# NanoBoyAdvance: cycle-level Game Boy Advance hardware emulation

> NanoBoyAdvance reconstructs Game Boy Advance hardware behavior in a cycle-level emulator. It models CPU, DMA, timers, PPU and Game Pak prefetch, and provides palette, tile, background and sprite viewers. The author reports passing several GBA accuracy suites.

- Type: Case study
- Targets: Firmware
- Category: Independent reconstruction cases
- Relationship: Independent reconstruction project
- Sources reviewed: 2026-11-06
- Added to the catalog: 2026-11-09
- Original resource: <https://github.com/nba-emu/NanoBoyAdvance>
- Primary source: <https://github.com/nba-emu/NanoBoyAdvance/blob/55b5cf0ae3d929582ac5bfd486558173502b8354/README.md>
- Catalog page: <https://awesomerea.org/resources/nanoboyadvance-gba-emulation-case/>
- Record JSON: <https://awesomerea.org/resources/nanoboyadvance-gba-emulation-case/record.json>
- Chinese version: [简体中文](https://awesomerea.org/zh/resources/nanoboyadvance-gba-emulation-case/index.md)

## Requirements & limits

- **Prerequisites:** Running a ROM requires a Game Boy Advance BIOS file.
- **Prerequisites:** Building requires a C++20 compiler, CMake 3.24 or newer, SDL 3.0.0 or newer and Qt 6.0 or newer.
- **License:** Licensed under GNU GPL-3.0 or later.

## Primary sources

1. <https://github.com/nba-emu/NanoBoyAdvance/blob/55b5cf0ae3d929582ac5bfd486558173502b8354/README.md>

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## About this entry

The description was reviewed against primary sources.
Original editorial content: MIT. Linked projects, papers and assets retain their own rights and licenses.