With the release of vba this emulator is now officially discontinued!

Many many thanks to everyone that helped!


I ported the gameboy advance emulator gdkGBA (originally made by gdkchan) to the nintendo switch! (Works on all versions as far as I know)

To set up I strongly recommend putting the original gba_bios.bin in sd:/switch/gba_bios.bin!
After that put the roms into sd:/switch/roms/ and start the homebrew.

As soon as retroarch gets updated for 5.0 this will instantly become obsolete!

source (you need the sdl2-libraries from the devkit-pro pacman to build this)

Known issues:
Sound is a bit weird (it seems like sometimes the wrong instruments play)
Some games seem to crash the switch after a while. (mostly fixed in v8)
Sometimes the switch likes to crash even in games that normally run pretty stable :/ (fixed in v8 I think)
Some games have graphical glitches/don't work at all
Saving doesn't work on some games. If that happens please don't hesitate to tell me and for now you can set (buggy) savestates using plus+r and load them using plus+l.

Please update to the latest version before reporting Problems!

Game compatibility list

UPDATE:
Sound now much better now! Many thanks to @renhei for the fix!
UPDATE2:
Changed rompath from sd:/switch/roms to sd:/switch/roms/gba in order to avoid confusion with the gbc emulator. Also double joycons now work in unattached mode!
UPDATE3:
Merged gdkchans changes to the ppu. Some games that had problems with artifacts on screen (I tried harvest moon) now look much better! However this is apparently causing trouble in some games so I also attached v2.
UPDATE4:
Added proper in-gaming-saving support! The old buggy savestate-feature is now read-only (so that you can move your progress to the new save-files). I recommend removing the old .savegame-file after making sure the new, better in-game-saving works correctly in order to make sure that you don't accidentally load it
Many thanks to @gdkchan for fixing some underlying issues with the in-game-saves of this emulator!
Also I added support for the original gba_bios.bin:
If you want to use it (which I strongly recommend since the open-source-one that's bundled is causing trouble with some games) put it into sd:/switch/gba_bios.bin
UPDATE5:
In game saving should now actually work in most games! Many thanks to @gdkchan for explaining to me how the gba handles saves!
UPDATE6:
Recompiled everything with latest libnx. Hopefully fewer crashes now.
UPDATE7:
Savestate feature is back. Please only use if the savegames fail as it is known to sometimes cause issues!
UPDATE8:
Updated libnx (again) and made a few small fixes. If you're experiencing fewer/more crashes please don't hesitate to tell me
UPDATE8.5 (Experimental only):
Pushed the new graphics-fixes from @gdkchan. Please only use them if you're experiencing graphical glitches since they introduce a large slowdown in some games.
UPDATE8.6 (Experimental only):
Pushed @gdkchans new fixes+optimisations. The experimental version should now run a bit faster!
UPDATE9:
Saving should now be more reliable again (makes the save-feature work as it did in v7 again).

 

[Nerdtendo]

It's working for me. Could you please try again? I just pushed an update a few seconds ago so their might be some delay.

Yeah, I tried directly after posting that and it was fine. Sorry bout that.

 

[sonofskywalker3]

Thanks for doing this, Unfortunately it freezes when I try to start a new game on Breath of Fire

 

[Leonidas87]

Thank you very much! I'll push your change to the repo and release the new version in a few minutes!

EDIT: I pushed the update

I've notice some saving states and loading states of game saves has been a little buggy and not as reliable since the sound update. Just to keep you informed of any degradation from other fixes.

Lost one Save state for Pokemon Fire Red no big deal just informing @jakibaki

 

[Leonidas87]

I'm sure @jakibaki will get saved sorted out.

For anyone wondering Save states should also be moved to the same folder as your roms if you were using this before the update

 

[jakibaki]

I've notice some saving states and loading states of game saves has been a little buggy and not as reliable since the sound update. Just to keep you informed of any degradation from other fixes.

Lost one Save state for Pokemon Fire Red no big deal just informing @jakibaki

I didn't change anything about the savestates in the audio update so I doubt it's that :/

Could you please tell me how exactly you 'lost' the save state? Did the game just stop loading, was stuff glitching...?

 

[gdkchan]

Thanks for doing this, Unfortunately it freezes when I try to start a new game on Breath of Fire

This is due to the battery save not being supported, I'm guessing that the game tries to save and then freezes as it can't write the data to the memory, should be relatively easy to fix. I should really fix that and implement the remaining ppu transparency effects, althrough I'm pretty busy with ryujinx rn.

Anyway, very nice to see it being ported to the switch and being improved

 

[GoldenSun3DS]

Serious question: Why do people port these obscure emulators rather than more successful, feature-packed emulators like VBA?

 

[limpbiz411]

Serious question: Why do people port these obscure emulators rather than more successful, feature-packed emulators like VBA?

maybe easier code to deal with.

 

[Leonidas87]

I didn't change anything about the savestates in the audio update so I doubt it's that :/

Could you please tell me how exactly you 'lost' the save state? Did the game just stop loading, was stuff glitching...?

Loading the save state would freeze after loading with artifacts.

Sound gets so slow during backup also.

Just seemed really wierd after the audio fix.

Give me more time i did start a New save state.

 

[RHOPKINS13]

Ah suck, I still waiting for Atmosphere to come so no emulator for me. Good tosee the most wanted emulator make it here though.

Why wait? Hekate on 5.0.2 works pretty well. We now have GBC and GBA emulators, and a port of Final Burn Alpha. I've been playing on my Switch more than ever before!

 

[cagycee]

Great job however Pokemon Glazed keeps crashing on me for some odd reason... It works for like 4-5 minutes and the Error Code: 2345-0021 pops up and I have to restart the whole device. Bummer. I thought I'd actually finish this Rom hack on a system I like.

 

[limpbiz411]

any possible to make this fit to screen?

 

[Zumoly]

Why wait? Hekate on 5.0.2 works pretty well. We now have GBC and GBA emulators, and a port of Final Burn Alpha. I've been playing on my Switch more than ever before!

To run the sleepless Hekate or not to run? That is the question.

 

[Proto-Propski]

Thanks OP for the sound, and rompath updates, but Since the last update I've had a major issue of running pre-update savestates, not sure why I can only assume since the rompath changed that I think that could be the root of this problem?

I just restarted anyway, new post-update savestates work just fine, so I'm good.

 

[jakkal]

Serious question: Why do people port these obscure emulators rather than more successful, feature-packed emulators like VBA?

Why don't you port them?

 

[leonmagnus99]

this is really cool stuff, but I'll stick to gpsp on my vitas adrenaline.
until we get something like gpsp on the switch!

 

[RHOPKINS13]

To run the sleepless Hekate or not to run? That is the question.

I've been running Hekate and using pFBA as a screensaver to prevent screen burn-in. I usually either use one of the Ghouls 'n' Goblins games, or Marvel vs Capcom.

 

[bluedart]

What a neat proof of concept! I got it to work with Fire Red, although after the tutorial normal battles slow down a LOT, so I can't really play this on here. The Minish Cap both (U) and (J) just kind of hang at the select menu, Super Mario Advance 4 just sort of hangs at the beginning, Harvest Moon FOMT has so much garbage on the screen constantly that I can't play it, same goes for Metroid Zero Mission, and the GBA port of Link to the Past just fills the screen with purple, making everything invisible.

Too bad I can't play any of the GBA games I like on this, but keep it up, I bet you can figure out how to get some of these working eventually. Your GBC port is really great!

Quick thing: I bet at least two of these are due to the limitation of not being able to save, would it be possible to completely eliminate that call in the code so it simply does nothing instead of crashing?

 

[jamstripe]

Am i missing somthing? I have put the gdkGBA.nro in the /switch folder and the roms in the switch/roms/gba folder but when i launch homebrew channel i have no apps?

 

[JJTapia19]

@jakibaki Thanks a lot for sharing your work. This is amazing. Mario Kart Super Circuit, Super Mario World and Wario Land 4 seem to work near perfect. The sound is great everything and controls are tight.​