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RetroBIOS

SameBoy

SameBoy emulates Nintendo Game Boy, Nintendo Game Boy Color and Nintendo Super Game Boy. It reads 5 files, none of them required: it starts games without them.

About this profile
Detail Value
Type libretro
Classification Official port
Source https://github.com/libretro/SameBoy
Upstream https://github.com/LIJI32/SameBoy
Version 0.15.4, stated in version.mk
Revision libretro/SameBoy@aa158a889a48, LIJI32/SameBoy@9bf7e0b4dffc
Profiled 2026-03-25
Profile YAML, JSON
Cores sameboy
Systems Nintendo Game Boy, Nintendo Game Boy Color, Nintendo Super Game Boy
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 sameboy
Technical notes

SameBoy is a high-accuracy Game Boy, Game Boy Color and Super Game Boy emulator by LIJI32 (official_port: same author maintains upstream and libretro fork).

All boot ROMs are optional. SameBoy compiles open-source boot ROM replacements from BootROMs/*.asm and embeds them into the libretro binary (extern arrays dmg_boot, cgb_boot, agb_boot, sgb_boot, sgb2_boot in libretro/libretro.c:129-130). These are SameBoy-authored replacements, not Nintendo originals.

The libretro port (boot_rom_load, libretro/libretro.c:513-589) tries to load an external boot ROM from the system directory first. Filename is constructed as "{model}_boot.bin". If missing, the embedded boot ROM is used as fallback.

Boot ROM selection depends on the sameboy_model core option (request_boot_rom in Core/gb.c:1587-1625): DMG_B -> GB_BOOT_ROM_DMG -> dmg_boot.bin SGB_NTSC/PAL -> GB_BOOT_ROM_SGB -> sgb_boot.bin SGB2 -> GB_BOOT_ROM_SGB2 -> sgb2_boot.bin CGB_A..E -> GB_BOOT_ROM_CGB -> cgb_boot.bin AGB_A/GBP_A -> GB_BOOT_ROM_AGB -> agb_boot.bin

.info declares firmware_count=2 (dmg, cgb only). Actual reachable files in the libretro port are 5 (adds sgb, sgb2, agb).

Unreachable boot ROMs in the libretro port (array entries exist in boot_rom_load but no model option triggers them):

  • dmg0_boot.bin: GB_MODEL_DMG_0 commented out (Core/gb.h:100)
  • mgb_boot.bin: GB_MODEL_MGB active but not exposed by core options
  • cgb0_boot.bin: GB_MODEL_CGB_0 active but not exposed by core options Upstream standalone (v1.0.3) supports these plus cgbE_boot.bin and agb0_boot.bin (10 boot ROM types total).

No validation performed on loaded boot ROMs. GB_load_boot_rom_from_buffer (Core/gb.c:266-273) does a plain memcpy capped at 0x900 bytes.

Files

Section titled “Files”

5 files: 0 required, 5 optional. 5 have an HLE fallback.

In this collection: 5 in repo and 0 missing.

Optional

Section titled “Optional”

dmg_boot.bin optional in repo HLE fallback

Game Boy (DMG) boot ROM

Packages and source

sgb_boot.bin optional in repo HLE fallback

Super Game Boy (SGB) boot ROM

  • System: Nintendo Super Game Boy
  • Used for SGB_NTSC, SGB_PAL models. Also loaded when borrowing SGB border (Core/gb.c:264).
Packages and source

sgb2_boot.bin optional in repo HLE fallback

Super Game Boy 2 (SGB2) boot ROM

Packages and source

cgb_boot.bin optional in repo HLE fallback

Game Boy Color (CGB) boot ROM

Packages and source

agb_boot.bin optional in repo HLE fallback

Game Boy Advance in GBC mode (AGB) boot ROM

Packages and source

Profile data

Section titled “Profile data”
Built-in boot ROMs

  • description: Open-source boot ROM replacements compiled from BootROMs/ assembly. Not Nintendo originals.

  • sources:

    • BootROMs/dmg_boot.asm -> dmg_boot (256 bytes)
    • BootROMs/sgb_boot.asm -> sgb_boot (256 bytes)
    • BootROMs/sgb2_boot.asm -> sgb2_boot (256 bytes)
    • BootROMs/cgb_boot.asm -> cgb_boot (2304 bytes)
    • BootROMs/agb_boot.asm -> agb_boot (2304 bytes)

  • prebuilt hashes:

    • dmg boot.bin:

      • md5: 60f1d849a435e9053b8ac0fd5776804a
      • sha1: da853c8102acfff6b8e5a973ce0cd181f3dbb709

    • sgb boot.bin:

      • md5: be77bbd03f8675478f6e3d2176f3cb56
      • sha1: 27267e45c8408857267231ba6c18bfbd052536e2

    • sgb2 boot.bin:

      • md5: b4331a9e612b4738867a30af9c96df52
      • sha1: 576678d0fc3892b80471d7067ce6014e6af77ed5

    • cgb boot.bin:

      • md5: 6b68be48dab6a7298a8c07e00c136b4e
      • sha1: 9884b972110a63c9e86fb3bd241bd2e39ca82bb9

    • agb boot.bin:

      • md5: 7e095aa30941da3086fa0e9221335370
      • sha1: 3b6231bdf840fb889f402d0ae89f21adb077323a

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.