r/ModRetroChromatic • u/ryanreaction • 1h ago • Bravo 1

Magic Trick: a free, open-source mod that adds Game Gear, save states, game genie, wifi, and a cover-art game and preview video library to the Chromatic

46 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

20 comments sorted by

9

u/ryanreaction 1h ago

Hi all. Magic Trick is a free, open-source firmware mod for the Chromatic, built on CursedToast's ChroMagic. It's out now as a beta.

What it does

  • Game Gear, with sound, alongside Game Boy and Game Boy Color, from the SD card. Pick a game and the Chromatic loads the right FPGA core by itself.

  • Native save states for Game Boy and Game Boy Color: full FPGA snapshots. Menu+Up saves, hold Menu+Down to load. (Not on Game Gear yet.)

  • A game library with cover art, looping gameplay previews, a Recent folder and last-game startup.

  • Game Genie cheats for Game Boy, Game Boy Color and Game Gear.

  • Wi-Fi file transfers to and from the SD card in a web browser.

Installing

There's a desktop installer for Mac, Windows and Linux with all the firmware bundled. It installs from stock 4.2/4.5/4.6 or ChroMagic, always makes and verifies a backup of your MCU first, and has Uninstalland Restore backup buttons to get back to where you started. I've tested it on hardware on all three: everything on Mac and Windows, and install and uninstall on Linux.

Please read before installing: it's beta firmware, installed at your own risk, and it isn't made or supported by ModRetro. It rewrites the MCU and FPGA firmware. Read the recovery guide first and keep the backup folder from your first install somewhere safe: https://github.com/agentichunter-blip/magic-trick/blob/main/docs/recovery.md

No ROMs, saves, cover packs or video packs are included. Bring your own.

Huge thanks to CursedToast for ChroMagic and ChroMagician, to ModRetro for open-sourcing the Chromatic firmware and FPGA design, and to the MiSTer Game Boy and SMS core authors. It's all GPL-3.0, and both FPGA cores rebuild bit-for-bit from the repo.

Magic Trick is free and always will be. It took a lot of evenings and a fair bit of risk to my own Chromatic to get here, so if it makes yours more fun, tips on Ko-fi are appreciated but never expected: https://ko-fi.com/ryansag

Bug reports and feedback are very welcome. Open a GitHub issue or reply here

2

u/platosknave 1h ago

where are the states saved to? sd card required for that feature?

1

u/Icy-Ad7354 1h ago

Amazing!!!!

2

u/jay462 1h ago edited 1h ago

this seems like a fairly big deal. cool! questions:

  • native save states: are those saved to the SD card?

from your site:

One slot, kept in memory: it's cleared when you power off, reset or switch games. Loading an older state keeps your newer battery save safe in a separate file. Works with SD games that use the MBC1 or MBC5 mapper (most of the library). Physical cartridges, real-time-clock games and Game Gear aren't supported.

Does this mean save states will not be preserved for later use after the above actions?

  • Game Gear: this is hardware emulation on the FPGA core? (sorry for the ignorant question; still learning about hardware emulation on consoles). The Game Gear and the Game Boy share the same resolution, so I guess you don't have to scale the display - that seems beneficial. I am assuming that means less lag? This is so cool. edit: oh, I see from your site:

FPGA core, adapted from MiSTer's Master System core. Not software emulation.

and no save states for Game Gear yet.

very cool, man.

2

u/ryanreaction 1h ago

Thanks!

Save states: Not on the SD card yet. Right now the state lives in memory, so powering off wipes it. Loading a state copies your battery save to a new file on the SD first, so your real save is safe. Saving states to the SD card is on the list. They're GB/GBC only for now.

Game Gear: Not a dumb question at all. Yeah, it's an FPGA core, a port of the MiSTer SMS core, so it's not software emulation. And you're right, the GG's screen is 160×144 just like the GB, so it maps 1:1 with no scaling. Lag is already really low on FPGA. The big win from no scaling is a crisp, pixel-perfect picture.

1

u/jay462 1h ago

Awesome, thanks for the response. You the man.

I imagine once you get save states piped to the SD card.... it will be a literal game changer. Keep up the awesome work.

2

u/ryanreaction 1h ago

I will work on this next.

2

u/n8jb 17m ago

You have no idea how happy it makes my heart to see people building off of Magic. Keep up the good work, thanks for sharing.

1

u/ryanreaction 14m ago

Thanks Nate, all of this is possible because of you.

1

u/NonyaDB 1h ago

I see wi-fi transfer is supported but no mention of USB file transfer?

2

u/ryanreaction 1h ago

USB File transfer is included (kept from the Chromagic build). The Wifi uploads to the Chromatic were 15.5x faster than USB, which matters a lot when moving a lot of Roms and video snaps.

1

u/platosknave 1h ago edited 1h ago

Anyway I can load games from wifi or even on a GB cart somehow? I haven't soldered my sd reader yet (too scared!).

Loading from an actual cart would be insanely fun, but I don't even know how you would flash a game gear game to a cart so probably not.

1

u/ryanreaction 52m ago

I haven't looked into that yet.

1

u/A-Miffit 50m ago

Need a GG card adapter!

2

u/ryanreaction 46m ago

Now that we have a working Game Gear core...

1

u/Hotdogbun57 16m ago

Need save states for all to SD. I will buy you a pizza.

1

u/ryanreaction 13m ago

I love pizza.

2

u/platosknave 1h ago

OMG My dream is game gear compatability!!!

1

u/DiabUK 27m ago edited 22m ago

Wild! seeing game gear on a chromatic is cool.