FPGBC display purple smudge & console impressions
Ordered the FPGBC kit directly from Funny Playing; received and assembled it today. My main annoyance with it right now is this purple smudge in the lower-left quadrant of the display. I did see it when I tested the display before assembling the console, but I was a little distracted and it didn't register as a problem for me until I had assembled the whole thing. Funny Playing's web site says the display is out of warranty once it has been installed so I assume I'm stuck with this spot unless I buy another display. I find it distracting when I have the display in "full" mode; in 4x integer scaling modes it is still visible but doesn't intersect with the actual game display area, so integer scaling is my current workaround. I tried running the "stuck pixel fix" on Jayro's Test Cartridge.
My other Game Boy unit is a GBC with a smaller-than-original backlit aftermarket screen installed, and the integer scaling mode is still larger than the original display even without using all available pixels on the FPGBC, so that part is nice. The speaker is much less noisy than the GBC and has a higher max volume. I also get less noise on the headphone output, but the max headphone volume is lower, so that's a little disappointing when using LSDj for example. Running Jayro's Test Cartridge on both the FPGBC and the original GBC connected with a link cable shows that the link port appears to work both when hosting the test and when joining a test initiated on the GBC. Currently running a patched version of the v1.14 firmware. Overall it feels very much like a GBC with some mods. For most of the gaming and GB Studio game development I want to do I think it will perform pretty well, and I do appreciate USB-C recharging. It is just a little sad that there's no IR capability for doing Mystery Gift in Pokémon G/S/C.