Here's a list of some of the games I've played and the errors I've encountered. Global DSi problems: Microphone doesn't work, even if you have a microphone or use the Audacity trick. NDS, Nintendo DS and DSi XL Emulation. The Nintendo DS is one of the best gaming consoles. It has many features aside from playing games; such as taking and viewing pictures, browsing the Internet, etc. Nintendo DS games are also cute and engaging. Well there are no NDS emulators for iOS as far as I am aware (don't know about apps for jailbroken devices. There was a PSX emulator, so an NDS one should be possible). The Nintendo DS is one of the best gaming consoles. It has many features aside from playing games; such as taking and viewing pictures, browsing the Internet, built-in music player etc. Nintendo DS games are also cute and engaging. This emulator is compatible with all types of Windows like Window 10, Window 8.1, and Window 7 etc. It gives the mechanism of debugging so that you can update and analyse ROM properties. It includes tons of features that are stunning graphics, fantastic sound support, handles cheats code, and so on.
So you’ve been trying to find the best GBA emulator out there, right? Well, what we have here is just that. In this post, we’re going to show you some of the best GBA emulators for PC & Android. These Game Boy Advance emulators are handpicked by us and ranked according to their usability, compatibility, UI and much more. Read on!
Contents
We’re dividing this post into two: GBA emulators for PC & GBA emulators for Android. Just scroll down to your required part or use the table of contents given above to jump right in.
Visual Boy Advance or VBA as it’s commonly known is also one of the first fully functional GBA emulators for PC. It was introduced first in 2004, but since then many versions of VBA has been branched out, developed by different developers. The version of VBA, which you can download and use right away a would be VBA-M, which is an all new version for VBA emulator, that tries to continue on the legacy of the original VBA. Also it has now nifty new features that was not available before on the old version.
VBA-M is compatible with the following platforms:
It also supports full save state features, which is very helpful to save the gameplay and also resume from where you stopped. Even better, you can also export the save files to other emulators and continue your gameplay on them. It comes with joystick support, full-screen mode and more.
Boycott Advance is also one of the most popular GameBoy Advance emulators available for PC. It is very simple with a simple UI, without many features. It requires BIOS support on your PC to run many GBA ROMs though.
Boycott Advance is having highly optimized CPU emulation. Also, it comes with full support for GBA video features such as rotation and scaling. There is an online version of Boycott advance, which doesn’t require you to download the application to your PC to run GBA games.
Higan is an open-source GBA Emulator for PC, which might also be one of the most advanced emulators in this list. It has support for lots of systems, not only GBA (we’ll come to that later). It is also well known for emulating the original Nintendo systems with pinpoint accuracy with their advanced techniques.
My Boy! Emulator is one of the most popular GBA emulators available for Android in Play Store right now. I’ve tried out some games in this emulator, and it works out just fine without any issues and that’s the reason it’s on the top position on this list for GBA emulators for Android.
It comes with one of the best UI available in Android GBA emulators. One of the nice features of My Boy is that you can customise the controls in this emulator. Also it allows you to save your progress whenever you want (in game). My Boy! GBA emulator for Android is available in Play Store for free, also there is a paid version of the same with some additional features.
You can download My Boy for Android paid version from here:
You can download My Boy for Android free version from here:
John GBA is also among the best Android GBA emulators, which you can use right away, and it will work flawlessly with your GBA ROMs. It comes with the original GBA engine, and it needs you to have your own ROM files to run the games. It comes with customisable keys, turbo buttons and more.
John GBA will work with external controllers such as MOGA/Wiimote/normal Bluetooth controllers. And it will support saving games anytime you want. One more really cool feature in John GBA is that you can play in fast forward or slow down mode! John must have been proud of his work, and he named it with his name. I must say, he deserved every right to make it this, as this is one of the better GBA emulators in this list.
Download John GBA premium version from here:
Download John GBA free version from here:
My OldBoy is made by the devs who made My Boy emulator that we already mentioned above. Just like the My Boy emulator, My OldBoy supports all the GBA roms plus it supports GBC roms additionally. If there’s one big difference between the two, it would be UI. The buttons here are more traditional without any special shapes. My OldBoy is designed to run GBA games on low end Android phones to the flagship level. It supports all the features of other emulators in the list such as Save/Load game at any time, Fast forward long stories and slow down of game at any point, emulation of tilt sensor & rumble emulation, and much more. My OldBoy is available in both Free & Paid versions.
Download My OldBoy GBA emulator premium version from here:
Get My OldBoy GBA emulator free version from here:
GBA.emu is one of the top GBA emulator for Android. It has is compatible with most of the GBA roms out there. It supports save and load states of games, and it also supports loading save state from VBA-M emulator for PC. It also has normal features of GBA emulators such as on screen controls, support for hardware controllers, and even supports cheat codes. GBA.emu comes on free and paid versions. The paid premium version comes with a price tag of $4.99.
Download premium version of GBA.emu from here:
Download free version of GBA.emu from here:
This is the best all in one emulator for Linux, which has GBA emulation inbuilt.
It is actually a multi emulator front end for Linux, which has VBA Next for Game Boy Advance emulation.
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:libretro/stable
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install retroarch retroarch-* libretro-*
Emulator Name | Boycott Advance |
Size | 1.21 MB |
Version | 0.4.0 |
Emulator Name | mGBA |
Size | 12 MB |
Version | 0.5.0 |
Emulator Name | OpenEmu |
Size | 41 MB |
Version | 2.0.6.1 |
Emulator Name | VBA-M |
Size | 6.7 MB |
Version | 2.0.2 |
Emulator Name | Visual Boy Advance GX |
Size | 1.3 MB |
Version | 2.3.6 |
This is a paid app from Xbox store, but wait till you hear how it works.
Special thanks to wiired24 of gbatemp.net for this little hack.
Emulator Name | GBA10 |
Size | 2.8 MB |
Version | 1.3.0.0 |
So that’s it guys, that was all the best GBA emulators for PC & Android that you can use right away! We’ve tried to include most of the best Game Boy Advance emulators that is available for Android & PC. Do try out the free versions of the Android ones before buying their premium counterparts. Do let us know what you think about this post and if we missed any of your favourite GBA emulators out there.
Using DeSmuME compared to NO$GBA, I found that the only thing that NO$GBA had better was the compatibility list and the speed. >.< I would run all my roms at a speed of 12-20 fps, and believe me. I don't have a slow computer. Well I was tinkering around with the Configurations and found a solution that worked on All my roms. They are now all running at a maxed 60 fps..
What I did: (I use Windows with DeSmuME 0.9.5 x64 and was running a game at the time so I could notice a difference.)
1:From the DeSmuME window, I clicked on Config and went to Frame Skip and made sure Fixed Skip was set to '0 (Never Skip)'
2:From the same Config drop-down menu, go to Frame Skip and make sure 'limit framerate' is unchecked.
3: Next in the same Config drop-down menu, click '3D Settings' and in 'Renderer' choose 'SoftRasterizer'.
4: Lastly, go back to 'Limit Framerate' and Check it again.
This fixed my problem with all my games, hopefully it will for anyone else.
As I said, I had 12-20/30 fps, when I unchecked the framerate limit, and switched the Renderer, it jumped to 180/30 fps. so then i went back to Framerate Limit and checked it, which took me to 60/30 fps, b/c while it was at 180/30 it was moving in Fast Motion.