I hadn’t played an original GBA model for at least fifteen years until I tried one last year with Pinball of the Dead, and it really surprised me how good the display was.
I’m not sure if it was a revised 2002 unit with the improved screen or not, but as long as you have a decent level of indoor or outdoor lighting the games look great. Particularly early games which were evidently made around that screen. The lack of perceivable ghosting in most scenarios is also very impressive coming from backlit screens of the future.
You can still play a GBA SP without using the light. In fact if I can, I prefer it that way over the washed out blue look. Does the OG GBA screen look different to an unlit SP?
I seem to remember it largely being the same with the frontlight turned off, if that is the case it would have been using the revised displays from the 2002 Orange and Black models.
“ Q. Is there any difference apart from superficial ones between them?
A. Some of the newer GBAs (black and orange guaranteed, others sometimes)
have superior Matsushita (Panasonic) screens as opposed to the older
Sharp ones. Not only does this make the screen sharper, it also makes
the GBA look better with an Afterburner.”
I also remember reading about this in NGC Magazine back when it happened
As you know one sign of a legitimate cartridge vs a bootleg, if you can’t see the circuit board, is the two-character stamps embossed in the label at the factory.
I thought there was one game that didn’t have this - EUR Ninja Cop (Ninja Five-O in America), but I was wrong! It’s still there, it’s just very faint and only viewable in light at a specific angle:
I completely understand your perspective. Even though I’m usually striving for the best quality video/screens for all my consoles and handhelds, there is no replacement for the feel of real controllers, real consoles, and a CRT. For me, it’s about that feeling of playing on the genuine thing.
Your line of authenticity seems to be near the point of making console modifications, and mine is near the point of using real hardware (with modifications). For that reason, I have very little interest in emulation, when the real hardware is still reasonably attainable.
Two different lines to strive for, but the authentic feeling that you have while playing is the same.
Nice, that addresses one of the things I really disliked about the BennVenn Freckleshack screen. Looks like this one requires case cutting though, which I’d rather not do at this point. May pick this up with a pre-cut case to try it out.
Yeah same, it’s like $10 more for the case, not too bad. Shame there’s not much choice on the glass lenses! Early reports say the screen has really low ghosting.
Great to see pixels represented as dot points rather than bunched up squares - wonder how the colour accuracy is? That image does look like it’s a bit oversaturated.
I doubt it’s ‘correct’. I wish someone who cares about colour accuracy would step in with gamma and other colour controls. There are now Pocket/DMG aftermarket screens that allow you to create colour filters using RGB sliders so I would assume such controls are possible.
That being said I think it’s easier to stomach inaccuracies with the simpler colour palettes of GBC than compared to the GBA, at least that’s how I’ve made peace with it.
EDIT: There are RGB sliders, that’s handy for GB games. I guess if you uniformly reduce the RGB bars you could introduce some grey and blunt some of the saturation. Whites would be more grey though but I guess that’s okay considering the original screen.
I’ve got the new ‘OSD’ screen but not put it all together yet. Meanwhile, someone has recreated the look of other Gameboy screens, settings in the reddit link here
Just finished installing the ‘OSD screen’ and it’s awesome, I especially like it for original GB titles and the GBC’s extra pallets. No more horizontal flicker! The ghosting is really good too, like an 8.5/10 compared to the original’s 9/10. Lag seems really good also, Mario Land and Micro Machines both played great in my testing. You can reduce the saturation well enough that it’s not distracting but getting the exact same GBC colour tone is impossible, still, what can be achieved is fantastic and in some cases better. The only downsides are some IPS glow around the edges (made a little worse by the pressure when closing the case, I leave mine a little loose) and less battery life but that was a given. The screen size is a near match for the pocket and makes it hard to go back to. I think I might install one in a DMG next.
