whats a good GBA emulator for DS?

first though, do I only need to have a Slot-2 device plugged into Slot-2, or do I absolutely need a slot-2 flashcard.

I have some old GB games lying around that I couldn't sell, and I will be trying to run the GBA roms on an R4.

 

You need a slot 2 flashcard, like the EZFlash 3 in 1. The only GBA emulator for the DS requires an "iPlayer", because of it's extra power.

 

Yep, but the iPlayer only plays movies and GBA games....not worth it unless you have some money lying around.

The GBA flashcart is the only other solution for now until the SUPERCARD DSTWO comes out sometime...not sure when but it will feature a GBA emulator, a SNES emulator, and will also of course play NDS games!...I'm gonna pick one of these up.

 

I heard that you only need a Slot-2 device plugged in. True?
And I mean a GBA Emulator like Lameboy.

 

Lameboy is not a GBA emulator. It's a GB/GBC emulator.

To play GBA games on your R4, you need the Slot2 device like the EZFlash 3 in 1.

 

Yes, that's true if, when you say "Slot-2 device" you mean "slot-2 flashcart". I don't know what other slot-2 device you could mean.

 

Well, the EZFlash 3 in 1 is a rumble pack, RAM expansion, and gba cart. It services more than one purpose. It's not really a GBA Flashcart because without the NDS Slot 1, you can't use it properly like you can other GBA Flashcarts, like the EZFlash III or IV which had a MicroSD slot or built in flash memory on it and acted like a Slot 1 Flashcart, but for the GBA.

 

True, good point.

 

when I say slot-2 device, I mean like a GBC game or the internet browser RAM expansion.

 

No, that wouldn't work. I don't know where you got the idea it would. And anyway, have you ever tried putting a GBC game in the DS? I know for a fact they physically don't fit.
So, to sum up, if you want to emulate the GBA on your DS, you'll need an iPlayer, or a suprcardDStwo (not out yet). If you want to run them, you'll need either a normal GBA flashcart, or a DS specific piece of harware like the EZFlash 3 in 1.

 

i never understood the reason as to why people couldnt make a GBA emulator for the DS. I mean, people have created sega megadrive and snes emulators. Why is GBA so different?

 

Ram, CPU speed, amongst other very pertinent factors. The Snes and Megadrive emulators available are far from perfect, suffering issues related to the same.

 

Yeah, but a GBA emulator would be much worse than that. The GBA is much more powerful than those old consoles.

 

fo sho? wow, i laughed at this statement, but if you say so, then i guess its true. To me GBA seemed to be on par with snes with the whole same look-a-like engine and all.

 

Have you ever seen Crazy Taxi GBA? Sure it looks like crap by today's standards, but that would never have been possible on the SNES. The only way they did Starfox was by having pretty much no landscape an the floor was just a flat shape with moving dots on it.

 

Some SNES games actually had additional hardware inside the cartridge (at least, I'm pretty sure it was inside the cartridge) to make up for the lack of power in the SNES system itself. Star Fox and Super Mario RPG were two of these.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_SA-1#SA-1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_FX

These games with additional hardware are usually not supported by the emulators for the DS, because they require more power. (PC Emulators do a pretty good job though).

 

Yeah, the SuperFX chip. Yoshi's island ad it too. Any game that had it in used to be difficult to emulate. Now nearly all emus can handle it though.

 

Except SNEmulDS. No Super Mario RPG on my DS makes me sad. Bowser's Inside Story sucks compared to the Super Mario RPG game

 

Yeah, I meant PC and home console based emus.