Hardware So, how does the official GBA emulator work?

[MegaGenesis]

I'm very curious to know how Nintendo achieved a almost perfect GBA emulator for the 3DS Ambassador Program. I know they had to disable the Wireless and part of the OS, but still. Few months ago i tried mGBA with Pokémon Emerald on my Old 3DS, and its was super slow. But with the injected ROM using NSUI, its working flawlessly!
I heard the 3DS still have GBA hardware inside, for fully NDS compatibility. Or is it a PSP situation, where only part of the old hardware is emulated. I still think Nintendo lost a huge opportunity to sell old GBA (and NDS) games on 3DS' eShop.

 

[TurdPooCharger]

The GBA Virtual Console is a misnomer; all the other Virtual Console series [NES, SNES, GB, GBC, GG, TG16/PCE] ARE emulators though. Because of its heritage of being part Nintendo DSi, which is also part Nintendo DS, and that in turns makes it part Game Boy Advance,

• The Nintendo 3DS is not emulating GBA games but rather renders them in native hardware when played through official Nintendo GBA VC injection container.

You can informally think of the Nintendo 3DS as the "Game Boy 3DS" if it helps you to see the connection.

***

Nintendo did try to make an emulator for the GBA VC but quickly ditched the idea when they found how difficult it would be to get theirs running at full speed.

There are two (2) GBA emulators for the 3DS:

1. Injection method "RetroArch GpSP fowarder" in NSUI which does run at full speed with the aid of "dynarec". It may not be compatible with every game.
   
2. mGBA - a multi-platform emulator that's in active development. It has features like camera and gyroscope that neither official GBA VC nor GpSP supports. The 3DS build has steadily gotten better with every release. This also plays GB(C) and SGB games. While it's not as fast for a lot of games, it does strive to be accurate. The author has stated an intention of adding dynarec at some point.