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I ported the gameboy advance emulator gdkGBA (originally made by gdkchan) to the nintendo switch!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).

 

[Leonidas87]

@jakibaki I sent you a link to a copy of both .nor files in a private message with the Visual Changes I have made in regards to GBA and GBC.

 

[Hyeon]

Hello I follow that cannot use it.... 5.0.2 version and the roms is in the switch folder.. when i runing the Emulator. I cannot select folder or roms.. can you help me?

 

[Leonidas87]

Hello I follow that cannot use it.... 5.0.2 version and the roms is in the switch folder.. when i runing the Emulator. I cannot select folder or roms.. can you help me?

Roms need to be placed in the gbc or gba folder within the roms folder itself.

Create gbc and gba in your roms folder and put your games there. Report back.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

This should honestly save people a lot of questions and help out in making it easier to get this up and running for everyone.

GameBoyAdvance and GameBoyColour (Tutorial) video:



Just remember roms go in the gbc or GBA folder withing the roms folder itself.

GBA roms MUST be in the NEW LOCATION sd:/switch/roms/gba DUE TO NEW UPDATE

GBC roms MUST be in the NEW LOCATION sd:/switch/roms/gbc DUE TO NEW UPDATE

 

[Hyeon]

Roms need to be placed in the gbc or gba folder within the roms folder itself.

Create gbc and gba in your roms folder and put your games there. Report back.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

This should honestly save people a lot of questions and help out in making it easier to get this up and running for everyone.

GameBoyAdvance and GameBoyColour (Tutorial) video:



Just remember roms fo in the gbc or GBA folder withing the roms folder itself.

GBA roms MUST be in the NEW LOCATION sd:/switch/roms/gba DUE TO NEW UPDATE

GBC roms MUST be in the NEW LOCATION sd:/switch/roms/gbc DUE TO NEW UPDATE

Thanks alots ! It is working

 

[Leonidas87]

Keeps happening once in a while with loading save states.

Hopefully Saving and Loading states can be worked on.

 

[ChampionLeake]

Couldn't get Minish Cap to work. Can someone confirm if they have the same issue? Well, it only went far as in the save menu but the graphics screwed up and you basically can't do anything

 

[JJTapia19]

The same games I tested yesterday with update 2 are having slowdowns and in less than 2 minutes of gameplay I'm getting an blackscreen error message forcing to restart with update 3. I tried without using the old savestates but still. I'll go back to update 2 just wanted to report. Thanks again for your work @gdkchan & @jakibaki .

 

[jsan]

Same problem here, the game is not playable, can't get past the select save slot page (I presume, bc the graphics are messed up). Any workarounds would be really welcome.

Couldn't get Minish Cap to work. Can someone confirm if they have the same issue? Well, it only went far as in the save menu but the graphics screwed up and you basically can't do anything

 

[gdkchan]

Same problem here, the game is not playable, can't get past the select save slot page (I presume, bc the graphics are messed up). Any workarounds would be really welcome.

I checked this problem, it's a bug on normatt's open source gba bios. The problem doesn't occur if you use the original bios.

 

[jsan]

Ah, nice! thanks for the tip. How can we use another bios? Copy it to /Switch/bios/gba_bios.bin?

I checked this problem, it's a bug on normatt's open source gba bios. The problem doesn't occur if you use the original bios.

 

[Johnnyboc]

When did this happen?

HOW did this happen?

WHAT DID I MISS?

HOW DO I INSTALL THIS?

 

[Bedel]

Little question: would be anu chance of you putting a battery icon in some corner? Since we cannot use sleep mode and is not a good idea to go to home menu to see it (since it closes te emulator) it would be a great function. Or only a label with the % could be okay.

 

[chronoss]

@jakibaki : can you change the patch of rom to sd:/switch/gdkGBA/roms/gba because we have a rom folder on HBL menu and it's not very good to see this empty folder...

 

[jakibaki]

I checked this problem, it's a bug on normatt's open source gba bios. The problem doesn't occur if you use the original bios.

Oh, I wouldn't ever have figured this out on my own, thanks for the hint!

In the next update I'll allow people to put an replacement-bios on the sd-card

The update probably will only be in a few days though as I don't have as much time on my hands anymore :/

 

[Bedel]

Oh, I wouldn't ever have figured this out on my own, thanks for the hint!

In the next update I'll allow people to put an replacement-bios on the sd-card

Hopefully, this will solve some other problems.

 

[Leonidas87]

Oh, I wouldn't ever have figured this out on my own, thanks for the hint!

In the next update I'll allow people to put an replacement-bios on the sd-card

Any way to make the Game Selection screen a list of the games for GBA and GBC instead of just seeing each game one by one?

Just an idea, my collection would definitely be easier to scroll through and find specific games if it showed all the games in the folder (minus the save files).

 

[DustyLemon]

after the third update roms that where working before are now losing textures like the floor in pokemon emerald is completely black and can only see character sprites,did not have this on release

 

[jakibaki]

after the third update roms that where working before are now losing textures like the floor in pokemon emerald is completely black and can only see character sprites,did not have this on release

Oh, that's bad :/ I'll attach v2 as an alternative to the main post for now.

 

[DustyLemon]

Oh, that's bad :/ I'll attach v2 as an alternative to the main post for now.

v2 emerald is back to normal cheers

 

[S1DD]

Mine says: Can't find dir!

What's the problem? i inserted roms into switch dir, and then roms dir

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

Technically is: Failed to open dir!