this post was submitted on 14 Aug 2026
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Why do GBA games boot so damn fast? (lemmy.ml)
submitted 6 days ago by kuiskaaja@lemmy.ml to c/retrogaming@lemmy.world
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For context: I have basically 0 experience with anything pre-PS2 except that I had a PS1 as a kid with a few games. Never had an official gaming handheld console, Gameboy, DS, PSP or anything like that.

I've recently started playing the GBA game Crash Bandicoot 2 N-Tranced on my R36S (Chinese low end emulator handheld) that was collecting dust and wow, the game boots up blazing fast!

It's very convenient as I don't want to leave the thing on sleep mode, as that drains battery.

Is this how it was like on the real console too and how were the loading times on the previous Gameboy and Gameboy Color? How about the NES and NES? Were the handhelds more optimized to be picked up on the go: were the PSP loading times short too?

I remember having to wait quite a while on the PS1 and PS2 and that is still a thing on an emulator on an actual gaming pc while this 27€ handheld boots GBA games so so fast.

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[–] klankin@piefed.ca 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Well yeah, I can't say I pulled out my hardware for a benchmark - but I think its a reasonable indicator of a minimum bounds when comparing older hardware with low clocks to newer. ie presumably the GBA doesn't have AVX, but if you're running gameboy games thats just wasted silicon.

Between the GBA to the RK3326 there's almost 2 decades of improvement, honestly 'only' 1000-4000x improvement is actually kinda disappointing considering the previous decades following Moores law.

[–] kuiskaaja@lemmy.ml 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

well, then again the r36s costs like 30 bucks and the gba cost like 180 dollars adjusted for inflation

[–] klankin@piefed.ca 1 points 5 days ago

But just imagine how much the r36s would be worth in 2001.

that being said that's mostly because of different markets though, it'd be better to compare the switch to the GBA (Nintendo wants maximum money) vs the Chinese government trying to home grow a chip fab (government subsidiaries and a desperate need for good PR)