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GBA tech demo shows off some mighty horsepower
4:21 PM on 04.17.2007, Aaron Linde 32 comments

     Does it suck?
Talk about impressive. This video from Unseen64 demonstrates the kind of horsepower that the GBA really had, showcasing a tour of a facility not unlike the docking facility in the original Metal Gear Solid. Pretty neat that the best 3D on the GBA outweigh sub-par work on, say, the PSX. Not that you'd ever want to, y'know, play a 3D game on the platform -- bit of a pain with only 4 buttons and a D-Pad -- but it just goes to show just how much juice could be squeezed out of the little bastard with the right engine behind it.
 
[Thanks, MJK!] 

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imcowman's Avatar
imcowman at 04/17/2007 16:31
I saw that when it was first released, and I waited forever to see it in a game. When I saw the GBA was going out with the DS coming in I could only think, "Whoa, I wonder what the DS can do if the GBA can do that..."

Oddly enough, we haven't really seen graphics that are too much better on the DS.......if these guys made an engine for it, the DS would kick sooo much more ass.
Mozgus's Avatar
Mozgus at 04/17/2007 16:33
Play Payback on GBA. It's as impressive as this. It's a fully 3D GTA clone. It's not half-assed 3D like GTA1 and GTA2, either. The cars and people appear to be polygonal even.

Anyways, lets have the link to download this tech demo. I wanna feed it to my flash cart.
Mozgus's Avatar
Mozgus at 04/17/2007 16:45
It's known as the Blue Roses Engine: http://xoomer.alice.it/mononline/unseen/gameboy/gbatechdemo.htm
pooper's Avatar
pooper at 04/17/2007 16:46
Old news, but yeah, the GBA was pretty powerful... check out this game

http://gameboy.ign.com/objects/665/665185.html

V-Rally 3 was pretty damn impressive too
Wheeliedude's Avatar
Wheeliedude at 04/17/2007 16:50
Wow, I'm surprised that you picked up the video!

Thanks!
BahamutZero's Avatar
BahamutZero at 04/17/2007 16:52
texture mapping is shit but other than that this reminds me of metroid prime hunters. This just shows basically all developers are lazy motherf*ckers. I mean if RE4 was squeezed out of the GC and the original XBOX had some HD lookin' games (mercenaries, oddworld) then there's no excuse for wii looking like crap
DJDuffy 's Avatar
DJDuffy at 04/17/2007 16:55
Those wavy textures are trippy. Kinda reminds me of a few levels from Perfect Dark. Time for some good 'ole N64 RAM expansion action!
Namelessted's Avatar
Namelessted at 04/17/2007 16:56
when i first click i thought it said DS. I was thinking it looked like garbage. But GBA? holy fuck that they did that.
Wheeliedude's Avatar
Wheeliedude at 04/17/2007 16:56
For some reason, this is (?) incentive to send in some interesting stuff from time to time.
nademagnet's Avatar
nademagnet at 04/17/2007 17:13
you guys might like a website called Demoscene TV. They have some really good stuff and there is a streaming feature that just runs random tech demos/intro with sweet music.
joepekula's Avatar
joepekula at 04/17/2007 17:22
@nademagnet:

That really didn't have anything to do with the article at all.
wardrox's Avatar
wardrox at 04/17/2007 17:27
ARM7TDMI for the win! The DS has bothte ARM 7 and 9 so, with enough tiem spent on coding/developing for it, it has the capacity to do awsome things.
macr's Avatar
macr at 04/17/2007 19:44
looks like ecks vs sever!
Aaron Linde's Avatar
Aaron Linde at 04/17/2007 20:14
Linde smash!
nademagnet's Avatar
nademagnet at 04/17/2007 21:03
@ AgentMOO & joepekula:

guys the link is to a "demo" site and the video in this post is a demo someone made for the GBA :p
Blazingluke's Avatar
Blazingluke at 04/17/2007 21:34
You have to keep the size of the carts in mind too!
CrackerlySeagull's Avatar
CrackerlySeagull at 04/17/2007 21:34
The GBA port of Wing Commander Prophecy used Blue-Rose. It looks fairly similar to the PC version graphicswise, but the story was cut down. Still, I would recommend it to anyone with $15 to spare.
CaffeinePowered's Avatar
CaffeinePowered at 04/17/2007 21:44
Thats pretty ridiculous, I wonder how much farther they can push the DS's hardware
Pepillou2's Avatar
Pepillou2 at 04/17/2007 22:31
I DON'T HABEEB IT!!!
Drift64's Avatar
Drift64 at 04/18/2007 02:31
Here are some more vids from that company:

http://media.gameboy.ign.com/articles/377/377395/vids_1.html
Ballistic90's Avatar
Ballistic90 at 04/18/2007 06:38
that engine was used for Wing Commander Prophecy for the GBA. The engine is pretty good, until you get to special effects...
Ndizi's Avatar
Ndizi at 04/18/2007 07:21
I remember seeing this one a few years ago. Funny how it looks better then some DS games.

It annoyed me very much that gba the perfect 2d plattform was focusing so much on 3d. Now with the DS it seems to be the other way around.
Mxyzptlk's Avatar
Mxyzptlk at 04/18/2007 07:48
Yeah, I remember seeing this too way back when, they had a nice RE style demo also.
Pepillou2's Avatar
Pepillou2 at 04/18/2007 08:18
that means.... the DS could have GameCube graphics! yay!

and the GameCube could have Wii gra... oh, nm
ZMTToxics's Avatar
ZMTToxics at 04/18/2007 09:57
Well, there was doom 2 for the gba (but doom runs on anything)

But there was also Duke Nukem 3D for the gba, which I did have the full 3d envrioment which was one of the reasons I bought a gba.

http://www.gamespot.com/gba/action/dukenukemadvance/index.html?q=duke%20nukem



mrpeach's Avatar
mrpeach at 04/18/2007 17:38
Judging from the "wavy/poppy textures" the coders cut every known corner in 3D rendering to make this happen - integer math, no texture lerping (pick nearest), etc.

If there really was horsepower, they wouldn't have to go to that extent for a demo with no other parallel tasks running (as you would have in a game).

I say good on them for the effort, but I don't see much real value in this beyond interesting demos.
pornboy's Avatar
pornboy at 04/19/2007 20:23
Old news. Pocketeers had 3D demos running on the GBA before the DS came out, including a Quake-inspired tech demo and a shooter demo with respectable gameplay and level size. Sadly, the only games they found publishers for were Need For Speed titles. Fun, quick, impressive for a 2D handheld, but sadly not shooters.

http://www.pocketeers.co.uk/
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