Game Boy Advance, the portable gaming console, was launched more than two decades ago. It got released in the year 2001. You’re probably feeling old right now after knowing this.
The portability feature of this console got widely appreciated. Till 2010, the Game Boy Advance series had a massive sale of 81.5 million consoles.
If you feel like playing the games again and re-live those days, Emulators are there to save your day. In this article, we will be covering the best GBA Emulators for specifically Mac.
Top GBA Emulator for Mac
Here are the best Emulators you can try for playing Game Boy Advance games on your Mac with their respective download links:
VisualBoy Advance
VBA is easily one of the best-known Emulators for GBA. You can enjoy nostalgic games with pixelated effects. Overall UI of VBA is easy to understand and use. It includes games like Super Mario Kart & Legend of Zelda.
VBA will bring back your childhood memories, and it’s a widely used software. It does not require a good specification PC, so it will still run if you have an old PC.
The software comes in two forms, 32 bit & 64 bit. Both these files are ‘.exe’ files. You have to extract the file and set up VBA.
Download Now from Emuparadise.me
Boycott Advance
Boycott Advance can run the GBA games pretty smoothly. The Emulator supports external controllers through USB or Joysticks. It comes with a save & resume feature, meaning the player can save the in-game progress.
You will need a Mac OS X 10.4 or higher for using Boycott Advance.
Download Now from Emuparadise.me
Retroarch
Retroarch is undoubtedly one of the most famous and used Emulators. It supports many other games besides GBA. The interface on this Emulator is on the next level. The smooth UI will enrich your user experience.
The Emulator is easy to use & you can also access it on android devices. That’s a significant reason behind its popularity. Save slots are also available here.
Download Now from RetroArch.com (MacOS links is at the bottom of the page)
mGBA
mGBA, the most regularly updated Emulator out there, was launched in 2013 but still gets new updates. The last was in April 2021. mGBA Emulator is like Retroarch for multiple console games available on it.
If you ask an mGBA user, it’s USP, that is, a unique selling proposition, they will most probably say the cheat code feature on the Emulator. You can use in-game cheat codes and make your game more enjoyable.
The Emulator is available for macOS, Windows & Ubuntu users.
Download Now from mGBA.io
OpenEmu
OpenEmu is an Emulator mainly developed for macOS. The structure allows other developers to contribute to the further development of the service. It is not limited to only Game Boy Advance. You can play Genesis & Nintendo Entertainment System consoles game on OpenEmu.
You will find lesser bugs & issues with games on OpenEmu. Like mGBA, you can use cheat codes in this Emulator, but to a certain extent. You can even record the screen.
Download Now from OpenEmu.org
No$GBA
No Cash GBA, abbreviated as No$GBA, is another Emulator you can play GBA console games on. You can even play multiplayer from the same PC using No$GBA. With Game Boy Advance games, you can play Nintendo DS games.
Download Now from Nogba.com
Some other Game Boy Advance Emulators for Windows or iOS
BatGBA
BatGBA is one of the simplest and basic GBA Emulators out there. Unfortunately, it’s not available for Mac. The last update it got was in 2002, 20 years back. But it still works well enough. The interface is not as modern as we want. Still, the games function completely fine on the Emulator, and you can see the fps you are getting.
Download: BatGBA.zophar.net
GBA4iOS
As the name suggests, this Emulator is for IOS devices. GBA4IOS supports multiplayer gaming through wireless options, and you can use cheat codes in games. It’s similar to an original Game Boy Advance console.
Read more about GBA4iOS and download it from tech-latest.com
Provenance Emulator
Provenance Emulator is like OpenEmu but for IOS devices. You can enjoy games on this Emulator of consoles like GBC, Genesis, etc. It is free-to-use software. You can customize your joystick, and you have to download ROM files for games you want to play.
Download: provenance-emu.com
How to Play Game Boy Pokemon on Mac?
For playing Game Boy Pokemon on your Mac device, you have to download the ROM files for Pokemon. Then you have to add them to one of the Emulators, Retroarch or OpenEmu, whichever you play on.
Using this process, you can play Pokemon Fire, Ruby & Emerald on Retroarch & OpenEmu.
What is an Emulator?
An emulator is a program through which you can simulate one device on another. For example, You can play PubG mobile on your laptop using Emulator.
It is not just limited to games. You can also simulate Operating systems on your device. You can use Windows on macOS using Emulator like Wine.
Risks of Using an Emulator
There are many scam links and websites in the name of Emulators. Most of these sites are survey ads websites.
Downloading Emulator or any additional files through such untrusted sources is highly risky. Your system might get a virus in the download files.
Before visiting any official sites or downloading any files, read & verify about the Emulators from trusted sources like gaming communities.
Conclusion
Using these Emulators, you can re-live the good old memories of your childhood when you had no worries about the world. Playing old games is always fun, and for some people, it’s connected to a beautiful memory of their past.
Even if you never got the chance to play these fantastic games while they were at their peak, you can play them now on your Mac or any device. Such games like Pokemon, Mario, etc., seem outdated today, but they still feel special to play.
