I'm convinced that the screens break down and become less bright over time. There's no way I was playing this back then the way it looks now. Does anyone have a photo of one with a newly-modded, newly-manufactured, non-backlit screen for comparison's sake?
>>11988212It was always shitty and overly darkt. remember seeing how much darker the screen was compared to my Game Boy Color's and wishing I had the backlit SP that was brand new at the time instead
>>11988212Nah the GBA always had a worse screen than the GBC.
>>11988212Anon, the reason why so many GBA games are excessively bright and washed out is precisely to compensate for the dark screen
>>11988212The GBA was the worst screen for visibility in the entire nintendo handheld lineThis has always been the caseIt's worse than even the GBC
>>11988337>>11988350>>11988408>>11988458I get that this is the hill everyone wants to die on, but I was asking for visual confirmation. I just read somewhere that it might be a voltage issue, and that cleaning the contacts in the battery compartment could help. So I did just that and it actually improved the image a little. Unfortunately other presumed fixes would involve opening the device up to check solder connections and perhaps replacing the screen, so I can't confirm myself atm. Do they manufacture these screens new anywhere nowadays?
>>11988472>I just read somewhere that it might be a voltage issue, and that cleaning the contacts in the battery compartment could helpIs the LED power light flickering red and green?
>>11988350This. Unironically, but nobody wants to admit it.
>>11988478It got brighter after I cleaned the contacts.
>>11988542If you think so then that's great anon
>>11988350Fucking this, I found gba games basically unplayable until we got a gb player
>>11988575And even that thing was crudely made.>Annoying frame stutter hiccups>Blurry 480i only>Boot disc needed>Not a single game plays at proper aspect ratioThe Nintendo Wii might be dogshit when it comes to emulation, but even mGBA it's leagues better (if you stick to GBA), you can play at 240p and set up to properly play at 4:3 pillarboxed, just be aware of the bullshit Wii loves to randomly do to unrecognized your USB drive and halt and softcrash during a save or save state and fuck up your USB unit (supposedly the apps should be loaded from SD card so are their saves)
>>11988212These were always garbage. I remember watching the opening cinematic of Pokemon Sapphire and having no idea what I was supposed to be seeing. >>11988350I remember the GBC screen being better too but I have no idea if that's actually true.
>>11988608I was just playing Metroid Fusion like this with THIS recolor patch from Metroid Construction.https://metroidconstruction.com/hack.php?id=377Do not use the ones from Romhacking, no offense, but this one really looks beautiful in a CRT at 240p.Makes me realize the poor GBA games suffered from Nintendo's shitty assholishness
I bought a GBA intending on getting a full Pokedex in Gen 3, needing to be able to use a GBA to Gamecube link cable and it was the worst experience until I got a screen mod.
>>11988608>USB driveThese days wii homebrew is better with a sd card
>>11988778I learned that the hard way, but I think it also depends on which Wii model you have, supposedly late non Wii mini models had the less issues
>>11988615>I remember the GBC screen being better too but I have no idea if that's actually true.It was darker than the Pocket's screen iirc but still good enough
>>11988212Sort of related. I wish I could go back in time and show 12 year old me my modded GBA. I'd shit bricks.
>>11988608>And even that thing was crudely madeWhen I was a kid in the 2000s, seeing it in composite on a crt TV, it was just fine and I was just happy to be able to see my games
>>11990113>you modded in HOW many frames of input latency
>>11988212Just play your consoles.
As a kid you were probably playing next to a lamp with a incandescent bulb, or even just a ceiling light with an incandescent bulb.Nowadays you're probably playing under a heckin' wholesome ecofriendly LED bulb! lol. Wompwomp.
>>11988212https://www.cnet.com/reviews/nintendo-game-boy-advance-review/
>>11990227>weeb filenamethey got a bad unit, mine was fine
>>11990227Most people owned zero (0) blue/white LEDs in June 2001 so it would have been very abnormal to include one in a product designed several months prior, if they could even be sourced at that scale.
>>11988212>Red power lightInstall some fresh batteries. This isn't a GBC. Red light on the GBA means you're low on power. You want a green light instead.
>>11990113Why don't modders make larger screens?
>>11990432The GBA is 160p, it only looks worse on a larger screen
>>11990437Does the image on the Micro really only look better because the screen is physically smaller or is there something more to it?
>>11991163no, it doesn't look betterAnd it looks fine on a CRT, The problem more comes from viewing on a screen with incorrect resolution, it makes shit look more blocky
>>11991176Assuming the screen is same resolution but bigger & has some feature to blend pixels, would there be any harm in a larger screen?Similarly, there are mobos available for GBA. Does anyone make compatible ram, CPU, etc, for it?Do any of the custom mobos improve the bus size for sound?
>>11991248>Assuming the screen is same resolution but bigger & has some feature to blend pixels, would there be any harm in a larger screen?That makes no sense anon, pick one or the other>Similarly, there are mobos available for GBA. Does anyone make compatible ram, CPU, etc, for it?wut>Do any of the custom mobos improve the bus size for sound?Do any of the custom mobos improve the bus size for sound?anon, these aren't PC's, just emulate with an analogue pocket at that point
>>11988212They look better under incandescent and flourecent lights than LED.
>>11988472>Do they manufacture these screens new anywhere nowadays?oh yeah, there's a fuckton of aftermarket screens for all game boy models. idk if any are equivilent to the original but some are better than the original. and there are all manner of installation options with various levels of complexity and pros and cons associated. I think there is even a method of putting a gba sp 101 screen into an original gba if you are a puritan who only wants to use original nintendie parts.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQ9eK4e13_g
>>11991176>no, it doesn't look betterYeah I've seen some comparisons of the color gamuts and pixel sharpness of the Game Boy Advance SP AGS-101 vs Game Boy Micro and the latter's colors definitely seem a bit washed out compared to the other models>And it looks fine on a CRT, The problem more comes from viewing on a screen with incorrect resolutionYeah Game Boy Interface makes the games look gorgeous with the correct resolution and color settings, really shows just how cheap and shitty the Game Boy Player Start-Up Disc software was.
>>11991256>That makes no sense anon, pick one or the otherResolution isn't the same thing as size.>anon, these aren't PC's, just emulate with an analogue pocket at that pointThere are literally replacement PCBs (aka mobo) you can solder donor chips into when modding a GBA. You can buy them online AF hardware modding sites. Why tf did you respond to something you know nothing about?
modded my agb-001, hispeedio v5, it definitely adds 1-2 frames of latency, but still a frame better than any of my emulators
>>11992186>Resolution isn't the same thing as size.I want you to find a 160p LCD at 20 inches>There are literally replacement PCBs (aka mobo) you can solder donor chips into when modding a GBADid you read what he said anon, read it again
>>11993870So no?I love how all the people who act as if they are "elite posters" who cannot deign to give a yes or no answer also lack the skills to do hardware modding. They can't conceive that maybe the person asking suck questions may have the skills to do so.
>>11994487>So no?No, I guess you can't read
>>11988212It did, I clearly remember playing Mario Kart on a friend's GBA at release and it looked dark as shit even while playing outside.
>>11994507he probably got a bad unit, mine was fine
>>11988212if they've become dimmer over time, i pity anyone playing on one in 2025.they were a bitch to see anything on on release.
>>11995306I don't think I've ever had any issues with my screens besides the polarizer somehow fucking up on my GBC and inverting the colors on everything that didn't become impossible to see. I think if anything the colors would get lighter and more washed out with age, my other GBC has an intact polarizer but the colors are a lot less vibrant than my other one's used to be.
I know for a fact that my GBA screen did eventually fade and now the screen no longer works.
>>11996505I doubt that very muchSounds like a power issue
>June 13, 2001
>>11996576he got one from the bad run, they sent him a fixed one laterto make it worse, idiots who kept the defective ones let the sun get on the screen and fade it out, making it even worse
>>11990113That looks like shit.
GBA apologist man, please show a photo of your supposed "good" unit. I'm curious to see if there are actual differences in revisions.
>>11996739There are none, pic related is what all OG GBA screens look likeBut according to the apologists, if you had the tiniest amount of light in your room, the reflective screen would light up as bright as a backlit one
>>11996739Yes there are massive differences, first of all there are 40pin and 32pin original gbas with the 40pin screens being the original brighter, better and more power hungry. There are also differences between sharp and panasonic screens.Beyond that I have a ags-001 gba with a DOGSHIT screen, compared to my original 40pin gba is it darker, the gamma is way lower so its black crushed, and the gamut is way smaller so red appears like orange. There are big differences.Nintendo screen quality and consistency has never been good, just look at the whole 3ds tn vs ips where the ips has the wrong gamma lmao (2.4 rather than 2.2)I have talked to two people however whos ags-001 screen is as good as the 40pin supposedly, and it should be better if so because the ags screen have a diffuser layer which stops the rainbowing stuff that happens in direct sunlight on the agb screen (seen in picture attatched)Nintendo screen consistency is a crazy rabbit hole lmao. https://www.retrogameboards.com/t/game-boy-advance-with-40-pin-lcd-display-cable-has-more-reflective-viewable-display/2935
>>11996771It's so insane to me how confident people who know nothing are, sharp vs panasonic screens, 40pin vs 32pin? The idea they all look the same is utterly absurd.
For an ips screen to be a suitable replacement for an original screen it must have the following-Colour correction: GBA gamut was tiny and developers knew this, this is absurdly important to have or the colours will look widely oversaturated. It is very obvious in games like fire emblem where uncorrected colours give the characters horrible yellow skin which hilariously people playing on emulators dont seem to question-Pixel grid: This is very important to the look of the sprite work, transformative visually.-Interlacing: The gameboy screens used a lcd interlacing technique for transparency and other visual effects, for example the f-zero gp legend mini map, if you dont have this the effects dont work and it looks like aids.-Input lag: Obvious, original unit has 2 frames of input lag and many ips replacements will have like 6, aids.The only gba screen replacement that fufilled these is the cleanscreen, however retarded ass niggas asked the dude to change the colour correction from the original gba to the ags 101, the ags 101 gba being the only gba with an incorrect wider gamut lmao. I'm also not sure on the input lag.However the creator says he is going to add both colour correction modes to the next revision, and if input lag is good as well effectively this is the perfect screen.It is insane that Nintendo could of saved us from all this pain by just clamping the fucking gamut on ags 101 similar to how sony did on psp 3000. Fuck you nintendo engineers u fucking retards
>>11996864Post a picture of the good looking screen
>>11996897Here's your typical 40pin og gba
>>11996907Now without direct sunlight
>>11996863Well I'll be damned. Would you say any of them are as reflective as a GBC screen though?I dug out my old GBA (which apparently is a 40-pin) and GBC to check if I remembered correctly, and the GBC is indeed noticeably more reflective.
>>11996897Dude the screen is made for direct sunlight lmao, its reflective enough to be playable indoors or in a car but its dim, this is just the reality of 2001 electronics lmaoThe reflective screens were the only sensible option in 2001 and I don't understand the hate. The motion clarity on 2001 lcds are abysmal, even ags-101 which came out 4 years later has poor motion quality and smearing while the agb screen is crystal clear.They also did it to save battery life which it would of done MASSIVELY, and because they assumed kids would be playing outside. Also the gba was a 100dollar console at launch, it kept costs down as well.The screen works indoors with a light source behind you (window), but will not be brighter than a backlit screen. However outside in the sun it will get basically as bright as any backlit screen indoors while obviously being viewable in sunlight which even modern displays struggle with. You can say maybe they should of added a frontlight but its possible this caused issues with screen performance, generally ags 001 screens are worse in sunlight compared to original screen and perhaps part of that is down to sacrifices necessitated by making the frontlight light up the screen properly.If you want backlit gba you can use gba micro or ags 101, but it is nonsensical to critique reflective screens because they were the only sensibile option
>>11996918This is my 40pin gba (cpu-04) vs my cpu-02 gbc (so they are both early revisions), they are about the same reflection wise i find, gbc might be like 5% more bright but its not much.Only big difference i notice is gbc has a more neutral white, but it doesnt change much.It's very possible that you have a gba screen that is inferior to mine, whether its because of 32 pin, or a panasonic panel, or just an inferior panel just because.It's also possible that gba graphics are more complicated, and colours generally less pastel than the gbc it works worse as a reflective display, the simpler graphics might be easier to perceive on a sometimes dull reflective screen, and the brighter colours will make the gbc effectively brighter. It's food for thought. Apparently the gbc also has multiple screen revisions but i imagine they got better as time went on that worse unlike gba
>>11996891But the COLOR CORRECTION of GBA itself was fucking dogshit too.
>>11997078It's not colour calibration the actual gamut of the screen is smaller than modern displays
>>11996914Don't bother, this people are faggy
>>11996959>It's also possible that gba graphics are more complicated, and colours generally less pastel than the gbc it works worse as a reflective display, the simpler graphics might be easier to perceive on a sometimes dull reflective screen, and the brighter colours will make the gbc effectively brighter.Right, this is probably the main reason why people complain more about the GBA screen. Just the nature of being able to display over 32k colors simultaneously vs the GBC's 56, you get less contrast.
>>11996576HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
>>11997151Or, you could just say, Nintendo fucking sucked
I just installed a glass replacement lens on this unit I picked up about a week ago. I took this photo in the basement which has fluorescent tube lights. The glare is worse in the photo than it is in real life because I was balancing trying to take a picture as close to what I was actually seeing as possible without also showing my face.Presented not as an argument but as data.
>>11997319Ok, your example looks in good faith and spirits unlike some of the other posts with pictures, but, the ultimate test would be taking photos of these.Circle of the Moon > Game with no "bleaching"Also any of the Capcom Disney ports that give you the choice to switch the colors, mainly Aladdin, and Magical Quest 2 and 3.
>>11997078so what is the correct way to color correct the colors on an emulator?Retroarch gba-color.glsl? mGBA/NanoBoyAdvance color correction option?
>>11994492>No, I guess you can't readFYI this poster is uninformed, there are GBA screens that are slightly larger than the originals.
>>11997456
>>11997582Ok thanks, man, is just as bad as I remember, shame because the normal non color corrected colors of CotM was fine and not even that dark and SNESlike.
>>11996541You might be right. The red/green light stopped working just before the screen died.
>>11997614Maybe I’m misunderstanding you, but this ROM isn’t color corrected as far as I’m aware.
>>11997582The ideal GBA screen would be one that has the original grid and pixel blending and scaling but with proper backlighting that is not just an ugly blue light on the front bottom, yeah, later SP and Micro has that, but also the biggest thing.NO or OPTIONAL color correction.I just want to play gba games with GOOD colors, Not ugly color burning nor bleaching
>>11997634Piggy Chan is a dude that has released a couple of romhacks that color correct a few popular games but doesnt go overboard with bizarre or weird color choices, if anything the JoanataGuitar attempts were pretty flawed, too darker in some places, more brighter in others.
>>11990113Sadly that's the ugly kind of transparent, not the transparent OEM shells.
>>11993595Hispeedido screens are great, specially because they have a pixel grid and saturation controls for a even closer feel to the original screens while being able to actually SEE them.
>>11988212I will always hate the OG GBA screen no matter how much Nintendo apologists try to gaslight me into thinking it was good or neccessary, they could've done better. Thank God for emulation and being able to play the good GBA library in decent screens.
>>11988212>I'm convinced that the screens break down and become less bright over time.Is your body ready for IPS screens after you've accepted your dimming fate?
>>11988212The Gameboy Advance wasn't backlit so how could it become less bright. The only thing dimmer in this thread than the GBA is OP.
>>11990113You're going to wreck your mind with that IPS screen.
>>11997615Could actually just be your power switch on it
>>11997553FYI, this poster can't fucking read>Assuming the screen is same resolution but biggerThere aren't any 160p screens that are bigger than the original and blending is unnecessary at native resolution
