best gba emulator for 3DS? (2024)

Yeah, on an original model 3DS, mGBA will get you nowhere. You probably want something gpSP-based, since that uses a dynarec to translate code to 3DS assembly in real time, allowing much faster performance (and a fairly significant penalty to accuracy). RetroArch includes a gpSP core, but that core has been bugged and crashy/unusable for multiple years now. Somebody can hopefully suggest an older version that will work OK, I have no idea exactly when it became broken.

Another gpSP-based emulator is shinyquagsire's CitrAGB, which is no longer in active development but hopefully still works on modern setups.

If you're OK with moving away from emulation, there's a couple more options you can try. For one thing, there's GBA Virtual Console (and Virtual Console injections), which just runs GBA games natively on the 3DS in the system's backward-compatibility mode. This should have close to 100% speed and accuracy, besides the occasional game which included special hardware (like WarioWare: Twisted).

Lastly, you may want to look into Gericom's GBARunner2, which is neither an emulator nor using GBA mode, but instead a hypervisor which runs GBA games under TWL (DS/i) firmware on the 3DS. This takes advantage of the similarities between the DS and GBA hardware to run games sort of quasi-natively, thanks to a lot of pretty spectacular reverse engineering work.

Twilight:
https://gbatemp.net/threads/ds-i-3d...-ds-i-games-and-ds-i-menu-replacement.472200/
It's very well developed and designed to work on O3DS as well.

The oddity is that you are launching a DS "facilitator" to run a GBA emulator inside that facilitator. Twilight is not an emulator of DS, and neither is GBARunner2 a real emulator. They are taking advantage of the 3DS built-in hardware, which is why all this works on O3DS.

No need to rehack anything. Twilight runs on Luma. Just check out the thread. It's really easy to install. In your situation I would just install the cia from here and do the complete installation from there.
https://github.com/RocketRobz/TWiLightMenu-Updater/releases/download/v3.1.2/TWiLightMenu-Updater.cia

Doesn't Gbarunner2 still have very poor compatibility? VC console injection would be better by far, surely?

All you need for that is NSUI (New Super Ultimate Injector).

kbf said:

I just searched google and found something called mGBA, tried a couple of games but it ran AWFUL. Is there anything better out there? I have an original 3DS XL if that matters.

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XD if we could vouch i would've sent you the money for a New 2DS XL. It's cheap, is technically just a New 3DS but no 3D, and with it, mGBA runs spectacularly.

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kbf said:

Why do GBA games run so perfectly as VC injects compared to other methods?

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Because it's basically the same thing as playing GBA games on a Nintendo DS, by putting them in the cartridge slot. Just like the DS, the 3DS has everything necessary to fully natively run GBA games, without emulation. In the AGB firmware, all the fancy 3DS hardware basically goes to sleep and you're holding a big weird Game Boy Advance.

Kwyjor said:

Doesn't Gbarunner2 still have very poor compatibility? VC console injection would be better by far, surely?

All you need for that is NSUI (New Super Ultimate Injector).

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For now you really should use VC injection for gba games on the 3DS.
Many games are playable with gbarunner2. https://wiki.gbatemp.net/wiki/GBARunner2
Still, compatibility is not perfect and could take a while before it reaches that state.

Elwyndas said:

Twilight:
https://gbatemp.net/threads/ds-i-3d...-ds-i-games-and-ds-i-menu-replacement.472200/
It's very well developed and designed to work on O3DS as well.

The oddity is that you are launching a DS "facilitator" to run a GBA emulator inside that facilitator. Twilight is not an emulator of DS, and neither is GBARunner2 a real emulator. They are taking advantage of the 3DS built-in hardware, which is why all this works on O3DS.

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I am trying my best to understand what I'm reading there, but correct me if I'm wrong - does this mean that Twilight can natively run both NDS and GBA ROMs in my Original 3DS, making use of internal hardware? Is that it?

YukidaruPunch said:

does this mean that Twilight can natively run both NDS and GBA ROMs in my Original 3DS, making use of internal hardware? Is that it?

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Twilight does not exactly run GBA ROMs natively. People call it a hypervisor – it runs the unmodified GBA code on the 3DS CPU, but GBA code expects certain hardware features to act a certain way, and GBARunner2 has to accommodate it accordingly. And since it doesn't do that perfectly, VC injection is a much better solution for GBA games.

Twilight also natively runs NDS ROMs, but since a 3DS already provides pretty much everything that NDS code would expect, compatibility is mostly perfect.

(I think that sums it up correctly?)

anyone no of a gba emulator that can use cheat codes? I'm using mGBA but it don't let u use cheat codes.

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Pin1988 said:

Scanned through the thread... No one recommended open_agb_firm yet?! Best solution in my eyes if you want perfect compatibility and don't need extras :-)

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Seeing as the thread is from 2019. I dont believe open agb firm was a thing yet.

LordX68 said:

anyone no of a gba emulator that can use cheat codes? I'm using mGBA but it don't let u use cheat codes.

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You must add the cheat to the rom for use cheats, none of the emulators supports cheats, but I am not sure about retroarch