PS1 Quality Games on GBA!!!

[ready2rumbelX]

I was just browsing through the usual sites I do, and I stumbled onto this.....read it, and be shocked!

http://www.that site is not allowed .shtml

ready2rumbelX

[Archlyn]

One question: HOW!? I don't disbelieve it, I just wannna know how their squeezing 3D out of the GBA. I wonder what sort of games can be made to utilize the 3D engines discussed in that article. I'm also a little iffy on weather or not it would be worthwhile, simply because the games for the GBA are released on cartridge technology. Square had CD-ROMs and their psx titles were 4 discs in some cases.

[Prafull]

I have to remove that link.Here is what it contained:

Description
Two new engines developed for the GBA are about to revolutionize the quality of titles for the popular handheld games console. The upcoming titles will bring real 3D gaming to GBA. Bobbee Tec's DRG 3D and Graphic State's AGB Rush technology are changing the way titles are being developed.

Bobbee Tec have announced that the latest version of their DRG 3D Engine for Gameboy Advance is now available for licensing to third-party developers and publishers. What their technology offers is the ability to take PC-based games designed for the Quake or Quake 2 engines and actually run them on the GameBoy Advance. This, of course adds a new dimension to the possibilities for GBA games, which could add a large list of titles to the little console's arsenal.

According to Bobbe Tec creation of content for GBA using their engine is carried out in 2 steps:

1. Use the many freely-available PC-based tools for Quake or Quake 2 development (just like a PC game),
and
2. Convert your data for testing on GBA hardware (yes, you can also do most of your testing on the PC!).
Such a painless process will also give developers the freedom to focus on detail and polish, without sacrificing one area of development for another.

Graphic State

Despite the impressive DRG 3D results other efforts are also promising to greatly improve the GBA gaming experience.

Having just completed work on Crazy Taxi : Catch a Ride for THQ, Graphic State has unveiled details of its latest Game Boy Advance technology. Crazy Taxi is the first release to make use of the unique AGB Rush engine, which features detailed 3D environments, realistic physics and dozens of on-screen sprites. Handheld game players can now experience 3D gameplay similar to games previously seen on the original PlayStation.

We can now create games for the Game Boy Advance that are a generation ahead of current titles, we are confident that we have developed the best 3D routines for GBA - and unlike many other developers our technology has already been proven in a commercial release, says Richard Whittall, Creative Director of Graphic State. The new games we are developing take the GBA to new levels, which is essential in the very competitive GBA marketplace.

Our AGB Rush technology includes many advanced features such as full texture mapping on all surfaces, lighting effects, depth shading, animated textures, fluid sprite animations, weather effects.

[Kazuya Mishima]

Although square used 4 cds it was because of the use of the fmv.
Still a quake based game would use a 640 megs cd so i dont really know if they can compress all the data.

[Sera]

what's the matter with the link anyway? Is this true or just another hoax?

[Prafull]

Originally posted by Tokimune
what's the matter with the link anyway? Is this true or just another hoax?

That linked to a very popular site but since that site contains few illegal material I had to remove it.

i have no clue whether its hoax or true.

[DarkAurora]

Originally posted by Kazuya Mishima
Although square used 4 cds it was because of the use of the fmv.
Still a quake based game would use a 640 megs cd so i dont really know if they can compress all the data.

Yes, Quake was on a 640 meg cd but it barely used 40 megs of the cd.

[Razor Blade]

Were there any screenshots? If so can someone post em? I would like to see em.

[Kazuya Mishima]

Originally posted by DarkAurora


Yes, Quake was on a 640 meg cd but it barely used 40 megs of the cd.

So i dont see the problem. There should be cartridges of games like quake.
I recently read in Club Nintendo that project was being made. Since its the official magazine here i think it should be relatively true.

[Cyberman]

1) Yes it's real
2) GBA ROMs are currently limited to 256Mbit which is also relatively expensive. Nintendo uses factory programed OTP EPROM from OKI semiconductor to store the GBA games on. My estimate is it's possible to get larger game sizes possibly beyond the N64's 512Mbit barrier. From what I know, of the processor it should be able to handle a 32Mbyte segment of memory directly with 3 wait states programed for accessing this same cartridge memory 'map' at 3 address rangers. It allows 64K static RAM which could be used for something other than static ram (see bank switching). Anyhow that about sums that up. So with some 'clever' design > 256 Mbit games can be made.
3) This information has been out since nearly the begining of the year, it is cool though.
4) I hope they port FF7 to the GBA, it's actual physical data though is close to 200Megabytes that includes the games magic background images and animation battle scenes game script enemy models and menus. I suppose one doesn't need 512x512 scrolling backgrounds on the GBA though. No movie data is included. Believe it or not 90% of the space are the FMV's in the game. Also most the game data is already compressed (using LZS compression). One can reduce the FMV's to much smaller I suspect (320x240 15fps) using DivX portable grade compression without a great loss in quality. 10:1 perhaps gain in space. And maybe gain a bit here and there for background data (perhaps using JPEG compression?). It would likely weigh in at 2048Mbit not exactly small

[Phoenix Flame]

But would the GBA up to the task of decoding streaming DivX files, Cyberman?

I know we're both being facetious here but hey, it's a laugh. 2D equivalents of the FMVs could be used maybe ...

[Mad]

Originally posted by Phoenix Flame
2D equivalents of the FMVs could be used maybe ...

just like Mega/Sega CD

[Cyberman]

Originally posted by Phoenix Flame
But would the GBA up to the task of decoding streaming DivX files, Cyberman?

I know we're both being facetious here but hey, it's a laugh. 2D equivalents of the FMVs could be used maybe ...

Hehehe.. well they are selling Chips that perform DivX decoding in real time. The GBA carts DO have an IRQ on them and the DO have DMA capability. All you need to do is decode the data internally on the cartridge and viola, you can stream a few frames at a time from whatever memory you decoded it too in the cart.

Now cost wise.. this would put FF7 to about oh.. $150 on the GBA?

More seriously since the GBA only has 32768 colors and a 240x160 screen FMV's can be 'subdued' substantially without too much loss. The GBA supports both ARM and ARM thumb instruction sets. So a tightly programed loop for the data could be handled internally. Donno need to RIP em to AVI's and play

Still need a HUGE amount of memory to story the data in though. even a 256kbps mode that's 32K/S some of the FMV's are over a minute. The opening sequence is 15fps and 2:07 in length for example.. just for the opening sequence that's a wonderful 4Megs.

I think though it's fun to think about for now

Cyb

[Kane]

>More seriously since the GBA only has 32768 colors

I was under the impression that the image was 32-bit, giving you 2^32 colours

[Phoenix Flame]

I'm not sure about the GBA, but usually 32-bit colour is really only 24-bit colour plus an 8-bit alpha channel, so really 32-bit colour has only(!) 2^24=16,777,216 colours for each pixel.

[Kane]

>I'm not sure about the GBA, but usually 32-bit colour is really only 24-bit colour plus an 8-bit alpha channel, so really 32-bit colour has only(!) 2^24=16,777,216 colours for each pixel.

That's would be for 3d normally

[Cyberman]

It's 32768 colors
Let me point you to a nice spec on the GBA:
GBA Tek Doc
also try this to be doubly certain:
Mappy Tek Doc

Anyhow.. back to what I was blabering about (grin).
Because it's color resolution is less than the 24 bits typical of FMV's etc (IE it's color rendition is lesser) I don't see compressing the data to be too much of an issue. 320x224 x24 bit @15fps to 240x160x15 bit @8fps and 160x128 is more likely the resolution so it's more than adequate.

The need for space though for all this, would be the biggest challenge. Still it's doable by splitting the ROM space into 4 sections and using part of SRAM space for switching ROM segments.
Example.. base section fixed at 64M (8M program space) and the upper 3 segements are memory maped.
each map is say 8 bits? that makes 256 * 8 or 2Gigabyte of memory mapable data. In other words, not a big deal. As for cost of doing something like that, ehhh.. not cheap. Need extra hardware and of course more chips for ROM space. Say each ROM costs $5 each.. and thus the user $15 for each ROM and the cost of the title(costs are pretty high from manufacture to consumer). Let's say 8 256Mbit chips used (256Mbytes of memory) that's $120 for just ROM alone plus maybe $40 for the normal overhead. Comes out to $160 or more (yikes). Rom media is expensive.

Cyb

[DarkAurora]

A better idea would be just to get rid of the FMV's all together. Square could just recreate the scenes that used to be FMV's using just the regular 3d models.

[Kazuya Mishima]

And that will surely make the game to lose some of the essence of the game. You will always see the characters as "kids" not as adults.

[Archlyn]

I dunno, aside from Berret and his friend I always thought of the characters as between 17-20