1mGBA
  2====
  3
  4mGBA is a new emulator for running Game Boy Advance games. It aims to be faster and more accurate than many existing Game Boy Advance emulators, as well as adding features that other emulators lack.
  5
  6Up-to-date news and downloads can be found at [endrift.com/mgba](https://endrift.com/mgba/).
  7
  8![Build status](https://travis-ci.org/mgba-emu/mgba.svg?branch=master)
  9
 10Features
 11--------
 12
 13- Near full Game Boy Advance hardware support[<sup>[1]</sup>](#missing).
 14- Fast emulation. Known to run at full speed even on low end hardware, such as netbooks.
 15- Qt and SDL ports for a heavy-weight and a light-weight frontend.
 16- Save type detection, even for flash memory size[<sup>[2]</sup>](#flashdetect).
 17- Real-time clock support, even without configuration.
 18- A built-in BIOS implementation, and ability to load external BIOS files.
 19- Turbo/fast-forward support by holding Tab.
 20- Frameskip, configurable up to 9.
 21- Screenshot support.
 22- 9 savestate slots. Savestates are also viewable as screenshots.
 23- Video and GIF recording.
 24- Remappable controls for both keyboards and gamepads.
 25- Loading from ZIP and 7z files.
 26- IPS, UPS and BPS patch support.
 27- Game debugging via a command-line interface (not available with Qt port) and GDB remote support.
 28- Configurable emulation rewinding.
 29
 30### Planned features
 31
 32- Local and networked multiplayer link cable support ([Bug #1](https://endrift.com/mgba/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=1)).
 33- Dolphin/JOY bus link cable support ([Bug #73](https://endrift.com/mgba/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=73)).
 34- Cheat codes ([Bug #58](https://endrift.com/mgba/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=58)).
 35- Re-recording support for tool-assist runs. ([Bugzilla keyword "TASBlocker"](https://endrift.com/mgba/bugs/buglist.cgi?quicksearch=TASBlocker))
 36- Lua support for scripting ([Bug #62](https://endrift.com/mgba/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=62)).
 37- A comprehensive debug suite ([Bug #132](https://endrift.com/mgba/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=132)).
 38- libretro core for RetroArch and OpenEmu ([Bug #86](https://endrift.com/mgba/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=86)).
 39
 40
 41Supported Platforms
 42-------------------
 43
 44- Windows Vista or newer
 45- OS X 10.7 (Lion)[<sup>[3]</sup>](#osxver) or newer
 46- Linux
 47- FreeBSD
 48
 49Other Unix-like platforms work as well, but are untested.
 50
 51### System requirements
 52
 53Requirements are minimal. Any computer that can run Windows Vista or newer should be able to handle emulation. Support for OpenGL 1.1 or newer is also required.
 54
 55Downloads
 56---------
 57
 58Downloads can be found on the official website, in the [Downloads][downloads] section. The source code can be found on [GitHub][source].
 59
 60Controls
 61--------
 62
 63Controls are configurable in the menu. The default gamepad controls are mapped so as to work with a DualShock 3. The default keyboard controls are as follows:
 64
 65- **A**: X
 66- **B**: Z
 67- **L**: A
 68- **R**: S
 69- **Start**: Enter
 70- **Select**: Backspace
 71
 72Compiling
 73---------
 74
 75Compiling requires using CMake 2.8.11 or newer. To use CMake to build on a Unix-based system, the recommended commands are as follows:
 76
 77	mkdir build
 78	cd build
 79	cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX:PATH=/usr ..
 80	make
 81	sudo make install
 82
 83This will build and install mGBA into `/usr/bin` and `/usr/lib`. Dependencies that are installed will be automatically detected, and features that are disabled if the dependencies are not found will be shown after running the `cmake` command after warnings about being unable to find them.
 84
 85### Dependencies
 86
 87mGBA has no hard dependencies, however, the following optional dependencies are required for specific features. The features will be disabled if the dependencies can't be found.
 88
 89- Qt 5: for the GUI frontend. Qt Multimedia or SDL are required for audio.
 90- SDL: for a more basic frontend and gamepad support in the Qt frontend. SDL 2 is recommended, but 1.2 is supported.
 91- zlib and libpng: for screenshot support and savestate-in-PNG support.
 92- libedit: for command-line debugger support.
 93- ffmpeg or libav: for video recording.
 94- libzip: for loading ROMs stored in zip files.
 95- ImageMagick: for GIF recording.
 96
 97Footnotes
 98---------
 99
100<a name="missing">[1]</a> Currently missing features are
101
102- OBJ window for modes 3, 4 and 5 ([Bug #5](https://endrift.com/mgba/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=5))
103- Mosaic for transformed OBJs ([Bug #9](https://endrift.com/mgba/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=9))
104- BIOS call RegisterRamReset is partially stubbed out ([Bug #141](https://endrift.com/mgba/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=141))
105- Audio channel reset flags ([Bug #142](https://endrift.com/mgba/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=142))
106
107<a name="flashdetect">[2]</a> Flash memory size detection does not work in some cases, and may require overrides, which are not yet user configurable. Filing a bug is recommended if such a case is encountered.
108
109<a name="osxver">[3]</a> 10.7 is only needed for the Qt port. The SDL port is known to work on 10.6, and may work on older.
110
111[downloads]: https://endrift.com/mgba/downloads.html
112[source]: https://github.com/mgba-emu/mgba/
113
114Copyright
115---------
116
117mGBA is Copyright © 2013 – 2015 Jeffrey Pfau. It is distributed under the [Mozilla Public License version 2.0](https://www.mozilla.org/MPL/2.0/). A copy of the license is available in the distributed LICENSE file.
118
119mGBA contains [inih](https://code.google.com/p/inih/), which is copyright © 2009 Brush Technology and used under a BSD 3-clause license; and [blip-buf](https://code.google.com/p/blip-buf/), which is copyright © 2003 – 2009 Shay Green and used under a Lesser GNU Public License.