Homebrew Best/easiest way to play GB/GBC/GBA games on a 3DS XL?

[fernan1234]

I'm looking to get rid of needing a backlit-modded GBA to play GB/GBC/GBA games. I have a DS Lite which has a nice screen, but since the pixels are smaller than on a GBA the game image looks smaller. For GBA games I could live with the DS Lite, but not really for GB/GBC games.

For GB/GBC games in particular I know that you can inject them into the official emulator, but I'd like to avoid the time it takes to do that for each title. Instead I am wondering if, having not kept up with the 3DS homebrew scene for years, there are emulators now available that offer the advantages of the official emulator while loading games from a ROM list off the SD card.

Thanks for pointing me to anything useful.

 

[E1ite007]

Well, VC is almost 1:1 on licensed games compatibility (not so in homebrew), so you could inject them, but that would need CFW.
If you don't have CFW, you could begin right here, and for a way to injectin' the games you could use NSUI.
Having CFW is safe and doesn't lend you to bans or anything, don't be scared… but, there're only 2 rules: don't cheat online, and don't play games before release; if you follow those, you'll be mostly safe.

 

[Jayro]

Rom injection into VC titles works really well, and is probably best for GBA support... But GB and GBC are much better off in the GameYob emulator made by @Drenn.

 

[fernan1234]

Thanks. Yes my n3DS XL has CFW. I want to avoid injecting because it requires doing it for each game, whereas I am looking to have the entire GB/C library at the ready, since that's what I'm used to coming from a GB Everdrive.

I had heard about GameYob a while ago but I remember hearing it didn't run as well as the DS version. If it has been optimized I'll give it a try.

 

[E1ite007]

Thanks. Yes my n3DS XL has CFW. I want to avoid injecting because it requires doing it for each game, whereas I am looking to have the entire GB/C library at the ready, since that's what I'm used to coming from a GB Everdrive.

I had heard about GameYob a while ago but I remember hearing it didn't run as well as the DS version. If it has been optimized I'll give it a try.

If you have a flashcard, you could use the DS version of GameYob. The problem is, that almost all emulators for GB(C), NES and so on stopped developement because the VC injections.
I don't think TWiLight Menu++ can launch GameYob, 'cause nds-bootstrap doesn't work pretty well with homebrew.

Then, for GBA, you should definitely try injecting your games, because mGBA doesn't work pretty well yet... but maybe in the near future will, but we don't know.
You could give it a shot and see if the games you desire work good enough, maybe they do.

EDIT: Well, I did some research and mGBA although it doesn't work properly with a lot of GBA games, it can emulate GB(C) games almost flawlessly, even titles that require the gyroscope to tilt and things like that (it was a Kirby title if I recall correctly) and it's almost perfect. You should try it instead of using GameYob… and yeah, TWiLight Menu++ does have GameYob DS integrated, but mGBA looks to be far better, so... you should try anyone you want.

 

[fernan1234]

Thanks for that info Elite007. I checked out both emulators and mGBA looks much better. GameYob looked all blurry, perhaps I need to do that one trick to make DSiware stuff show at the correct aspect ratio but I forgot, I did it back when I also ran my R4 card on the 3DS but I'm not sure if it's the same.

In any case, it does look like GB/C emulation is sadly still pretty immature on the 3DS as a consequence of the preference for VC injections. I guess that's the way to go at least for games that I really like, but it's kinda limiting because I already have tons of titles on the 3DS and it's a pain to navigate through them.

 

[TurdPooCharger]

@fernan1234, try mGBA again but with the latest nightly builds.

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

 

[fernan1234]

mGBA has a much better sound emulation than the latest GameYob, so I guess that'd be the way to go. It's still noticeably below the official VC emulator. The perfect solution would be a VC emulator ROM launcher, that way it would not be necessary to inject every single game and end up with a mess in your home menu, but I'm sure there's a technical reason why such an option is not available at this point.

One thing I really like about the 3DS in general is that the size/AR of the game screen for GB/C games is exactly as it is on the GBC, which is a bit bigger and wider than on a GBA, and even more so than on the DS Lite. Also, when running games from the VC emulator and 3D effect on, the picture is as bright and vibrant as on the DS Lite, so it pretty much has the best of all worlds, except convenience (and, of course, accuracy, since even the VC emulator can't be 100% perfect).

 

[RookieKid]

Is there any nowadays to play game boy color games on the 3ds?

 

[Jayro]

Is there any nowadays to play game boy color games on the 3ds?

Still just GameYob or VC injects. Both work very well.

 

[enthonyclark]

everyone says vc injects, but never what they use to inject

Post automatically merged: Feb 15, 2024

everyone says vc injects, but never what they use to inject

 

[Jayro]

everyone says vc injects, but never what they use to inject

Literally a 2 second Google search:

https://gbatemp.net/threads/how-to-create-official-looking-virtual-console-injects.437592/

 

[Sono]

Well, for GBA, the best way is Virtual Console injects (as it seamlessly blends into Home Menu and stuff), but the easiest way is open_agb_firm, you just run open_agb_firm.firm, open the .gba ROM, and play, no need for slow and buggy Virtual Console inject program, installing .cia and stuff. Literally drag and drop.

 

[Jayro]

Well, for GBA, the best way is Virtual Console injects (as it seamlessly blends into Home Menu and stuff), but the easiest way is open_agb_firm, you just run open_agb_firm.firm, open the .gba ROM, and play, no need for slow and buggy Virtual Console inject program, installing .cia and stuff. Literally drag and drop.

The OPEN_AGB_FIRM method also doesn't count against the 300 installed titles limitation either.

 

[Sono]

The OPEN_AGB_FIRM method also doesn't count against the 300 installed titles limitation either.

Oh, speaking of which, open_agb_firm currently has a folder size limitation (I forgot, around 1k files and folders in a folder ?), but that can be easily solved by grouping games into different folders. This should mean that it's better be less than 500 files, as pretty sure it also displays .sav files in the folder as well.