SRGilbert Posted March 8, 2008 Share Posted March 8, 2008 (edited) I'll admit I don't know a lot about the tech side of these things, but I was dissappointed to find that there isn't a Lynx emulator for the GBA. Using a one of the many flash carts available for the GBA, I've learned that a number of classic systems have been emulated on the the handheld, included the NES (duh), Sega Master System, Sega Gamegear, and I guess even Colecovision to some degree. Is there just not enough interest or is there something about it that would make it too difficult to implement? I'm at least as surprised that a commercially available cart hasn't been made available for at least some of the Lynx games for the GBA, something along the line of the classic compilations already available. I know some of the Lynx games used a vertical orientation which would be difficult on the GBA SP, but otherwise I'd think it would be a natural for Atari or whoever now owns the rights to the games. While I'm on the subject, what about other handheld platforms like the DS or PSP, or the GPX? Just wondering...... Edited March 8, 2008 by SRGilbert Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gregory DG Posted March 8, 2008 Share Posted March 8, 2008 Yeah, I wish some smart programmer would port Handy. Isn't it open source? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+karri Posted March 9, 2008 Share Posted March 9, 2008 Yeah, I wish some smart programmer would port Handy. Isn't it open source? Handy is open source and written for Windows. There is also a GNU toolchain port PLynx available but it has some bugs that prevent some games to run. One big problem is that you cannot make changes to the Handy sourceforge repository. That means that all development done by individual developers won't benefit Handy. So now every developer has its own source trees at home. And we all have to reinvent the wheel. -- Karri 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
semicolo Posted March 9, 2008 Share Posted March 9, 2008 Plynx is probably a fork of handy-sdl, which is a SDL open source port (works well with unices). The maintainers of handy-sdl aren't much responsive, I was able to exchange some Emails with them but they don't seem to use the patches I submitted. Anyway, I tried to port handy-sdl to dreamcast and it's quite slow (I tried to deactivate the display to see if it was SDL related but it didn't improve much). So it could probably be ported on the GBA but with poor performances, unless some optimization genius could do wonders. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Warriorisabouttodie Posted March 9, 2008 Share Posted March 9, 2008 I dont think the GBA is capable of emulating a Lynx. Maybe a DS could, but it would probably only run at full speed if you made sacrifices like lots of skipped frames, no sound etc... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doctorclu Posted March 12, 2008 Share Posted March 12, 2008 I dont think the GBA is capable of emulating a Lynx. Maybe a DS could, but it would probably only run at full speed if you made sacrifices like lots of skipped frames, no sound etc... Shows just how amazing the Lynx is. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+LS650 Posted March 12, 2008 Share Posted March 12, 2008 I also think that the GBA would have a hard time emulating some of the functionality of the Lynx. If you take a look at the tech specs, the Lynx was a lot more powerful than some folks give it credit for. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atari5200 Posted March 12, 2008 Share Posted March 12, 2008 if you want a good system for classic emulation, you should look into a GP32, not GP2X. A good shape GP32 can be had for pretty cheap now a days and the Lynx emulator is very good. The only games I've had issues with is Desert Storm. I would never use my GBA for emulation, it's just not powerful enough, plus the small screen, GP32 is perfect for classic gaming, hell it even has MAME, which is very good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SRGilbert Posted March 12, 2008 Author Share Posted March 12, 2008 I also think that the GBA would have a hard time emulating some of the functionality of the Lynx. If you take a look at the tech specs, the Lynx was a lot more powerful than some folks give it credit for.That's what I was thinking too, but given that it can run Sega Gamegear and Master System Games, as well as NES games, I thought it might have a shot. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+karri Posted March 13, 2008 Share Posted March 13, 2008 Plynx is probably a fork of handy-sdl, which is a SDL open source port (works well with unices).The maintainers of handy-sdl aren't much responsive, I was able to exchange some Emails with them but they don't seem to use the patches I submitted. Perhaps I should merge the different Handy-versions into a common tree and be more responsive to developers sending in patches... Actually I have a very good idea of how to extend the cart layouts to Handy so that it could also handle Audio I/O bits for carts that use it. -- Karri Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
semicolo Posted March 16, 2008 Share Posted March 16, 2008 Perhaps I should merge the different Handy-versions into a common tree and be more responsive to developers sending in patches... Actually I have a very good idea of how to extend the cart layouts to Handy so that it could also handle Audio I/O bits for carts that use it. -- Karri I don't think you were the one I talked with, my patch added a zoom capability. I'm currently trying to find why handy-sdl crashes with your lynx-cart-demo, quite annoying if I can't test the new programs I (eventually) make. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+karri Posted March 16, 2008 Share Posted March 16, 2008 (edited) Perhaps I should merge the different Handy-versions into a common tree and be more responsive to developers sending in patches... Actually I have a very good idea of how to extend the cart layouts to Handy so that it could also handle Audio I/O bits for carts that use it. -- Karri I don't think you were the one I talked with, my patch added a zoom capability. I'm currently trying to find why handy-sdl crashes with your lynx-cart-demo, quite annoying if I can't test the new programs I (eventually) make. Oh no. I am not maintaining the handy-sdl. My response was badly written. Actually I know why the lynx-cart-demo crashes and made a patch and submitted it to Handy. It was included around 2 years later to the Windows source tree. Obviously it never got to the other handy repositories. What I was thinking about was to start a real handy source repository where we could really fix things and develop it further. I already have the PSP version PLynx that has bugs with screen position (eg. Lemmings won't work), the Amiga version, the Windows version, a Gamboy style thing supporting X, DOS etc.. All these could be combined to a GNU toolchain version with proper MinGW stuff for Windows compilations. I don't have the sources for handy-sdl. -- Karri Edited March 16, 2008 by karri Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shannon Posted March 16, 2008 Share Posted March 16, 2008 Don't forget that Mednafen also emulates the Lynx... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
semicolo Posted March 16, 2008 Share Posted March 16, 2008 There's a page there http://sdlemu.ngemu.com/handysdl.php But I worked on the v0.2 WIP that can be found there : http://sdlemu.ngemu.com/releases/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thund3r Posted March 19, 2008 Share Posted March 19, 2008 just put Plynx on my psp and its pretty good (and the screen flipping is great!) but it seriously needs some sound fixes, has there been any development in the project since 0.9? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Laird Posted March 28, 2008 Share Posted March 28, 2008 I also think that the GBA would have a hard time emulating some of the functionality of the Lynx. If you take a look at the tech specs, the Lynx was a lot more powerful than some folks give it credit for.That's what I was thinking too, but given that it can run Sega Gamegear and Master System Games, as well as NES games, I thought it might have a shot. The Lynx is far more powerful than those 3 systems. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AtticGamer Posted March 28, 2008 Share Posted March 28, 2008 The GBA can't handle it, maybe DS can but the PSP is the only one really able to make it a good emulator. I would love to see an Atari 2600 emulator for Lynx though . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johannesmutlu Posted May 8, 2015 Share Posted May 8, 2015 I don't think a lynx emulator for the gba is ever possible, because the lynx has some features wich the gba lacks, like builtin polygon rendering and 4 8bit dac channel sound, it also has 2 16 bit chip inside. However i wish that atari ported their lynx games to gba under the name atari(lynx)collection they could,ve make lots of money out of it, an missed oppertunety from atari. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Europatari Posted December 23, 2020 Share Posted December 23, 2020 i have found details about one: http://web.archive.org/web/20041128021821/http://www.geocities.com/psx_nemesis/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SRGilbert Posted December 23, 2020 Author Share Posted December 23, 2020 4 hours ago, Europatari said: i have found details about one: http://web.archive.org/web/20041128021821/http://www.geocities.com/psx_nemesis/ Holy necropost Batman! That emulator died years before I even started this topic. ? 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PFG 9000 Posted December 24, 2020 Share Posted December 24, 2020 Did the sounds issues of Handy ever get fixed? I'm not big into emulation these days, but it's always bothered me that so many people are only exposed to Lynx via Handy with its lacking sound emulation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nop90 Posted December 24, 2020 Share Posted December 24, 2020 The libretro handy core has a perfect sound. You can test it with the atarigamer online emulator. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZarkWizard Posted August 14 Share Posted August 14 Actually I am the one that coded that Lynx emulator for the GBA. I did it on a lark because someone told me it couldn't be done. I like things that are a challenge. I got the games to a point they would play. The biggest issue was the sound. I never implemented sound in to the emulator. I still have the e-mail address that is listed on that page if anyone was curious if I was the legit guy that wrote it. A friend of mine reached out to me a bit ago saying there were topics floating around today about a Lynx emulator not being possible on the GBA, and said "Didn't you make that a long time ago.". I laughed and said, already did that. It was a lot of ARM ASM on the GBA, and I had to really do some tricky stuff to handle the memory, and processor functions. It was pretty cool in the end. I wonder if I still have the source somewhere. If I find it maybe I'll toss it up on Git or something and let someone better than me take on the challenge to get it to the next level. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
AtariAge on Instagram
Watch us on YouTube
Chat on Discord
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.