Is support for the Gameboy Player planned?

[drhycodan]

Dolphin would be so much better if it supports the Gameboy Player addon for the GC so I can play GBA games on Dolphin.

[Kurausukun]

I personally don't see what you would have to benefit from this. It would be exactly the same as playing the game on a GBA emulator, except it would probably use more resources.

Regardless, it would likely be implemented through linking with another GBA emulator, and I think the VBA-M devs did express some interest in developing it, so hope is not totally lost. I still don't see why people want this though, except as a proof of concept.

[DrHouse64]

endrift, very active mGBA dev, also said she would be interested to implement the Game Boy Player on Dolphin.

[drhycodan]

It's simple, people wouldn't need to download a whole new emulator just to play GBA games.

[Kurausukun]

Oh god, a whole new emulator? Oh jeez, I'd hate to download one of those. I mean, they're so hard to find, and there are hardly any of them, and they just take up so much space... and it's also not like there's already an accuracy-oriented emulator with tons of functionality that combines many systems.

[Probwontusethisaccountagain]

I don't think Dolphin as a whole would be improved with GBA emulation, but part of emulation IS preservation, and it would be a mistake to not include it, at least in my opinion. Then again, if mGBA ever supports the added GBP features some games have, then you could consider that preservation of the GBP.

[mbc07]

(11-03-2016, 12:59 AM)drhycodan Wrote: It's simple, people wouldn't need to download a whole new emulator just to play GBA games.

Yes, they would. If Dolphin eventually gets Game Boy Player compatibility, I'm pretty sure it'll just like what's currently done with joybus. Or do you really think merging a whole emulator for a completely different console into Dolphin's code base just for the sake of implementing a rarely used feature is worth?

[KHg8m3r]

Well If it was implemented in a way that worked for both the GBA Player and GBA Link cable they would

[Shonumi]

Fwiw, I'm still interested in implementing some sort of connectivity between GBE+ and Dolphin.

[Aleron Ives]

Does using the GBP give you some sort of functionality that you can't get by using a normal GB, GBC, or GBA emulator? IIRC the GBP lacks SGB functionality, so it's arguably an inferior way to play SGB-enhanced DMG titles, and since the GBP itself just contained physical GBA hardware, isn't the end result of somehow involving Dolphin in this process identical to using a regular GBA emulator and throwing the display to your TV? The SGB brought new features to the table, but AFAIK the GBP was just a way to play portable games on your TV, which regular GB emulators already allow you to do. Since the GBP itself didn't take advantage of the GC hardware for anything other than the video cable to your TV, involving Dolphin with Game Boy emulation seems completely pointless outside of Virtual Console titles.