/DotMatrix

Game Boy emulator

Primary LanguageCGNU General Public License v3.0GPL-3.0

Dot Matrix

Dot Matrix

Dot Matrix is a Game Boy emulator written in C++.

Features

Dear Imgui

Dot Matrix performs audio emulation, supports a number of cartridge types (ROM, MBC1, MBC2, MBC3, MBC5), and has a Dear Imgui powered UI.

The UI allows real-time modification of registers / memory, has visualizations for the LCD and sound controllers (inlcuding pitches for the two square wave channels), and has a debugger that supports loading symbol files.

Accuracy

Dot Matrix is capable of playing most Game Boy games. It passes all of Blargg's tests and over half of Gekkio's mooneye-gb tests.

Building

Platforms

Windows, macOS, and Linux are supported.

Build System

Dot Matrix uses CMake as a meta build system. Run CMake (with the provided Build directory) to generate project files for your compiler / IDE of choice.

Options

The following CMake options are provided:

  • DOT_MATRIX_WITH_AUDIO - Whether to compile support for audio playback
  • DOT_MATRIX_WITH_BOOTSTRAP - Whether to compile support for loading the Game Boy bootstrap ROM (not provided in the repo)
  • DOT_MATRIX_WITH_DEBUGGER - Whether to compile the Game Boy debugger (breakpoints, CPU stepping, etc.) - decreases emulation performance
  • DOT_MATRIX_WITH_UI - Whether to compile in the Dear ImGui UI

Targets

There are three build targets:

  1. DotMatrix - The standalone emulator executable
  2. DotMatrixRetro - A Libretro core (dynamically loaded library)
  3. DotMatrixTest - An executable that runs test roms

Dependencies

Dot Matrix comes will all necessary dependencies (except for GTK+ 3 on Linux) either as raw source files or git submodules. Run git submodule init and git submodule update to grab the submodules. If compiling on Linux, GTK+ 3 should be obtained via your package manager.