Posted: 2/9/2019 4:06 PM
Post subject: Game Gear Linking
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Alyosha
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Joined: 11/30/2014
Posts: 2829
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I have started work and made initial commits on Game Gear link cable support (GGHawkLink) I was able to reuse a large part of the GBHawkLink code which made the initial steps relatively painless. So far you can use multidisk bundler and load the 2 games but they currently aren't actually linked. It looks like it should be possible to get all the linking stuff sorted out. It's a bit messy though since the SMS core is pretty far behind in terms of development compared to NESHawk and GBHawk. So if I run into any roadblocks it might delay things quite a bit. I'm not sure how much linked Game Gear play really offers, but it seemed like low hanging fruit so I went ahead and started it. this also shares a lot with what would be needed for subframe input support, so it's a first step in that direction as well.
Posted: 2/10/2019 12:50 AM
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GamersTavern
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Joined: 5/29/2018
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That sounds great! I haven't been following all of this, so forgive me if this question has already been answered elsewhere, but how far along is the Game Boy Link Cable support?
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Posted: 2/10/2019 2:44 AM
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Alyosha
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Editor, Emulator Coder, Expert player (3821)
Joined: 11/30/2014
Posts: 2829
Location: US
GBA TASer of 2023 Homebrew TAS of 2023 Gameboy TASer of 2022 NES TASer of 2015
Game boy link cable support is essentially complete for both GBHawk and Gambatte. Well for 2 players at least. Also GBHawk appears to have slightly better compatibility. Future work might involve 4 player support but it’s not likely in the near term.
Posted: 2/11/2019 3:28 PM
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hegyak
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The games are good test cases: Columns Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine Puyo Puyo Puyo Puyo 2 They are all the same game, mostly. But they should have a Vs. Mode. Good for testing multiplayer. I don't know if they do more then 2 players. I had a Game Gear way back when but I never got to do multiplayer. Bigger list: https://www.mobygames.com/browse/games/game-gear/tic,19/ti,141/
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Posted: 5/8/2019 9:43 PM
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Alyosha
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Editor, Emulator Coder, Expert player (3821)
Joined: 11/30/2014
Posts: 2829
Location: US
GBA TASer of 2023 Homebrew TAS of 2023 Gameboy TASer of 2022 NES TASer of 2015
Okay! After a very long delay I finally got around to getting Game Gear linking working. I tested using Dr. Robotnik's Mean bean Machine and it seems to be working correctly. The GG linking isn't as well documented as gameboy, so some things aren't 100% nailed down yet. The most important thing is that there needs to be some latency between sending a byte and raising an NMI on the other console to read the byte. I have it set to 256 cycles currently, 128 is definitely too few and causes the game to crash. So this is something that requires some more research and refinement. So if you are interested in playing Game Gear linked games, please test things out and let me know what problems you run into.