9 Best GBA Emulators for PC, Mac, & Linux in 2024 (2024)

If you’re looking for the best GBA emulator for PC, chances are you remember the days of playing on your Game Boy Advance with its tiny little 2.9inch screen and heavy battery usage. Luckily, now there is a way to play all of your favorite classic old GBA games right onto your computer! We’ll be breaking down the best options for GBA emulators available.

We’ll also briefly go through setting them up and discuss how you can improve their graphics and even add multiplayer to play with friends. Without further ado, let’s jump on in.

What Are The Best GBA Emulators for PC?

Ready to relive some of your favorite classic GBA games? This list of the best 10 PC emulators for GBA shares the various features and compatibility options each has. So, whether you’re looking for a more simple emulator or something with more depth, we’ve got you covered.

If you own a Nintendo Switch, you might also be interested in our article on how to play GBA games on Switch.

Short Summary

• A list of the 10 best GBA emulators available for PC

• Understanding the legality of emulation and ROMs
• Improving your emulation performance, graphics, setting up custom controller support, save states, and even multiplayer games

1. mGBA

• Price: Free
• Platform: Windows PC, macOS, Linux, BSD, Nintendo 3DS (New 3DS required for GBA games), Nintendo Switch, Wii, and PlayStation Vita
• Official website

mGBA takes the number one spot on our list because it offers solid stable performance, gets regularly updated by the developers, and even has the ability to setup mGBA cheat codes. Whether you’re itching to play some Pokémon or Final Fantasy GBA games on your Windows PC, mGBA is where it’s at.

This Gameboy Advance emulator UI is solid and easy to navigate. It even allows you to not only emulate GBA games, but you can also emulate Nintendo DS games too! For any retro gamers looking to get down on some classic Game Boy titles with solid performance and stability, this emulator takes the cake for sure.

mGBA was originally released back in 2013 and was developed with the goal of being fast enough to run even on lower end hardware than most other emulators were able to support without negatively affected accuracy or portability. Even in mGBA’s initial version of the emulator way back then, most games had solid performance and compatibility. Since then, it has only gotten better and is now known as the most accurate GBA emulator you can find.

When comparing the different GBA emulators availble, it’s pretty clear that not many others can come close to matching what mGBA has to offer:

• Compatibility – mGBA emulates the Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, and the Nintendo DS
• Its Game Boy Advance emulation is top notch, but do keep in mind that Game Boy, Game Boy Color, and Nintendo DS emulation can be a bit hit or miss sometimes as it is still a work in progress
• It supports most GBA peripherals – Rumble, rotation/tilt, solar sensor, realtime clock, link cable, and battlechip gate

2. VisualBoy Advance

• Price: Free
• Platform: Windows PC, macOS, Linux, Android, and iOS
• Official website

Visual Boy Advance is another popular Gameboy Advance emulator that’s high on our list. It has been on the market for nearly 20 years at this point and has continue to evolve as time goes on. The development team put out consistent updates and patches and still are adding new features all these years later.

Some additional features of VisualBoy Advance are:

• Debugging tools (handy for GBA devs)
• Supports cheat codes (and tools such as GameShark and Codebreaker)
• Graphics filters, motion blur, and color correction
• Local and remote linking for GBA games that use trading or multiplayer features
• Screen recording – record sound, video, game and screen (a must for retro streamers)
• Turbo mode
• Multi ROM support – supports Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance
• Custom joystick and controller support
• Save states and load states

As you can see, VBA has tons of features . It’s popular for a reason – it’s super trustworthy and reliable performance wise. Plus, some of the features it offers makes it feel like the GBA games you’re playing are from present day. With its external controller support, multiplayer support, and the ability to record gameplay, you can replay classics such as Kao the Kangaroo or Pokémon FireRed in a completely new way.

If you’re an Android user, also be sure to check out our list of the best GBA emulator Android apps.

3. No$GBA

• Price: Was initially free, but newer versions may have to be purchased for $2.50
• Platform: Windows PC, DOS
• Official website

The No$GBA emulator was originally released back in 2006 and to this day runs both Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS games. While it was originally only a GBA emulator, it is now able to run both commercial and homebrerw Nintendo DS games as well. Fan favorite games like Pokemon Diamond can be played at full speed with no glitches or issues.

Older versions of the emulator are available for free, however the newest versions that are released are capped behind a paywall. Some things to consider about No Cash GBA:

• Excellent compatibility with ROMs
• Easy to setup and configure
• Can emulate linking multiple Game Boys at once and connecting them to the same network
• A downside is that starting with version 2.6a, this emulator becomes paid

While not all Nintendo DS games will emulate flawlessly, it still works pretty well for most titles.

4. Higan GBA Emulator

• Price: Free
• Platform: Windows PC, macOS, Ubuntu, FreeBSD
• Official website

Higan is a multi-system emulator which plays ROMs from the NES, SNES, Game Boy, Game Boy Advance, and many other systems. What’s neat about Higan is that because it’s a portable application, it doesn’t necessarily need to be installed on your actual device, but rather can be run from any external storage device such as a USB card or external hard drive.

Higan’s UI is rather simple and overall is easy to use. It has a game tool library which displays games from any of the systems supported. You can load GBA, NES, SNES< GBC, and many other ROMs.

Here are some of Higan’s features:

• High level of emulation accuracy across multiple different gaming systems
• Real time audio capture and recording
• Cheat code support enabled
• High level of compatibility with different ROMs and multiple gaming formats
• Support for custom controllers
• Ability to debug
• Supports expansion packs
• Game database of over 1,400 different game titles
• Customizable UI
• Netplay enabled – play online with friends
• Video filters supported

If you’re looking for a multi-platform emulation tool with solid GBA emulation, then you might want to give the Higan GBA Emulator a shot.

However one notable slight downside to Higan might be some audio lag for certain specific ROMs. Overall though, this emulator is a solid choice!

5. BatGBA

• Price: Free
• Platform: Windows PC
• Official website

BatGBA was originally released back in the early 2000’s and is a relatively lightweight and efficient GBA emulator. It has one of the most outdated user interfaces of all the emulators on this list. While it is a bit archaic, the fact that it is so lightweight is definitely a plus to some. It can also properly run on most Windows based machines without much of a notable performance dip.

It does a decent job of GBA emulation, installing it is rather quick, and you can setup mouse and keyboard controls to your liking. While its name hints at being only a GBA emulator, it actually also has a Gameboy emulator and can run Game Boy Color ROMs as well. Performance wise, gameplay is usually relatively smooth and graphics are on par with what you’d expect. That being said, the sound quality is a bit lackluster here as BatGBA emulated direct sound channel and not GBC sounds.

BatGBA isn’t the best or worst emulator on this list and it’s not quite as popular as some of the other entries. Due to this, you’re not likely to see many updates coming to it in the future, so with BatGBA what you see if what you get for the most part.

6. RetroArch

• Price: Free
• Platform: Windows, macOS, Linux, and tons more
• Official website

RetroArch is one of the most popular emulation frontends available. It can emulate tons of different systems and can run on just about anything these days (although we haven’t yet tested running RetroArch on a toaster quite yet). It has tons of features:

• A great user interface
• Cross platform
• Can emulate tons of different systems, including the Game Boy Advance
• Many different emulation cores to choose from
• Shaders
• Netplay capabilities
• Fast forward & rewinding
• Record your gaming sessions

Setting up RetroArch can take a little bit of time because you’ll have to go and install each emulation core you want to use, however RetroArch is rather simple to use overall. RetroArch also may not work super well with older machines that are underpowered as performance on some emulation cores might suffer a bit.

It also made our list of the best GBA emulator iOS apps as well.

That being said, its ability to run multiple consoles (including GBA) makes RetroArch an excellent pick for old school gaming fans.

Be sure to check out our guide on how to setup the Retroarch GBA core mGBA.

7. BizHawk

• Price: Free
• Platform: Windows, macOS, and Linux
• Official website

If you’re an avid speedrunner, chances are you’re already well aware of what BizHawk is. For those who aren’t, BizHawk is a multi-system emulator designed for Tool Assisted Speedruns (TAS for short). Because BizHawk is big on speedrunning, it’s important that this emulator focus on accuracy. That being said, BizHawk can also still be used for more casual gaming sessions as well.

Some of BizHawk’s features include:

• Fullscreen support
• Custom controller, joypad, and hotkey support
• Auto/rapid fire controls
• Re-recording and using save states
• Input display onscreen
• TAStudio
• Lua scripting
• Rewind functionality
• Audio and video recording
• Custom plugin support
• Libretro support

BizHawk supports a ton of different video game systems, including but not limited to being able to run GBA ROMs. To emulate GBA ROMs, BizHawk uses code based on VBA-Next and mGBA emulators. If you’re paying attention, you’ll remember mGBA from being the number one choice on this list!

If you’re looking to get into TAS speedrunning, BizHawk is a go to choice. It also has features like auto/rapid fire controls lets you re-record playthroughs.

8. Mednafen

• Price: Free
• Platform: Windows
• Official website

If you’re not too technically inclined, you might want to skip Mednafen because this one is a command line driven multi-system emulator. This means that you will need to be comfortable entering commands into the command line in order to run it. That being said, Mednafen can remap hotkeys and button inputs to a keyboard, joystick, etc. It also supports save states and real time game rewinding.

Screenshots of gameplay can be taken with ease simply by pressing the designated hotkey. This emulator can also record video (including audio) and output them in QuickTime format. Because Mednafen is threaded in nature, it’s recommended to play using a joystick or controller instead of a keyboard or mouse as the controller is likely to have less lag.

9. VBA-M: VisualBoy Advance

• Price: Free
• Platform: Windows and macOS
• Official website

The Visual Boy Advance – M is a Game Boy and Game Boy Advance emulator that is relatively active in being kept maintained and updated.

If you’re looking for a more feature rich emulator that is modernized from the classic VisualBoy Advance, VBA-M provides just that. Some example features it has are high-res graphics along with joystick support and auto fire capabilities.

You can also set hotkeys to speed up gameplay or use the built in screen capture function. VBA-M is solid emulator to check out.

GBA Emulator Setup and Configuration

Now that you’re familiar with the top GBA emulators for PC, it’s time to get things set up and optimized. Installing your chosen emulator on Windows is simple, even a beginner could do it! Just download your chosen emulator from our list above by clicking the Download button and visiting the associated website, then go ahead and install it on your device.

Make sure you have your GBA ROMs available that you want to play. After getting your ROMs and emulator all ready, consider double checking your emulator’s controller options too in case you want to setup a custom controller instead of using your keyboard and mouse. After that, you should be ready to play some GBA games!

Multiplayer Gaming with GBA Emulators

With GBA emulation, it’s now easier than ever to playing retro classic GBA games with friends. Some GBA emulators even allow you to connect multiple controllers and play local multiplayer GBA titles on one single computer. Some of the most popular emulator programs such as mGBA and No$GBA even provide support for online Netplay!

Legal Considerations and ROMs

Keep in mind that while emulation in general is legal in most areas of the world, the grey area are the ROMs necessary to play games on the actual emulators. Downloading ROMs online is usually illegal and it’s always recommended that you dump your ROM files from your games directly to avoid any possible issues. Even if you own a physical copy of a game, downloading that same game’s files from a website instead of dumping it is typically considered illegal.

Summary

Thanks to Game Boy Advance emulation, you can get down on awesome retro GBA titles from the comfort of your Windows PC. It’s wild how far video game emulation has come over the years. Some of the top GBA emulators on this list were released back in the early 2000’s and are still chugging along to this day thanks to the talented community of folks supporting them.

If you have a Raspberry Pi lying around, check out our RetroPie GBA setup guide.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can you play GBA emulator on PC?

Yes, you can absolutely play GBA games on a PC by using a GBA emulator. Once downloaded and installed, you simply load up your GBA game ROM files in the emulator and you’re ready to start playing. By far, the best GBA emulator you can install is mGBA – it has great performance and tons of additional features that make it superior to playing on original hardware.

What GBA emulator allows cheats?

A few of the different GBA emulators available allow you to use cheat codes, but one of the best ones is the Visualboy Advance. It’s super simple to use and add your cheat codes to.

What emulator uses GBA?

There are a number of different GBA emulators. Some only run GBA games, while others run games from tons of different systems, including the Game Boy Advance. If you’re looking for a standalone emulator, mGBA is the best one currently available. If you want a multi-system emulator, RetroArch is a great choice and includes a GBA emulator core.

Can I use a USB controller with GBA emulators?

Most GBA emulators have support for custom USB controllers. Some notable emulators that support custom controllers are mGBA, Visualboy Advance, and No$GBA.

Are GBA emulators legal to use?

GBA emulators are legal in most areas of the world, but the ROM files (the games) are a bit of a grey area. Typically, downloading ROMs from online is frowned upon and illegal and it is recommended that gamers instead dump the ROM files from physical copies of the games that they own to be used legally on their GBA emulators.