It took some tweaking to get some GBA ROMs performing at peak efficiency. Once I got past the hurdle, they ran at blistering rates with my unit's added 2700g processing punch.

Most roms handled by PocketGBA boogied at anywhere from a playable 17 frames per second to a smooth 35 fps after tweaking ad nauseum.

A lot of the newer GBA roms show a marked progression in quality as the code was seemingly optimized over time.

Trying some Ultimate Spiderman with my Dell Axim x51v resulted in some fluid webslinging animation that really has to be seen to be believed.

After some furious GT Advance 2 Rally Racing, Mario Kart Super Circuit and Sonic Advance 3,I gave it my stamp of approval.

Then, of course, I proceeded to stress test this puppy over the course of several weeks with many varied roms.

Features

You have two 'save state' and 'load state' slots available in PocketGBA v060723.

Click on them with your stylus allows you to resave and reload at any point in any game-- an excellent bonus.

You'll have your pick between Horizontal, Vertical and Full Screen modes.

I strongly advise against Full Screen unless you yearn for the more pixellated look of yesteryear.

You can edit the layout of the screen to move the display.

I chose to move the emulator display screen as far upwards as it would go for the best vantage point.

I also did it to cover up the distracting orange shoulder buttons which hover over the gameplay screen by default.

Just map them to other buttons. I strongly advise against Full Screen unless you yearn for the more pixellated look of yesteryear.

You can edit the layout of the screen to move the display.

I chose to move the emulator display screen as far upwards as it would go for the best vantage point.

I also did it to cover up the distracting orange shoulder buttons which hover over the gameplay screen by default.

Just map them to other buttons.

Look at the screenshots for Sonic Advance on the PocketGBA v060723 download site to see what I mean.

There are some new rom execution options available, with cartridge masking and cartridge patching for certain hacked roms.

Enabling patching means that it utilizes original rom codes during launch.

Audio Issues and Optimizations

With the wrong audio config, listening to Rice Crispies through an amp might be more pleasurable.

Setting the mixer rate too high results in assorted hissing, crackling and unintentional echo effects.

During my tests I've found that setting it to the lowest setting at 11025Hz resolves any hissing and echoing issues for almost all games.

There was no discernible impact on the frame rates when I maxed out the mixer and wave buffer settings to 200 and 4096 bytes.

Changing to high quality mixer with a bidirection loop seemed to produce the best audio possible after several weeks of tests.

Considering that earlier tests with its earlier incarnation on my iPAQ 4150 resulted in extremely poor to non-existent audio.

The developers recommend turning off the audio completely if you're having problems loading GBA roms.

This didn't seem to work with the stubborn, occasional rom.

Still, 5 failures out of 76 tests is also a significant improvement over any other free GBA emulator produced for the PPC thus far.

The failed roms crashed before takeoff, appearing to alter the display resolution to an incompatible resolution before freezing, forcing a soft reset even after toggling patch options.

Speed Up Your Framerates

This, of course, in spite of ballsy 624Mhz speeds and hardware acceleration capabilities.

I was soon soaring with optimal frame rates after no small amount of tinkering.

Make sure you're running at peak efficiency before attempting CPU intensive roms like Mario Vs. Donkey Kong by doing the following:

Click Start --> Settings --> Memory under the System tab to check what's available.

Try to free up at least 24MB of program memory by killing programs running actively in the background before launching PocketGBA v060723.

If you leave your processor at Auto it will sometimes default to a level too low to squeeze enough juice out of PocketGBA. Ensure that it is set to Maximum Performance (624 MHz).

Conclusions

The PocketGBA 060723 update is definitely a must have if you're into free GBA emulator gaming.

Superb frame rates, especially if you're lucky enough to own a Pocket PC with 2700g hardware acceleration.

Minor audio issues can be fixed with little tweaking. Auto frame skip is prone to glitching.

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