In this guide, you will find out how to Setup Boy/Color Emulation In Retroarch.
Requirements
First, install the PC version of Retroarch, whether a Standalone or Steam version. The Steam version best places the internal files with the standalone version.
Download Bios Files
1- First, Source Boy/Color Emulation bios file; otherwise, games will not launch. Download this from google chrome. There are a number of different Boy/Color bios files but choose the latest one.
2- Now, Source some Game Boy and Game Boy Color games, and there are multiple ways of getting them. You can get them using an N64 everdrive and transfer pack, you can also use the RetroBlaster programmer or if you have a modded 3DS you can get them from the Virtual Console releases.
3- Once you have got the games, add them to the games folder in the Retroarch folder.
Retroarch Settings
1- First, boot up the Retroarch. Once the main menu is open, go into the online updater and select the core downloader. Then scroll down and find the Nintendo Game Boy/Color(Sameboy) section you have to download this.
2- After that, go back, click on Load content, and go to the directory where your games are stored. Then choose the game and the core will load up.
3- Now if you want to create a game playlist, go to the main menu and click on the show desktop menu or press F5 on your keyboard.
4- Once the desktop menu is open, you’ll find the content browser on the left side of the screen, then right-click on it, and select the new playlist. The name of the playlist should be Nintendo – GameBoy. Then press Enter and a new playlist will be created on the left side.
5- Also, create the Playlist for the Gameboy/Color. For this, you’ll find the content browser on the left side of the screen, then right-click on it, and select the new playlist. The name of the playlist should be Nintendo – Game Boy Color. Then press Enter and a new playlist will be created on the left side.
6- On the right side, right-click, then select add folder and go to the location where your games are installed. Select the games folder and click on the select folder button at the bottom right side of the screen.
7- Set the core to SameBoy and set the Database to The Nintendo – Game boy color, and then click on OK. Now all your games will be added to the playlist.
information
The best thing about the desktop menu is it will show you if your Bios File is being detected properly. So if you don’t have a Bios file, this will appear in red and if your Bios file is being detected, it will appear in green.
8- Once your playlist is made, go back to the Retroarch on the main menu and click on the Restart Retroarch button as this will help you in showing your game’s playlist on the left side.
9- If you want to play a game, then select the game from the game’s playlist that you just added. Then click on the Run button at the top of the next page
Core Options
1- After that, go back to the Core option. The first option is the bios selection you added during the initial setup, so that is what is selected here.
If you don’t have a Game Boy Color bios file, there is a built-in high-level emulation bios file, but the compatibility with it is not as good as the official one which is why you have to download the BIOS file first.
2- Then go to the system tab, and the first option will be the region, select it to your default region. The next option will be the language, you can set it according to your native language. The next option is to use the Hle BIOS file if you have an actual bios file to force the use of a high-level emulation bios file.
3- The next option is to boot directly into the bios file so if you want to boot into the Game Boy Color bios the one inside your Retroarch system folder you can enable this option.
Video Settings
4- After that, go back, then go into the Video tab and select the internal resolution. You have to set it according to your monitor’s native resolution.
5- The next option is cable type, and it will be set to the normal composite cable by default. It works in most cases, but there are some games that will not work unless you set this to RGB or VGA.
6- Then go to Broadcast standard, and set it between NTSC and pal. Keep the screen orientation Horizontal.
7- The next option is Alpha sorting which is set to per triangle by default, and it will be your most compatible and accurate option. If you have a faster CPU, then you can set it to per pixel, which will be a lot more accurate as it will solve the layering issues or if you have a slower computer you can set it to per strip.
8- The next option is the Accumulation pixel buffer size, which is set to 512 megabytes by default. Set the maximum transparent layers to 32 if you have a powerful computer you can increase this to get better accuracy.
9- Set the Enable RTT to ON, also keep the Mipmapping, fog effects, and Volume modifier to ON. Set the anisotropic filtering to 4, but if you want to smooth out your textures a bit more from the different angles you can increase it up to 16. Keep the Texture filtering option on Default.
The next option is delay frame swapping, so if you are on a faster computer, enable this option and it could help with some flickering videos.
10- The next option is to detect frame rate changes, so this could be useful for games that have locked frame rates around the 30 or 20 FPS mark. But if your game has an unlocked frame rate then set it to OFF.
11- Go to Power VR 2 post-processing filter and set this to ON as this makes it a bit more accurate to an original Dreamcast video output. Keep the texture upscaling(xBRZ) on OFF.
12- The last option is native depth interpolation, so if you are using an AMD GPU, turn this option ON it could also be useful for Intel-integrated GPUs. If you’re on Nvidia, then turn it OFF.
13- After that, go back and set the Performance to Threaded Rendering. If you are on a really low-end CPU, then you might want to set this to auto-frame skip.
14- Then go back and select Inner frame blending and turn it ON as it is the ghosting effect of old CRTs, which is more suitable for Dreamcast emulation.
15- Select the controller hacks, as this is required for using things like Robotron 2048. If you want to use a single controller for both thumbsticks, then you can swap the ports depending on if your game needed to be on the right or left port for the controllers or turn it off by default.
16- Now select digital joystick sensitivity as it is set to Auto by default, and it will work for most cases, but you can adjust the sensitivity according to your game base.
17- Next, select the Analog joystick sensitivity, Set this to linear, you can also set this to quadratic test as this depends on the game basis and you have to see which one has a better response for your particular gaming.
18- Select Analog joystick dead zones. You must adjust this dead zone according to your particular controller.
19- At last, select Visual Memory Unit, and the first option is per game vmus, so the recommendation is to turn this option ON for at least a vmu A1 so that way you never have to worry about running out of save space, but you can still share saves between different memory cards for different games with the other three ports.
You can also display your VMU on-screen. For this, you can choose the screen position for it as well as the size to make this one at least 2x. It’s displayable on the screen, then you can choose the colors as well as the opacity so right now, it is not transparent set this to less than 100 to make this transparent.
20- If there are some options you want to set for some specific games but not for others games then go up to Manage Core Options and save them as a Game options file that’s the only way to apply to the settings for a specific game.
Controller Setup
Now go to the control setup option, and select Port 1 controls. You can see what your controls are mapped to for your Nintendo Game Boy Color controllers. You can customize any of your controls here for any game.
Shaders
Shaders are extensive, and you could get a fun look for all of your games based on any shaders you selected. Open the Shaders tab and turn ON the Video Shader. You have to make sure you downloaded them from the core updater.
