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I ported the gameboy advance emulator gdkGBA (originally made by gdkchan) to the nintendo switch!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

 

[jakibaki]

No problem. Hope you're able to reproduce it and it's easy for you to fix. I get the impression that retroarch is not coming so soon so the more stable this emulator gets the better. Thanks again for taking the time to work on this.

That's weird, I don't experience any crashes whatsoever with wario land 4.

Are you by any chance not using the original gba-bios?

 

[BlastedGuy9905]

Still haven't taken the leap into trying to run CFW and stuff yet, don't really wanna wipe my microSD card, but it's getting more and more tempting each day

You don't need to wipe your SD card.

 

[Madman55]

That's weird, I don't experience any crashes whatsoever with wario land 4.

Are you by any chance not using the original gba-bios?

I can say that Wario Land 4 works okay for me. Been playing it for hours

 

[JJTapia19]

That's weird, I don't experience any crashes whatsoever with wario land 4.

Are you by any chance not using the original gba-bios?

Yeah I was using the last time I tested with v7 normal and experimental. Now it's making me look bad there must be a more consistent way to reproduce the crash tough. Maybe an effect heavy game? I whish I could help you try to reproduce it but I don't have my switch atm. If you haven't found out how by tonight I'll try to help you out and report if I fing a consconsic way of crashing.

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I can say that Wario Land 4 works okay for me. Been playing it for hours

Hmmm now I'm starting to wonder if it have something to do with my setup. Which version of the emu are you using? My switch is on 5.0.2. sd card is exfat 200gb and iI' using the nxlink version of the hbmenu.

 

[Madman55]

Hmmm now I'm starting to wonder if it have something to do with my setup. Witch version of the emu are you using? My switch is on 5.0.2. sd card is exfat 200gb and iI' using the nxlink version of the hbmenu

I'm on V7 and have an 8gb card, can't remember the formatting. As for HBmenu, just the plain version that can be found the most on the internet. Think its V 1.0.0 or 2.0.0

 

[JJTapia19]

I'm on V7 and have an 8gb card, can't remember the formatting. As for HBmenu, just the plain version that can be found the most on the internet

Maybe it's my setup then. I'll test the normal hbmenu and fat32 sd tonight and I'll report my findings.

 

[justcallmelewis]

I have only played Pokemon Firered so far with v7 and original gba-bios but get random crashes. My setup is 5.0.2 with 16gb fat32

 

[Madman55]

I have only played Pokemon Firered so far with v7 and original gba-bios but get random crashes. My setup is 5.0.2 with 16gb fat32

V7 is having issues with Fire Red and Emerald right now. V6 works fine with them. If you want to know what games are working and what aren't then check out the Compatibility list!

 

[jakibaki]

V7 is having issues with Fire Red and Emerald right now. V6 works fine with them. If you want to know what games are working and what aren't then check out the Compatibility list!

That's weird. I just played leaf green on v7 without any issues for about an hour.

 

[Madman55]

That's weird. I just played leaf green on v7 without any issues for about an hour.

That is weird I've had a few people tell me that Fire Red is crashing lots with V7 of the Emu. Maybe it's something specific to the game

 

[justcallmelewis]

That is weird I've had a few people tell me that Fire Red is crashing lots with V7 of the Emu. Maybe it's something specific to the game

Im not sure if this is random aswell but i just got a crash with v6 and original bios.

 

[Madman55]

Im not sure if this is random aswell but i just got a crash with v6 and original bios.

This is odd indeed

 

[ownedlol]

I've been lurking for a while so I wanted to give thanks for making this emulator work in the first place.

FireRed does crash constantly, but it's not random, it only happens from encountering random mobs and whenever you engage with a trainer/trainer switches Pokémon. I've gotten as far as Mt. Moon on FireRed and it's purest hell--it crashes at almost any random encounter and trainer battle. Repel works well if you're planning on going through Mt. Moon but trainers are still a worry.

I'm on 5.0.2 running V7 with a BIOS, a 128GB card formatted as FAT32.

 

[Madman55]

I've been lurking for a while so I wanted to give thanks for making this emulator work in the first place.

FireRed does crash constantly, but it's not random, it only happens from encountering random mobs and whenever you engage with a trainer/trainer switches Pokémon. I've gotten as far as Mt. Moon on FireRed and it's purest hell--it crashes at almost any random encounter and trainer battle. Repel works well if you're planning on going through Mt. Moon but trainers are still a worry.

I'm on 5.0.2 running V7 with a BIOS, a 128GB card formatted as FAT32.

That sounds like everything people have been saying lately. Once combat starts the game freaks out and crashes.

 

[jakibaki]

V7 is having issues with Fire Red and Emerald right now. V6 works fine with them. If you want to know what games are working and what aren't then check out the Compatibility list!

This is literally the whole change between v6 and v7 (just readds handling for the save-shortcut) so I don't see anything that could've broken which makes fire-red not work unless people have been using savestates despite my warning (even using them once could possibly result in a messed up savegame).

 

[justcallmelewis]

This is literally the whole change between v6 and v7 (just readds handling for the save-shortcut) so I don't see anything that could've broken which makes fire-red not work unless people have been using savestates despite my warning (even using them once could possibly result in a messed up savegame).

I clear my save states before i try a new version. So i start from scratch. I never got far so it wasnt an issue.

 

[jakibaki]

I clear my save states before i try a new version. So i start from scratch. I never got far so it wasnt an issue.

That's bad :/
Were you using the normal or the experimental version?

Do you get the random crashes on both v6 and v7?
Also could you please send me the md5sum of the rom you used (do NOT post the rom itself here)?

 

[justcallmelewis]

That's bad :/
Were you using the normal or the experimental version?

Do you get the random crashes on both v6 and v7?
Also could you please send me the md5sum of the rom you used (do NOT post the rom itself here)?

Ok it seems i might have had a bad rom version. As i am playing now with a new fire red rom on v7 exp and all is good. No crashes so far will report back in an hour or so.

 

[jakibaki]

Ok it seems i might have had a bad rom version. As i am playing now with a new fire red rom on v7 exp and all is good. No crashes so far will report back in an hour or so.

That's great!
Do you by any chance still have the 'bad' rom? If so could you please send me its md5sum so I can work on fixing this.

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Ok it seems i might have had a bad rom version. As i am playing now with a new fire red rom on v7 exp and all is good. No crashes so far will report back in an hour or so.

Also perfomance on the non-experimental version is much better and pokemon doesn't need the fixes that it offers so I recommend switching to that

 

[justcallmelewis]

That's great!
Do you by any chance still have the 'bad' rom? If so could you please send me its md5sum so I can work on fixing this.

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Also perfomance on the non-experimental version is much better and pokemon doesn't need the fixes that it offers so I recommend switching to that

Oh right ok thanks for the info. Also i am aware that the sound has improved a lot since the first release is there any more improvement to come, if retroarch is still a bit away.

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One more think i want to add and im not sure if this has already been mentioned, but the sound problem seems less noticable when the switch is docked and playing. Is the problem mainly isolated to the onboard speakers.