gbe_fork

:large_orange_diamond: This is a fork

Fork of https://gitlab.com/Mr_Goldberg/goldberg_emulator

Feel free to make a PR.

:red_circle:

This fork is not a takeover, not a resurrection of the original project, and not a replacement. This is just a fork, don't take it seriously. You are highly encouraged to fork/clone it and do whatever you want with it.

:red_circle:

Compatibility

This fork is incompatible with the original repo, lots of things has changed and might be even broken. If something doesn't work, feel free to create a pull request with the appropriate fix, otherwise ignore this fork and use the original emu.

Credits

Thanks to everyone contributing to this project in any way possible, we try to keep the CHANGELOG.md updated with all the changes and their authors.

This project depends on many third-party libraries and tools, credits to them for their amazing work, you can find their listing here in CREDITS.md.

How to use the emu

• Always generate the interfaces file using the generate_interfaces tool.
• If things don't work, try the ColdClientLoader setup.

You can find helper guides, scripts, and tools here:

(These guides, scripts, and tools are maintained by their authors.)

• gbe_fork_tools
• gen.emu.sharp
• gse_fork_tools
• Semuexec
• Steam Emu Utility
• How to use Goldberg Emulator
• GSE-Generator
• If you created a generator tool create a Feature PR

You can also find instructions here in README.release.md

Compiling

One time setup

Cloning the repo

Clone the repo and its submodules recursively

git clone --recurse-submodules -j8 https://github.com/Detanup01/gbe_fork.git

The switch -j8 is optional, it allows Git to fetch up to 8 submodules

It is adviseable to always checkout submodules every now and then, to make sure they're up to date

git submodule update --init --recursive --remote

For Windows:

• You need Windows 10 or 8.1 + WDK

• Using Visual Studio, install Visual Studio 2022 Community: https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/vs/community/

  • Select the Workload Desktop development with C++
  • In the Individual componenets scroll to the buttom and select the latest version of Windows XX SDK (XX.X...) For example Windows 11 SDK (10.0.22621.0)

• Using MSYS2 this is currently experimental and will not work due to ABI differences: https://www.msys2.org/

  steps
  • To build 64-bit binaries use either the environment UCRT64 or MINGW64 then install the GCC toolchain UCRT64
    bash复制

    pacman -S mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-gcc

    MINGW64
    bash复制

    pacman -S mingw-w64-i686-gcc

  • To build 32-bit binaries use the environment MINGW32 then install the GCC toolchain
    bash复制

    pacman -S mingw-w64-i686-gcc

• Python 3.10 or above: https://www.python.org/downloads/windows/ After installation, make sure it works

  batch复制

  python --version

• (Optional) Install a GUI for Git like GitHub Desktop, or Sourcetree

For Linux:

• Ubuntu 22.04 LTS: https://ubuntu.com/download/desktop
• Ubuntu required packages:
  bash复制

  sudo apt update -y
  sudo apt install -y coreutils # echo, printf, etc...
  sudo apt install -y build-essential
  sudo apt install -y gcc-multilib # needed for 32-bit builds
  sudo apt install -y g++-multilib
  sudo apt install -y libglx-dev # needed for overlay build (header files   such as GL/glx.h)
  sudo apt install -y libgl-dev # needed for overlay build (header files   such as GL/gl.h)

  (Optional) Additional packages
  bash复制

  sudo apt install -y clang # clang compiler
  sudo apt install -y binutils # contains the tool 'readelf' mainly, and   other usefull binary stuff

• Python 3.10 or above
  bash复制

  sudo apt update -y
  sudo apt install -y software-properties-common
  sudo add-apt-repository ppa:deadsnakes/ppa -y
  sudo apt update -y
  sudo apt install -y "python3.12"
  sudo apt install -y "python3.12-dev"
  sudo apt install -y "python3.12-venv"
  sudo apt install -y python3-dev
  
  # make sure it works
  python3.12 --version

For cross compiling see the docs

Building dependencies

These are third party libraries needed to build the emu later, they are linked with the emu during its build process. You don't need to build these dependencies every time, they rarely get updated. The only times you'll need to rebuild them is either when their separete build folder was accedentally deleted, or when the dependencies were updated.

On Windows:

Open CMD in the repo folder, then run the following

• To build using Visual Studio

  batch复制

  set "CMAKE_GENERATOR=Visual Studio 18 2026"
  third-party\common\win\premake\premake5.exe --file=premake5-deps.lua --64-build --32-build   --all-ext --all-build --verbose --os=windows vs2026

• To build using MSYS2 this is currently experimental and will not work due to ABI differences

  steps

  (Optional) In both cases below, you can use Clang compiler instead of GCC by running these 2 commands in the same terminal instance

  bash复制

  export CC="clang"
  export CXX="clang++"

  • To build 64-bit binaries (UCRT64 or MINGW64)
  bash复制

  export CMAKE_GENERATOR="MSYS Makefiles"
  ./third-party/common/win/premake/premake5.exe --file=premake5-deps.lua --64-build --all-ext --all-build --verbose   --os=windows gmake2

  • To build 32-bit binaries (MINGW32)
  bash复制

  export CMAKE_GENERATOR="MSYS Makefiles"
  ./third-party/common/win/premake/premake5.exe --file=premake5-deps.lua --32-build --all-ext --all-build --verbose   --os=windows gmake2

This will:

• Extract all third party dependencies from the folder third-party into the folder build\deps\win
• Build all dependencies

On Linux:

Open a terminal in the repo folder (Optional) You can use Clang compiler instead of GCC by running these 2 commands in the current terminal instance

export CC="clang"
export CXX="clang++"

Then run the following

export CMAKE_GENERATOR="Unix Makefiles"
./third-party/common/linux/premake/premake5 --file=premake5-deps.lua --64-build --32-build --all-ext --all-build --verbose --os=linux gmake2

This will:

• Extract all third party dependencies from the folder third-party into the folder build/deps/linux
• Build all dependencies (32-bit and 64-bit)

Building the emu

On Windows:

Open CMD in the repo folder, then run the following

• For Visual Studio 2022

  batch复制

  third-party\common\win\premake\premake5.exe --file=premake5.lua --genproto --os=windows vs2026

  You can then go to the folder build\project\vs2026\win and open the produced .sln file in Visual Studio. Or, if you prefer to do it from command line, open the Developer Command Prompt for VS 2026 inside the above folder, then:

  batch复制

  msbuild /nologo /v:n /p:Configuration=release,Platform=Win32 gbe.slnx
  
  msbuild /nologo /v:n /p:Configuration=release,Platform=x64 gbe.slnx

• For MSYS2 this is currently experimental and will not work due to ABI differences

  steps
  bash复制

  ./third-party/common/win/premake/premake5.exe --file=premake5.lua --genproto --os=windows gmake2
  
  cd ./build/project/gmake2/win

  (Optional) You can use Clang compiler instead of GCC by running these 2 commands in the current terminal instance

  bash复制

  export CC="clang"
  export CXX="clang++"

  • 64-bit build (UCRT64 or MINGW64)
    bash复制

    make config=release_x64 -j 8 all

  • 32-bit build (MINGW32)
    bash复制

    make config=release_x86 -j 8 all

  To see all possible build targets

  bash复制

  make help

This will build a release version of the emu in the folder build\win\<toolchain>\release An example script build_win_premake.bat is available, check it out

On Linux:

Open a terminal in the repo folder, then run the following

./third-party/common/linux/premake/premake5 --file=premake5.lua --genproto --os=linux gmake2
cd ./build/project/gmake2/linux

(Optional) You can use Clang compiler instead of GCC by running these 2 commands in the current terminal instance

export CC="clang"
export CXX="clang++"

Then run the following

make config=release_x86 -j 8 all
make config=release_x64 -j 8 all

To see all possible build targets

make help

This will build a release version of the emu in the folder build/linux/<toolchain>/release An example script build_linux_premake.sh is available, check it out

Using Github CI as a builder

This is really slow and mainly intended for the CI Workflow scripts, but you can use it as another outlet if you can't build locally. You have to fork the repo first.

Initial setup

In your fork, open the Settings tab from the top, then:

• From the left side panel select Actions -> General
• In the section Actions permissions select Allow all actions and reusable workflows
• Scroll down, and in the section Workflow permissions select Read and write permissions
• (Optional) In the section Artifact and log retention, you can specify the amount of days to keep the build artifacts/archives. It is recommended to set a reasonable number like 3-4 days, otherwise you may consume your packages storage if you use Github as a builder frequently, more details here: https://docs.github.com/en/get-started/learning-about-github/githubs-plans

Manual trigger

1. Go to the Actions tab in your fork
2. Select the emu dependencies Workflow (ex: Emu third-party dependencies (Windows) ) and run it on the main branch (ex: dev). Dependencies not created on the main branch won't be recognized by other branches or subsequent runs
3. Select one of the Workflow scripts from the left side panel, for example Build all emu variants (Windows)
4. On the top-right, select Run workflow -> select the desired branch (for example dev) -> press the button Run workflow
5. When it's done, many packages (called build artifacts) will be created for that workflow. Make sure to select the workflow again to view its history, then select the last run at the very top to view its artifacts

Important note:

When you build the dependencies workflows, they will be cached to decrease the build times of the next triggers and avoid unnecessary/wasteful build process. This will cause a problem if at any time the third-party dependencies were updated, in that case you need to manually delete the cache, in your fork:

1. Go to the Actions tab at the top
2. Select Caches from the left side panel
3. Delete the corresponding cache

(Optional) Packaging

This step is intended for Github CI/Workflow, but you can create a package locally.

On Windows:

Open CMD in the repos's directory, then run this script

package_win.bat <build_folder>

build_folder is any folder inside build\win, for example: vs2026\release The above example will create a .7z archive inside build\package\win\

On Linux:

Open