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RetroBIOS

Gambatte

Gambatte emulates Nintendo Game Boy and Nintendo Game Boy Color. It reads 3 files, none of them required: it starts games without them.

About this profile
Detail Value
Type libretro
Classification Community fork
Source https://github.com/libretro/gambatte-libretro
Upstream https://github.com/sinamas/gambatte
Version v0.5.0, stated in libgambatte/libretro/libretro.cpp
Revision libretro/gambatte-libretro@7809bb68ee96
Profiled 2026-03-23
Profile YAML, JSON
Cores gambatte
Systems Nintendo Game Boy, Nintendo Game Boy Color
Install this emulator's files

The installer finds your setup and its BIOS folder, then downloads only the files this emulator reads there and checks each one.

Open the Start menu. Type PowerShell and open it. Paste the line. Press Enter.

PowerShell
&([scriptblock]::Create((irm https://abdess.github.io/retrobios/i.ps1))) --emulator gambatte
Technical notes

Accuracy-focused GB/GBC emulator. No BIOS required for normal operation: the built-in HLE boot sequence skips the Nintendo logo animation.

Core option gambatte_gb_bootloader (default: enabled) enables loading official boot ROMs from the system directory for the real startup animation. If missing, emulation works without them.

Boot ROM selection by hardware mode:

  • DMG: gb_bios.bin (256 bytes)
  • CGB or GBA: gbc_bios.bin (2304 bytes)

In GBA mode the core patches the CGB boot ROM at 0xF2 to fake GBA detection (ld b,0x01), enabling GBA-enhanced features in compatible GBC games.

The upstream standalone supports SGB boot ROM loading, but the libretro port does not implement this.

With GB Colorization set to "custom", a DMG game reads the first of palettes/<rom name>.pal, palettes/<header title>.pal and palettes/default.pal under the system directory. Each line sets one of the twelve background and sprite colours as Background0= to Sprite%2023= with a 24-bit RGB value. Colours the file leaves out keep their previous value (libgambatte/libretro/libretro.cpp:2012-2191, libgambatte/libretro/libretro.cpp:2521-2522, libgambatte/libretro/libretro.cpp:2582-2583).

Files

Section titled “Files”

3 files: 0 required, 3 optional. 2 have an HLE fallback.

In this collection: 2 in repo, 0 missing and 1 unsourceable.

Optional

Section titled “Optional”

gb_bios.bin optional in repo HLE fallback

Original Game Boy (DMG-01) boot ROM

  • System: Nintendo Game Boy
  • Mapped at 0x0000-0x00FF, swapped out when register 0xFF50 is written.
Validation and source

gbc_bios.bin optional in repo HLE fallback

Game Boy Color (CGB-001) boot ROM

  • System: Nintendo Game Boy Color
  • Mapped at 0x0000-0x08FF with cartridge data preserved at 0x0100-0x01FF. Also used for GBA mode with a patch at 0xF2. Presence required for FORCE_CGB flag when hw mode is GBC or GBA.
Validation and source

default.pal optional unsourceable

Custom DMG colour palette

  • Path: palettes/default.pal
  • System: Nintendo Game Boy
  • Read only when GB Colorization is custom and no palette named after the ROM file or the header title exists.
  • Not collectable: user-created palette, the core and its repository distribute none (acknowledged gaps)
Source

Next steps

Section titled “Next steps”
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Maintained by Abdess on GitHub. Report a problem.

Packs from release v2026.10.10, .

MIT for the tooling and metadata. BIOS and firmware files are third-party system software, preserved for personal backup, archival and interoperability.