armGBA 1.0

armGBA is a libretro core for Game Boy Advance, Game Boy and Game Boy Color games, built for ARM and x86 handhelds, and now also a standalone app.

New since 0.1

• armGBA's own open-source GBA BIOS and Game Boy / Game Boy Color boot ROMs, built in. Nintendo's from the system folder are still used first when they're there.
• A standalone app (AppImage) for x86-64 and 64-bit ARM Linux: menus in tabs (General, Game, Core, Extras), netplay, RetroAchievements, save states, rewind, screenshots and recording, and folders shared with RetroArch's.
• The app's controller hotkeys are ROCKNIX's: a Hotkey (Home, or Select on a controller without it) with North for the menu, Start to quit (pressed twice), R and L to save and load a state, R2 to turn fast-forward on and off, L2 to rewind, West to show the frame rate. The Hotkey and each button can be changed.
• The app's footer hints stay in place between controller, keyboard and mouse, and work as buttons to click or tap.
• LCD effects: ghosting (Off, Half, Full), the LCD grid measured from photos of each console, and the Game Boy's pixel shadow. Drawn by the core on the CPU, or by the GPU through the shader presets in armGBA-1.0-shaders.zip and in the app.
• Game Boy Contrast: the contrast wheel of the first Game Boy, the Pocket and the Light, from 0% (fading to blank) to 100% (dark) in tenths, 50% by default. The right stick turns it while playing and R3 sets it back to 50%.
• Left Stick as D-Pad (off by default), left alone while the stick tilts a motion sensor cartridge.
• Safe Saves (on by default): a save is written to a new file first, then swapped in, so a crash or a dead battery mid-write leaves the last save whole. In RetroArch, for the saves armGBA writes itself (Player 2 to 4, backups); in the app, for every save, clock and state.
• Soft patches: IPS, UPS and BPS files beside a game.
• Link to Dolphin's GameCube (on the same machine).
• Switch Controller Combo on L3 + R3, Start + L3 or Start + R3, as well as L + R + A + B and Start + L2 + R2.
• Android cores for RetroArch.
• An Android app (APK) for 64-bit ARM, the standalone app with touch: on-screen controls with a Nintendo layout and both sticks (shown while no controller is connected), drag to scroll the menus, Android's folder picker, the SD card's partitions in the game list, and RetroAchievements. Back opens the menu, and a tap at the top middle of the screen shows a menu button.
• Game Boy screens from real ones: the first model's and the Pocket's measured (BGB's), and the Light from photos of one, backlit in cyan. Grayscale stays the default.
• The LCD grid keeps each color's average brightness on every screen.
• The Game Boy pixel shadow follows each pixel's luminance, and Game Boy Pixel Shadow Distance sets how far it falls (0.5 to 2.5 dots, 1.5 by default). In the Android app it can follow the device's tilt.
• Netplay: Together is the default; Screen Layout Control lets each player change their own screens with R2 and L2, and Show Player Numbers shows each player theirs (on by default in Together). Rollbacks and run-ahead replay Game Boy games and turbo buttons exactly, so netplay no longer resyncs over them.
• The app's Button Layout: Nintendo (A the right face button, the default) or Xbox (A the bottom one).
• The app's menus: a held D-pad or stick speeds up the longer it's held, L2 and R2 go to the first and last row, and a held L or R steps through the game list's letters.
• The app by touch: drag or flick the menus, drag the scroll bar, tap a row to pick it and again to open it, swipe between tabs, a back button in the header, and portrait as well as landscape.
• Clearer core options: shorter labels and help, in RetroArch's categories.

Downloads

• armGBA-1.0-x86_64.AppImage, armGBA-1.0-aarch64.AppImage: the standalone app. Make it executable and run it.
• armGBA-1.0-android-arm64.apk: the app for Android 7 or newer on 64-bit ARM. Allow installing it, and give it All files access when it asks, for your games and its armgba folder.
• armGBA-1.0-x86_64.zip, -aarch64.zip, -armv7.zip: armgba_libretro.so and armgba_libretro.info for RetroArch on Linux (glibc 2.34 or newer). Put the .so in RetroArch's cores folder and the .info in its info folder.
• armGBA-1.0-android-arm64-v8a.zip, -armeabi-v7a.zip, -x86_64.zip: armgba_libretro_android.so and the .info for RetroArch on Android.
• armGBA-1.0-shaders.zip: the LCD grid and pixel shadow presets for RetroArch (.slangp and .glslp).
• SHA256SUMS has the checksums.

For ROCKNIX, armGBA is proposed as an optional core in ROCKNIX/distribution#3517.

See the README for the core options and which link settings to pick.