<![CDATA[Why do GBA games boot so damn fast?]]>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.

]]>https://forum.ieu.app/topic/884947a4-e210-444c-960d-42def547ebbb/why-do-gba-games-boot-so-damn-fastRSS for NodeSun, 06 Sep 2026 03:42:33 GMTFri, 14 Aug 2026 11:43:32 GMT60<![CDATA[Reply to Why do GBA games boot so damn fast? on Fri, 14 Aug 2026 11:57:49 GMT]]>Emulators don't necessarily try to mimic all aspects of hardware. It would be more appropriate to say most emulators are translation programs. There are some emulators that do emulate all aspects of hardware though. So "it depends".

]]>https://forum.ieu.app/post/https://lemmy.world/comment/25291598https://forum.ieu.app/post/https://lemmy.world/comment/25291598Fri, 14 Aug 2026 11:57:49 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Why do GBA games boot so damn fast? on Fri, 14 Aug 2026 11:50:38 GMT]]>ohh, that makes a lot of sense!

]]>https://forum.ieu.app/post/https://lemmy.ml/comment/27244847https://forum.ieu.app/post/https://lemmy.ml/comment/27244847Fri, 14 Aug 2026 11:50:38 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Why do GBA games boot so damn fast? on Fri, 14 Aug 2026 11:49:46 GMT]]>yeah but the hardware is also really low powered right? and the emulator emulates that hardware

]]>https://forum.ieu.app/post/https://lemmy.ml/comment/27244844https://forum.ieu.app/post/https://lemmy.ml/comment/27244844Fri, 14 Aug 2026 11:49:46 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Why do GBA games boot so damn fast? on Fri, 14 Aug 2026 11:47:34 GMT]]>Cartridge games were always fast to start. There are essentially no loading times on them, just maybe some logos that you would have to wait through. CD based systems are what introduced the concept of loading times to console gamers, because cds read data from the disk at a massively slower speed than a cartridge.

]]>https://forum.ieu.app/post/https://lemmy.world/comment/25291477https://forum.ieu.app/post/https://lemmy.world/comment/25291477Fri, 14 Aug 2026 11:47:34 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Why do GBA games boot so damn fast? on Fri, 14 Aug 2026 11:47:08 GMT]]>The games are tiny so it doesn't take long to load stuff.

]]>https://forum.ieu.app/post/https://lemmy.world/comment/25291469https://forum.ieu.app/post/https://lemmy.world/comment/25291469Fri, 14 Aug 2026 11:47:08 GMT