MGBA 3DS

mGBA
mGBA
General
Author	endrift (Jeffrey Pfau)
Type	Handheld
Version	0.10.0
License	MPL 2.0
Last Updated	2022/10/11
Links
	Download
	Website
	Source

mGBA is an emulator for running Game Boy Advance games. It aims to be faster and more accurate than many existing Game Boy Advance emulators, as well as adding features that other emulators lack. It also supports Game Boy and Game Boy Color games.

The project started in April 2013 with the goal of being fast enough to run on lower end hardware than other emulators support, without sacrificing accuracy or portability. Even in the initial version, games generally played without problems. mGBA has only gotten better since then, and now boasts being the most accurate GBA emulator around.

Features

Highly accurate Game Boy Advance hardware support.
Game Boy/Game Boy Color hardware support.
Fast emulation. Known to run at full speed even on low end hardware, such as netbooks.
Qt and SDL ports for a heavy-weight and a light-weight frontend.
Local (same computer) link cable support.
Save type detection, even for flash memory size.
Support for cartridges with motion sensors and rumble (only usable with game controllers).
Real-time clock support, even without configuration.
Solar sensor support for Boktai games.
Game Boy Camera and Game Boy Printer support.
A built-in BIOS implementation, and ability to load external BIOS files.
Turbo/fast-forward support by holding Tab.
Rewind by holding Backquote.
Frameskip, configurable up to 10.
Screenshot support.
Cheat code support.
9 savestate slots. Savestates are also viewable as screenshots.
Video, GIF, WebP, and APNG recording.
e-Reader support.
Remappable controls for both keyboards and gamepads.
Loading from ZIP and 7z files.
IPS, UPS and BPS patch support.
Game debugging via a command-line interface and GDB remote support, compatible with IDA Pro.
Configurable emulation rewinding.
Support for loading and exporting GameShark and Action Replay snapshots.
Cores available for RetroArch/Libretro and OpenEmu.
Community-provided translations for several languages via Weblate.
Many, many smaller things.

Installation

Available in 3DSX and CIA formats.

CIA - Install the .cia with the CIA manager of your choice.
3DSX - Use the .3dsx provided with the Homebrew Launcher.

Roms can be placed anywhere on your SD card.

User guide

Supported formats

Supported formats include GBA, GB, GBC, ELF, AGB, MB, ROM, BIN and SGB.

It can also load games that are in ZIP and 7z formats.

Compatibility List

mGBA compatibility list for 3DS can be found here.

FAQ

Q. On loading a game I only get a white screen.

Try changing the audio driver in settings.

If all else fails turn on Sync to video and off Sync to audio.

Q. I did something and now the game always runs too fast!

Make sure Fast forward is unchecked under emulation and at least one of Sync to audio or Sync to video is checked.

It is recommended to use Sync to audio only.

Q. Gameplay or audio is stuttery.

Try adjusting your sync settings (Sync to audio only is recommended) or your audio buffer settings.

Sometimes switching the audio driver also helps.

Q. Audio isn’t working in the 3DS version.

Current versions of mGBA for 3DS require the DSP blob to be dumped for audio to work. You can use DSP1.

Q. What does the m stand for?

It doesn't. mGBA was originally going to be named miniGBA but as the project grew the "mini" appellation became less accurate.

Initially the name was intended to be temporary, other working names for mGBA included GBAc and Gerboa, but nothing else stuck.

Controls

Menu:

D-Pad/Circle Pad - Navigate

A - Run rom

In game:

X - Settings

Y - Change screen scaling

Screenshots

Compatibility

Recommend for N3DS.

Known issues

Current bugs can be found on GitHub for GBA, GB/C and DS (only for medusa branch).

Changelog

0.10.0: (2022-10-11)

Preliminary Lua scripting support
Presets for Game Boy palettes
Add Super Game Boy palettes for original Game Boy games
Tool for converting scanned pictures of e-Reader cards to raw dotcode data
Options for muting when inactive, minimized, or for different players in multiplayer
Cheat code support in homebrew ports
Acclerometer and gyro support for controllers on PC
Support for combo "Super Game Boy Color" SGB + GBC ROM hacks
Improved support for HuC-3 mapper, including RTC
Support for 64 kiB SRAM saves used in some bootlegs
Discord Rich Presence now supports time elapsed
Additional scaling shaders
Support for GameShark Advance SP (.gsv) save file importing
Support for multiple saves per game using .sa2, .sa3, etc.
Support for GBX format Game Boy ROMs
New unlicensed GB mappers: NT (newer type), Sachen (MMC1, MMC2)

Emulation fixes:

ARM7: Fix unsigned multiply timing
GB: Copy logo from ROM if not running the BIOS intro (fixes mgba.io/i/2378)
GB: Fix HALT breaking M-cycle alignment (fixes mgba.io/i/250)
GB Audio: Fix channel 1/2 reseting edge cases (fixes mgba.io/i/1925)
GB Audio: Properly apply per-model audio differences
GB Audio: Revamp channel rendering
GB Audio: Fix APU re-enable timing glitch
GB I/O: Fix writing to WAVE RAM behavior (fixes mgba.io/i/1334)
GB MBC: Fix edge case with Pocket Cam register accesses (fixes mgba.io/i/2557)
GB Memory: Add cursory cartridge open bus emulation (fixes mgba.io/i/2032)
GB Serialize: Fix loading MBC1 states that affect bank 0 (fixes mgba.io/i/2402)
GB SIO: Fix bidirectional transfer starting (fixes mgba.io/i/2290)
GB Video: Draw SGB border pieces that overlap GB graphics (fixes mgba.io/i/1339)
GBA: Improve timing when not booting from BIOS
GBA: Fix expected entry point for multiboot ELFs (fixes mgba.io/i/2450)
GBA: Fix booting multiboot ROMs with no JOY entrypoint
GBA: Fix 1 MiB ROM mirroring to only mirror 4 times
GBA Audio: Adjust PSG sampling rate with SOUNDBIAS
GBA Audio: Sample FIFOs at SOUNDBIAS-set frequency
GBA BIOS: Work around IRQ handling hiccup in Mario & Luigi (fixes mgba.io/i/1059)
GBA BIOS: Initial HLE timing estimation of UnLz77 functions (fixes mgba.io/i/2141)
GBA DMA: Fix DMA source direction bits being cleared (fixes mgba.io/i/2410)
GBA I/O: Redo internal key input, enabling edge-based key IRQs
GBA I/O: Disable open bus behavior on invalid register 06A
GBA Memory: Fix misaligned 32-bit I/O loads (fixes mgba.io/i/2307)
GBA Video: Fix OpenGL rendering on M1 Macs
GBA Video: Ignore horizontally off-screen sprite timing (fixes mgba.io/i/2391)
GBA Video: Fix Hblank timing (fixes mgba.io/i/2131, mgba.io/i/2310)
GBA Video: Fix rare crash in modes 3-5
GBA Video: Fix sprites with mid-frame palette changes in GL (fixes mgba.io/i/2476)
GBA Video: Fix OBJ tile wrapping with 2D char mapping (fixes mgba.io/i/2443)
GBA Video: Fix horizontal lines in GL when charbase is changed (fixes mgba.io/i/1631)
GBA Video: Fix sprite layer priority updating in GL

Other fixes:

ARM: Disassemble Thumb mov pseudo-instruction properly
ARM: Disassemble ARM asr/lsr #32 properly
ARM: Disassemble ARM movs properly
Core: Don't attempt to restore rewind diffs past start of rewind
Core: Fix the runloop resuming after a game has crashed (fixes mgba.io/i/2451)
Core: Fix crash if library can't be opened
Debugger: Fix crash with extremely long CLI strings
Debugger: Fix multiple conditional watchpoints at the same address
FFmpeg: Fix crash when encoding audio with some containers
FFmpeg: Fix GIF recording (fixes mgba.io/i/2393)
GB: Fix temporary saves
GB: Fix replacing the ROM crashing when accessing ROM base
GB: Don't try to map a 0-byte SRAM (fixes mgba.io/i/2668)
GB, GBA: Save writeback-pending masked saves on unload (fixes mgba.io/i/2396)
mGUI: Fix FPS counter after closing menu
Qt: Fix some hangs when using the debugger console
Qt: Fix crash when clicking past last tile in viewer
Qt: Fix preloading for ROM replacing
Qt: Fix screen not displaying on Wayland (fixes mgba.io/i/2190)
Qt: Fix crash when selecting 256-color sprite in sprite view
Qt: Fix coloration of swatches on styles with distinct frame backgrounds
VFS: Failed file mapping should return NULL on POSIX

Misc:

Core: Suspend runloop when a core crashes
Core: Add wallclock offset RTC type
Debugger: Save and restore CLI history
Debugger: GDB now works while the game is paused
Debugger: Add command to load external symbol file (fixes mgba.io/i/2480)
FFmpeg: Support dynamic audio sample rate
GB: Support CGB0 boot ROM loading
GB Audio: Increase sample rate
GB MBC: Filter out MBC errors when cartridge is yanked (fixes mgba.io/i/2488)
GB MBC: Partially implement TAMA5 RTC
GB Video: Add default SGB border
GBA: Automatically skip BIOS if ROM has invalid logo
GBA: Refine multiboot detection (fixes mgba.io/i/2192)
GBA Cheats: Implement "never" type codes (closes mgba.io/i/915)
GBA DMA: Enhanced logging (closes mgba.io/i/2454)
GBA Memory: Implement adjustable EWRAM waitstates (closes mgba.io/i/1276)
GBA Savedata: Store RTC data in savegames (closes mgba.io/i/240)
GBA Video: Implement layer placement for OpenGL renderer (fixes mgba.io/i/1962)
GBA Video: Fix highlighting for sprites with mid-frame palette changes
mGUI: Add margin to right-aligned menu text (fixes mgba.io/i/871)
mGUI: Autosave less frequently when fast-forwarding
Qt: Rearrange menus some
Qt: Clean up cheats dialog
Qt: Only set default controller bindings if loading fails (fixes mgba.io/i/799)
Qt: Save converter now supports importing GameShark Advance saves
Qt: Save positions of multiplayer windows (closes mgba.io/i/2128)
Qt: Add optional frame counter to OSD (closes mgba.io/i/1728)
Qt: Add optional emulation-related information on reset (closes mgba.io/i/1780)
Qt: Add QOpenGLWidget cross-thread codepath for macOS (fixes mgba.io/i/1754)
Qt: Enable -b for Boot BIOS menu option (fixes mgba.io/i/2074)
Qt: Add tile range selection to tile viewer (closes mgba.io/i/2455)
Qt: Show warning if XQ audio is toggled while loaded (fixes mgba.io/i/2295)
Qt: Add e-Card passing to the command line (closes mgba.io/i/2474)
Qt: Boot both a multiboot image and ROM with CLI args (closes mgba.io/i/1941)
Qt: Improve cheat parsing (fixes mgba.io/i/2297)
Qt: Change lossless setting to use WavPack audio
Qt: Use FFmpeg to convert additional camera formats, if available
Qt: Resume crashed game when loading a save state
Qt: Include cheats in bug report
SDL: Support exposing an axis directly as the gyro value (closes mgba.io/i/2531)
Windows: Attach to console if present
VFS: Early return NULL if attempting to map 0 bytes from a file
Vita: Add bilinear filtering option (closes mgba.io/i/344)

0.9.3 2021/12/17

Emulation fixes:

GB I/O: Fix incrementing SGB controller when P14 is low (fixes mgba.io/i/2202).
GB Video: Render SGB border when unmasking with ATTR/PAL_SET (fixes mgba.io/i/2261).
GBA SIO: Fix SI value for unattached MULTI mode.
GBA Video: Fix backdrop color if DISPCNT is first set to 0 (fixes mgba.io/i/2260).
GBA Video: Don't iterate affine backgrounds when disabled.
GBA Video: Delay enabling backgrounds in bitmap modes (fixes mgba.io/i/1668).

Other fixes:

ARM Decoder: Fix decoding of lsl r0 (fixes mgba.io/i/2349).
FFmpeg: Don't attempt to use YUV 4:2:0 for lossless videos (fixes mgba.io/i/2084).
GB Video: Fix memory leak when reseting SGB games.
GBA: Fix out of bounds ROM accesses on patched ROMs smaller than 32 MiB.
GBA: Fix maximum tile ID in caching for 256-color modes.
GBA Video: Fix cache updating with proxy and GL renderers.
Libretro: Fix crash when using Game Boy codes (fixes mgba.io/i/2281).
mGUI: Fix crash if autosave file can't be opened (fixes mgba.io/i/2268).
Qt: Remove potentially deadlocking optimization.
Qt: Fix corrupted savestate and fatal error text.
Qt: Fix sprite compositing when sprite tiles go out of bounds (fixes mgba.io/i/2348).

Misc:

GBA I/O: Update KEYINPUT in internal I/O memory (fixes mgba.io/i/2235).
SDL: Use SDL_JoystickRumble where available.
Wii: Add adjustable gyroscope settings (closes mgba.io/i/2245).

External links

Official website - http://mgba.io
Github - https://github.com/mgba-emu/mgba