No. 9 of 29 ·Game Boy Advance Emulators

GBA Emulator

Windows · Mac · Linux

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Freedom report

Two barsScore 5.6

Free tierNo free tier on record
Open codeNo open-source code on record
Runs widely3 of 6 device platforms
DocumentedPlans, terms and facts published

GBA Emulator is ranked #9 of 29 in Game Boy advance emulators on Freedom251. It runs on Linux, macOS, Windows.

Compared on Game Boy advance emulators

Free plan: Yes
Platform scope: desktop
Save states: Yes
Link multiplayer: Yes
Cheat support: Yes
Graphics enhancements: Yes
Open source: Yes

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The record

Product: GBA Emulator is a Game Boy Advance emulator written from scratch in C, with an SDL2 frontend.
Intended use: The project targets Pokémon Emerald, which its README says is fully playable end-to-end.
Hardware X-Ray: Pressing F2 opens a second window with live views of graphics layers, tiles and palettes, CPU state, audio, DMA, timers, and interrupts.
Graphics and audio: It includes scanline-based graphics rendering and 32768 Hz stereo audio output through SDL2.
Cheats: It supports GameShark, Action Replay v1–v3, and CodeBreaker codes loaded from a .cht file.
Rewind: Rewind covers the last 60 seconds, uses compressed snapshots in RAM, and is capped at 256 MB.
Local multiplayer: Two instances on the same machine can connect over a UNIX domain socket for two-player, 16-bit multiplayer mode; internet netplay is not supported.
Supported downloads: Prebuilt binaries are listed for Linux x86_64, macOS Apple Silicon, and Windows x86_64; Intel Mac binaries are not provided.
Dependencies: Linux and macOS binaries require SDL2 installed; the Windows ZIP includes SDL2.dll.
ROM and BIOS requirement: Users must supply their own GBA BIOS and ROM files; neither is included in the repository.
Compatibility limit: Pokémon FireRed boots through its intro to the title screen, but a full playthrough has not been verified.
License: The repository identifies its license as MIT.
Maker: The GitHub profile identifies the maker as Arjun and lists London, United Kingdom.
Performance: Hardware X-Ray adds zero overhead when disabled, according to the project README.

Where it ranks on Freedom251

Best Game Boy Advance Emulators in 2026#9 of 29

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Sources

github.com/amyanger/gba-emulator· checked 29 Sept 2026
github.com/amyanger· checked 29 Sept 2026