is faster to react in the menu, and I've pre-emptively overclocked all my appliances!

    You've never seen microwave popcorn get done in a minute? Come on by! Sure, there are occasional fires, but nothing a little fire extinguisher and some aggressive product warranties won't fix.

    There are downsides... all my clocks run fast... and my VCR keeps spitting out tape... and sure, my refrigerator has turned into a freezer, but I have to say that despite some of those challenges, it's still worth it.

    Oops! Gotta run, my wireless access point seems to have killed the plant it's sitting next to. Maybe I should measure the rf...

  • There is another SNES emmulator out there as well (Score:4, Informative)

    by evil-osm ( 203438 ) on Monday April 26, 2004 @10:48AM (#8972440)
    That can be used on the GBA.

    http://www.pocketsnes.net/ [pocketsnes.net] They have a few games going so far on it that have no speed issues, and they are working on fixing problems with other games. Tried it with a few games myself on my GBA, some work some don't (as expected) either case it is exciting to see these emmulators are in development!

  • Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday April 26, 2004 @10:52AM (#8972469)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Some issues (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 26, 2004 @10:54AM (#8972486)
    I found the liquid nitrogen really made me cold when stored in my shirt pocket. And I don't even want to say what happened when I stored one in my pants pocket. You haven't seen shrinkage like liquid nitrogen shrinkage!

  • For a 0.1 version emulator? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by galtenberg ( 646020 ) on Monday April 26, 2004 @10:57AM (#8972515)
    How about they get the emulator past v0.1 before I start mucking with my hardware.
    • This 0.1 emulator can actually handle quite a few games*perfectly* with speed hacks (only lacking in sound emulation. It may be an alpha, but its the most compatable 0.1 release I've seen. Also, the super DAT file on the site is updated multiple times a day, meaning that even without a new release, more games are becoming compatable on a dalie basis.

      Besides, the overclocking has nothing to do with the software itself anyway. It's a hardware process. So, if its certain that it wont harm your machine, why
    • You do realize that version numbers are entirely subjective don't you? Would it make you happy if they just named it v0.2? Maybe 0.3 would float your boat? Maybe your busy schedule doesn't leave time for you to do things like read a feature list before you go posting comments on slashdot? Well, if you are going to just pick one of the two I suggest you read what the emulator can do and pass on the posting.

      As mentioned the emulator can play quite a few games really well. The big problem is speed and

  • Using GBA for a microcontroller (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Jtheletter ( 686279 ) on Monday April 26, 2004 @11:03AM (#8972572)
    The Xport [charmedlabs.com] is a nifty little device that turns your GBA into a microcontroller, with a bunch of I/Os, 4 Megs of RAM and a fully programmable FPGA. This looks like a good application for overclocking too, in case you need faster computing for something like image processing or mapping from multiple sonars, etc.

    I haven't used one but it seems like a real useful way to do robotics platform development, especially since you can output to the GBA screen, that sure would make debugging all my Sharp IR sensors a lot easier than reading a binary LED display.

  • Zodiac (Score:5, Informative)

    by Cpt_Kirks ( 37296 ) on Monday April 26, 2004 @11:21AM (#8972764)
    The Zodiac has had a working SNES emulator for weeks now. No overclocking required. Runs pretty damn good too.

  • Probably Won't Happen (Score:4, Interesting)

    by OutRigged ( 573843 ) <rage@o u t r i g g e d . com> on Monday April 26, 2004 @11:33AM (#8972860) Homepage
    I hate to be pessimistic, but full speed SNES with sound support probably won't happen on the GBA anytime soon, even with overclocking. My PDA, which has a 400MHz Intel Xscale processor overclocked to 472MHz can only run maybe 5 or 6 SNES games with low quality sound at full speed, everything else skips. Without sound, almost every game will play full speed.

    If an almost 500MHz ARM processor can't do it, I highly doubt that a 16MHz ARM or whatever powers the GBA can do it either; even overclocked. I know the GBA is a non-moving target in reguards to software development, and developers can highly optimize thier software for it as well, but so is the Dreamcast; and they (the Dreamcast emulation community) still don't have full SNES emulation with sound.

    Hopefully these guys will prove me wrong and succeed, I really wouldn't mind playing some of my favorites that haven't been ported yet.

    • Re:Probably Won't Happen (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Sycraft-fu ( 314770 ) on Monday April 26, 2004 @12:19PM (#8973294)
      Well the GBA has some advantages your PDA doesn't, that being the built in graphics and sound processors. PDAs are very much like old PCs in design. Everything is done by the CPU. The graphics and sound output are generally real simple subsystems. Well the GBA has quite powerful graphics and sound processors, hence how it manages to have all those cool games with a slow processor.

      Well, if an emulator can be made to successfully take advantage of those subsystems, it can accomplish a whole lot with the slow CPU. Now can that actually happen? I don't know, I'm not sure if there is an efficient way to use these processors, but it is possible.
      • The GBA doesn't really have much of a sound processor to speak of. But its video processor is very nice; in fact, it already has a video mode compatible to the SNES' mode1, which is what 95% of games use. SNESAdvance translates the SNES' video calls to GBA video calls, which allows things to run very quickly.

        And, at any rate, SNESAdvance can already run some games at full speed without speedhacking; with overclocking and possible speedhacking, I'm certain you could get them to run with sound at full speed.

    • Just need to use dynamic translation (Score:5, Informative)

      by pslam ( 97660 ) on Monday April 26, 2004 @01:43PM (#8974199) Homepage Journal
      I hate to be pessimistic, but full speed SNES with sound support probably won't happen on the GBA anytime soon, even with overclocking. My PDA, which has a 400MHz Intel Xscale processor overclocked to 472MHz can only run maybe 5 or 6 SNES games with low quality sound at full speed, everything else skips. Without sound, almost every game will play full speed.

      That sounds like a really slow emulator. It's probably an interpreting one, which means you can expect it to be something like a 100-1000 times slower than the emulated system clock-for-clock. A good example is Bochs [sourceforge.net], which is pretty damn slow, but the interpreted approach allows it to run on many systems with little porting.

      What you really need for a fast emulator is dynamic translation - rewrite snippets of emulated instructions into native ones, and run that instead. You can get close to a 1:1 ratio of native:emulated clocks, which means in your case you'd have a 472MHz XScale emulating as if it were a 472MHZ SNES.

      There's plenty of examples of dynamic translators about. Transmeta's processors all run a dynamic translator from x86 to some freaky native instruction set (they call it "code morphing"). Java's JIT (just-in-time) is an example of a very similar thing - it translates byte code to native instructions on the fly, but doesn't have to worry about maintaining the virtual system's state, because Java doesn't have the concept of one.

      So yes, it should be possible.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Other overclocking reasons (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Psykechan ( 255694 ) on Monday April 26, 2004 @04:13PM (#8975835)
    Overclocking gaming systems is not new. I overclocked my Atari Lynx back in the day.(24MHz from 16MHz)

    The reason I did it was to play games in turbo speed. STUN Runner played great at 1.5 times speed. A 1.2 to 1.4 increase would be great for most GBA games. Underclocking could also be useful for poor gamers. I know a lot of gamers who would like a speed switch on their system.

Slashdot Top Deals

He has not acquired a fortune; the fortune has acquired him. -- Bion

Close