=== Practice === Without the luxury of save states practice on console can be a little awkward. I strongly recommend investing in a flash cart; this will let you utilise a number of ROM hacks that are invaluable when practicing.
• Debug menu by interdpth (https://www.speedrun.com/patches/InterdpthFusionDebug_sa2pd.ips) • The debug menu is your new best friend. The quick save feature lets you save absolutely anywhere you want. Now to practice Omega Metroid, instead of having to load the game, fight SA-X, escape, and fight OM you can save your game right before fighting it. The debug menu also gives you the ability to change the event number you're currently on. This is incredibly useful since you no longer have to play through the whole game just to get to that one place you want to practice - just set the event and you're on. • Skip loading fanfare by tupto (me!) (https://www.speedrun.com/patches/noload_g2vyd.ips) • The only annoying thing about the debug menu is having to wait through the games loading fanfare every time you reload your save. This hack simply makes it so you don't have to wait around and can get right into the action. This hack is a little buggy in that sometimes the games main menu music continues to play even after the game has loaded. If you find a consistent setup for this bug, please ping me (@tupto) in the discord and if you're lucky I'll fix it.
=== Recording === Sadly there's no way to record footage directly from your GBA so you'll need to record using a capture card connected to a GameCube with a Game Boy Player attatched. The original software disc used for the GBP is difficult to come by and quite expensive these days. Luckily for us Extrems' Game Boy Interface software (https://www.gc-forever.com/wiki/index.php?title=Game_Boy_Interface) is an amazing alternative that actually runs better and gives a nicer display output than the original. In order to run GBI you will need a GameCube Action Replay disk or an SD Media Launcher disk as well as a GameCube memory card with an SD slot. You can find more detailed installation instructions in the link above. At this point you should now be able to play Game Boy on your TV - hooray! But we're not finished just yet. If you're playing on an HD TV you may notice a few frames of input lag. This can be avoided in a couple of ways. The first is simply to play on a CRT but it's 2019 and nobody uses those anymore. If you want laggless input to your HD TV, your best bet is to run your GameCube video output through an Open-Source Scanline Converter (OSSC). This bit of kit takes the RGB input you feed it and outputs it through HDMI in a fraction of a fraction of a second. The OSSC also has some nice scaling options so you can play Game Boy in glorious 1080p (with a bit of letter-boxing). From here you've just got to hook it up to your capture card and TV and you're good to go!
== Additional Recording Notes == • For the best picture quality use either a properly shielded RGB SCART cable (you can find these on retrogamingcables.co.uk) or find an infamous GameCube component cable. • Unshielded cables often experience interference that leaves a checkerboard pattern on your image. • The speedrun edition of GBI occasionally produces screen tear. For this reason most runners use the high fidelity edition. • Both GBI and the GBP disc allow users to use their GBA as a controller using a GC-GBA adapter. Press and hold START + SELECT when you turn on your GBA to connect it to the GameCube.
