Hacking What's the best way to play GBA roms and rom hacks on PS Vita?

[tw_fan]

I've been having some issues with Retroarch mainly the music is pretty laggy in Retroarch when playing with gpsp. I heard gpsp is the best emulator for gba on Retroarch

But I also heard you can use an emulator in Adrenaline and that it's better than Retroarch but I'm not sure which is why I'm asking this question

Please share your experiences with me so I can decide if I want to switch to Adrenaline or stay on Retroarch

Thanks in advance

 

[The_Dizzy_Vizzy]

Personally, I use mGBA for all of my GBA games. It's a terrific emulator that you can tweak to your liking.

https://mgba.io/downloads.html

 

[Arcade2019]

gpsp in adrenaline for me. Better speed.

 

[tw_fan]

Personally, I use mGBA for all of my GBA games. It's a terrific emulator that you can tweak to your liking.

https://mgba.io/downloads.html

I switched to Mgba and the difference is like day to night. It runs as smooth as butter. The only time the audio stutters is when I save the game that's it. Mgba is perfect

 

[The_Dizzy_Vizzy]

I switched to Mgba and the difference is like day to night. It runs as smooth as butter. The only time the audio stutters is when I save the game that's it. Mgba is perfect

Fuckin' A holmes, glad you like it!!!

 

[sonictopfan]

I use VBA NEXT it's really good but has one downside, it doesn't support Gameboy, only GBA.
Alternatively there's mGBA I use it for Gameboy/Color but I find it a bit slow on certain GBA games, I don't overclock my systems btw I like to stick to stock clock speed so keep that in mind.

 

[tw_fan]

I use VBA NEXT it's really good but has one downside, it doesn't support Gameboy, only GBA.
Alternatively there's mGBA I use it for Gameboy/Color but I find it a bit slow on certain GBA games, I don't overclock my systems btw I like to stick to stock clock speed so keep that in mind.

I'm already using Mgba like I already mentioned in my comments

I switched to Mgba and the difference is like day to night. It runs as smooth as butter. The only time the audio stutters is when I save the game that's it. Mgba is perfect

 

[sonictopfan]

I'm already using Mgba like I already mentioned in my comments

I suggested VBA NEXT over mGBA imo it runs much better on the Vita.

 

[tw_fan]

I suggested VBA NEXT over mGBA imo it runs much better on the Vita.

But you also recommended Mgba as an alternative. Just take my comment as an advice to read through the comments first because you can see what I said there. I'm not going to argue with you.

 

[sonictopfan]

But you also recommended Mgba as an alternative. Just take my comment as an advice to read through the comments first because you can see what I said there. I'm not going to argue with you.

I did read it, I recommended VBA NEXT first, the mGBA was for playing GB/C games, but more importantly why are you being rude? I don't expect a thank you but when seeking an advice at least read the comment properly or just ignore it, no need to be rude about it.

 

[Kiiro_Yakumo]

mGBA is good... on PC or anything that has extra resources to spare on this.
If memory serves even Wii can do it quite decently.
Vita has up to 333 MHz on ARM32 CPU (500 MHz or so with overclocking) while Wii has 729 MHz on PPC CPU to spare.
While Vita can do more with multi-core things, Wii wins here on single-core GBA emulation.
So why gpSP on PSP works better? Simple answer, gpSP is not made with that caliber of ACCURACY in mind so it can work faster even on PSP while mGBA is made with high accuracy in mind, thus requires more resources to process this.

As for RetroArch, I believe VBAM and/or VBA Next should have quite decent playability in that regard because again, more focus on "work fast" instead of "as accurate as possible". There seems to be gpSP core as well so that's another good option.

 

[tw_fan]

mGBA is good... on PC or anything that has extra resources to spare on this.
If memory serves even Wii can do it quite decently.
Vita has up to 333 MHz on ARM32 CPU (500 MHz or so with overclocking) while Wii has 729 MHz on PPC CPU to spare.
While Vita can do more with multi-core things, Wii wins here on single-core GBA emulation.
So why gpSP on PSP works better? Simple answer, gpSP is not made with that caliber of ACCURACY in mind so it can work faster even on PSP while mGBA is made with high accuracy in mind, thus requires more resources to process this.

As for RetroArch, I believe VBAM and/or VBA Next should have quite decent playability in that regard because again, more focus on "work fast" instead of "as accurate as possible". There seems to be gpSP core as well so that's another good option.

Mgba works fine for me. Retroarch doesn't run well on the Vita doesn't matter if you use gpsp, vba etc. I had the same issues with vba and the other cores. That's why I switched to Mgba and it runs as smooth as butter

 

[Kiiro_Yakumo]

Mgba works fine for me. Retroarch doesn't run well on the Vita doesn't matter if you use gpsp, vba etc. I had the same issues with vba and the other cores. That's why I switched to Mgba and it runs as smooth as butter

Strange, maybe the core had some optimizations touch or something. That doesn't explain why gpSP and VBA(M/Next) work worse however. In that case mGBA for RetroArch Vita, gpSP for PSP (including Adrenaline way). That would be conclusion as of today.

 

[The_Dizzy_Vizzy]

Mgba works fine for me. Retroarch doesn't run well on the Vita doesn't matter if you use gpsp, vba etc. I had the same issues with vba and the other cores. That's why I switched to Mgba and it runs as smooth as butter

Glad you're enjoying the mGBA!!! I think it's awesome too!!!

 

[tw_fan]

Strange, maybe the core had some optimizations touch or something. That doesn't explain why gpSP and VBA(M/Next) work worse however. In that case mGBA for RetroArch Vita, gpSP for PSP (including Adrenaline way). That would be conclusion as of today.

I don't know why either but for some reason mgba as a sole emulator works better for me than Retroarch on any core

 

[Kiiro_Yakumo]

I don't know why either but for some reason mgba as a sole emulator works better for me than Retroarch on any core

One thing I have to ask then just in case. Did you overclock your Vita for that purpose?
If not then maybe mGBA finally started working relatively well, guess I will give it a shot again.
I will check the few games I have dumped and see how they will perform.

 

[tw_fan]

One thing I have to ask then just in case. Did you overclock your Vita for that purpose?
If not then maybe mGBA finally started working relatively well, guess I will give it a shot again.
I will check the few games I have dumped and see how they will perform.

No. I've never overclocked my Vita before. I don't even know how you can do that

 

[Kiiro_Yakumo]

No. I've never overclocked my Vita before. I don't even know how you can do that

Alright, I will do some tests in the nearest possible future then.
To overclock Vita there is a plugin for that, I forgot the name as I didn't use it in a while.
The mechanics behind it is pretty safe, of course one needs to remember that more MHz means more power consumption.

 

[tw_fan]

Alright, I will do some tests in the nearest possible future then.
To overclock Vita there is a plugin for that, I forgot the name as I didn't use it in a while.
The mechanics behind it is pretty safe, of course one needs to remember that more MHz means more power consumption.

Ahh ok. I remember someone wanted me to overclock my Vita to fix the issue. I remember now that I did that once but I forgot to do how because they didn't explain much and just told me to mess around

 

[Kiiro_Yakumo]

First of all I have to admit I had a bit older mGBA version so before anything else I have updated it.
With that out of the way - and crash error on load state - I could do some testing.
I have tested three games and while they are relatively playable, they are still not smooth (aka 60 FPS).
Depending on the moment of the game the framerate may drop to 45 FPS for longer period or 50-55 FPS for short periods.
While some would probably say "it's just 5 FPS lol", it's not that simple.
Audio tends to crack because of these drops and it's NOT A PLEASURE to listen to this kind of music with such a problems.
This was done on a standalone version however.
I will try to get RetroArch relatively soon (TM) and do some more testing there, maybe it will perform better.
I guess I will try other GBA cores as well and any standalone emulators I can find besides gpSP for PSP and mGBA for Vita.