Super Gameboy emulation?

mediamogul

My hacked Wii runs an older version of VBA-M and emulates the Super GameBoy features very well. Support could even be found in lr-vba-next sometime before 2012. It seems to be an ability that's just falling between the cracks for the Pi at the moment. However, I'm sure the pieces will all come together again sometime in the future.

MisterXen

Any update on this? As @mediamogul mentioned, I tried several games on the latest VBA-M Windows build from Github (2e8bee1) and found most of them run well with SGB and SGB2 (unable to play arcade version of Space Invader though). Wonder if lr-vba-next will add back this feature.

Omnija

@MisterXen Not sure, but i gave bsnes a try as well and ended up with the same black screen issue. still unclear to why since i don't receive the segment fault. Id assume it's probably a windows only feature or something rather.

mediamogul

@Omnija

still unclear to why since i don't receive the segment fault.

The black screen and the segmentation fault aren't mutually exclusive. I was originally using an improper binary which lead to the fault. The libretro devs are also stumped as to the black screen, but with everything else on their plate, I don't think a lot of investigation has gone into it either.

@MisterXen

Wonder if lr-vba-next will add back this feature.

Based on the linked conversation, their decision seemed pretty resolute. A little full color 'Donkey Kong '94' would be really nice.

XVO

I don't know if this is possible to add to retropie to try it out but I found a sgb emulator that possible could run on a rpi.
realboy emulator

Hyruleslink

I did some searching around and found this Youtube user that found a workaround to get Super Game Boy working in Retroarch on Launchbox. Perhaps we could adapt some of what he did to make it work in Retropie.

darknior

Hi. Some news about this feature on PI ? Because the last video was on PC always with BSNES.

Today Launchbox release some video preview : https://forums.launchbox-app.com/topic/42189-emumovies-nintendo-super-game-boy-videos-released-v10/

I think we must use the border trick ... with this pack of 100 games : https://www.dropbox.com/s/s16grwhmcov0w2b/105 SGB Borders Retroarch Wii.rar
Or full here : https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/8664/super-gameboy-border-overlays-complete-set

The game list with borders is here : https://www.wikiwand.com/en/List_of_Super_Game_Boy_games

mediamogul

@darknior

The borders are a great addition, but man would I love to emulate the game's color palettes, especially 'Donkey Kong '94'. We're in good company though. Nintendo themselves didn't include the ability to access those palettes from the Gameboy Color when it was released. If they had, the various emulators could likely make use of the color by using the GBC BIOS rather than having to emulate a SNES to get the job done. There's also the outlying feature of 'Space Invaders' having an arcade port that is only accessible from the Super GameBoy, but aside from the novelty, there's a million different ways to play that game more authentically these days.

darknior

@mediamogul Yes you are right, but i think it can be easier to use a GB emu with a trick to access this palette.
It is not officially possible, but if SNES can, GBC emu can too.
And if with border it make the trick it is almost perfect. Or maybe the GBC emu can show the border from rom too. And replace the Super Gameboy official menu.

mediamogul

@darknior

That would certainly be fantastic. What kills me is the feature is lying under the hood of VBA-M and even existed at one point in lr-vbam. However, it was intentionally removed by the libretro guys along the way, so it must have had some gremlins. As I remember, it could even do the borders.

matchaman

Is there a way we could get access to the old lr-vbam core? Maybe an old RetroPie release and extract the binary? I get that it might have caused trouble with GBA emulation but I'd stick to mGBA for that.

altdottravelling

In case anyone finds this thread as I did (12th June 2018).

I switched the emulator used by retropie (installed on a linux desktop machine) to lr-mgba and Donkey Kong worked perfectly as it does on the super gameboy. Background fame and colour palette :)

Hyruleslink

@altdottravelling Question. How do you select lr-mba for Gameboy games? I only see that emulator as an option for Gameboy Advance games. I am assuming you are loading your GB roms into the GBA roms folder to accomplish this?

mediamogul

@hyruleslink

If you had lr-mgba installed prior to the update, you may need to remove it and add it again using the RetroPie-Setup for the launch option to appear in the GameBoy Runcommand menu.

Cederick

So is it actually like using the Super Gameboy on SNES? Because I would love to play Pokémon Gold and Silver (Spaceworld) like it was presented back then with the borders and everything.

mediamogul

@Cederick said in Super Gameboy emulation?:

So is it actually like using the Super Gameboy on SNES?

Pretty much, yes. The only function that isn't emulated via lr-mgba are SNES-specific games from a Gameboy ROM. However, I believe the only example of this is the SNES 'Space Invaders' arcade port found on the Gameboy version.

Cederick

So I tried to put the sgba roms in gbc and it dosn't show up..

mediamogul

@Cederick

There aren't any unique Super Gameboy ROMs to speak of. They should all be standard .gb files. They'll work zipped as well.

Cederick

Pokémon Gold - Spaceworld 1997 Demo (NonDebug) (Header Fixed).sgb
Pokémon Silver - Spaceworld 1997 Demo (NonDebug) (Header Fixed).sgb

mediamogul

@Cederick

Interesting. To my knowledge those should really have the .gbc extension.