zba/README.md

ZBA (working title)

A Game Boy Advance Emulator written in Zig ⚡!

Scope

I'm hardly the first to write a Game Boy Advance Emulator nor will I be the last. This project isn't going to compete with the GOATs like mGBA or NanoBoyAdvance. There aren't any interesting ideas either like in DSHBA.

This is a simple (read: incomplete) for-fun long-term project. I hope to get "mostly there", which to me means that I'm not missing any major hardware features and the set of possible improvements would be in memory timing or in UI/UX. With respect to that goal, here's what's outstanding:

TODO

• Affine Sprites
• Windowing (see this branch)
• Shaders (see this branch)
• Audio Resampler (Having issues with SDL2's)
• Immediate Mode GUI
• Refactoring for easy-ish perf boosts

Tests

• jsmolka's GBA Test Collection
  • arm.gba and thumb.gba
  • flash64.gba, flash128.gba, none.gba, and sram.gba
  • hello.gba, shades.gba, and stripes.gba
  • memory.gba
  • bios.gba
  • nes.gba
• DenSinH's GBA ROMs
  • eeprom-test and flash-test
  • midikey2freq
  • swi-tests-random
• destoer's GBA Tests
  • cond_invalid.gba
  • dma_priority.gba
  • hello_world.gba
  • if_ack.gba
  • line_timing.gba
  • lyc_midline.gba
  • window_midframe.gba
• ladystarbreeze's GBA Test Collection
  • retAddr.gba
  • helloWorld.gba
  • helloAudio.gba
• armwrestler-gba-fixed.gba
• FuzzARM

Resources

• GBATEK
• TONC
• ARM Architecture Reference Manual
• ARM7TDMI Data Sheet

Compiling

Most recently built on Zig 0.10.0-dev.4324+c23b3e6fd

Dependencies

• SDL.zig
  • SDL2
• zig-clap
• known-folders
• zig-toml
• zig-datetime
• bitfields.zig

bitfields.zig from FlorenceOS is included under lib/util/bitfield.zig.

Use git submodule update --init from the project root to pull the git submodules SDL.zig, zig-clap, known-folders, zig-toml and zig-datetime

Be sure to provide SDL2 using:

• Linux: Your distro's package manager
• MacOS: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
• Windows: vcpkg (install sdl2:x64-windows)

SDL.zig will provide a helpful compile error if the zig compiler is unable to find SDL2.

Once you've got all the dependencies, execute zig build -Drelease-fast. The executable is located at zig-out/bin/.

Controls

Key	Button
X	A
Z	B
A	L
S	R
Return	Start
RShift	Select
Arrow Keys	D-Pad