Application:VBA

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Revision as of 13:04, 16 January 2010 by DtzWill (talk | contribs) (added changelog)
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VisualBoyAdvance

VisualBoyAdvance (commonly abbreviated as VBA) is an emulator of the Game Boy, Game Boy Color, and Game Boy Advance handheld game consoles sold by Nintendo.

Credit

Ported by Will Dietz Jan 2010.
Thanks to #webos-internals for their feedback throughout testing!

License

All source is under the GPLv2 license. The original source code is available here
And the latest VBA for webOS source is available on git here

Lots of work has gone into making this a great game for you to enjoy! If you like it please consider donating

Screenshots

TODO: (fbcat doesn't grab opengles apps apparently?)

Controls

To select a rom, just tap on it in the rom selector.
Note that if you have more roms than fit on the screen, simply scroll to them.

These are the current controls (while playing):
WASD --Up/left/down/right.
K --B
L--A
Q--L
P--R
enter--start
space--select
@--turbo
orange+s (minus)--toggle displaying emulation speed orange+L (quote)--change scaling filter
orange+@ (zero)--change orientation
. (period)--snapshot
t -- start/select/a/b all at once
* (orange+z/asterisk) --toggle sound for speed (particularly GBA)

Feature Requests/TODO

Here's a list of feature requests I'm aware of and/or things I plan to do.

  • Use type:game instead of upstart launcher.
  • ALSA instead of pulseaudio
  • Add ability to customize controls
  • Add on-screen controls
    • Portrait: controls can go off the screen (below, move image up)
    • Landscape: if you can resolve the alpha blending performance issues, make that happen!
  • Zip rom support
  • "Go back to rom chooser" menu
  • save state support
  • Create /save folder for .sav files (battery-backed RAM save info), instead of placing .sav in the /roms folder
  • More Scaling options, particularly 1:1 (no scaling)
  • Better performance on GBA!!
    • See iphone/GP2X ports and their ARM optimizations! (dynarec?)

Known issues

  • Poor performance in GBA. Try disabling sound (press '*'/orange+z)
  • Audio doesn't seem to be fully disabled (you won't hear anything, but Pulseaudio is still doing a little work)
  • Occasionally crashes when minimized
  • Notifications always appear as if in landscape

Changelog

  • 1.0.3 Added toggle for displaying emulation speed to help compatability reports
  • 1.0.2 Small metadata fix.
  • 1.0.1 Small performance boost, public release!
  • 1.0.0 Initial release (testing feed). Reimplemented rendering engine, rom selector.


Compatibility List

This is a list of games and how well they run. PLEASE include a version number (on rom selector) when adding entries! To see the emulation speed percentage, hit orange+s while playing (as of 1.0.3).

Gameboy/Gameboy Color

Title Works Version Notes
Legend of Zelda Oracle of Ages YES 1.0.0
Legend of Zelda Oracle of Seasons YES 1.0.0
Zelda DX YES 1.0.0

Gameboy Advance

Title Works Version Notes
Golden Sun avg 80% 1.0.0 Turning sound off helps (using game mute not volume sliders)
Pokemon Emerald 60-70% 1.0.0 Turning sound off helps (using game mute not volume sliders)