FPGA Powered Game Boy Color (Pre-Release Prototype)
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- čas přidán 9. 09. 2023
- Now available from RGRS(affiliate link): retrogamerepairshop.com/produ...
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New from Funnyplaying -- A Game Boy Color that uses 100% aftermarket parts, even the cart slot (yes, they had custom OEM compatible cart slots made).
Estimated MSRP is under $100 assuming nothing else has changed. Likely these consoles will be available as kits so the motherboard, LCD, and battery will likely be a bundle and then you'll have to provide or purchase separately the buttons, membranes, and housing. Last I heard, the details were still being worked out.
The shell I used is here (affiliate link): retrogamerepairshop.com/produ...
If out of stock and you're interested, sign up for in-stock notifications.
Game compatibility is mostly hit though there are a few misses. Game Shark and similar hardware does not fit properly in the aftermarket cart slot and even if it did, doesn't seem to boot properly. This includes Action Replays and Monster Brain hardware.
Most games seem to work fine via a specific combination of menu options. Those specific options may require experimentation to find. Original Game Boy games tend to work better on the GB core and newer games tend to work better on the GBC core.
Everdrive and EZ Flash Jr MAY or MAY NOT work, depending on your specific hardware variants. It's basically down to luck of the draw. If this is a red flag for you, consider skipping the cart emulator entirely and stick with an Anbernic or Miyoo or similar. You'll have a much more consistent experience.
This console ONLY works with game carts. You can not load ROMs and run them directly.
The original state of the FPGA Game Boy Prototype: • FPGAmeBoy -- First Har...
The actual GBC I compared against these units I worked on here: • Laminated Game Boy Col...
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Please be sure to check my website for more information including some handy links for useful resources, tools I use, and my socials: makhowastaken.com/ - Hry
For those interested:
The chip is a GOWIN GW2ARLV18EQ144PC/7 20kLUT 144pin QFP package Aora SRAM based FPGA. It's a pretty nice little FPGA and with the right fingerpokening you could get it to do some Cool Stuff. The price per chip is around $10/ea so I'm guessing these boards are going to retail for ~50-60USD.
Thanks.
Yeah, no clue why they bother scraping the chips.
Turns out that you can do a lot with a $10 FPGA.
FWIW, the cart reader and link port are custom and probably pretty pricey too though your guestimate is in line with what I heard so who knows.
99 USD as per Funny playing page
I hope they go further and make a GBA version (in the original form factor) that fully plays GB, GBC and GBA plus ROM flash carts. I'd buy that. As awesome as the Analogue Pocket is I prefer the access to the shoulder buttons as per the original GBA design
The black one does sound a little slower (lower pitched) than an original still. You can hear the difference in the music. Im sure they will up the clock speed in the final revision. This is super cool!
When making the GBA, Nintendo tested every single game boy game to make sure they were compatible with the GBA. Funny playing would be madmen to do something like that 😅
This has huge potential, not just as a fpga conpetitor to the pocket when the kinks and accuracy gets worked out but as a genuinely great gbc replacement at a lower cost than even real modded gbcs if the price is right.
So excited for this!
This is super cool! While I appreciate the Analogue Pocket for what it is, I think it's great to have a more affordable option like this that tries to serve as a more or less 1 to 1 replacement for the original hardware. Looking forward to when this releases!
Got mine today and build the exact one you did with the Cyberpunk theme, this thing is AMAZING. I installed the latest firmware with sleep mode. I do want more grid options for full screen, But I'm happy with it. I even print a Cyberpunk label for my EDGB PRO+ to go with the theme.
damn this is actually cool unlike 99% of retro stuff these days
If this thing can get more accuracy than an emulator-driven device with similar power consumption then I will be impressed.
I hope its accuracy will be somewhat on par with SameBoy and BGB.
this is fantastic! at some point, all original Game Boys boards will fail, but we can continue playing the games thanks to this.
Great video and love the level of detail. I hope that when this is ready they list it being compatible with Everdrives. It sounds like it's going to be priced right and if compatibility is there this would be the solution I have been waiting for. I have a bigger GBA collection so I might just wait for that.
Good to see some competition to Analogue forming.
the reason is because pokemon made up it's colors in a gameboy color until yellow. where the colors were defined. but yellow was backwards compatible.
so pikachu with blue cheeks makes sense to me because you are effectivly running the game as if it was in a gameboy pocket. but since it's a color it just treats it like a standard gameboy game.
Definitely needs a lot of work if not every game is compatible, especially EZ-Flash. I'll sit tight for it all to be sorted out :)
Cool Development. With the Laminated Screeen i almost opted for one but the issue i had with it was that it didnt have the options to have the "Color" word in their in their actual colours for each letter, it was just a whole block color which i was not a fan of. So i bought the Non Laminated one instead. If they made that an option id buy one. Id also love to see Special Screen Surrounds like on the pokemon color made to suit the larger IPS screens for obvious reasons :)
with that New Console though i could see for alot of users that mode switching would be annoying. Be good if Funny Playing added in an Auto Detect feature. Think that would be far better.
Less than $100? I said "Whoa!" out loud when I heard that. Crazy pricing if they can do it...
wow.. it looks great! I want to buy it when it is available.
Any chance you can ask them to add support for 14500 style batteries? It would look a lot more authentic than a flat lipo pack imo.
damn this thing is really cool, was freaking out a bit when you said its non integer scaled but then saw later theres the option to switch to 4x lol
The new interpolation seems a bit more sophisticated than the old one... *Correct me if I'm wrong* but the new one scaled up in integer and then scaled again to fit the full screen, which means you still get the chunky pixel look with less obvious uneven scaling. The older model seems to just scale up via nearest neighbor.
something looked off and i never noticed it doesnt have the game boy color on the lens until you mentioned that.
1:03 I thought that was my cat lol I took my headphones off and looked behind me to see what was wrong and my cat wasn't there
Can't wait to someone release substitution fpga boards for beyond simple repair to 16/8bit consoles, or kits where you can build your own
I saw FPGA replacements for NES PPUs a while back. I thought it was neat that people were pairing OEM CPUs with emulated PPUs to get as much "real" hardware as possible while still getting a good digital video signal out of the console.
Would love to see a Super Gameboy core in an update. I prefer playing the Pokemon games among others with the super pallette instead of the color pallette.
I'd recommend relaying this to funnyplaying. I think they tune me out when I come at them with too much stuff.
When and where can I buy this? This looks great.
This is awesome! Curious, do you know if they plan to develop an aftermarket motherboard replacement that requires a donar CPU? Like what they did for the GBA
Not that I know of. I was under the impression that the GBA wasn't even planned to be released as a regular product so maybe the success of that can change their minds. I'll inquire.
I can’t keep up with the developments!!! This is great though. More competition needed in the market place.
Now we await the metal shells!!!
All praise the FPGA!!!
The Winbond chip on the earlier unit could still be flashed theoretically using a DediProg and an SO8 test clip, or something similar. I used to flash similar Winbond chips on boards at a previous job. (Be cool to see if you do that in the future and if you get it updated to a newer firmware, successfully.)
I plan on attempting a bit of reverse engineering just in a bid to see if I can update my un-updateable units. I'll be picking up a couple extra EEPROMs so I have an easy undo button.
My hunch is that the files are pretty generically encrypted so as long as one unit updates, I can just round robin the EEPROMs and update them all on one unit. And if that's the case, that leads me to believe that someone who knows what they are doing can fully reverse engineer very easily. We'll find out, I guess.
I apparently misread that this wasn't possible. This is great news
Cool shit. I really wish someone would make an OLED screen replacement. I feel like OLED is cheap enough that it should be possible.
Not in the right shape. It's unfeasible to manufacture brand new purpose built screens.
It should be possible in the near future. I mean, they were making oled screens that were bendable.@@makho
“If you want to play your roms on an sd card..” “good luck with that”. Everdrive has entered the chat
To this day people complain about obscure compatibility issues with the Analogue Pocket and Ez Flash Omega or Everdrive. Seriously, if you want to use a cartridge emulator with one of these, you're not necessarily going to have a good time.
These are really cool.
Ill probably wait for for a version 2 or whoever as they iron out the kinks.
Personally Id prefer this in a dmg or gbp shell.
Is there pixel grid options?
I'd love a dmg style pixel grid on dmg mode,
where the grid is lighter instead of darker.
The current set of options is minimal. I've asked funnyplaying to at least port over all the options in their GBC backlight kits but I think they're focusing on the functional issues before they start adding nice-to-haves.
100% buying one of these when they come out just to have one.
Not related to this video but thanks to you I took my time learning slowly.. still a looong way to go but I did a funnyplaying GBA mobo! 😁
Very cool!
I'm barely into the video, but the Game Boy chime for the FPGA units is lower in pitch? Are they clocked slower?
They finally did it!
If it did TV out via the USB-C port/supported USB-C hubs, that'd be awesome.
Not possible without a significant hardware revision. I'll mention it to funnyplaying but I wouldn't expect to see that feature.
@@makho I can't find a way to contact them, but I wouldn't mind designing a better on-screen menu for them if their system can even handle something more complex
@@NeoTechniNot sure they'll be interested but nonetheless funnyplaying.com/pages/contact-us
All you need is a flash cartridge if you really want to play any game.
This is pretty cool, but not something I personally would pick up. I'd be more interested in a replacement PCB that allows for the original GBC Chips with spots for the upgrades integrated directly on the board
This is incredible news!
I'll definitely buy one of these for $100 once they work out a few more bugs!
looks like it is ~5% slower as when i paused at 100sec (1:40 on the blue it was at 1:35 on the FPGBC) we are getting close
bluetooth audio would be good as well
After they get the GBA available, they need to make an xl sized gba.
The gameboy logo tone is different too
thx now i know what to buy, sadly the case is sold out :(
Thinking out loud here, but wouldn't setting the "GBC DISP" option to GBC represent how a stock GBC displays faux colors on a GB-only game?
Something like that, yeah
So I got mine and it just came in the mail and I immediately have 3 problems. The first is that the console does not hold charge, I have to connect it to power for it to turn on. the second problem is that the backlight does not adjust, it is always on max no matter what the settings say. and the third problem is that the everdrive x5 does not work on it. I don’t know if this is the everdrive's fault or the gameboy's since I do not have any other carts to test it with.
Help wanted please, i just want my Game boy color.
update to the latest firmware and the brightness will be solved.
Everdrive doesn't work for now, but clones works.
Would the aftermarket cart slot work with an actual GBC board? If so, any way to find out if Funnyplaying will sell it as a standalone part? Got a perfectly functional board that only has a broken cart slot!
Yes, I swapped the cart slot in my yellow unit pretty early on to verify this. I forgot which GBC the slot ended up in which I guess is a good thing?
Oh and yes, I understand that Funnyplaying intends to sell the cart slots separately as well.
Is the slow down due to running at 50hz (or 59ish hz) instead of 60hz? I noticed the audio is a little pitched down, so that might be the issue.
Stock speed is about 59.7. The slowdown is likely just due to an incorrect multiplier and is hopefully as easy to fix as just changing that multiplier.
at 21:03 you said the version shown was the one they are going to ship but in the live comments you said that this is just a prototype. do you know which one it is? it seems to still need a lot of work! was hoping the chat comment was correct!
Likely final hardware, definitely prototype firmware. I've asked for a few features that have yet to be implemented so idk if they're going to do revisions to accommodate. They already changed it to add USB updates so who knows.
This is what I originally wanted from Analogue, just an FPGA gameboy, nothing fancy, nothing extra. I like the pocket, but I sold mine, mainly because it had issues with my GB Everdrive, but I think they tried to do too much, and it just felt watered down for me.
Why buy a game boy emulator and a cart emulator just to use them together? You'd be better suited by just using a dedicated emulator device like miyoo mini or anbernic or something.
What would be cool is if they'd take the same idea but apply it to a Pocket Color (maybe even smaller?) A gameboy color micro would be awesome
This is coming along with a DMG version. Eventually.
Me: TAKE MY MONEY!
Seriously, this looks like a fun little project!
How much is this going to cost? This whole thing is funny, I hate Analogue's practices and now their only semi-new competitor in the fpga space is the only other retro modding company I've had a problem with. Also I agree with you that I don't think the GBC is the best form factor for this. I'd like to see a DMG01 one with a fat battery and the ergonomic benefits that come from the bigger handheld personally.
One thing has been a mystery to me for a long time. Color correction in these screens. Why any screen from funnyplaying doesn't have this option? Is it really so difficult to implement?
If you have an easy solution, I'm sure the suggestion would be welcome.
The colors are faithful to what the game says to display. The problem is knowing when the devs intentionally modified the colors because the original screens were not faithful. There's no easy button toggle for this.
I would love it if they sold these in GB Pocket form factor! :3
wow so cool! 🤓
How did you make the case the way it looks. I like the mod. Can you show how you did it. Thanks.
It's a UV printed shell and I linked it in the description.
Someone asked me something on Reddit, figured I would come and ask here. They want to know if Funnyplaying wrote their own bios for this device or if they’re using the original bios from Nintendo to make this run.
Dump it and find out. Your guess is as good as mine.
I've just got mine and when i boot it the screen is turning on but doesnt have image but I can hear the boot sound, if I turn it off and on fast it works like it should, if I keep doing it its ok but if i leave it off for a while next time i have to do the same.
Any ideas what could be? It has the motherboard 1.1 and fw 1.02, I tried to reconnect everything again but it still happens, and to some people on reddit as well
Sorry for the long text 😅
You should probably talk to the seller.
I wonder if there is battery life compromise with these new aftermarket boards and by how much
Almost definitely. I plan on doing more indepth testing once I've got the for sure final hardware and at least the retail firmware.
I'm not shitting you I would die for these
i hope they will make it available with the option for normal batteries, i hate lithium batteries.
Omg! Amazing!
So I feel the main selling point is the speaker, everything else seems the same. I'd also to see an overclock feature, so we don't have to mod in an overclock into the GameBoy. But that might be asking too much. I'm very excited to see the future of these!
I have already asked specifically for overclock and underclock support (as well as fixing the normal clock). We'll see.
@@makho My hero, bro! That's what would really sell it to me
95% clock speed 9 (115/120). Which is big.
I've got the Q5 with the logo and I prefer it over the larger screen. Anyone know if it is compatible with this new mainboard?
If it's a Q5, yes. By very nature of being the same part.
TY, I have ordered parts and intend to try it out. Thanks @@makho
Just got mine in the mail this morning. Overall I like the console but it doesn't want to load my Everdrive x3, I get a message that says memory error. Everdrive works great in my Q5 laminated GBC. Have any ideas what could the issue. Everdrive is on version 1.06 FPGBC is v0.88
I get the same with the x7. Just came here to see if anyone else had this issue. Maybe we need to wait for an update from FP
@@leabriana1223 I tried different firmware versions and got it to load my Everdrive with version 1005 but most games seem to run really slow with messed up audio 😕
@@alexorear7807 thanks! Maybe I'll just wait to see if it gets better with a future update.
Does this work with the single ROM inside gadgets cartridges?
It does now. At least the couple I tested.
Hows the dpad on this compared to the original GBC?
Seeing as you can use an original GBC dpad, I'm gonna say pretty much unchanged.
What is that pokemon platinum on tour ezflash is it a pokemon romhack or that weird bootleg spriteswap of some sidescroller
Uh, I have no idea. The SD on that cart came out of a clone everdrive I bought for parts and I never really went through it.
Turned this on sitting on the toilet then saw it was an hour long lmao
I do not recommend sitting on the terlet for that long. Probably not healthy.
meh, if the compatibility is not 100% then might as well just get an emulator device. But this is a good direction, hope it gets better
If other lens and shells colors will be available to FPGBC?
Plenty of shell colors are available now. What are you missing?
I don't think there's any plans to make different lenses but since these are just standard Q5 LCDs, you can make your own lens and use a bare LCD with it.
@@makho Only nasty housing colors are available.
@@Kapral8 As per my previous message, what colors do you want?
@@makho purple (my favorite), earthy yellow or gb-grey.
@@Kapral8I will forward to funnyplaying, thank you. Can you provide examples of the purple shade (OEM Grape?) and yellow shade (OEM Dandelion?)?
did you or could you test link cable compatibility?
I did a couple trades in pokemon silver and gold. Does that count?
@@makho yes! Thank you! now thats a good reason to get excited! i'll be keeping my eyes open for this!
Is it safe to play while charging?
I'm told that it supports simultaneous play and charge, yes. The current hardware iteration charges at a very slow rate though and it gets even slower if you play simultaneously.
@@makho awesome, I have the kit and was just not using charge + play out of fear lol
how to upgrade the software on the device?
plug in USB to a computer, switch power on, drag and drop firmware file, power cycle, drag and drop firmware file again, done.
Can anyone be so kind as to tell me who makes that 4 game holder at 47:34?
Aliexpress "Portable Game Cassette Storage Box 4 Grid"
retrogamerepairshop.com/products/game-boy-game-case-for-gb-gbc
retrogamerepairshop.com/products/game-boy-advance-game-case
Will this retain IR functionality?
Originally, I was told that it would. My motherboard does not have the IR hardware required for this, however. None of the other prototypes/samples are equipped either. I wouldn't count on it.
Looks like the screens bigger than the q5
Well, it’s the exact same screen, they just decided to use more of it to stretch the display.
On their Q5 GBC screens, the part that lights up to say Gameboy color is actually part of the screen. That's how they can make it change colors and such. This model just gives you the option to use that portion of the screen for your games
34:00 Oh yea somebody definitely gotta fix that. Gameboy Color was known for it's pixels init
Nothing really to fix. If the full screen scaling bothers you, I'd recommend switching to the x4 integer scaling. It's a little smaller but everything is 1:1 (or 4:1 technically)
howd you get in touch with shockslayer to implement that little speed/battery testing feature in crystal clear?
I get around
Any news on the release date?
Hopefully when it's done. I don't know when that will be.
Hopefully once they squeezed this into GBP form factor@@makho
It released btw
make a pocket from an old version or keep it as it for history.
I'm leaning more towards just keeping it as is for history's sake and then buying a retail one to cut up later. I'm gonna try manually updating the firmware though because I kinda want it to at least be playable with most of my carts ;)
🐸👍
Let’s just pretend that this is a PAL version of the Game Boy
where can i buy these !
Not yet available.
retrogamerepairshop.com/products/funnyplaying-fpgbc
😘
You could still load up roms on an sd with an everdrive or similar flash carts. I would rather buy one of these than support a company that creates false scarcity of their products. I hope that they end up making a gba version I would gladly buy both!
> I would rather buy one of these than support a company that creates false scarcity of their products
What does this even mean? I keep seeing it repeated without any actual explanation. How does "a company" stand to make a profit by making hardware and then not selling it?
This is a Game Boy hardware emulator. Everdrives (and the like) are cartridge emulators. Put them together if you want weird incompatibilities. If you insist on using a cartridge emulator, you'll have a much more consistent and enjoyable experience by using a software emulator instead such as a miyoo mini or anbernic device. This device is not explicitly compatible with cart emulators and does not work with all carts.
@@makhodude you don’t seem to understand how business works. You can’t sell items that you don’t have in stock. False scarcity means exactly what it sounds like. They are not making enough to meet the demand of the product ie creating false scarcity. It’s pretty simple to understand. What other products do you know of that is sold in this manner? It’s a dirty business tactic and it allows scalpers to buy up all of the stock on day one and Jack up the price to rip people off.
@@makho and also flash carts do not run on emulation. They can run emulators but that is not the main feature that flash carts use. All the cart does is provide a graphical user interface to load up roms. The roms are played via the gameboy hardware (if you are using official hardware.) If you are using something like fpgbc then it runs on the hardware emulation of that device but in either situation it’s not doing any sort of emulation on the cart itself
@@madmyc6836 You should look into how these SD based flash carts work. There is a MCU/CPLD/FPGA in all of them that emulates the cart hardware. None of these carts are shipping with Nintendo MBCs so how would they support the hardware without emulating it?
@@makho so what you are saying is that it is emulating the hardware that is in a legitimate cart? But the roms stored on the sd are still playing off of the original gameboy hardware are they not? When the analogue pocket runs roms using open fpga it would not have the cartridge hardware in it either so I don’t see what the difference is when comparing the two. I am not super well versed in hardware emulation so forgive me if I am wrong
2:42 Whats the cat want ?
attention
I'd much rather just have a new populated board that I can transfer a real CPU chip over to, like their GBA replacement board.
This is awesome, I think they could have used that clone CPU, but it seems like there's only one company making them. Can you even call it a Nintendo Game Boy Color now? Funnyplaying should give a different name to it. Probably way beyond the goals of the project, but they could combine it with something like the K101 or even the upcoming K2DS, it could have even more appeal.
I don't think funnyplaying has any interest in relying upon anything other than stuff they can make and off the shelf parts.
@@makho But they could use ARM7 chips for GBA compatibility, right? They would need to design a new board though.
@@arthurcarneirolopes6383 The Nintendo CPUs are custom. It's not that simple.
@@makho I know, the GBA's CPU is a mix of a GBC and an ARM7 which does the GBA part, but if think about it, it either is in GBC mode or GBC mode, not both at the same time. So it's kind of similar to those NES+SNES duo clone consoles in which only one system is turned on.
@@arthurcarneirolopes6383Not all ARM7 CPUs are identical just like not all x86 CPUs are identical.
no sense to not add in rom compatibility
That's not the point of this thing.
By the time you assemble this, it will almost cost the same as an Analogue Pocket, which has superior hardware and utility, apart from having most issues ironed out. How does this differ from genuine modded Gameboys?
If you're going to compare to the AP, you gotta factor in the price of an AP. I cannot buy an AP at MSRP right now because Analogue only sells them in batches and they aren't currently selling a batch. Scalper prices make the consoles effectively $400. I agree that the AP is a better buy than this or a modded GB but until one can get an AP at MSRP, that is irrelevant.
Admittedly, Funnyplaying is also currently not selling these but I've been told that the "kit" to build one of these things (so the motherboard, battery, and laminated LCD with adapter all together) will be under $100. From there, you'd just need a shell, buttons, and membranes and those certainly do not cost another $150. I believe the specific quote mentioned that an assembled FPGA GBC would be under $100 but I'm rounding down to be safe. We'll have to wait until launch to find out for sure.
Modded Game Boys are much more expensive than this and can be unreliable. There are loads of underqualified people out there selling low quality modded GBs. Modding a GB yourself to have feature parity with this console is also more expensive than an Analogue Pocket at MSRP and they only get more expensive when you factor in the "prebuilt" cost if you do not mod it yourself.
They’re sold out now, but I bought one on the FP site yesterday for 80, including Shell and buttons.
@@AgreeableDetail have you gotten yours yet? Have you tried it with an Everdrive? Got mine today and it doesn't seem to work with my ED x3.
@@alexorear7807I just put it together and while I haven’t done extensive testing, at least for a few minutes of Kid Dracula and Shantae on my Everdrive X5 it does seem to work?
@@AgreeableDetail which FPGBC firmware are you using? I installed 1005 which is an older firmware and I got some games like Tetris to work and then other games like TMNT Back From the Sewers and Grimaces Birthday would load but have jumbled audio and run super slow.
What a disappointment that it's off sync, I guess tetris multiplayer will not play properly because of that
Keep in mind this is a work in progress, not the final product
Lol, I'm not buying that. For a good FPGA you need a lot of development. FunnyPlaying is not known for that.
They've made quite significant improvements just over the last couple months.
Meh. That's pointless. It would be better if it played up to gba and had an sd card slot for core development and roms. It's just a fake Gameboy.
I think they're working on a GBA model. If so then it needs sense to do a GBC first since they'll have to make all GB and GBC games work on the GBA anyway
No color correction for gameboy color sadly makes this another useless option.
Luckily things like that can easily be added with a firmware update.