Strength of Gamebuino in comparison

[Skyrunner65]

Can you compare the gamebuino to any mobile device (by that I mean gameboys and whatnot)?

[rodot]

Myndale does a really nice comparison in his unboxing video:

[Drakker]

In comparison with the Gameboy, the Gamebuino has a much much faster processor, but has a screen about 1/6 the resolution and only has 1/4 of the memory of a Gameboy. The Gameboy also has a BW screen instead of monochromes, so it has white, black and 2 shades of gray. The gamebuino has only black and white and must use a lot of CPU time to display gray.

Overall the Gameboy is a much more powerful machine in almost every aspect, except that the Gamebuino has the faster processor.

You can find the specs there: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_Boy

[erico]

Hand held wise, I have a caanoo and an atari lynx.
While the caanoo is really powerful, I see no point of comparing them with the gamebuino.
(can a Lynx be considered hand held on todays standard??)

I take what makes a handheld a great piece to own is its software library as a consumer and mostly, the ability to code to it as a producer. Each one´s restrictions is a charm on its own, nothing actually comparable on my books.

I can code to the caanoo and could simulate the gamebuino´s features+more, but for what? The exact restrictions are what pushes the mind above the possible. Visuals are all cognitive stuff and a square on atari´s adventure is sure a knight. The challenge that a system provides is what is key to me.

[Myndale]

Ease of programming is indeed an important factor, in the game industry I saw that all the time. Sony, for instance, consistently had faster and better hardware but the difficulties in programming for their systems meant titles were usually a generation behind their Microsoft counterparts.

What makes Gamebuino unique in my experience is that it's the only system I've programmed for where a single chip is doing everything. Even the most basic commercial handhelds have some form of co-processing be it hardware sprite support, a math co-pro, a DSP chip for media, DMA processor etc. Not so for Gamebuino, with this device it all comes down to how good a programmer you are and how well you know the chip (or how well you use the library if you go down that route).

In terms of actual specs Gamebuino has a very powerful CPU compared to its RAM and display capabilities, which is an inevitable consequence of basing it on Arduino. Ordinarily I would place it about halfway between the Dreamcast VMU and the original Gameboy but CPU is so fast that it largely offsets the lack of RAM and hardware sprite support, so I think it's fair to say that in the right hands it's roughly on par with Gameboy.

[erico]

And its a RISC!

Well stated

[Myndale]

Not only is it RISC, it has a two-stage execution pipeline (compared to, say MIPS, which has 5) specifically designed for C compilers with no branch predictor or cache lines to worry about.

It's basically a very forgiving little chip.

[inversesandwich]

Not only is it RISC, it has a two-stage execution pipeline (compared to, say MIPS, which has 5) specifically designed for C compilers with no branch predictor or cache lines to worry about.

It's basically a very forgiving little chip.

Awwww, I think Myndale has fallen in love with AVRs

[Myndale]

Guilty as charged!

[DFX2KX]

Well, as far as Raw power goes, Myndale here got it to render basic 3D. It's all about using what the processor is good at to offset what it's not good at.