gba emu help

[Spongebob]

Plz help me, i (almost) absolutly need an emu that hase link support for te gba

[Mr. Crow]

Visualboy plays multiplayer is that what you need?

[Spongebob]

yeh um i need something like that

[Del_Boy]

No GBA emulators support linked multiplayer (over the Internet, Network or otherwise).

[Spongebob]

what about on the same computer?

[Del_Boy]

Still no, unless it's some type of game that supports 2 players on the same machine.

[Spongebob]

guess i'll have to stick with the gbc link support

[Josh]

I have heard somewhere, (probably here), that the authors or VBA won't put link play in for legal reasons. I don't know why, but that is what I heard.

[trclinkscales]

um... how would that be ilegal???

[Zorlon]

Don't ask us, ask them they never did explain.

[madcrow]

vba IS open-source tho. if u know c programming, it shouldn't be so hard to add support for the link cable. after all, its just a simple serial port. i'd do it myself except i don't know how to program.

[Josh]

I don't think it is as simple as it seems or else more GBC/GBA emulators would have it. Here is what the authors of VBA have to say about link.


# Why don't you add link?
Link sounds great but it is far more difficult than most people think.

Often users will mention that Snes9x (or other emulators) have link support, so it shouldn't be hard to add it to the emulator.

Truth is that SNES (and any other console) are completely different than handhelds. Let's compare:

* console - a console normally supports multiplayer by nature: you can plug multiple controllers and have several people share the same console and play together. One console, one cartridge, multiple players.
* handheld - handhelds are designed for single player on a single unit. To achieve multiplayer, a link cable is needed. This allows the different units to communicate and achieve the multiplayer effect. Multiple units linked together, multiple players.

On the console case, it is easier to add multiplayer because you can just link two instances of the emulator and only send the keys of each player. They don't have any communications feature by nature.

Handhelds on the other hand have built-in communication features which allow full speed communication between units. This is a lot harder to emulate: it requires a full connection between two emulators which need to be correctly synchronized or nothing works. It is a lot harder to achieve.
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# Will link ever be supported?
For the time being, I've decided not to add link support. The reason is that link would increase the interest in the emulator by users using illegal copies of software.
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# Why don't you use Kaillera or look at TGB Dual?
Kaillera is used for machines that support multiple players in one machine, for example normal consoles like Playstation, N64, GameCube, Genesis, etc... It works by connecting the players through the Internet and only exchanging their joypad movements. That makes your computer think there is another person playing with you locally.

TGB Dual emulates two CPUs to get linking working: one where you actually see the screen and a hidden one used to communicate with the remote player. The data transmitted is in the same way as in Kaillera. Some other steps are taken to transfer save states, etc but it is not a true GB Link cable emulation.

The GBA Link cable can send data up to 2Mb/s which is really a lot of data and considering how the GBA emulation requires a fast computer, it would require a really fast computer to achieve a decent emulation. It would be possible to take the TGB Dual approach but that would require a really fast computer. For the time being, I will not add link as mentioned a million times.

[madcrow]

ah, u'd need a t1 lan to actually use a gba serial over tcp-ip scheme. i guess its not really wqorth doing until broadband gets faster. it should still be fairly easy to do though.