What is Game Boy Player and how to use it?

Purchase Options

As of now, you can find the following options:

1. Game Boy Player in a box with a disc;

2. Game Boy Bundle full set;

3. Game Boy Player without a box, but with a disc;

4. Game Boy Player with a disc, but without a box;

5. Disc separately.

6. Game Boy Player separately.

The main problem here is that the disc itself is very expensive (I don't understand why, but it is), especially if it's not Japanese. The Japanese disc costs about $70, while the English one costs about $150. The box also affects the price, and it can cost up to $20.

Therefore, when buying options 1-5, be prepared to spend from 7000 to 15000 rubles depending on the purchase option.

You can buy the Game Boy Player separately for 3000-4000 rubles.

But you might say: "Wow, 3000 rubles for the Game Boy Player and another 7000 for the disc, that's very expensive!" And I would agree with you, but! The Game Boy Player can be used without a disc! Moreover, custom software from a third-party developer is even more preferable for this (it has more settings and provides better graphics), but more on that later. For now, just know that it is possible to run the GameBoy Player without a disc.

Using Game Boy Player with a Disc

The disc that comes with the Game Boy Player has a very simple program and few settings, so you can safely buy the Japanese disc.

You simply insert the GBA cartridge into the Game Boy Player, insert the disc, turn on the console, and before starting the game, the console will ask: "Would you like to display in progressive scan mode?"

Translated into English, it means: "Do you want to display the image in progressive scan mode?" (this option may not appear if the console is not turned on via the digital output. Progressive scan increases the resolution of the image, and on some TVs, the image may be in 16:9 format (which, by the way, is not very good, as it stretches the image, since the original GBA games are in 3:2 format, but depending on the TV model, the format can be adjusted).

Simply select YES and press A (in Japanese, it will be in hieroglyphs, so choose the left option and press A).

That's it, the game has loaded.

Actually, the simplicity of launching the game is impressive, all that's left is to go through the settings. The settings are the same in both the English and Japanese versions, only the language is different. So if you don't understand something in Japanese, you can always refer to this article and see what those settings mean.

Settings

To access the settings menu, press the Z button on the controller.

Let's go in order, from left to right:

Frame – simply changes the frame (on the screenshot, it's purple around the edges). There are 20 in total, and they look nice.

Screen Size – increases/decreases the size of the image. There are only two options: larger and smaller. As you can see in the screenshot below (compared to the screenshot above, the image has become smaller).

Controller – remaps the Select button. The GC controller does not have a Select button, but it has extra Y and X buttons. You can remap the Select button to either the L and R buttons (but they are used in GBA games) or to the Y and X buttons, which are not used, so I remapped the Select button to them.

Screen Filter – options are Soft, Normal, and Sharp. Most likely, you won't see the difference between these three options with your eyes. The GameBoy Player manual says that this should only be changed if the image flickers, shakes, or doubles. And this should help deal with these issues.

Timer – this may seem surprising, but it's just a timer. A regular timer. For example, you set a pizza to heat up, and you sit down to play, and after a certain time, the timer will go off.

Change Game Pak – this option is needed to change the cartridge.

Select it, press A. You will be asked if you really want to do this, as all progress will be lost.

Choose the left option and press A again.

A message appears saying you can change the cartridge. This is the moment when you need to change the cartridge!!!

That's it, friends, the settings are over. Once again, I draw your attention to the fact that for the Japanese disc, all settings are identical. Set up all the settings once using this article, and then you will only need one option – Change Game Pak, I think you will quickly remember how to use this option.

What to do if you don't have a disc?

First option.

You can use the Game Boy Player without a disc. The simplest option is to mod the console. How to do this - read the article on the site "How to install Xeno chip in GameCube and change its language (region)?".

Please note that you will definitely need an SD2SP2 adapter. Where to buy the chip and adapter is also written in the article about installing the chip.

Next, you will need to download the GameBoy Player disc image from the internet, write it to a memory card, and run it. And essentially, everything will be the same as if you were using the original disc.

Second option.

Extrems wrote their own software for working with the Game Boy Player and launching GBA games, called Game Boy Interface. However, the GameCube will still need to be modded, and the SD2SP2 adapter will also need to be purchased. But in this option, the graphics of the games are even better than with the original disc. That's why I recommend this option.

You can download it from the link: Extrems GBP

On the right, there will be a Download main package button. Click and download the archive. Unzip this archive and copy all its contents (without the initial gbi-######### folder) directly to the root of the memory card., what to do next and how to take only the necessary files, read below in the GBi settings.

Turn on the console, find the DOL gbi file (third from the top in our screenshot) and press A.

A settings menu appears. Press Start and the game starts.

In the game itself, there are also settings, you can move the image, reduce and increase it. To do this, press the X button, make all the settings, and press it again after that. If you press the Z button while the menu is open, a screenshot will be taken and saved on the memory card.

You can compare the quality of the graphics when using the original disc and the quality of the graphics with this program. All screenshots are arranged in order, first with the original disc, then launched using this program (for the mobile version of the site, the top is with the original disc, the bottom is with this program).

Setting up Game Boy Interface

When you first launch this program, the image will be very bright. The settings you set before entering will not be saved, and a bunch of files on the memory card will look just terrible and ruin the entire file structure. But all these problems can be fixed.

How to get rid of a bunch of file clutter?

If you simply copied all the files to the memory card, when you turn on the console, you will have a huge pile of clutter in the Swiss menu:

Of course, this won't suit anyone. To fix this, let's figure out which files we need and which we don't. When you unzip the archive with this program, you will have the following set of files:

Note that there are many duplicate files here: gbi.dol – gbihf.dol – gbisr.dol. We don't need all of them, these are different builds of the program for different tasks. For example, gbisr.dol is the same version of the program, but tailored for speedrunners (people who complete games at speed).

Therefore, you don't need to copy these files to the memory card:

gbisr.dol – gbisr.dcp - gbisr.cli.example

gbihf.dol – gbihf.dcp - gbihf.cli.example

The files Extrem’s Corner.org and Game Boy Interface are just links to different pages on the internet, so you don't need them either.

The folders MCBACKUP and presets – we won't need them either.

In total, you need to copy the GBI folder with all its contents to the memory card.

Now let's deal with the files gbi.dol – gbi.dcp – gbi.cli.example.

gbi.dol – the program file itself, and we need it.

gbi.dcp – responsible for the settings menu when the program is started. When you start the program, the following menu will appear:

If you don't copy this file to the memory card, the program will simply start immediately.

gbi.cli.example – this is a text file with settings. If you set the settings (in the menu in the screenshot above), they simply won't be saved. All settings need to be written in this file. This file itself is an example of settings, and you can simply rename it to gbi.cli, and it will start working. Please note (!) that there are good default settings written there, but the screen format is set to 4:3, the original GBA screen format is 3:2, so you can immediately open this file with a text editor and change this setting.

Thus, the files copied to the memory card should look like this:

At the same time, if you are satisfied with the default settings in the gbi.cli file and you don't want the settings menu to open when you start the program, but the game to start immediately, then you don't need to copy the gbi.dcp file.

Moreover, in the Swiss menu, you can make sure that the gbi.cli and gbi.dcp files are not displayed. To do this, in the Swiss start menu, press the B button and open the settings (a gear is drawn):

Scroll to page 3 and set the "Hide Unknown file types" setting to Yes. Then press Save & Exit:

After you exit the menu, restart the console, and these files will disappear.

Please note, if in Swiss your settings are not saved and it says: "Config failed to save!", this means that on the first page of settings in the line "Configuration Device:" you did not select your memory card. For example, I have selected SD Card – Slot A.

That's it, friends, we got rid of unnecessary clutter and set up the program properly, now let's talk about various little things.

How to exit the program to the Swiss menu?

You need to press the X button (the internal settings menu will open) and hold the Start button.

How to change the cartridge to another one?

You need to HOLD the Reset button (it is located on the console itself, not the controller) the screen will turn gray:

Without releasing the Reset button, remove the cartridge and insert a new one. After that, you can release the Reset button.

Nothing works for me and there are some strange inscriptions in the corners of the screen, what should I do?

You are in the internal settings menu, just press the X button and they will disappear.