Game Boy Advance emulator with link, for Trisquel or Android

6 réponses [Dernière contribution]
GNUser
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 07/17/2013

Hey!

I have been playing some old games with VBA Express (from the repos). It works great but I would like to run two instances and use "link" option to change stuff between games (think yu-gi-oh, pokemon and such). VBA Express doesn't have such option. Does anyone know a Free Software option for it?
I am also looking for a way to play same games on my android device. I have searched for it on F-Droid but no luck...

Thanks!

nadebula.1984
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 05/01/2018

Gaming consoles are usually heavily copyright encumbered. So I could only say "good luck".

Note: In certain extreme cases, it was very hard to dump the game ROMs from official consoles/cartridges, as they have certain self-destructing or anti-tampering protection mechanisms. You are already so lucky to have lots of GBA ROMs.

commodore256
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 01/10/2013

While I'd love an upgraded libre GBA Clone with fun libre homebrew with no non-libre software and there would be nothing freedom disrespecting about that.

If you're going for 100% freedom emulators aren't the way to go unless you don't need a non-free Bios and the roms you're playing are libre. Even the ASM dumped Pokemon Gen 1-3 Games that have been reverse engineered for ages weren't exactly clean room efforts. Also I think most games have anti-reverse engineering clauses in the EULA in their manuals.

GNUser
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 07/17/2013

In first place thanks for both replies.
In second place, I am aware of the discussion around emulators... are they legal or not, are they acceptable in a freedom-perspective or not, etc etc etc. I am aware of that. And like anyone else I have my own standing in those regards, namely the fact that I don't see any harm/danger in running a FLOSS emulator of an old console (NES, Genesis, SNES, Game Boy, etc). I wouldn't even think of using something that was made to be internet-aware. But older stuff, yeah I go with that. Is it better to play a libre game like supertuxkart in my GNU system? Yes it is. But I sometimes like to play those other games that are not made anymore and I don't have a problem with that.

So with that in mind, I was hoping for help in a more technical way...
I found out that github has lots of emulators made by lots of people, some written in C, some in other languages, but I didn't find yet what I am looking for. To clarify:

1. I want a GBA emulator for Android.
2. I want a GBA emulator that supports link (preferably in local computer).

I found a project called GBA.js it's a Javascript implementation of an emulator. It's under a free license and you can use it online, but it's also possible to run it locally. BUT I have been unable to run it locally, even trying to run the index.html doesn't give me the proper UI and it doesn't load a rom from my disk.

Any help is welcome ;)

nadebula.1984
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 05/01/2018

When it comes to the issue of (users') freedom, and in the context of gaming consoles, the answer is: There are free/libre emulators, but they usually don't work without non-free firmware (BIOS or something similar), and you have to risk infringing copyright of the ROMs if you play them.

This is more or less similar to WLAN cards. For most manufacturers (except Atheros), their cards do have free/libre drivers, but the free/libre drivers don't work without non-free firmware.

jxself
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 09/13/2010

"I don't see any harm/danger"

The harm/danger is "just" your rights is all. Your rights to legally study, change, and share. Basically all of the rights that the free software movement says that everyone deserves to have. Surely that's nothing right? :)

Nintendo is known to aggressively enforce their copyright even on games they don't make anymore when people try to exercise those rights that they should have. See below. In doing so Nintendo tries to keep people under their thumb, subjugated divided defenseless and helpless. Don't stand for it. The issues that the free software movement are pushing for are human rights issues. The 4 freedoms deserve to be in the United Nations's Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Stand up for human rights by standing in solidarity with your fellows against those that would abuse our human rights and don't use proprietary junk like this.

https://www.polygon.com/2019/9/11/20860039/nintendo-copyright-trademark-infringement-rom-lawsuit

https://www.trademarksandbrandsonline.com/news/nintendo-takes-man-to-court-over-ip-infringement-claims-5280

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/05/nintendo-issues-copyright-claims-on-mario-themed-minecraft-videos/

GNUser
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 07/17/2013

Again, thank everyone for the replies.

I don't wish for this thread to become another "debate" over emulators being OK or not in the Free Software world. That debate has happened before and everyone has a different view. Let's stick to the technical aspect of my post please.

I found a very nice emulator, called mGBA, which is already being included in Debian unstable, and will later come as part of Ubuntu, and therefore Trisquel. It's FLOSS and a very nice project. I was able to avoid having to build from source because they have deb files available (the latest version is supposed to run on Ubuntu 16.04 but I was able to install it in Trisquel 8 without issues).

Also, the developer has a nice article about the need or not for BIOS/ROM files for emulators to work, and how to get those. It's very interesting read for hackers (which we all are in a way, since that is the philosophy of running GNU).

If this thread is causing any problems for the members, I will let the Mods decide to move this thread to the Troll Lounge. Keep in mind I was asking for Free Software emulators, precisely because I didn't want to run proprietary ones (there are many available). But I will respect the decision, please just let us know here in the comments please.

Also, I am still looking for a solution for Android. I found GameBoid in F-Droid archives but can't get it to work and besides it's very old software, I would prefer something newer. I am still open to suggestions for this scenario. As for GNU, I will suggest mGBA if VBA doesn't suit your needs.

Thanks everyone.