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I ported the gameboy advance emulator gdkGBA (originally made by gdkchan) to the nintendo switch!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 are you aware that Dragon Ball Z The Legacy of Goku 1 and 2 along with Buus furi will not allow you to create a NEW game.

It MUST have to do with some implementations or key features missing to the ingame saving.

Is this something that is being looked into?

I started the same games and started a new game on android no problem at all. Exact same roms.

If this was fixed it would probably make saving and loading of saves a bit more reliable and allow for a lot more games to be played such as the ones mentioned above.

 

[jakibaki]

View attachment 124189 @jakibaki are you aware that Dragon Ball Z The Legacy of Goku 1 and 2 along with Buus furi will not allow you to create a NEW game.

It MUST have to do with some implementations or key features missing to the ingame saving.

Is this something that is being looked into?

I started the same games and started a new game on android no problem at all. Exact same roms.

If this was fixed it would probably make saving and loading of saves a bit more reliable and allow for a lot more games to be played such as the ones mentioned above.

Thanks for the hint, I wasn't aware.
I can't promise anything though because this isn't something that I know how to fix :/ (I just ported the emulator).

 

[PRAGMA]

Yeah ive a feeling the reason why some crashes, it could be related to saves, perhaps the emu is trying to access the SD or something to save, and cant or fails, and then panics?

 

[jakibaki]

Perhaps the emu is trying to access the SD or something to save, and cant or fails, and then panics?

That's really a possible cause for some crashes, thanks for the hint!
I didn't add any error-handling when opening the savegame for writing (right now the emulator just assumes that the file was opened successfully) so adding that may fix some crashes.

I'll push an update with error-handling added (and updated libnx) in a few minutes. I doubt that it's causing all of the crashes though since people have been experiencing those even before I added savegames.

 

[PRAGMA]

That's really a possible cause for some crashes, thanks for the hint!
I didn't add any error-handling when opening the savegame for writing (right now the emulator just assumes that the file was opened successfully) so adding that may fix some crashes.

I'll push an update with error-handling added (and updated libnx) in a few minutes. I doubt that it's causing all of the crashes though since people have been experiencing those even before I added savegames.

Perhaps its not that area of code then, and perhaps its not to do with saves but something else to do with SD?
Also an updated libnx would help a ton here.

 

[CaptainPumpkinhead]

Is anyone else getting significantly more Switch crashes in docked mode than in handheld mode?
I was playing my games, and sometimes it would crash just randomly. But when I played in handheld, I had none of these problems.
I saw this issue with the GBC emulator as well.

 

[JimmyK]

That's really a possible cause for some crashes, thanks for the hint!
I didn't add any error-handling when opening the savegame for writing (right now the emulator just assumes that the file was opened successfully) so adding that may fix some crashes.

I'll push an update with error-handling added (and updated libnx) in a few minutes. I doubt that it's causing all of the crashes though since people have been experiencing those even before I added savegames.

How hard would it be to have the app create a text dump of the crash for better troubleshooting? At least for now. That way we can inspect and help with testing.

 

[jakibaki]

How hard would it be to have the app create a text dump of the crash for better troubleshooting? At least for now. That way we can inspect and help with testing.

Really hard :/ Right now the whole switch just crashes and afaik I can't do any error-handling at that point.

 

[CaptainPumpkinhead]

How hard would it be to have the app create a text dump of the crash for better troubleshooting? At least for now. That way we can inspect and help with testing.

Ooh, I'd like that. That'd be nice. Although, then we'd have to take out the SD each time to read the error dump. Maybe I can find a text reader homebrew app somewhere...

 

[JimmyK]

Really hard :/ Right now the whole switch just crashes and afaik I can't do any error-handling at that point.

Well that's a little downer. Well if you need anything just let me know. I haven't coded with c in a while mostly just bash and python lately but I can always look.

 

[PRAGMA]

Ooh, I'd like that. That'd be nice. Although, then we'd have to take out the SD each time to read the error dump. Maybe I can find a text reader homebrew app somewhere...

No? FTPD, Connect, and read.

 

[jakibaki]

UPDATE8:
Updated libnx (again) and made a few small fixes. If you're experiencing fewer/more crashes please don't hesitate to tell me


Thanks again to @ShinyMK for the file-hint.

 

[ownedlol]

Strangely enough I can confirm that I haven't encountered a single crash in FireRed once I exited Mt. Moon, I've been farming for an Abra near route 24 and I've encountered 80+ mobs atleast, fought 5 trainers but not a single crash.

What would be causing it to crash in Mt. Moon but not on route 24?

 

[PRAGMA]

UPDATE8:
Updated libnx (again) and made a few small fixes. If you're experiencing fewer/more crashes please don't hesitate to tell me


Thanks again to @ShinyMK for the file-hint.

Just so you know, I literally NEVER crashed. But nice you have a new fix of something going out.

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

Just me, or is the quality a fuck ton sharper when you press home menu? Especially noticable on Pokemon. Same happens on GBC. Perhaps we can do something about that?

 

[jakibaki]

Just so you know, I literally NEVER crashed. But nice you have a new fix of something going out.

I used to have crashes every now and then in earlier version but now that I 'need' them I can't seem to get them

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

Just me, or is the quality a fuck ton sharper when you press home menu? Especially noticable on Pokemon. Same happens on GBC. Perhaps we can do something about that?

I think that's just that while it's running the display-resolution is much lower then normally (to get hardware-accelerated scaling) but when pressing the home-button you just see an updscaled "screenshot" of the low-res-picture (in the hi-res of the home-menu) which was then upscaled by the os.

 

[KuraudoSutoraifu]

I know I asked this before, but would it be possible to turn screen smoothing off (if it is even applied? The image is a bit blurry, that's why I think it is?)

 

[PRAGMA]

Not sure if you realized, but you havent been updating the .nro's internal version, kinda frustrating as I have both v7 and v8 and its hard to tell between the two.

 

[CaptainPumpkinhead]

Not sure if you realized, but you havent been updating the .nro's internal version, kinda frustrating as I have both v7 and v8 and its hard to tell between the two.

Just overwrite v7 with v8.

 

[PRAGMA]

Just overwrite v7 with v8.

The point is I like to have em all for testing...

 

[CaptainPumpkinhead]

The point is I like to have em all for testing...

Ah. Makes sense.