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!
Visual Boy Advance GBA Emulator Android latest 6.1.2 APK Download and Install. Visual Boy Advance GBA Emulator, play GBA game on android! Visual Boy Advance GBA Emulator is a super fast and full-featured emulator to run GameBoy Advance(GBA) games on the broadest range of Android devices, from very low-end phones to modern tablets. It emulates nearly all aspects of the real hardware correctly. Background: I want to make my old phone into a GBA emulator, so I need a GBA emulator app. Visual Boy Advance This is among the best GBA Android Emulators which are quite popular for the speed it brings to you. Great to handle runs and cheats, this game comes with additional features and filters for giving you an advanced experience.
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Contents
- Best GBA Emulator
- Best GBA Emulator for PC
- GBA Emulator for Android
- GBA Emulator for Linux
- GBA Emulator for macOS
- GBA Emulator for Nintendo Wii
- GBA Emulators for Xbox One
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.
Best GBA Emulator for PC
Visual Boy Advance
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.
Compatibility
VBA-M is compatible with the following platforms:
- GameBoy (GB)
- GameBoy Color (GBC)
- GameBoy Advance (GBA)
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
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
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.
Compatibility
- GameBoy
- GameBoy Color
- GameBoy Advance
- Famicom (NES)
- Super Famicom (SNES)
GBA Emulator for Android
My Boy! GBA Emulator for Android
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
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
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
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:
GBA Emulator for Linux
Retroarch
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-*
GBA Emulator for macOS
Boycott Advance
Emulator Name | Boycott Advance |
Size | 1.21 MB |
Version | 0.4.0 |
mGBA
Emulator Name | mGBA |
Size | 12 MB |
Version | 0.5.0 |
OpenEmu
Emulator Name | OpenEmu |
Size | 41 MB |
Version | 2.0.6.1 |
VBA-M
Emulator Name | VBA-M |
Size | 6.7 MB |
Version | 2.0.2 |
GBA Emulator for Nintendo Wii
Visual Boy Advance GX
Emulator Name | Visual Boy Advance GX |
Size | 1.3 MB |
Version | 2.3.6 |
GBA Emulators for Xbox One
SimplePDFViewer
This is a paid app from Xbox store, but wait till you hear how it works.
- Go to the store and search for 'SimplePDFViewer'.
- Download it by paying $3.99.
- After it is installed, start the app.
- It will look just like a PDF reader as the name suggests, but you have to unlock the hidden functionality.
- Once you're inside the app at the same time, press LB & RB + LT & RT.
- Now the emulator functionality will be unlocked, and it will look like this:
- You can import ROMs from an external device or directly from your OneDrive account.
Visual Boy Advance For Android
About fl studio. Special thanks to wiired24 of gbatemp.net for this little hack.
Cached
GBA10
Emulator Name | GBA10 |
Size | 2.8 MB |
Version | 1.3.0.0 |
Conclusion : GBA Emulators
So that's it guys, that was all the best GBA emulators for PC & Android Media go 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.
GBA Emulator
The Nintendo Game Boy Advance popularly abbreviated as GBA is a 32-bit sixth generation handheld video game console that gained popularity from early 2000s across the globe. The console was powered by 2 AA size batteries that could last for up to about 15hours, ARM7-based 32-bit CPU on the top of the Z80-based 8-bit CPU and games were stored in cartridge format sand slotted into the console to enable you play them. One of the coolest features of the GBA was its multi-boot mode, which allowed the console to download a program from its link port; this was created mainly to allow users to play multiplayer games with friends even if they didn't have the game cartridge.
With the phasing out of the GBA console this feature has given way to ROM technology, where by great games on the cartridge file format (which is pretty much archaic), can now be saved in ROM (Read Only Memory) file formats by either ripping from the original game cartridge or downloading them copy of your games ripped from the original game source or saved and played on your PC, Tablet or Smartphone. This means that anyone can easily and conveniently get the GBA game ROMs and likewise play them without owning the console. But before you can go ahead and play any of these game ROMs you will also need to get a compatible GBA emulator downloaded for your device to enable you play any of the GBA game ROMs.
A GBA emulator is simply is a software that can mimic play of any file format (ROMs, ISOs, BIOs) on your device. There are quite a number of emulators you can download online, and I'll give you some details on some of the most popular ones that support GBA games on for your device and specific Operating System. Below;
Visual Boy Advance GBA Emulator
Visual Boy Advance (VBA) is the best free GBA Emulator for PC`s and this is available for many Operating Systems, such as Windows, including Linux, BSD, Mac OS X, and BeOS. Users can also play any Game Boy colour, Game Boy, and Game Boy Advance ROMs using this emulator. Key features that come with your VBA GBA emulator download are that you can export and import saved games to another PC, it comes with joystick support, a full screen mode and screen capture support and likewise video recording.
ClassicBoy GBA Emulator
This Game Boy Advance emulator is one of the pretty good all-in-one emulators out there. This one has a bunch of consoles, like the NES, Game Boy Colour, Game Boy, and Game Boy Advance ROMs on it. It basically does what you expect an emulator to do. The app supports almost all of the games and additionally, you get to save states, load states, fast forward, and get cheat code support on it. It also comes with a hardware controller support. You can get this emulator for free and paid (premium) version, the free version has a few features missing that the paid version comes with. This emulator is likewise compatible with the Windows, Mac/iOS, Android and Linux OSs.
Dolphin GBA Emulator
This emulator supports the linking of GameCube and GameBoy Advance titles. Another great thing about this emulator is that it runs extremely well on your Android devices to enable you play your classic Game Boy Advance games on your tablets and Smartphones. This emulator is the dolphin emulator and it has been in existence strictly for Windows, Linux, and Mac computers for some time now, however, in 2013 there was great news for Android users, as there was a release of Dolphin Emulator for Android. This move put dolphin emulator ahead as the preferred choice for gamers who want to still catch the trill from great GameCube classic titles on their hand held devices.
RetroArch GBA Emulator
This is a free open source multi-system emulator that uses the Liberto development interface. This system uses installable 'cores', each of which is essentially a video game emulator. Being that the Game Boy, the Game Boy Color, and GameBoy Advanced all have 'cores' that work in RetroArch, this makes it possible to play all of them with a single emulator app. Though it does not have as many features as an individually coded Game Boy Advance emulator would have and it is a wee bit more complicated to use than other emulators, it makes up for this with its high compatibility rate and zero adverts.
Higan GBA Emulator
Higan is a multi-system open source GBA Game emulator that supports multiple OS such as FreeBSD 10.0+, Windows 7+ (32 and 64-bit), Linux 3.2+, and macOS X 10.7+. Higan is a free GBA emulator that can easily be installed and used on your PC. The emulator comes with features such as full screen support, easy storage of cheat codes, support for a wind range of ROMs and save and continue states as you play.
Other noteworthy GBA emulators include; No$GBA, mGBA, iDeaS, meteor, My Boy!, GBAoid and a couple of others.
Platforms That Support Game Boy Advance ROMs
Before you start an emulator download, it is pertinent to note that some emulators are compatible with only specific Operating Systems.
GBA Emulator for Mac
If you are looking for the best emulators to play your GBA ROMs then note that it is advisable that your Mac has an iOS X version or higher before downloading any of these emulators such as Higan, Visual Boy Advance, Dolphin and RetroArch.
GBA Emulator for Windows 10 PC
One great thing about Windows is that it supports almost all the emulators out there. Most often these emulators are supported on a wide range of Windows OS, so you are easily able to play all you Game Boy ROMs on your PC. The most compatible emulators for Windows include, Higan, Dolphin, Basic Boy, mGBA, Visual Boy Advance, No$GBA and RetroArch. Another great thing about most Windows GBA emulators is that they are often compatible with versions 10, 8.1 and, 7 32-bit & 64-bit PCs.
GBA Emulator for Android
Some of the best GBA emulator for Android can be found on the Google Play Store for download (most of them are free). These emulators are often compatible with the Android 4 (KitKat) and other newer versions of Android. Some of them likewise support older versions of Androids. The best Android GBA emulators include, Higan, John GBA, GBAoid and My Boy!
GBA BIOS
BIO (Basic Input Output System) is simply a file copy of the operating system of the system being emulated. Some emulators require that the BIOS file of the original system must be present to enable the GBA games run on your device. It serves as a go-between, by way of accepting the game's commands to the original hardware, and then translates it into something your current hardware can interpret, and back again. While some emulators come with their own default BIOS files and will allow you to play almost every GBA game, some games may not work with the default BIOS. Thus you may be required to have an actual GBA BIOS file to override any bugs or errors the default BIOS can't fix.
GBA games contain code in its ROM that serve as a utility function to the game software in addition to the boot code. This utility code of the ROM is what is referred to as BIOS instead of boot ROM, and by cutting the re-implement this functionality, many GBA emulators require copies of game BIOS. This means that at least some of the BIOS must remain present in memory at all times. For most of the systems that GBA_BIOS emulates, the console itself doesn't incorporate an actual software per say, as a result of a manufacturing oversight, emulating the device will no longer require you to infringing the copyright of the hardware manufacturer.
If you own a GBA and a flash-cart, then you can navigate the Internet to get tools that can help you extract the BIOS image so it is able to be copied to your device storage or you can simply get a BIOs file online and download. The GBA BIOS is small in size at about 16kb, so it only contains a small amount of code, mostly data, such as the boot logo and sound effect. It allows you to quickly copy memory, file decompression, basic number operations, sound functionality, and a couple of low-level hardware interaction.