While cleaning the attic, I found some old CDs and DVDs filled with GBA and NDS ROMs. It got me thinking about creating a browser-based emulator to put my website to use. The idea is to play these games in the browser, save the data on your own PC, and continue playing on other devices. Initially, I was concerned about providing ROMs from my server, but after some research, I decided to go ahead with it in a way that respects game preservation without directly distributing ROMs.
I was surprised to realize that GBA games are over 18 years old. To preserve some nostalgic gaming history, I've set it up so you have to do a bit of work to access the original files (if you really want them). No direct downloads of any games are provided. Interestingly, GBA games are no larger than 32 MB. Including the game's cover art (front, back, and side), I managed to compress everything down to between 2 and 4 MB. When you pick a game, the client decompresses the data to make it playable.
The emulator is built on a heavily modified MIT-licensed JS library. It was developed with Firefox in mind, though I’ve heard Chrome offers better performance on phones. However, I’ve encountered issues with some other mobile browsers. If the screen is too small, the button layout and screen adapt to resemble the Game Boy Color.
With over 600 titles available, there are plenty of options to explore. You can export your saves in website format or the popular .sav format to continue playing on other emulators. If you have an account, you can also export your saves to the server or import them from there. I also added controller support.
I have additional plans for this emulator, although I’m not entirely satisfied with its performance on my phone. This leaves me torn between adding new features or diving into WebAssembly for better performance. I’ve experimented with WebAssembly a bit, even creating a semi-working CHIP-8 emulator, so we’ll see how that goes. For now, enjoy the nostalgia!
And let me know what you think!
https://gg.my-dev.app/games/gba
Edit: To moderators, Please remove the whole post instead of the link. I haven't done anything wrong and your actions are based on assumptions.
I was surprised to realize that GBA games are over 18 years old. To preserve some nostalgic gaming history, I've set it up so you have to do a bit of work to access the original files (if you really want them). No direct downloads of any games are provided. Interestingly, GBA games are no larger than 32 MB. Including the game's cover art (front, back, and side), I managed to compress everything down to between 2 and 4 MB. When you pick a game, the client decompresses the data to make it playable.
The emulator is built on a heavily modified MIT-licensed JS library. It was developed with Firefox in mind, though I’ve heard Chrome offers better performance on phones. However, I’ve encountered issues with some other mobile browsers. If the screen is too small, the button layout and screen adapt to resemble the Game Boy Color.
With over 600 titles available, there are plenty of options to explore. You can export your saves in website format or the popular .sav format to continue playing on other emulators. If you have an account, you can also export your saves to the server or import them from there. I also added controller support.
I have additional plans for this emulator, although I’m not entirely satisfied with its performance on my phone. This leaves me torn between adding new features or diving into WebAssembly for better performance. I’ve experimented with WebAssembly a bit, even creating a semi-working CHIP-8 emulator, so we’ll see how that goes. For now, enjoy the nostalgia!
And let me know what you think!
https://gg.my-dev.app/games/gba
Edit: To moderators, Please remove the whole post instead of the link. I haven't done anything wrong and your actions are based on assumptions.
Last edited by Oblong9702,