Application: no$gba
Category: Games
Description: From the Wikipedia page:
NO$GBA (pronounced "no cash GBA") is a free Nintendo DS and Game Boy Advance emulator for Microsoft Windows & DOS. It is capable of running commercial and homebrew Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS ROMs, many at full speed. It is the first Nintendo DS emulator running commercial ROMs. However, this claim has been disputed by many in the emulation community. NO$GBA was developed by Martin Korth.
Download no$gba Portable 2.8d Dev Test 1 (896KB+204KB download / 600KB installed)
(MD5: 8dc9be41c68aa01273b79520e9020317)
Note: This is an online installer. Since actual license information is unknown, the launcher download includes no program files and therefore should be okay to distribute through SourceForge still. Please do not talk about or ask how to obtain illegal ROM files below, I will actively attempt to have you dismissed from this site if you do.
Optional: If you want to use your own external BIOS files, place them in Data\bios and they will be moved accordingly. The list of recognized BIOS files are as follows: GBA.ROM, BIOSNDS7.ROM, BIOSNDS9.ROM and FIRMWARE.BIN; thanks to starrysky for that information.
Release Notes:
See all release notes at the SourceForge project page
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This emulator is very small and functional, very good for portable use. One downside is that it does not support using compressed roms. In the spirit of keeping things small, I put together a batch file to extract compressed roms using the PAP's built in 7za.exe. Just drag and drop the compressed rom onto it and it will extract the rom for you.
1) Download: unzip.bat (33 bytes)
2) Move unzip.bat into X:\PortableApps\PortableApps.com\App\7-Zip\
3)Drag and Drop a compressed file from anywhere onto unzip.bat (one archive at a time, multiple files in one archive is supported) Your uncompressed file(s) will appear in the same folder as the compressed archive.
Note: 7za.exe supports 7z, lzma, cab, zip, gzip, bzip2, Z and tar formats. It does not use any external modules, meaning that rar files are not supported.
Alternately, you could use unzip.bat in any folder that also has 7za.exe in it. You could also make your own batch file instead of downloading, just put the following into a .txt file and change the extension to .bat:
cd /d "%~dp0"
7za x %1 -o"%~dp1"
Updated to 2.7b Dev Test 1. See release notes for details.
The launcher.ini might need a slight tweek. I think
DirectoriesMoveOK=yesshould beDirectoryMoveOK=yesso there is no error message when the app gets launched from a new location.I didn't notice that before. I'll change that for the next release, whenever I can swing it.
Another suggestion: whenever you put the new release together, you may want to add the names of the (unrequired) BIOS files that no$gba can utilize (
GBA.ROM, BIOSNDS7.ROM, BIOSNDS9.ROMandFIRMWARE.BIN) into[FilesMove]. This way when a user upgrades, they won't lose their BIOS files.I have to check some of my releases to make sure I do it, too. Sometimes BIOS files can be kept in a sub directory, but I think in no$gba, the files need to be named as above and in the same directory as the executable.
(The only time I actually needed the a BIOS file was to get the Zelda 4 Swords game to link up for multiplayer)
Here is a script to automatically create a Files.lst file so there is no need to use the browse dialog to get to your ROMs. It's really easy to use; instructions are included in the readme inside the zip file. Just unzip it before running.
Download: Files.lst Generator for No$GBA (2.07KB Download, 4.20 Extracted)
(md5= c18b1410c9aee653029084aef475f796 )
Edit: Using a Files.lst seems to fix not being able to load snapshots (aka savestates).
Updated to 2.7b Dev Test 2. See release notes for details.
Is it still possible to install the app? I'm getting a 404 error and I'd like to put it to use. Thanks
The installer gives an error when downloading no$gba. You should take a look at that and try to fix the installer. If you can't, could you provide a version of the installer without the download (since I already have no$gba on my computer and would prefer to copy it from my computer, plus the Project64 installer does the same thing)
-- John (rcmero)
Updated to 2.8d Dev Test 1. See release notes for details.