Homebrew app Emulator mGBA-GX - GBA/GBC/GB emulator for Wii

[N8thePWNr]

A GB / GBC / GBA emulator for Wii​

mGBA-GX is a Wii homebrew Game Boy / Game Boy Color / Game Boy Advance emulator.
It's built on the menu/UI frontend of Visual Boy Advance GX (by Tantric), but with
mGBA swapped in as the actual emulation core in place of the original VBA-M backend.

GitHub: https://github.com/nateynaate/mgba-gx

Screenshots​

Features​

• GB / GBC / GBA emulation via mGBA
• New tabbed interface - press L and R to cycle through tabs
• GBA/Game Boy Player and Super Game Boy border support -
  you can use .bor, .sgb, .png, and .bmp files (no borders
  are included with this project)
• Device color emulation (GBA, GBC, AGS-101, VBA, PSP, NDS)
• Classic Game Boy color palettes (monochrome, green, Game Boy
  Pocket, Game Boy Light)
• Constant fast forwarding through the settings menu (2x, 3x, 4x
  speed)
• Rumble support
• Wii Remote tilt support for games like Kirby Tilt 'n' Tumble
  (experimental - still a work in progress for games like WarioWare
  Twisted)
• Cheat code support (add/edit/delete/toggle, in-game)
• IPS/UPS/BPS patch support - drop a patch file next to a ROM with
  a matching filename and it's applied automatically at load time
• Save states and SRAM saves

Installing​

Copy the built .dol/.elf to an apps/mgba-gx/ folder on your SD card for use
with the Homebrew Channel.
ROM and save folders are created automatically on first run.

Downloads​

The latest builds can always be found on the project's GitHub page,
or by clicking here.

FAQ​

Q: What's the difference between this and Visual Boy Advance GX?
A: The menu/UI is the same lineage as VBA-GX, but the actual
emulation core has been swapped out for mGBA, which is more
accurate and much more actively maintained than the old VBA-M core.

Q: Will my old VBA-GX save files work?
A: Not necessarily - save formats and file layouts can differ
between VBA-M and mGBA. Back up your saves before switching over,
and treat carrying them across as untested until confirmed.

Q: How do IPS/UPS/BPS patches work?
A: Put a patch file in the same folder as the ROM, with the exact
same filename as the ROM (just a different extension) - e.g.
"Pokemon Red.gb" and "Pokemon Red.ips". It's applied automatically
when the ROM loads. The ROM file on disk is never modified.

Q: Does Wii Remote tilt support work with every tilt-sensor game?
A: It's experimental. Games like Kirby Tilt 'n' Tumble work; others
(like WarioWare: Twisted) are still a work in progress.

Q: Is this open source?
A: Yes - GPLv2, as a derivative of VBA-GX. The mGBA core it links
against is separately licensed under MPL-2.0. See LICENSES.md in
the repo for details.

Q: Where do I report bugs or request features?
A: GitHub Issues on the repo linked above, or reply in this thread.

Credits​

• Tantric - Visual Boy Advance GX (coding & menu design), the base
  this project's frontend is built on
• softdev, emu_kidid - original VBA GameCube/Wii port
• The mGBA team / Jeffrey Pfau - mGBA, the emulation core this
  project now uses
• The VBA-M team - Visual Boy Advance - M
• shagkur & wintermute - libogc/devkitPPC

 

[MeXen]

Oh, ill try it, let see how does it fare with GBStudio games.

 

[Disorarara]

Awesome!! I'll try it out too

 

[MeXen]

Quick test report:

GBA runs at full speed BUT, audio is offsync for half a second and it sounds a bit, well, scratchy!, i only tested Harmony of Dissonance so far.

Also right off the bat, while you can set up 240p, i cannot horizontally stretch picture like with regular mGBA. here's what i mean.

Here's on mGBA, with horizontal stretching at 0.8x and Vertical stretch at 1/2x

And here is mgbaGX with current settings:

And here's a GBC game made with GBStudio on EmGBA with the XML augements from years ago:

And here's running on mGBAgx

 

[N8thePWNr]

Quick test report:

GBA runs at full speed BUT, audio is offsync for half a second and it sounds a bit, well, scratchy!, i only tested Harmony of Dissonance so far.

Also right off the bat, while you can set up 240p, i cannot horizontally stretch picture like with regular mGBA. here's what i mean.

I'll look into the audio interpolation, I didn't notice any issues on my end, then again I don't have the best ear for that sort of stuff.

As for the picture stretching/adjustment, try setting "Fixed Pixel Ratio" to Disabled, this should allow you to adjust the vertical/horizontal output.

 

[MeXen]

I'll look into the audio interpolation, I didn't notice any issues on my end, then again I don't have the best ear for that sort of stuff.

As for the picture stretching/adjustment, try setting "Fixed Pixel Ratio" to Disabled, this should allow you to adjust the vertical/horizontal output.

1.- There were even audio issues such as sound effects not playing correctly or sound samples having glitchy loops before they play right.

2.- Apparently setting up certain stuff like zoom and screen position only works with the wiimote, you can change the numbers with the controller but not confirm, just cancel.

3.- Oh, and here's the big one so far, on the menu when using any classic controller, pressing A even lightly will occasioanlly do a double press or press B instead, cancelling the action, i am not making this up, making it difficult to navigate correctly.

4.- As for the visuals, i finally got them right, thanks for the advice, (settings pictured in capture), i just cannot fathom the idea of playing any Game Boy game on a CRT without proper scaling based upon Super Game Boy boarders, anything else to me its unnaceptable, speaking off, can the Wii run Bilinear Super Sharp? because it would be the closest to run the sharpness of pixel perfect but with proper picture scaling and stretching without worrying about being too blurry nor having to worry about shimmering, the picture here on MgbaGX looks a tiny bit sharper then EmGBA but only at close eye, i meantion this because VisualBoyAdvanceGX change its pixel scaling from 640 to 720p, screwing over the pixel stretching, making the 240p SGB letterboxing look too wide compared to a real SGB, i even did such comparison once.

And yes, the audio delay and lack of interpolation (and sample glitches) need to be fixed to be on par with regular mGBA which i stick to it with GBA game, GB and GBC, i want this to be my main and definitive way to play GB and GBC!, because even EmGBA STILL has some issues and quirks with certain titles.

Congratulations on the making of this new emulation option!

 

[N8thePWNr]

I appreciate your feedback my friend! I think I've found the source of the Classic Controller polling issue and I'm fixing that now, then I'm gonna see if I can fix the audio. I'll also look into adding more rendering options like Bilinear Super Sharp. Originally this project started out as something to serve a personal need and I wasn't even sure if I was going to share it or not, so any comments are very welcome

 

[xunga]

Wonderful. Thank you so much for this.

 

[Explorer200]

This looks very promising! I love mgba but I always wish I could of had cover art for the games (now I can).

Would my forwarder I've been using for mgba work for this? I've been using Flo's forwarders for all the emulators I have on the Wii which look amazing.

 

[N8thePWNr]

This looks very promising! I love mgba but I always wish I could of had cover art for the games (now I can).

Would my forwarder I've been using for mgba work for this? I've been using Flo's forwarders for all the emulators I have on the Wii which look amazing.

I not entirely certain whether or not they would work, but I would assume they do. If your forwarders load mGBA from /apps/mgba/boot.dol, you can try replacing the .dol with mGBA-GX's and reporting back if they work or not. I didn't touch any code from mGBA that would change how arguments are interpreted but I could be mistaken.

EDIT: If you are talking about a single forwarder channel for mGBA, then yes, replacing the .dol would work, or you could rebuild the WAD to point to /apps/mgbagx/boot.dol.

If you are referring to SaulFabre's single-rom loaders, they might work too. See my initial comment above.

 

[xunga]

I've been testing the emulator and it works pretty well; I haven't noticed any issues with the controls or anything else.

I've noticed that it doesn't support ZIP files yet, and that patches for Boktai and games like Yoshi's Universal Gravitation are missing, but I assume it will support them in future updates. Still, the core functionality of the emulator works as it should.

I haven’t been able to test many games, but I haven’t encountered any issues with standard Game Boy or Game Boy Color titles. As for Game Boy Advance, in addition to what I mentioned earlier, I’d like to add that it always freezes shortly after starting a game of Boktai 2 at the exact same point in the introductory dialogue. I can confirm that this isn’t a ROM issue, since it works perfectly in Extrems’ emGBA.

Advance Guardian Heroes is a game I use to test the FPS, and you can really tell how much of a struggle it is for Visual Advance GX to run it, compared to how smoothly it runs on mGBA.

I usually use the emGBA version from Extrems, which works very well, but it doesn’t map the C and Z buttons on the Nunchuk—something that mGBA GX does perfectly right out of the box.

https://github.com/extremscorner/emgba

If you add ZIP support, the rotation sensor for the Wii Remote, and the patches for Boktai, just three or four more updates and you’re all set. Good work.

 

[cernycaj]

This looks very promising! I love mgba but I always wish I could of had cover art for the games (now I can).

Would my forwarder I've been using for mgba work for this? I've been using Flo's forwarders for all the emulators I have on the Wii which look amazing.

if you install it in the same path, over the top of the original mgba

 

[Extrems]

I usually use the emGBA version from Extrems, which works very well, but it doesn’t map the C and Z buttons on the Nunchuk—something that mGBA GX does perfectly right out of the box.

https://github.com/extremscorner/emgba

They're mapped to L/R by default. You can change this yourself.

 

[xunga]

They're mapped to L/R by default. You can change this yourself.

I know, but the C and Z buttons don't do anything, and doing a clean install doesn't fix it either.

I have an original Wii Remote and Nunchuk, and this only happens with emGBA.

It's not a big deal, though—I just remap the L and R buttons to the Wii Remote's D-pad and play without any issues.

 

[N8thePWNr]

Version 1.0.1 has been uploaded to GitHub

-Audio improvements, especially for PAL users or anyone else running at 50hz
-Fixed Classic Controller input polling
-Boktai sun support (initial support, the option is under "game settings" when running Boktai/B2)

 

[cmyksoda]

oh my god, this is incredible! this is like exactly what i've been wanting for so long! are super game boy enhanced games supported?

edit: i see borders are supported, is there any plan to add extra sgb functionality? (i.e. pauline help help! in dk94)

 

[Jayro]

Dude, holy hell. This should have been a thing back when VBA-M got in. Nice job, and thank you!

 

[N8thePWNr]

oh my god, this is incredible! this is like exactly what i've been wanting for so long! are super game boy enhanced games supported?

edit: i see borders are supported, is there any plan to add extra sgb functionality? (i.e. pauline help help! in dk94)

If it's not already in there I'll look into it! I was mostly concerned with getting SGB borders loading properly so I hadn't paid much attention to the other Super Game Boy features.

 

[MeXen]

WARNING: MULTI THUMBNAILS!

Before i test, i share some custom borders i have (EDIT: deleted the borders for the moment except for a customized grid pattern i made if anyone wanna try my crazy experiments, remember, borders neet to be at 224p, otherwise they would not be loaded)

Post automatically merged: Today at 6:51 AM

1.- When using SGB style borders for GB and GBC pixels dont scale all that well, this is because i found out that indeed, pixel input is still at 720p like the latest versions of VBAgx, only with Bilinear Sharp you can more or less output the similar settings of SGB scaling to match.

With VBAgx like rendering (no bilinear), it looks like this, (720x640 full render, 240p signal output)

When it should be more or less like this. (From EmGBA, sorry for not disabling the emulator bezel.)

And here's what it looks like in RetroArch Frankenstein Build compiled here on GBATemp, because its the only one with updatable cores and individual system and video settings per core as opposed to globally, setting shown too. no SGB borders tough because i dont feel like switching the main RA-Franken video settings once and back.

Comparing RA-Franken to EmGBA screen position is a bit off center on the latter, whereas the former gets closer to actual SGB, allow me to test a different game, sorry, i dont have many gb games IRL nor a flashcart.

Here's my SGB running DK94, look at how sharp it looks (NES and SNES composite signal is sharper with uniform dither blending.:

And this is RA-Franken running the game on the Wii: (i updated the settings, and i realized video signal on the wii is never gonna be 10/10 to the one of the SNES, but screw it i share my updates settings

Case in point, i think at the very least having a sharper bilinear would help, and yours might as well be the first on the Wii to implement it! if FCEuGX doesnt already!

2.- Also, sorry to say but audio still gets scratchy, specially on GB, sounds horrible on my end still.

Sorry for my long posts, i really like to go balls out with my comparisons.