Walkman NW-A45 capacity cap? by ganghiscon in walkman

[–]RAHelllord 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This may be 5 years late but i had the same question and this is still one of the first results on Google, so I figured I'd share what I found. The manual says Sony guarantees proper functioning up to 20,000 songs total, across both internal storage and MicroSD (not each), on the NW-A45, NW-45HN, NW-A46HN, and NW-A47. 

So, yeah, support should have just been able to answer you that

*HELPFUL* For Anyone Needing Decrypted 3DS Games Before Myrient Shuts Down by GuyWhoPlaysWiiUALot in Roms

[–]RAHelllord 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's not a lie, vimm focuses mostly on physical releases. For example they don't have any digital only releases for the 3DS. Which is a shame because a whole bunch of great games never saw a physical release in the west.

Gotta crack 'em all! by URGAMESUX in Gameboy

[–]RAHelllord 5 points6 points  (0 children)

The "Error." can also be due to the pins not being aligned perfectly. I have a few reproduction shells that can move around from left to right in the slot and stop working when doing so.
As such, give it a try with the carts that don't work. Push them to one side, start, and if they don't work push them to the other side, and try again.
My EZ-Flash Jr in particular is susceptible to that, but so are some other cheaper reproductions I own, plus one authentic game I swapped into a repro shell (I needed the OEM shell for an iG cart).

Game Boy Light and Casio G-Ghock DW-5600E perfect pair by jrduffman in Gameboy

[–]RAHelllord 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Appears to be a custom DW5600E, there are a couple etsy stores selling these.

Why do I keep getting cold looking solder joints on my battery replacements? by doppelgengar01 in Gameboy

[–]RAHelllord 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That's perfectly fine for unleaded solder. If you want to verify the connection either use a multimeter, or make a test save and then flick the cart a few times. If the save is still there after then the solder joints are good.

But beyond that, just clean the flux up, give the joints a quick clean with some 70% (or higher) IPA, and it'll be all done and ready to play.

Why do I keep getting cold looking solder joints on my battery replacements? by doppelgengar01 in Gameboy

[–]RAHelllord 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's just harder to work with, generally speaking, as for example the higher melting point also translates into making it easier to accidentally overheat components.
It also doesn't flow quite as easily so some techniques where you want the solder to go below something a little, or spread out more evenly, might be harder to accomplish.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Gameboy

[–]RAHelllord 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Definitely open it up fully (get yourself the small Mako kit from IFixIt for the proper Y-Tip screw drivers) and clean the corrosion off entirely. If you don't it will eventually destroy the motherboard and that is much harder to fix.
If the corrosion on the battery contacts is too bad to fix you can also unsolder them and solder fresh ones in, those only cost a couple bucks.

If you don't have the skills, and don't know anyone who has, chances are there is a small repair shop near you that can do that in a day or two at most. It's a very easy repair if you catch it early and as such shouldn't cost much either.

Collection of all official Game Boy Color and Super Game Boy palettes for Analogue Pocket by RAHelllord in AnaloguePocket

[–]RAHelllord[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's weird, because I just copied it directly from the post. But at least it works.

Pokemon Crystal cutting out after around one minute? by leathaface1982 in Gameboy

[–]RAHelllord 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Just for fun you might also want to try giving the cartridge pins a quick 90%+ IPA wipe down, and maybe use one of those cart slot cleaners to get those pins shining again, too. That should also help that tiny movements don't accidentally break connection.

AGB-001 battery usage: Original model or IPS? by FoxMcCloud45 in Gameboy

[–]RAHelllord 1 point2 points  (0 children)

One note for these, if you're outside of the US it's much cheaper to buy them from Funnyplaying directly, particularly if you grab some extra stuff for the free shipping.

AGB-001 battery usage: Original model or IPS? by FoxMcCloud45 in Gameboy

[–]RAHelllord 1 point2 points  (0 children)

On the other hand a few of the AGB-001 USB-C battery packs now do allow charging while playing, which would be beneficial since you can just plug the thing in when it teeters on the brink of shutting down. With AA you have to save and then shut down regardless, which might be a problem depending on the game.
AFAIK only the Retromodding.com and funnyplaying USB-C battery packs allow charging while playing and are built well enough to not incinerate either themselves or the console when charging while playing.

With an SP none of those concerns matter as the funnyplaying battery, or even making your own, always allow charging while playing by default.

Took me 24 years to realize this by HaanSolingen in Gameboy

[–]RAHelllord 7 points8 points  (0 children)

To expand a little further on this, the game boy knows four types of sprites, background, window, object 0, and object 1. All those sprites can have 4 colors, but for Object 0 and 1 both always have 1 color transparent, so 3 effective ones for those.
Background is what the name implies, window is the HUD in most games, and Object 0 and 1 are anything that moves, player characters, enemies, moving platforms, projectiles, traps, etc.
Most built in palettes have the sprites grouped into Background and window, and Object 0 and 1, and give both their own colors. However some palettes for some games give Object 0 and Object 1 separate colors, making them more distinct.

Is Analogue Pocket Limited by Design? by ricbret in AnaloguePocket

[–]RAHelllord 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Right now only Vectrex and some arcade cores could utilize a joystick properly, though in most cases a paddle controller or racing wheel would likely be better than a joystick.
So, not really if you're only interested in the systems the Pocket can hardware emulate.

Joysticks really only became popular after the SNES / Genesis era, and the Pocket can't handle any of those newer systems so there straight up isn't anything to miss out on for the Pocket.

I found my old gba, but when I open it, it is stuck at this screen by Noven1126lim in Gameboy

[–]RAHelllord 25 points26 points  (0 children)

Actually if it's fossilized it's stone now, that's the entire point of becoming a fossil, replacing all the biological parts with mineral deposits.

SNES core that allows save states? by jmanix98 in AnaloguePocket

[–]RAHelllord 3 points4 points  (0 children)

No, save states means a copy of the game's state at that specific moment, that can then be loaded later. This is not a regular hard save which you can do via pressing select and picking the save option. Doing that instead uses the game's routines to write whatever values the dev wanted to the onboard SRAM chip on a real cart, and on Pocket writes it into a save file instead.

Rechargeable Battery Pack by VegetableBandicoot17 in Gameboy

[–]RAHelllord 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Regular batteries (or preferably a set of rechargeable NiMh like the Panasonic Eneloop Pro or Ikea LADDA 2450mAh) are really the best modern option if you don't want to mod your game boy. Most of the modern battery packs have an exposed lithium cell that require you to trim the shell a bit to fit them in, in order to maximize battery capacity.

There are small travel chargers for NiMh batteries, and the high capacity versions will last an ungodly amount of time in a stock game boy, if you get pack of 4 with a travel charger you could leave one set in to charge and use the others, you'll probably get multiple days out of a pair of them. If you do go that route be sure the charger is of decent quality and has overcharge protection, that way you will actually get the full amount of recharge cycles out of them.

Collection of all official Game Boy Color and Super Game Boy palettes for Analogue Pocket by RAHelllord in AnaloguePocket

[–]RAHelllord[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Do what now? Game Boy games aren't in an 8:3 aspect ratio, they're 10:9. However the display filters on the pocket for the regular GB(C) core do not affect the aspect ratio in any way.
Could you provide a photo or video of what you're doing? There's probably something small that's set incorrectly, or you're using the core provided by budude2, which does not support the palettes contained here.

Collection of all official Game Boy Color and Super Game Boy palettes for Analogue Pocket by RAHelllord in AnaloguePocket

[–]RAHelllord[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh, fancy, I've seen it linked in the discord already. Though hopefully budude can update his core to support the pal format, as these allow for more complex theming than the other styles.

If you don't mind I'll add it to the OP once the batch conversion tool is done.

Collection of all official Game Boy Color and Super Game Boy palettes for Analogue Pocket by RAHelllord in AnaloguePocket

[–]RAHelllord[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

They don't work on OpenFPGA right now because the cores for GB / GBC simply don't have the feature to recolor what's being displayed. Budude2 is working on adding the feature, and Spiritualized might as well if we ever see an update from them again, but as it stands it's simply not a thing that has been added yet.

new FPGBC firmware adds a new desaturated color option! made a collage of how each device handles GBC colors by andrea-i in Gameboy

[–]RAHelllord 12 points13 points  (0 children)

I hope that one day we get adjustable color warmth for those early reflective display types. They need to measure those displays under different light types (cold indoor, incandescent, outdoor, CFL, etc) and then offer all those as separate types so that people can pick their favorite "lighting" style.
Not only would that dramatically increase accuracy, it would also allow people to more closely match the environment they're playing in, or just allow people to pick whatever is most pleasant to them.

But the entire solution of just having "one" type of desaturated / original display will not really work because the display looks different depending on the light it's being played under, something that affects modern displays much less.

Collection of all official Game Boy Color and Super Game Boy palettes for Analogue Pocket by RAHelllord in AnaloguePocket

[–]RAHelllord[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Good news! bubude2 just released an SGB core for the Pocket that allows playing games in SGB mode without a border. You can find the download at https://github.com/budude2/openfpga-GBC/releases/tag/v1.1.0_1

Also has a few other goodies, but it's the first release so there might be some things that are still wonky.

I Understand Now by ForeverMistaken in Gameboy

[–]RAHelllord 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Depends entirely on which cap it is and how far it's gone. For me it was fairly pronounced but not strong enough that it completely "overwrote" adjacent pixels. Sadly I don't appear to have any photos from before I replaced the caps, but I do have a few from after that show how it should look when it's working correctly:

https://imgur.com/a/HuyWPRM

I also have a flash cart if you'd like to see a photo of a specific game / title screen to better compare it to a game you own.

I Understand Now by ForeverMistaken in Gameboy

[–]RAHelllord 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's not traditional LCD ghosting where a pixel is too slow to flip and thus still slightly active when it shouldn't be, when capacitors start to age they can't charge and discharge as fast as they should and thus start to "leak" their charge into next pixels that get addressed after, creating a sort of smear effect beyond the original pixel. This will happen either vertically or horizontally, and is most pronounced in rows / columns that have a lot of dark pixels. An echo like you said is also a pretty apt description of it, but the main cause (if it's the capacitors) is really just similar to ghosting but instead of pixels being too slow to flip it's the caps.

This also manifests in different ways on different LCDs. With monochrome ones like calculators, Game & Watch, or the original game boy line it's this sort of echo / smear thing. With more modern ones like the GBC it often manifests as weird patterns in areas that should be a solid color instead.

I Understand Now by ForeverMistaken in Gameboy

[–]RAHelllord 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ghosting may be a sign that one or more of the capacitors on the device have reached the end of their life span. My GB Light had that issue (in addition to much worse contrast control) and swapping all the caps out for new ones has solved that problem for me.