Is there way to use the Super Gameboy w/o a SNES?

[Bill Brasky]

Does the SGB just receive power from the SNES on one of it's pins and output a composite video signal on another pin? Does it not really use any of the SNES hardware at all, just pass video through it?

[Ze_ro]

Well, don't forget that you somehow have to get the controllers hooked into there...

 

Also, there are a bunch of SGB games that will actually use features of the SNES... heck, Space Invaders actually includes a whole SNES version of the game in there that's completely different from the normal GB game.

 

--Zero

[JB]

Nope. The SGB relies on the SNES for several functions, not the least of which is the clock signal. Regardless of what else it does onboard, it needs a SNES for the oscillator.

But since the SNES has no AV passthrough pins on the cart slot, it has to do a lot more than that. The SGB actually has a full interface to all the SNES hardware for controllre input, video rendering, and sound rendering.

 

That's actually one of the "system's" strengths. Since it's integrally tied to the SNES, an SGB-aware game can make use of any and all SNES hardware.

 

Want mroe than 4 colors(10 if you cheat, since the 2 sprite layers need a transparent)? How does 32 thousand sound(while the SNES specs typically list a max of 256 out of a 15-bit pallete, it's rather easy to surpass that limit, most notably by adding a transparency layer).

 

Think the GB's sound hardware is a tad limited? Try loading some samples.

 

Wanna do 4-player gaming? Hello, multitap!

 

The ultimate example is Space Invaders, which contains a complete SNES game inside that tiny gray square. Sadly, this extreme an example never showed up again.

 

 

 

 

Ah, Zero beat me to it. But mine's more detailed.

Edited January 10, 2006 by JB