What will be the best GBA Emulator for raocow

[Sebby19]

So, he is going to start Wario Land 4, his first GBA game for us. What are the good options?

Stuff I know about:
-VisualBoyAdvance
-No$GBA
-BoycottAdvance

I've used the 1st two quite a bit, but not so much the 3rd. It been a few years since then, but I feel comparing VisualBoy and No$ will be like comparing ZSNES and Snes9x; both have pros and cons.

What do you guys think? Let's discuss.

[Bean]

I've always used Visual Boy Advance for the GBA. It works very well.

[metasomnia?]

Same. I never felt the need to switch emulators and have never encountered any strange glitches or reduced performance as a result of VBA

[pholtos]

VBA or VBA-RR (the RR version allows for lua codes to be run, iirc.)

[Truhan]

I use VBAM myself, might should look into VBA-RR.

[Sebby19]

VBA or VBA-RR (the RR version allows for lua codes to be run, iirc.)

what are these lua codes, and why are they important?

Poking around both for the first time in years, VGA definitely has more options. Maybe too many, as I don't know what most of them are, or do. And everything is in a drop down menu from the top, ugh. Took me a while to figure out how to get crisp pixels (any render method that isn't Direct Draw, the default).
Meanwhile, NO$GBA has simpler options, all on one menu that isn't drop down, so you can change more than one thing at a time. Crisp, true colour pixels were also easy to find (NDS-lite in GBA mode(poppy)).

NO$GBA also has multiplayer/link cable support, and is a DS emulator on the side as well. Though VGA does have rewinds and a fastforward shortcut key (not that he uses this feature much). But more importantly for raocow, VGA does have an option for it to remain active and playable, even if focus is taken off. And his PC does do that occasionally (even recently in Rex Rocket).


So, anything else to add guys? This was only poking around on the surface.

[pholtos]

VBA or VBA-RR (the RR version allows for lua codes to be run, iirc.)

what are these lua codes, and why are they important?

They're something that constantly messes with the code of a game while you're playing so you can get different results from normal. I use it when playing 3rd gen pokemon games to truly have randomized wild pokemon, where each pokemon encountered is something different.

[Sebby19]

Eh, probably not important for basic LP purposes.

[raekuul]

I'd recommend either VBA(-Next) or mGBA, depending on which one rao's computer can handle gracefully.

Lua programming can be used to augment the experience. In raocow's case, it's unnecessary.

[Truhan]

I'd recommend either VBA(-Next) or mGBA, depending on which one rao's computer can handle gracefully.

Lua programming can be used to augment the experience. In raocow's case, it's unnecessary.

I think it's very necessary, what if he wants to do a Nuzlocke run of Wario Land 4?

[SAJewers]

Retroarch/Libretro can do GBA emulation with cores for mGBA, gpSP, VBA-M, VBA-Next, and Metor.

As a plus, he'll have it pretty much set up for emulating N64 games for when he gets to that Mario 64 hack.

Also supports Vulkan, if you care about that.

I doubt he'll use it, but you can also use the shaders feature to emulate the look of the GBA pretty well:

[raekuul]

If we're suggesting all-in-ones, I'd actually recommend that he give BizHawk a try.

Then again I suggest Biz for everything, so...

[SAJewers]

I doubt he'll use any of the TAS features ion Bizhawk. Plus, having used both, Retroarch is (at least, to me) much more user friendly easier to use.

[raocow]

so for a dedicated gba, the consensus seems to be VGA ?

[Bean]

Sounds about right. I know other people have put up videos through VBA of Wario Land 4 because I wanted just make sure that there weren't any issues.

[SAJewers]

If you're computer can habdle mGBA, apparently that's better than VBA-M. It's also the only one recommended by the Emulation Wiki

https://www.reddit.com/r/emulation/comm ... m_vs_mgba/

http://emulation.gametechwiki.com/index ... _emulators

[Sebby19]

Man, everyone is throwing out technical stuff and terms I have no idea about...

so for a dedicated gba, the consensus seems to be VGA ?

It seems so for VBA. Though give NO$GBA a try too, you never know.

To get smooth crisp pixels in VBA, go to Option > Video > Render > Anything that isn't Direct Draw (the default)

[SAJewers]

Man, everyone is throwing out technical stuff and terms I have no idea about...

To be fair, a lot of what sets different emulators apart is largely technical stuff.

Do read that wiki I linked though, it's a good resource on technical differences between different emulators, especially the comparisons sections.

[Sebby19]

Man, everyone is throwing out technical stuff and terms I have no idea about...

To be fair, a lot of what sets different emulators apart is largely technical stuff.

Do read that wiki I linked though, it's a good resource on technical differences between different emulators, especially the comparisons sections.

Oh, okay, will do.

[Ashan]

Physical Gameboy with blurry webcam pointed over the shoulder

[Sebby19]

tried mGBA, everything was choppy, and I couldn't figure out how to fix it.

[SAJewers]

was that regular mGBA, or Retroarch with the mGBA core?

[Sebby19]

ugh..........


regular? I just got it from mGBA's website.

[SAJewers]

Try retroarch, see if mGBA's RetroArch core is any better.

[heycallmeZe]

mGBA seems to be a good one to use. VBA hasn't really been updated all that much, sadly.