AGS Aging Cartridge

AGS Aging Cartridge
Developer: Nintendo Publisher: Nintendo Platform: Game Boy Advance This game has hidden development-related text. This game has unused graphics. This game has a notes page

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An extremely rare cartridge that was used to test Game Boy Advance systems. By default, the system will boot straight into the aging test, but the menu can be accessed by holding L + R at startup. From within the menu, you can run various tests and also modify the default startup behavior of the cartridge.

This cart is further notable for the fact that most emulators don't pass every test (at the current moment); some emulators cannot even get through all of the tests without crashing. There are also some GBA hardware clones that either fail one or more of the tests or crash before the testing is finished. The ones that work are the Nanoboy Advance emulator and the MiSTerFPGA GBA core.

Download AGS Aging Cartridge File: AGB_CHECKER_TCHK10.zip (381 KB) (info)

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Notes

Unused Graphics

A crossed-out hand.

Small, pixellated frames of Mario's head based on the intro of Super Mario 64. Only two of these frames are used.

This "Donkey Kong Advance" logo is used in-game, but the "Advance" portion is almost entirely obscured by other graphics:

Developer Text

Scattered throughout the ROM are leftovers from other test cartridges.

AGB
AGS
1.TARGET L   R
2.TYPE
3.AGING TIME
%02d:%02d:00
ENDLESS

CARTRIDGE RAM WAIT CONTROL TEST
WAIT STATE WAIT CONTROL TEST
SET PHI OUTPUT CONTROL
PREFETCH BUFFER TEST
CARTRIDGE TYPE FLAG TEST
CARTRIDGE RAM TEST
CARTRIDGE ROM TEST
OAM TEST
VRAM TEST
PALETTE RAM TEST
CPU INTERNAL WORK RAM TEST
CPU EXTERNAL WORK RAM TEST
GET SYSTEM ROM CHECK SUM