After 10 months since the last stable update, the popular GameBoy/GameBoy Color/GameBoy Advance emulator, mGBA has been updated to 0.10.0.

This new update brings along several new features, but the most important are as follows:

• Lua scripting support
• Built-in updater
• Gameboy enhancements, like palette presets, Super Game Boy Color support (Super Game Boy borders with full Game Boy Color games like Link's Awakening DX), improved audio and mapper emulation.
• Modern macOS port
• Linux AppImage
• Cheat codes in console homebrew ports (Wii, Vita, 3DS, etc.)
• Other quality of life features

mGBA is quickly turning into the default standard for Game Boy enthusiasts and emulation (my personal preferred one for years now), and with the big main release of 1.0 in the future and the planned IDE-style debugging interface & netplay, it's looking more and more promising by the day.

Don't forget to visit the official mGBA website for the full list of features, bugfixes and updates that 0.10.0 has.

Source
Download

 

[Scarlet]

Very happy to see Lua support come to mGBA. It's been the only thing tying me to VBA, so will be excited to transition.

 

[JuanMena]

Gameboy enhancements, like palette presets, Super Game Boy Color support (Super Game Boy borders with full Game Boy Color games like Link's Awakening DX), improved audio and mapper emulation.

This feature was already implemented in RetroArch 1.9.10 mGBA core.
The Super Gameboy Borders and custom Super Gameboy borders also works in RetroArch-Wii.

Just saying as it caught me off guard.

They should implement Rumble as Rumble works in VBAGX but won't in mGBA (although games do detect the Rumble device as connected)

 

[ShadowOne333]

This feature was already implemented in RetroArch 1.9.10 mGBA core.
The Super Gameboy Borders and custom Super Gameboy borders also works in RetroArch-Wii.

Just saying as it caught me off guard.

They should implement Rumble as Rumble works in VBAGX but won't in mGBA (although games do detect the Rumble device as connected)

Most likely because I think RetroArch is using an upstream version of mGBA based on the official repository, which uses nightly builds.
That might be why. The 0.9.3 betas also had it, I've been using it for several months now, so it's most likely that was the case.

 

[JuanMena]

Most likely because I think RetroArch is using an upstream version of mGBA based on the official repository, which uses nightly builds.
That might be why. The 0.9.3 betas also had it, I've been using it for several months now, so it's most likely that was the case.

Either way is a great feature to have.
Been playing Pokemon Yellow with WarioLand's border

 

[AngryCinnabon]

Nice! This is good news. I wonder if maybe the Linux appimage is superiors to RA's MGBA core for the steam deck...?

 

[ShadowOne333]

Nice! This is good news. I wonder if maybe the Linux appimage is superiors to RA's MGBA core for the steam deck...?

The mGBA core on Deck has issues?

 

[AngryCinnabon]

The mGBA core on Deck has issues?

It doesn't as far as i know, but i know the emudeck team sometimes uses appimages over some retroarch cores. i was just curious about any possible performance gain/loss.

 

[duwen]

Guess I should finally ditch VBA as my main GB emu on windows.

 

[DinohScene]

Yay for mGBA!

 

[Marc_LFD]

Always nice to see news about anything GBA.

 

[Sonic Angel Knight]

Lua? What's that for? Is it complicated?

 

[NumberXIIIEdwin]

Lua? What's that for? Is it complicated?

If I’m remembering this right Lua scripts can be used to apply on-the-fly patches to games without changing the base rom. Some of the games on Switch Online use this to patch out bugs. Notably, the Fire Emblem 1 localization that came out recently actually used Lua scripts to apply the translation and the quality of life stuff to the game, the rom itself that was included in the game was actually just the unmodified Japanese rom.

 

[Mayo1990]

Ugh. Still no netplay?

 

[ChanseyIsTheBest]

Can't wait for devs to use this for GBA remasters now and forgot to credit the open source stuff lol


Lua stuff is good for swapping in higher quality assets.

 

[Sonic Angel Knight]

If I’m remembering this right Lua scripts can be used to apply on-the-fly patches to games without changing the base rom. Some of the games on Switch Online use this to patch out bugs. Notably, the Fire Emblem 1 localization that came out recently actually used Lua scripts to apply the translation and the quality of life stuff to the game, the rom itself that was included in the game was actually just the unmodified Japanese rom.

I see. That problem explains why no one has dumped those english translations. Unlike something similar to trials of mana which the rom was modified to directly to expand 6MB instead of 4MB and translated into english when people dump it. Guess those lua things just won't be dumped.

I wonder if there is a way to use those kinds of patches on other emulators. Seem like a pain especially if you just wanted to use the game in a more preferred emulator. None of these have fast forward like pc emulators do.

 

[hippy dave]

Very happy to see Lua support come to mGBA. It's been the only thing tying me to VBA, so will be excited to transition.

Congrats on your upcoming transition!

 

[SaulFabre]

cant wait for test it tonight on the Wii

 

[Maq47]

Congrats on your upcoming transition!

Love the double-edged pun with the trans flag. lol

In all seriousness, I still plan to use VBA-M for a bit until any potential bugs are found and ironed out, upon which I will also make the switch .

(See what I did there?)

 

[RedoLane]

Neat, but i'll probably stick with Pizza Boy on Android until version 1.0
EDIT: Okay turns out I'm an idiot, because mGBA doesn't have an Android version. Just a Retroarch core.