Homebrew [PSA] The lastest mGBA nightly runs pretty fast.

[MattKimura]

I can't believe this thread is still up. The latest Nightly runs no better than mgba ever has before this old thread.
It seems like it became an mgba discussion thread now.
The way I see it:

mgba: Some games run fast, some games run slow (Hit or miss)
VC injection: Every game runs fast, even ones that struggled on mgba.

mgba is the best gba emulator on 3DS, but it isn't too reliable. Emulator masters, please prove me wrong (Seen a couple of you in the last posts)

 

[8BitWonder]

mgba is the best gba emulator on 3DS, but it isn't too reliable. Emulator masters, please prove me wrong (Seen a couple of you in the last posts)

gpsp is pretty good from what I've tried, though it's major weakness is it's dynarec that causes random crashes.

 

[ov3rkill]

How's the performance of mGBA compared to Virtual Console?

 

[MattKimura]

gpsp is pretty good from what I've tried, though it's major weakness is it's dynarec that causes random crashes.

Yup gpsp is one of the oldest fairy tales, if only it would work. Because it runs perfect, just crashes from time to time.
Another thing to add about emulators vs VC injection is that you don't expend more battery power to use virtual console GBA games. And you can even back up the save quite easily (I always backup my saves online)

How's the performance of mGBA compared to Virtual Console?

Are you asking why its being compared, or are you asking how good is GBA VC? If the latter, GBA VC runs 100% native. I know someone who makes legit looking injects

 

[8BitWonder]

Yup gpsp is one of the oldest fairy tales, if only it would work. Because it runs perfect, just crashes from time to time.
Another thing to add about emulators vs VC injection is that you don't expend more battery power to use virtual console GBA games. And you can even back up the save quite easily (I always backup my saves online)

I mainly use emulators for 1:1 scaling (I hate blurring), is that something GBA vc can do? If so I might switch over.

 

[MattKimura]

I mainly use emulators for 1:1 scaling (I hate blurring), is that something GBA vc can do? If so I might switch over.

Blurring huh, are you referring to the ghosting effect that they added to VC games? I know someone who makes good GBA injects that removes that. As far as scaling the screen size, I think VC upscales it and im unsure if it can be undone.
Edit: I searched and apparently you can hold start and select while booting a game to get the origial resolution.
Edit2: Hold select, not start

 

[8BitWonder]

Edit: I searched and apparently you can hold start and select while booting a game to get the origial resolution.

Well dang, guess I need to do some injections.

 

[chirogan]

I primarily use mgba as i dont like seeing dozens of icons in my home screen even if it is foldered up. I like collecting games yeah. But if there is anything that mgba cant run, I love the VC injects too. The graphics dont really matter to me if you ask if it means fixing a pixel or two. It doesnt have too much of an impact for me to notice anyway.

 

[Pickle_Rick]

I can't believe this thread is still up. The latest Nightly runs no better than mgba ever has before this old thread.
It seems like it became an mgba discussion thread now.
The way I see it:

mgba: Some games run fast, some games run slow (Hit or miss)
VC injection: Every game runs fast, even ones that struggled on mgba.

mgba is the best gba emulator on 3DS, but it isn't too reliable. Emulator masters, please prove me wrong (Seen a couple of you in the last posts)

When I originally posted this it did get a small speed up.

Blurring huh, are you referring to the ghosting effect that they added to VC games? I know someone who makes good GBA injects that removes that. As far as scaling the screen size, I think VC upscales it and im unsure if it can be undone.
Edit: I searched and apparently you can hold start and select while booting a game to get the origial resolution.
Edit2: Hold select, not start

No, they're referring to non-integer scaling.

 

[TurdPooCharger]

When I originally posted this it did get a small speed up.

Can confirm with @Pickle_Rick on this. mGBA had speed improvement going from v1.6.0 to v1.6.1. Games like Golden Sun went from unplayable to generally acceptable in battle scenes, and Fire Emblem - Blazing Blade ran perfect except for menu select and some cut scenes.

I think it's impressive mGBA gets damn close to emulating versus AGB_FIRM. Nothing can beat the real GBA found within the 3DS and that's to be expected. When you take into account mGBA being multi-platform compatible (Windows, OSX, Linux, Wii U, etc) AND that there's only one or two authors working on it, it's a wonder that mGBA runs as good as it does.

endrift's philosophy of accuracy over speed is the driving factor why mGBA isn't as fast as it could be at this time. If that doesn't convince you about the upside of mGBA, there's also the save state feature, screen scaling & filters, external BIOS selection, and near perfect backwards compatible with game boy (color) roms are huge pluses.

 

[ShadowOne333]

Can confirm with @Pickle_Rick on this. mGBA had speed improvement going from v1.6.0 to v1.6.1. Games like Golden Sun went from unplayable to generally acceptable in battle scenes, and Fire Emblem - Blazing Blade ran perfect except for menu select and some cut scenes.

I think it's impressive mGBA gets damn close to emulating versus AGB_FIRM. Nothing can beat the real GBA found within the 3DS and that's to be expected. When you take into account mGBA being multi-platform compatible (Windows, OSX, Linux, Wii U, etc) AND that there's only one or two authors working on it, it's a wonder that mGBA runs as good as it does.

endrift's philosophy of accuracy over speed is the driving factor why mGBA isn't as fast as it could be at this time. If that doesn't convince you about the upside of mGBA, there's also the save state feature, screen scaling & filters, external BIOS selection, and near perfect backwards compatible with game boy (color) roms are huge pluses.

To add to this, Golden Sun 2 and Mother 3 (the hardest games to emulate for me at good speeds) are running quite decently in the latest 0.6.2 nightlies.
Not perfect, as they still lag a bit on battles, but they are getting there.

Also, remember mGBA doesn't have an ARM dynarec. If it ends up getting one, we might see solid 60 fps consistently.

 

[NEO117]

The question I have is. Does Wario Ware Twisted work on it well enough now? Last time I tried it was a slow mess.

 

[Pickle_Rick]

The question I have is. Does Wario Ware Twisted work on it well enough now? Last time I tried it was a slow mess.

It runs at 50-60fps.

 

[NEO117]

It runs at 50-60fps.

Oooh. I'm giving it a run then. Thanks.

 

[AkitoUF]

For NEW 3ds or is it running fast on Old too?

 

[Deleted User]

For NEW 3ds or is it running fast on Old too?

NEW 3DS only. O3DS is not powerful enough.

 

[Deleted User]

mGBA 0.6.3 has been released! Get it over at mgba.io. This update mostly adresses bugs in Gameboy/Color emulation.

 

[Searinox]

Regressions appear to be fixed and also the popping noise on some GB/C games whenever effects or music are stopped.

 

[DominoBright]

It runs Rodland, a game I remember being troublesome for some GB emulators. With that, I believe it will eventually have full GB/C compatibility, if it's not there already.

Now all that's left is fixing save states. (Try SML2 to see what I mean. Survival Kids is also affected in that big rocks can't be moved by a big stick anymore.)

 

[Searinox]

Not all is well in paradise. Pokemon Red/Blue overworld sprites are messed up and menu open/close produces odd effects. All of it still absent on the nightly. Also on GBA Pokemon FireRed runs noticeably slower than LeafGreen. A problem again absent in the latest nightly.