# mgba-emu/mgba

mGBA Game Boy Advance Emulator

Repository: https://github.com/mgba-emu/mgba
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/mgba
Homepage: https://mgba.io/
Language: C
License: MPL-2.0
License Family: copyleft
Topics: mgba, gameboy-emulator, gameboy-advance-emulator, gba, gameboy-advance, gameboy-color-emulator, gameboy, game-boy, game-boy-emulator, game-boy-advance, game-boy-color, emulator
Last push: 2026-08-23T02:35:16+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 74/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:39:23.370411+00:00)
- activity 99, release rhythm 28, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 4285, "days_push": 11, "days_rel": 542, "gap_med": 90, "n_releases_24m": 2}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 7319, forks 1064 (observed 2026-08-28T04:09:58.187965+00:00)

## What it is
mGBA is a fast and highly accurate emulator for Game Boy Advance games, with additional support for Game Boy and Game Boy Color titles. It offers Qt and SDL frontends, Lua scripting, debugging via GDB, savestates, cheat support, and libretro cores, running on many platforms.

## Use cases
- play game boy advance games on pc
- accurate gba emulator for low end hardware
- emulate game boy and game boy color games
- debug gba homebrew with gdb
- run gba games with cheats and savestates
- lua scripting for game automation
- libretro core for retroarch

## When to choose
- you need the most accurate GBA emulation available
- you want to run GBA games on low-end hardware at full speed
- you need debugging tools for GBA homebrew development
- you want tool-assist features like rewind, fast-forward, and scripting

## When to avoid
- you need an official Android or iOS emulator
- you want Nintendo DS emulation (not yet supported)
- you need networked multiplayer link cable support (still planned)

## Facets
- artifact type: application
- maturity: active
- function: game-engine, simulation, cli, gui
- domain: gaming-tools, simulation, cross-platform, developer-tools
- platform: windows, cross-platform, cli
- tags: emulator, game-boy-advance, game-boy-color, retro-gaming, libretro-core, lua-scripting, save-states, cheat-codes, rom-patching, gdb-debugging, debugging, macos, linux, desktop

## Member repositories
- mgba-emu/mgba (main) score 74

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:09:58.187965+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-29T17:38:40.015731+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/mgba-emu/mgba (fetched 2026-08-28T04:09:58.187965+00:00, sha 051f7db21330)
  - homepage: https://mgba.io/ (fetched 2026-08-29T08:34:01.251685+00:00, sha 99ed82ef9429)
  - site_page: https://mgba.io/docs/scripting.html (fetched 2026-08-29T08:34:01.274691+00:00, sha b3b18697a02e)
  - site_page: https://mgba.io/faq.html (fetched 2026-08-29T08:34:01.272179+00:00, sha a94ebd540bd8)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.