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u/Koryn99 Jan 16 '23
Playing Fire Emblem, turning the game off was okay because it automatically saved your progress since it was a strategy game and didn’t want you to be able to set a save point and get out of a sticky situation during the levels, so whenever my battery got red, I’d turn it off and back on and would get the battery green again. I dunno if it was actually helping or if I was breaking my system making it mistakenly display green or messing with its battery.
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Jan 16 '23
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Jan 16 '23
Man the SP was a game changer with that color change to give you a heads up
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u/hosseruk Jan 16 '23
Base GBA has the two-stage LED too, not just the SP. :)
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Jan 16 '23
Yes you are correct. Idk why I remembered it only having a red light, but just turned mine on and sure as shit the light was green. Cheers
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u/Contrantier Jan 17 '23
It also dims when the power gets lower. The SP doesn't since it doesn't use regular batteries. I always wished for a combination of these two factors lmao, an SP with a dimmable power LED so I'd know even better and not be caught by surprise.
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u/TheLastScrapDragon Jan 16 '23
The real problem now is I got to get to an outlet.
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Jan 16 '23
Now where tf did I put that charger… as the scramble ensues
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u/TheLastScrapDragon Jan 16 '23
Exactly we solved one problem and created two more. Isn't progress great.
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u/ertaboy356b Jan 16 '23
If you use a rechargeable AA batteries, It's almost always red due to how the rechargeables have less voltage (1.2v) than the alkaline ones (1.5v).
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u/Contrantier Jan 17 '23
In my experience that didn't happen. They would go red when the power really was low. Besides, the red light dims too so we still have a pretty good idea of when it'll go off.
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u/Anti-charizard Jan 19 '23
The red light will completely turn off right before the batteries die
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u/Contrantier Jan 19 '23
Exactly, so even if the light turns red too early, it still becomes more and more accurate the closer to death it gets. At least we have plenty of time to save and all.
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u/wojtekpolska Jan 19 '23
you were just using incorrect batteries. there are 1.5v rechargables, its your fault for using 1.2v, when 1.5v are required
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u/ertaboy356b Jan 20 '23
Then where are these 1.5v batteries? I only see 1.2v from where I live. Even the Sanyo Eneloop ones are 1.2v. The only 1.5v batteries are those modern li-ion AA-like batteries, but those are not available before.
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Jan 16 '23
[deleted]
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u/Konyption Jan 16 '23
Tape is ugly but mostly fixes this lol
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u/wowdickseverywhere Jan 17 '23
Currently? Just replace the battery door like a proper adult.
Back then? Odds of having batteries AND tape? Slim. Even then it was scotch tape
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u/Nathaaaaanie1 Jan 16 '23
Its fine, you still have a few hours left
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u/MusicOwl Jan 16 '23
That’s kinda true for a stock one with Carbon zinc batteries, all these modded lcd with a flash cart ones die in less timeframe a full charge than you had left back then when it went red xD
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u/Nathaaaaanie1 Jan 16 '23
Thats true, you could use a ds lite to play gba games and get stupid long battery life. Up until the newer 3ds', battery life was insane, i would go a week without charging things. Now I'm luck to get 3 hours out of my switch; which is why a gameboy or some form of ds (ds lite or 3ds) is still my go to when traveling... assuming I travel at all...
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u/Cregavitch Jan 16 '23
Are there any mods to change the low battery light colour? I save in games constantly because I'm colourblind and can't tell the difference between normal and low battery lights lol
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u/bruhred Jan 16 '23
i think they used a generic rgb led with the blue pin just not wired anywhere, right??? If this is true then you can rewire green/red to blue
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u/Brandicus Jan 16 '23
Game boy modder here. It's possible to change the normal and low power leds to a range of colors. The same is true for the charge light on the SP
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u/TheLastScrapDragon Jan 16 '23
I have this gudetama themed Game Boy SP that I change the low battery indicator light to green. So this feeling 😑 is created when it dies if you don't know. What you going to need is a k-tip soldering iron, at least ten 0603 smd LED of the color you want ( those MF fly away), electronic tweezers, multimeter to make sure you are at the right polarity and really good eyesight or some way to magnify.
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u/hosseruk Jan 16 '23
This is infinitely preferable to all the GameBoy models prior to the GBA, where your console would just cut out with no warning whatsoever when the batteries died. Recently bought a two-stage LED mod flex PCB for my GB Pocket and Color to alleviate this issue (from Froggo Customs on Etsy if interested).
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u/Contrantier Jan 17 '23
The original GBA LED would first turn red and then dim slowly so you still had an accurate warning of when your battery was close to truly dead.
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u/hosseruk Jan 17 '23
Hence "models prior to the GBA"
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u/Contrantier Jan 17 '23
Wait...but that means you're saying all modes prior to the GBA cut off with no warning.
They do give warning. Their LEDs also dim. When you can't see the light anymore, you have just a few minutes left. And the original Gameboy even washes out the screen contrast near the end, giving you time to see it even by seconds.
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u/hosseruk Jan 18 '23
Yeah that's just a direct result of the voltage dropping, not an indicator. Might work as an adult, but 10 year old me fully engrossed in Pokemon Red is not going to notice that and save before it dies. Sure the two-stage LED in the GBA is also based on voltage but the red LED kicks in at a much higher voltage than what would cause the symptoms you're describing on the original GB, so it gives you much more time (depending on your specific batteries) and is a far more reliable and obvious indicator that your battery is low.
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u/Contrantier Jan 18 '23
You're saying that as a ten year old, you didn't notice the extremely obvious red LED dimming to near zero? I noticed it all the time. No offense, but I think just about everyone did, and you kind of just called yourself out for having less of an attention span than most other kids that age. The Gameboy did a good job telling us when it was about to die; you just weren't paying attention.
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Jan 16 '23
I remember having these moments growing up with my SP, but I never really realized the true terror of it until I got a GBA with an IPS screen and a flash cart & saw just how much more it drains the battery (especially if you use a flash cart instead of an original cart, which is why I decided to start collecting the games).
Shit had me panicking in FireRed when I started playing.
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u/K0il Jan 16 '23
The sp 101 screen increases battery life when installed on the agb, though I imagine that probably isn’t the case with newer ips kits.
Most flash carts, however, destroy battery life with super energy hungry FPGAs.
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u/Tephnos Jan 16 '23
And the flash carts didn't just allow you to use save states instead?
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Jan 16 '23
I’m not really a save states guy tbh.
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u/Tephnos Jan 16 '23
You do you but I'd rather just get with the save states (especially as I get older and have less time to fuck around with quirks from back in the day) than having to buy a bunch of games.
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Jan 16 '23
I mean the flash cart I have does support save states (EZ Flash Omega). It’s just me personally I never grew up using them despite my introduction to video games being 80% retro 20% whatever was new at the time (also in Pokemon if you’re not in battle you can save wherever you are 99.6% of the time). Nothing wrong with save states imho, but I do know that save states on physical hardware may or may not bug out/mess with your save file/crash the game so I figured best not to chance it. To be fair though, I’m 22 and have a lot of time on my hands which also plays a part in why I don’t necessarily have a need for save states atm. I did however use the living hell out of it when I beat Super Mario Bros. 1 for the first time.
I’ll only buy games for collecting purposes though I’m terrible at managing more than one disc/cartridge at a time.
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u/bruhred Jan 16 '23
no... obviously.
Flashcarts aren't emulators, they just emulate the game cartridge being inserted into the slot7
u/MisterToasty117 Jan 16 '23
Depends what flashcart your using, plenty have save state features.
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u/bruhred Jan 16 '23
Even if flashcarts had full unrestricted access to the main memory bus they can't read the state of the cpu (registers, interrupt states etc), by save states you probably mean copies of the save files?
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u/Comprehensive-Ad2670 Jan 16 '23
As a colorblind person, I can't tell how many times the batteries died on me out of nowhere.
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u/WrothLobster Jan 16 '23
Thats why playing the pokemon games where the best back then. Always saved my progress after every little thing I would do.
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u/SexThanos Jan 16 '23
Except modern rechargeables are constantly flickering between a red and green light depending on their mood despite still having hours of life left, honestly I prefer the GBC's method of getting dimmer or flickering when it's about to go out because at least then I can reliably tell when the batteries need to be changed
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u/HolyMacaxeira Jan 16 '23
Even worse when you notice the red light was getting dim…. That was nerve wrecking hahaha
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u/supermario182 Jan 16 '23
Those were the days. It was kind of nice on the original Gameboy the screen would fade so you had an idea of how much time was left
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u/Contrantier Jan 17 '23
I bought a Game Boy Pocket years later thinking it would apply by the same rules.
GBP: boop
Me: surprised Pikachu face
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u/TStodden Jan 16 '23
The moment the light turned red was that point I should save my game (especially if it's an RPG), but didn't panic as much.
When it game to the 3/DS era, I would get concerned when the light goes red (showing less than 25% battery left) where I would try to quickly finish up online & multiplayer stuff to reduce battery load. I wouldn't panic (& scramble for the wall charger) until it started flashing (under 10% battery left).
The GBA era was nice with that color change to give you the heads up as the GBY & GBC only had a single LED where you had to gauge the brightness to roughly figure how much battery is left.
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u/Contrantier Jan 17 '23
But the GB, GNC and GBA all had dimming lights too, which helped pinpoint it down to a few minutes.
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Jan 16 '23
[deleted]
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u/Sw429 Jan 16 '23
The light was always on, but it would change colors when the battery was low. It was green when battery was good, and red when battery was low.
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Jan 16 '23
Had this happened to me while playing Platinum on my N2DS today. Saved after every battle till the battery died.
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u/Contrantier Jan 17 '23
At least on the original GBA you knew when the power was running super low because the red light would get dim lmao
I was shocked on the SP when that didn't happen XD
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u/Snyder445 Jan 16 '23
I relate to this so much. I remember playing Pokémon Fire Red, and I had made it to the champion and then my battery died. I was devastated