Game Sack

[Genesis Knight]

Joe, you look like Stephen Baldwin from The Usual Suspects. Anyone ever told you that?

[MIZPHIT]

Joe, you look like Stephen Baldwin from The Usual Suspects. Anyone ever told you that?

[Joe Redifer]

Yeah I get that a lot. Better him than Alec, I suppose.

[The Coop]

Get yourself a daughter, make a recording of you chewing her ass off on the phone, release it to the TV news rag shows, and go for both! The look of one, the mental imbalance issues of the other!

[Guntz]

Unless he adopts one of the right age, he'd be awfully old by the time a biological daughter would fit the bill... Am I reading too much into this joke?

[The Coop]

I'm going to quote Marv Albert and say, "YES!"

[A Black Falcon]

I can explain that. I have 3 different GBC, and each has a different hardware revision, which can be seen in a hole in the bottom left of the battery compartment. The earliest one I own is CGB-03, and was made in Japan. which according to a chip on the motherboard was manufactured in 1998, which indicates it's one of the earliest models. The screen on this one can be seen in even a kind of dimly lit room like my own, and the colors are very, very bright on it, as opposed to the really dark colors GBC games have on GBA devices, including both SP models.

The next one up is CGB-04, and that was also indicated to have been manufactured in '98, but considering how late that year it was released, I have doubts that 4 revisions were made in just a couple of months. The board revision number should still be a good indicator for how early/late they were manufactured. This one's screen is very bright, and in fact is super bright when held at the right angle, even in dimly lit rooms like my own. However, it's the result of an extremely reflective LCD, which makes the viewing angle terrible. You literally need to hold the screen at the exact right spot, or it gets very dim. This one is also made in Japan.

The third and newest revision I have is CGB-06, which is said on a chip on the board to have been manufactured in 2000 (or 2001, don't want to open mine up to check right now) during the end of the GBC's lifespan. This one's screen is much dimmer, and is only a bit brighter than the GBA's screen. Though, unlike the previous two, this one's colors are also darker. They aren't as dark as the GBA's display of GBC colors, but it's just above midway between the Advance's brightness of the colors, and the colors displayed on the early models I'd say. The case itself also feels looser, and the COMM port at the top rattles around a lot, though this may be due to abuse due to the preview owner. It's a clear purple colored one, and the color is also slightly different than my CGB-03 clear purple one, it's even more transparent, and seems less colorful. The board also goes from being a plain green to being a yellow-green. This one was manufactured in China.

So, depending on the date yours was manufactured, or whether it was Japanese manufactured or Chinese, the screen could either be about on par in terms of brightness with the Pocket, or somewhere around the Advance's screen.

That's pretty interesting, I didn't know that there were different models of the GBC's screen... makes me glad I have had the ones I do, then!

Where do you find this model number in the GBC's battery compartment? Is it the larger number in the hole on the left? I see an "02" number, then below it "1-2" in smaller print. They don't say "CGB-" though, just the numbers. Is 02 the model? Oh, I have two GBCs. Both are Atomic Purple, and both have those same numbers in that hole, no differences. One of the two is broken; its screen died back in about 2004, and the sound doesn't work either now (for a while, the sound worked, but picture didn't). The other one works, but has a speaker connection problem so the audio doesn't work right (it's definitely just the speaker, though, because with headphones, sound is fine). Both have that nice, bright screen that you describe in the "03" model. It really is a dramatic difference when compared to the GBA's screen, or the GBA-SP or Player either, as far as color accuracy goes.

And on that note, I'm pretty sure that the lighter colors are the correct ones, and the darker ones are wrong. In many games, the difference is just so big, and the games so much harder to see on the GBA's darker-colors screen, that it's obvious that they were not designed for that. To give another example, on my GBC, Hexcite's green and brown colorscheme option looks fine, and you can easily tell the green and brown apart. On my GBA-SP, however, the green and brown are nearly identical in color, making that colorscheme pretty much worthless. It's annoying, that's my favorite one. And unfortunately, given that the SP and Player both repeat the same problem, I highly doubt that there were any GBA revisions that fixed the problem.

[kool kitty89]

I can explain that. I have 3 different GBC, and each has a different hardware revision, which can be seen in a hole in the bottom left of the battery compartment. The earliest one I own is CGB-03, and was made in Japan. which according to a chip on the motherboard was manufactured in 1998, which indicates it's one of the earliest models. The screen on this one can be seen in even a kind of dimly lit room like my own, and the colors are very, very bright on it, as opposed to the really dark colors GBC games have on GBA devices, including both SP models.

Bright as in pale (desaturated towards white) or saturated?

The next one up is CGB-04, and that was also indicated to have been manufactured in '98, but considering how late that year it was released, I have doubts that 4 revisions were made in just a couple of months. The board revision number should still be a good indicator for how early/late they were manufactured. This one's screen is very bright, and in fact is super bright when held at the right angle, even in dimly lit rooms like my own. However, it's the result of an extremely reflective LCD, which makes the viewing angle terrible. You literally need to hold the screen at the exact right spot, or it gets very dim. This one is also made in Japan.

The third and newest revision I have is CGB-06, which is said on a chip on the board to have been manufactured in 2000 (or 2001, don't want to open mine up to check right now) during the end of the GBC's lifespan. This one's screen is much dimmer, and is only a bit brighter than the GBA's screen. Though, unlike the previous two, this one's colors are also darker. They aren't as dark as the GBA's display of GBC colors, but it's just above midway between the Advance's brightness of the colors, and the colors displayed on the early models I'd say. The case itself also feels looser, and the COMM port at the top rattles around a lot, though this may be due to abuse due to the preview owner. It's a clear purple colored one, and the color is also slightly different than my CGB-03 clear purple one, it's even more transparent, and seems less colorful. The board also goes from being a plain green to being a yellow-green. This one was manufactured in China.

So, depending on the date yours was manufactured, or whether it was Japanese manufactured or Chinese, the screen could either be about on par in terms of brightness with the Pocket, or somewhere around the Advance's screen.

I checked, it's GBC-04, though I wouldn't say it's quite as extreme as you describe. (it's pretty dark at the wrong angles, but still visible enough to read text, though it gets very nice contrast at right viewing angle for sure -better than my GBP, not to mention less blur)

The GBA I have looks very close to that GBC, perhaps very slightly darker, but not quite as extremely specific about the viewing angle. (also better contrast than the GBP's screen) Albeit the pixels are a bit smaller (160x144 window on the 240x160 screen is smaller than the GBC's native screen), so that makes GBC games a bit harder to see.

On another note: comparing the GBP, GBA, and GBC I have (using Link's Awakening DX), I can easily hear the problems with sound on the GBP and GBC (very noticeably buzzing/whine), but the GBA sounds pretty clean.

[Metalwario64]

Bright as in pale (desaturated towards white) or saturated?

Probably closer to the former. I tried to make a screenshot with the colors as close as I could get them (while looking directly at my Color's screen for reference):

Actual RGB values (displayed on GBA devices):


CGB-03:


The CGB-03 shot may look a little worse than on the actual screen, because its screen has a little more "vibrancy" to it, likely due to its reflective nature. Also because its just an approximation as to how it looks.

SMB isn't the best example to use. I only chose it because the graphics are simple, and would showcase the color differences very well. It was originally an NES game, therefore the colors weren't developed around the GBC's display of the colors. Native games look better on the GBC, surely because that's what they were developed for, so the colors were made around the GBC's brighter output.

Where do you find this model number in the GBC's battery compartment? Is it the larger number in the hole on the left? I see an "02" number, then below it "1-2" in smaller print. They don't say "CGB-" though, just the numbers. Is 02 the model?

Yeah, I was going off of memory. The CGB part is behind the right side of the battery cover. But yeah, 02 is the revision number.

I'm not sure with the smaller numbers below mean though, which on yours is "1-2". I've seen different 03s for instance, with different numbers below the 03.

I highly doubt that there were any GBA revisions that fixed the problem.

It wouldn't be, because it's technically displaying them correctly. The GBA displays the raw RGB values (as can be seen in an emulator), whereas the GBC screens display the colors much brighter. The colors look like when you tilt an LCD and it the colors get brighter, so they may have the LCD adjusted to display brighter colors to make the games easier to see.

Now, the problems that arise when displaying the raw RGB values are because the games were designed for the GBC's altered output, so while emulators and the GBAs will display the true colors, they aren't how we were supposed to see them, so they tend to drastically alter some colors, and it makes the games look "darker". One great example is Kirby's Dreamland 2's GBC palette, which has a very bright blue sky on the GBC, but on with the RGB values it looks like a dark indigo (which I think looks a little depressing all together). It's also problematic because the light blue replaces the original "white" shade, and with the raw RGB values, it actually looks darker than the yellow that replaces the lightest shade of "gray":

RGB values:


CGB-03 colors:

[A Black Falcon]

Thanks for that post, that's quite interesting and it's good to know that that's why that was going on. I'd also say you did a pretty good job matching the colors there, that is close to how the GBC really looks, yes. (That is, I turned on SMBDX in my GBC, and it looked like that but a bit better, in part probably because of that nice reflective screen).

I also didn't know that some GBCs actually have screens more like the GBA does... really, there are GBCs with the darker palette screen? That's unfortunate, for people who have those models, for sure. Wanting the colors to be right is one of the major reasons to own a GBC over playing those games on a GBA or SP, after all, I would say.

On that note, I just looked in a GB emulator, and one at least (Visual Boy Advance) does have an option to switch between either "Real Colors" or "Gameboy Colors". I knew it changed the colors, but with your post, it's clear that what that does is switch between the normal GBC's look ("Game Boy colors" mode), or the GBA's look ("Real Colors" mode). And as you say, games almost always look better in Gameboy Colors mode, because that's what they were designed for. It's too bad Nintendo didn't do something similar, with the GBA line.

RGB values:


CGB-03 colors:

This one does a good job of showing how much worse the colors are with their "real" look, I agree. There are plenty more examples, of course, but that's a fine one.

Yeah, I was going off of memory. The CGB part is behind the right side of the battery cover. But year, 02 is the revision number.

I'm not sure with the smaller numbers below mean though, which on yours is "1-2". I've seen different 03s for instance, with different numbers below the 03.

Okay. My older, now dead one was a Christmas present in '98. The other, still working one I got used within the past year, so I don't know when that was purchased. So yeah, I also highly doubt they were selling that model 4 thing in 1998...

[Metalwario64]

I also didn't know that some GBCs actually have screens more like the GBA does... really, there are GBCs with the darker palette screen? That's unfortunate, for people who have those models, for sure. Wanting the colors to be right is one of the major reasons to own a GBC over playing those games on a GBA or SP, after all, I would say.

Well, not the RGB colors exactly, just closer. As I said, it's probably a bit brighter than halfway between the CGB-03 and the RGB colors.

I don't have my CGB-06 on hand (it's currently dismantled, and I don't feel like reassembling it right now), but this is how I remember them being:
[EDIT] I went ahead and reassembled it, because I wanted to make a more accurate representation of the colors:


They aren't so bad, but the LCD itself is also a bit darker than the CGB-03's screen.

[EDIT 2]
Also, to make the comparisons more fair, since I am looking at non-backlit LCD screens and am approximating the colors onto my monitor, I may as well post how my GBA displays colors:


Because of the nature of the reflective LCD, the colors don't appear exactly as they do on the backlit SPs, the GB Player, or emulators, but you can tell just how much darker and different they are to the colors displayed on the GBC. Most notable difference is that the light green bushes are now lighter than the sky color as displayed with the RGB colors, whereas the bushes were a bit darker than the sky which was brighter on the GBC screens.

On my backlit SP, the colors appear exactly like the RGB colored images.

[Nobi]

Wait, where did I imply that people weren't entitled to their opinions about Madden?

Sorry man, just wanted to jump in and defend the games. Didn't mean to put words into your mouth, or start an argument about facts and opinions or anything, I don't really invest much emotion into youtube videos, or the internet in general. No big deal.

[Joe Redifer]

[Kamahl]

so while emulators and the GBAs will display the true colors, they aren't how we were supposed to see them

(Good) gameboy emulators have the option to use either the real colors or the ones you'd see on the GBC screen .

[kool kitty89]

Probably closer to the former. I tried to make a screenshot with the colors as close as I could get them (while looking directly at my Color's screen for reference):

Actual RGB values (displayed on GBA devices):


CGB-03:


The CGB-03 shot may look a little worse than on the actual screen, because its screen has a little more "vibrancy" to it, likely due to its reflective nature. Also because its just an approximation as to how it looks.

Hmm, so the GBC makes the colors washed out compared to the true RGB colors of the palette? (since the GBC and GBA do use 15-bit RGB natively)

That's also a different context than what I'd made my previous comment on. (I's thought you were talking about GBA games using super bright colors to compensate for the screen, and whether you meant washed out or super high contrast/saturated color choices . . . not the GBC having a washed out looking display compared to the GBA -or the real colors the system is using)

I wonder how the Game Boy Player compares. (does it compensate, or use the native RGB colors?)

Now, the problems that arise when displaying the raw RGB values are because the games were designed for the GBC's altered output, so while emulators and the GBAs will display the true colors, they aren't how we were supposed to see them, so they tend to drastically alter some colors, and it makes the games look "darker". One great example is Kirby's Dreamland 2's GBC palette, which has a very bright blue sky on the GBC, but on with the RGB values it looks like a dark indigo (which I think looks a little depressing all together). It's also problematic because the light blue replaces the original "white" shade, and with the raw RGB values, it actually looks darker than the yellow that replaces the lightest shade of "gray":

OK, that explains the GBC color issues, but what about GBA games with similar super-saturated/high contrast colors? (I assumed those were selected simply to show up better on the limited contrast screen . . . but you'd think they'd have used less saturated colors in that case -they tend to look similar in saturation to many GBC examples)

Plus, if a large chunk of GBC models DID have the more RGB-accurate screens, wouldn't that imply that some games catered to that instead? (did any have multiple palette options to address that)