GBARunner3?

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Instructions
I'll write GBARunner3 installation instructions again, hopefully this post gets marked as important.

1744506555518.png


To run Game Boy Advance ROMs in TwilightMenu++ using GBARunner3, follow these steps:

Requirements


Instructions

  1. Extract the contents of the GBARunner3 (hicode branch) build ZIP file to the root of your SD card.
  2. Copy GBARunner3.nds from your SD card root to _nds\TWiLightMenu\emulators in your SD card.
  3. Obtain the GBA BIOS and rename it to bios.bin.
  4. Place the GBA BIOS inside the _gba folder. The path should look like this: /_gba/bios.bin
  5. Make sure the configuration folder is correctly placed. The configs folder must be inside _gba, like this: /_gba/configs/
  6. Launch TwilightMenu++ and navigate to your GBA ROMs location.
  7. Select a ROM and run it directly. You should see the GBARunner3 splash animation, followed by the GBA BIOS animation with the Nintendo logo.



To run Game Boy Advance ROMs in any flashcard kernel using gbar3-frontend + GBARunner3, follow these steps:

Requirements


Instructions

  1. Extract the contents of the GBARunner3 (hicode branch) build ZIP file to the root of your SD card.
  2. Obtain the GBA BIOS and rename it to bios.bin.
  3. Place the GBA BIOS inside the _gba folder. The path should look like this: /_gba/bios.bin
  4. Make sure the configuration folder is correctly placed. The configs folder must be inside _gba, like this: /_gba/configs/
  5. Boot your flashcard kernel as usual, Launch gbar3-frontend.nds and navigate to your GBA ROMs location.
  6. Select a ROM and run it directly. You should see the GBARunner3 splash animation, followed by the GBA BIOS animation with the Nintendo logo.
  7. Bonus feature: This frontend will automatically boot to roms/gba if it exists.
 
Last edited by DSoryu,
Thanks for the instructions @DSoryu ! I noticed you linked your forked repository instead of Gericom's one, is your fork considered to be the "main" one now? I noticed Gericom's repo frequently merges your changes so I guess there's not much of a difference.
 
Thanks for the instructions @DSoryu ! I noticed you linked your forked repository instead of Gericom's one, is your fork considered to be the "main" one now? I noticed Gericom's repo frequently merges your changes so I guess there's not much of a difference.

Ah no haha, Gericom's branch is still the main repo, is just that the change to fix GitHub Actions hasn't been merged yet into hicode on his side, so I made that myself in the meantime so anyone can grab a precompiled hicode build with ease. If you notice any changes in my fork, these will be merged into the main one eventually anyway :)
 
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Ah no haha, Gericom's branch is still the main repo, is just that the change to fix GitHub Actions hasn't been merged yet into hicode on his side, so I made that myself in the meantime so anyone can grab a precompiled hicode build with ease. If you notice any changes in my fork, these will be merged into the main one eventually anyway :)
Oh, I understand now. Thanks for the explanation.
 
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Ok, thank you for the quick reply. Is there a way to alternate between GBAR2 and GBAR3 within Twilight Menu?
You'll have to copy one of the GBARunner2 .nds files (depending on which console you're using and/or if you're using a flashcard) from "sd:/_nds/" to where the GBA ROMs are placed.
 
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Which one of these should I use? Currently running Twilight menu off of a flashcard.
 

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Cheers to yous both for the write-up and recent work on all this! Long-time lurker here. IMO GBARunner3 is already much better than 2 (obviously with the exception of RTC stuff but that'll come, I'm sure) and I've had significantly fewer weird issues with it. Will be checking back regularly for updates and so on.
 
Compatibility report:

GBAR3 Build:
DS cache-hicode branch (commit 88268b5)
Flash cart: R4 clone

Super Monkey Ball Jr.: Playable with major issues. FPS is much too slow to be enjoyable.
Breath of Fire: Playable with minor issues. Left speaker constantly clicks at boot up, but becomes infrequent once you start the game.
Breath of Fire II: Playable with minor issues. Minor clicking sound before game is started.
Sonic Advance: Playable with major issues. Clicking sound at boot up, but goes away after game start. FPS throttling causes the game to slow down, speed up, slow down again, etc.; Background sprites flash, such as the clouds in stage 1.
Dr. Mario & Panel de Pon (J): Unplayable. Freezes with a high pitched sound loop after displaying company logo.
Legend of Zelda, The - The Minish Cap + No sprite fix patch: Unplayable. White screen at startup.

Homebrew:

Anguna:
Playable with minor issues. Speakers produce a crackling sound at boot up, but goes away once the game is started.
BulletGBA: Perfect.
Vulkanon:
Perfect.

Note:
Only games that aren't listed on the official compatibility list, or games where my observations differ from the list will be reported here.
 
Compatibility report:

GBAR3 Build:
DS cache-hicode branch (commit 4683f8b)
CFW: Twilight Menu++

Super Mario Advance 4 Super Mario Bros. 3 : Unplayable. White screen at startup.
 
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Compatibility report:

GBAR3 Build:
DS cache-hicode branch (commit 4683f8b)
CFW: Twilight Menu++

Super Mario Advance 4 Super Mario Bros. 3 : Unplayable. White screen at startup.

This is one case of a few WiiU dumps that work fine in GBARunner3, even without manual JIt patches, vanilla versions also work totally fine. Make sure your rom isn't corrupted.
Post automatically merged:

Compatibility report:

GBAR3 Build:
DS cache-hicode branch (commit 88268b5)
Flash cart: R4 clone

Super Monkey Ball Jr.: Playable with major issues. FPS is much too slow to be enjoyable.
Breath of Fire: Playable with minor issues. Left speaker constantly clicks at boot up, but becomes infrequent once you start the game.
Breath of Fire II: Playable with minor issues. Minor clicking sound before game is started.
Sonic Advance: Playable with major issues. Clicking sound at boot up, but goes away after game start. FPS throttling causes the game to slow down, speed up, slow down again, etc.; Background sprites flash, such as the clouds in stage 1.
Dr. Mario & Panel de Pon (J): Unplayable. Freezes with a high pitched sound loop after displaying company logo.
Legend of Zelda, The - The Minish Cap + No sprite fix patch: Unplayable. White screen at startup.

Homebrew:

Anguna:
Playable with minor issues. Speakers produce a crackling sound at boot up, but goes away once the game is started.
BulletGBA: Perfect.
Vulkanon:
Perfect.

Note:
Only games that aren't listed on the official compatibility list, or games where my observations differ from the list will be reported here.

Super Monkey Ball Jr.: works much better in DSi consoles, and needs manual JIT patches to get a performance increase, I'll PR those to the repo later.

Sonic Advance: Yeah this game instability is a gamble, I've tested it in two different SD cards and works differently on each one. The Sonic Trilogy may run better in the future when optimizations are made.

Dr. Mario & Panel de Pon: Those are multiboot type roms iirc, currently unsupported.

Zelda Minish Cap + No Sprite fix patch: Patched roms sometimes need a different config file with new manual JIt addresses, since some rom patches can shift dada/instructions inside the rom, making the old addresses to mismatch and fail.

Thank you all for your compatibility status reports :yaynds:
 
Last edited by DSoryu,
exciting progress !

My compatibility report is:


Mother 1+2: Mother 1 freezes. Mother freezes after title screen to black screen

Jet grind radio; Black screen after completing mission or tutorial


Post automatically merged:

This is one case of a few WiiU dumps that work fine in GBARunner3, even without manual JIt patches, vanilla versions also work totally fine. Make sure your rom isn't corrupted.
Post automatically merged:



Super Monkey Ball Jr.: works much better in DSi consoles, and needs manual JIT patches to get a performance increase, I'll PR those to the repo later.

Sonic Advance: Yeah this game instability is a gamble, I've tested it in two different SD cards and works differently on each one. The Sonic Trilogy may run better in the future when optimizations are made.

Dr. Mario & Panel de Pon: Those are multiboot type roms iirc, currently unsupported.

Zelda Minish Cap + No Sprite fix patch: Patched roms sometimes need a different config file with new manual JIt addresses, since some rom patches can shift dada/instructions inside the rom, making the old addresses to mismatch and fail.

Thank you all for your compatibility status reports :yaynds:
 
Last edited by YoungK,
I tried again, deleted the save file and rom (which were the Wii U virtual console's) and put a fresh one in from a trusted source.
> Game Booted fine
> Formatted save
> Try going to the e-reader levels
> Black Screen
> Quit Game
> Try starting up the game again and gets a white screen after the "Gameboy Player" screen.
> Tested from another source, same issue.

I was getting a white screen because I had already played that same game with GBARunner2 and it worked fine. Maybe a regression ?
 
Last edited by DefaltPearce,

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