GBI and EmGBA fusion?

[Papy.G]

Hello, as stated in the EmGBA thread, there are some GB/GBA emulator cores that can mimic more than one GameBoy to be able to play multi-player games.

As for the Gameboy games, the GC may potentially be able to handle two or even up to four of them, but the GBA may be harder to get.

We know that some of the bigger GBA games would need more than the whole GC memory to fit, not even mentionning the Ram needed for the emulator to run, so that may limit the max possible number of GBAs to be emulated to one (While people with the know-how may discuss this part, as if the same game has to run on the two cores at the same time, we won't need to duplicate the rom in memory…).
We know that the GBPlayer doesn't need much of the host GC's CPU nor RAM to run.
We also know that the GBPlayer serial port can be reached internally.

So I'm wondering if it would be possible to have both EmGBA and GBI to run "at the same time", with basic video rendering, and linked together (internally, or with a GC-GBA cable, doesn't really matter, but with external link, it would potentially allow for a third/fourth player to join), as at the moment, I'm using a two GCs/GBPlayers + one Supercard to play the multi-cart GBA games I own with my son (ZeldaFS, MKSS…), I'm happy with that setup apart that I don't have two GCs permanently installed in the living-room, so I have to dig for the second one and its powercord, the SuperCard… (The video cables settle on the TV, and I use a P&P display).

More than for my own ease, that will allow more people to enjoy all those forgotten multiplayer GB/GBA games, and reduce the need for GCs/GBPlayers/carts for some of us (I currently have three combos), and potentially lower the cost of such gear by lowering the need for multiples.

So, running two players would be cool at first, but if more can be emulated with the player 1 running off a real original cart, like two more, or even three, 4 Players GB/GBA games mayhem on one GC would be really awesome!

[Extrems]

I've already thought about it. The answer is no.

[Papy.G]

Too bad.

The overhead in graphics rendering/buffering of both would be too much?

[Extrems]

No game use SIO normal mode for multiplayer, so it's impossible to make them communicate.

[Diego borella]

I use GBI + EmGBA as follows: name the emulator autoexec and run GBI. Without GBplayer.
at least it made the Kingdom Hearts work for me.

[Papy.G]

No game use SIO normal mode for multiplayer, so it's impossible to make them communicate.

So this is for the GBPlayer to Emu linking part, nothing among controller bus, internal "Serial" connection, nor EXI/SP2 can handle that?

I've seen that there are not that much multiplayer games that are over 8/16MB, with such a rom size limitation, isn't there still some hope to see at least a dual core GBA emu?

I remember having seen GBA emulation on a PPC604e @ 144MHz, it was quite choppy, can we have a hint of the CPU load when emulating one GBA on the GC?


Sorry to insist, I would love to see this happen, if it doesn't, then i'll just have to buy multiples of carts and another flashcart in order not to have to get every game more than twice in case I want to party with more than two players. I'll continue to hunt for GBAs as I currently only have one, then get rid of only one cube and GBPlayer so I'll still be able to play up to four players GB and GBA games anyways.