AGS Aging Cartridge

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.

Of course, being used to test official GBA hardware also makes it useful for testing unofficial GBA emulators and hardware clones. The results are quite interesting:

• Most emulators don't pass every test (at least at the current moment), and in some cases will crash partway through the tests.
• Similarly, some hardware clones will either fail one or more of the tests or crash before the testing is finished.
• Currently, the only ones that fully pass the tests are the NanoBoyAdvance emulator, the MiSTerFPGA GBA core, and the official emulator used in Game Boy Advance - Nintendo Classics, although that doesn't necessarily mean those are the most generally-accurate emulators.

Five versions of the test program have been found: v1.0, v7.0, v7.1, v9.0, and v10.0, the last of which was leaked online through Nintendo's official GBA emulator for the Nintendo Switch. This page currently covers v7.0.

Download AGS Aging Cartridge (v7.0) File: AGB_CHECKER_TCHK10.zip (381 KB) (info)

Download AGS Aging Cartridge (v7.1) File: AGS_Aging_Cartridge_(World)_(v7.1).zip (384 KB) (info)

Download AGS Aging Cartridge (v9.0) File: AGB_CHECKER_TCHK30.zip (381 KB) (info)

Sub-Page#

Notes

Unused Graphics#

Crossed-out hand icon#

A crossed-out hand that can only be seen for a split-second when switching from the Donkey Kong Advance screen.

The icon ripped from the image spreadsheet.	The full spreadsheet file the icon is found in.

Mario heads#

Small pixelated frames of Mario's head based on the Super Mario 64 opening screen. Only two of these frames are used.

Head image spreadsheet.	Unofficial render of the spreadsheet.

Donkey Kong Advance#

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

The full logo ripped from the cartridge.	The logo seen in-game.

Developer Text#

Scattered throughout the ROM are leftovers from other test cartridges.

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