VisualBoyAdvance-M

So, I got a used Super Game Boy a couple of days ago, and noticed some things that should deserve mention. Most of these things are minor, but I'm a nitpicky person, so I'm going to mention them all anyway.

 

The most noticeable thing when I played my Super Game Boy is that the sound is noticeably sharper (higher-pitched) than any other Game Boy, and seems to run slightly faster too. This might be because any Game Boy model other than SGB seems to run slightly slower than standard NTSC speed (see here). Thing is, this isn't reflected in any version of VBA. VBA-M seems to run at GB speed, even if it's in SGB mode. In any other version of VBA, like 1.7.2, the pitch (and maybe the speed itself, even though it's hard to tell) seems to be halfway between GB and SGB, regardless of which mode is selected. So, so far, no version of VBA seems to emulate this right.

 

This also has a side effect too: Some games, like Mole Mania, adjust the sound pitch when played on an SGB. Therefore, Mole Mania sounds the exact same regardless of whether it is played on a GB or SGB. On any version of VBA, however, the sound is flat when run in SGB mode.

 

There was a second thing that I noticed when playing Donkey Kong Land on SGB. When it loads anything at all (e.g. when going from one part of a level to another), the screen doesn't turn blank, but rather, it "freezes" for a second or two. This is properly reflected in VBA 1.7.2 and 1.8.0 (although, for some reason, it wouldn't show up in an AVI video), but not in VBA-M, where it just has a blank screen.

 

To see what I mean, see

<div><iframe width="459" height="344" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/NSUBjCF4K ... ure=oembed" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="true"></iframe></div>, where I used 1.8.0 to play it and CamStudio to record the video. See how the screen freezes for a second? 

Lastly, supposedly the SGB has upgraded sound (directly from the SNES, I believe) in a few games like Donkey Kong 94 or Kirby's Dream Land 2 (although I don't own any such games, so I wouldn't completely know for myself). However, no version of VBA seems to have this extra sound; instead, when a SGB-exclusive sound effect is supposed to be played, instead there is no sound at all.

 

So, yeah, that's all I have to say...

Results on a SNES cannot be accurately reflected due to the fact even 2 SNES's from the same batch can have different timing.

 

SGB function, both in gfx and audio will only be reflected if the SGB mode is forcibly selected, otherwise it will run via the updated GBA apu.

And for SGB, you should use BSNES.