Navigate to where you extracted the emulator and game (this is basic Windows use, if you don't know how to navigate through Explorer then emulation isn't for you :). Ok, open up Windows Explorer (if you have a mouse wheel, usually clicking it brings up Windows Explorer - If not, go to the Start Menu and click "My Computer"). For example, to make things simple I extracted both VisualBoy Advance and Asteroids to the root of my C: Drive. You will also need to unzip Asteroids GBA - make a note of where you extracted it to. If you don't know how to unzip files, then try reading this guide on unzipping files using WinZip.
You will get a file called VisualBoyAdvance.exe, "COPYING", "NEWS" and some other text documents (usually a readme) as you can see here. If you have not already done so, it is time to unzip VBA / VBALink to your hard drive. Downloading Public Domain games is legal and free and you aren't expected to register, but don't download copyrigted games like Pokémon or Yu-Gi-Oh! even if you find them on Google!įor the purposes of this tutorial I will be using a Public Domain game by (Chris Adams) Asteroids GBA. If you head over to Google and search for "Gameboy Advance Roms" you can find hundreds of public domain GameBoy Advance games for you to play. Ok, now you have your emulator (either VBA or VBALink - there are others but for this tutorial I will be using VisualBoy Advance version 1.7.2) you will need some games. It is based on the VisualBoy Advance source codes, so looks the same as VBA, but adds link emulation to it. If you want an emulator with multiplayer support, then you will need VBALink. Not only does it support GameBoy Advance games (GBA ROMs), but also GameBoy (GB ROMs) and GameBoy Color (GBC ROMs and SNES Super GameBoy).
It has a large list of features and high compatibility. For GameBoy Advance, the best one is VisualBoy Advance.