Masquerade-Emulator

So, what’s masquerade ?

A multi-system emulator supporting classic gaming consoles and simulators.

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Version

Current Version: 0.7x

🚧 Beta Notice
Masquerade is currently in beta. All versions before 1.0 are under active development and may contain bugs, incomplete features, or breaking changes.

🔄 Frequent Updates
Releases may be frequent as development progresses rapidly.

⚠️ Breaking Changes
Backward compatibility is not guaranteed between versions. Save states, configs, or behaviors may change without notice.

Stability, accuracy, and performance will continue improving toward the 1.x stable release.

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Supported Systems

• Game Boy Advance (GBA)
• Game Boy Color (GBC)
• Game Boy (GB)
• Nintendo Entertainment System (NES)
• Ms Pac-Man
• Pac-Man (Midway and Namco variants)
• Space Invaders
• CHIP-8
• S-CHIP
• XO-CHIP
• Game of Life

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Getting Started

Quick Access

• Try Web Version - Play directly in your browser
• Download Desktop Build - Available for Windows

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Gameplay Gallery

P0052: ImGui + SDL3 + OpenGL3 (Recommended)

User Interface

Pokémon Crystal, Pokémon Emerald and Pokémon Blue

P0010: OLC (Deprecated)

User Interface

Pokémon Ruby, Emerald, and Sapphire

Game Boy Advance - Pokémon Fire Red and Leaf Green

Game Boy Color - Donkey Kong Country and Pokémon Crystal

Game Boy - Multiple Palette Examples

Prehistorik Man in BGB Palette, Pinball Deluxe in Gearboy Palette and Altered Space in Sameboy Palette

Nintendo Entertainment System - Super Mario Bros 3 and Zelda II

Nintendo Entertainment System - Super Mario Bros and Kong Classic

Pac-Man

Ms Pac-Man

Space Invaders

CHIP-8 - Pong

Game of Life - Toroidal Mode

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Detailed System Information

Game Boy Advance (GBA)

Features

• Supports GBA BIOS
• Supports all 5 PPU modes
• Supports all APU channels

Test Results

• Passes jsmolka/alyosha-tas’s arm.gba, thumb.gba, memory.gba, flash and PPU tests
• Passes FuzzARM.gba
• Passes all tests within the AGB aging catridge test suite except:
  • Prefetch Buffer
• Passes all mgba-suite tests except for few test-cases within the following tests:
  • GamePAK prefetch related timing tests
  • Few timer count-up tests
  • Few timer IRQ tests
  • Few SIO tests
  • Few MISC edge case tests
• Passes CPU subtests of AGBEEG aging catridge test suite (still fails the Catridge and DMA subtests)
• Passes all tests in tonc’s test suite
• Passes all belogic’s audio tests

Known Issues (other than the ones mentioned above)

• No audio issue while running GBS
• Minor visual artifacts top left corner in Mode 3 for some video ROMs like Pokemon
• Some undesired audio artifacts (expected fix in P0152 variant)
• Low end devices still need PGOs to run at full speed (expected fix in P0152 variant)

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Game Boy / Game Boy Color (GB / GBC)

Features

• Supports GB and GBC BIOS
• Implements Pixel-Fetcher/Pixel-FIFO
• GBC supports GB mode
• Supports multiple palettes on GB
• Supports GameGenie and GameShark cheats
• Supports BESS specification for save/load states
• Supports GBVideoPlayer2 video ROMs with audio
• GBC supports color correction closely matching real hardware
• Supports following Memory Bank Controllers:
  • NO MBC
  • MBC1
  • MBC2
  • MBC3
  • MBC5
  • MBC7
  • MBC30
  • HuC-1
  • HuC-3

Test Results

• Completely passes Tom Harte’s SingleStepTests (official and unofficial opcodes) for SM83
• Passes all Blargg test suite except:
  • oam_bug.gb
• Passes Moon Eye tests except:
  • boot_div-dmgABCmgb.gb
  • boot_hwio-dmgABCmgb.gb
• Passes Wilbert Pol’s tests except:
  • GB only:
    • ly_lyc_153_write-GS.gb
  • GBC only:
    • ly_lyc_0_write-C.gb
    • ly_lyc_153_write-C.gb
    • ly_lyc_write-C.gb
• Passes Daid’s GBEmulatorShootout tests except:
  • ppu_scanline_bgp.gb
• Passes PeachyHardwareAbuse tests including ctf.gb
• Passes MMIO_exec_1.gb
• Passes DMG Aging Cartridge test
• Passes ax6’s rtc3test suite
• APU plays ISSOtm’s smooth-player.gb
• Passes all Hacktix’s tests except:
  • strikethrough.gb
• Passes TurtleTests
• Passes MagenTests (GBC)
• Passes mbc3-tester
• Fails some same-suite tests:
  • apu
• Fails many age-test-roms tests:
  • m3-bg-lcdc (few differences)
  • m3-bg-scx (few differences)
  • oam
  • speed-switch
  • stat-mode (few differences)
  • stat-mode-sprites
  • stat-mode-window
  • vram

Known Issues (other than the ones mentioned above)

• Fails cgb-acid-hell
• Fails windesync-validate.gb
• Fails many docboy-test-suite’s APU and CGB tests
• Fails some of the Mealybug Tearoom tests by a very slight margin (a single pixel offset is seen from the expected!)
• Link Cable not supported
• Multiple CGB-specific quirks remain unimplemented

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Nintendo Entertainment System (NES)

Features

• 6502 CPU passes Klaus Dormann’s 6502_65C02_functional_tests including BCD tests
• Supports mappers:
  • NROM
  • MMC1 (including SEROM, SHROM, SH1ROM, SuROM variants)
  • UxROM (002)
  • CNROM
  • MMC3
  • AxROM
  • GxROM
  • Nanjian FC-001 (Mapper 163)
• Supports GameGenie cheats
• Supports Zapper in Port 2 (mouse clicks)

Test Results

• Passes Nestest (official and unofficial opcodes)
• Completely passes Tom Harte’s SingleStepTests for NES6502
• Passes Blargg CPU tests (official and unofficial opcodes)
• Passes Blargg CPU timing tests
• Passes Blargg CPU dummy read/write tests
• Passes NES Dev Wiki CPU tests
• Passes blargg_ppu_tests_2005.09.15b
• Passes blargg_apu_2005.07.30
• Passes Blargg sprite_overflow_test suite
• Passes Blargg sprite_hit_tests_2005.10.05
• Passes all APU tests including DMC
• Passes Blargg vbl_nmi_timing and ppu_vbl_nmi tests
• Passes Blargg cpu_interrupt_v2 tests
• Passes OAM stress tests
• Passes Blargg and Bisqwit’s ppu_open_bus tests
• Passes Bisqwit’s cpu_exec_space tests
• Passes Blargg mmc3_irq_tests suite except:
  • 4-scanline_timing.nes

Known Issues (other than the ones mentioned above)

• Unable to boot Dragon Warrior III
• DMC DMA timing quirks need proper emulation

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Pac-Man and Ms Pac-Man

Features

• Z80 CPU emulation
• Passes Tom Harte’s SingleStepTests for Z80 (official and unofficial opcodes)
• Passes zexdoc and zexall tests
• Supports both Midway and Namco variants

Supported Pac-Man Boot-legs

• Hangly Man
• Uniprom Variant
• Baracuda
• NewPuc
• After Dark
• Snatcher Set 1 and 2

Planned Support (Pac-Man Boot-legs)

• Streaking
• Titan
• Caterpillar
• Abscam
• Joyman
• Piranha
• Galaxian Hardware Variant

Supported Ms Pac-Man Boot-legs (planned/partial)

• MsPacPlus
• After Dark
• MsPacAttackNew
• MsPacAtackOld

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Space Invaders

Features

• Supports color overlays

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CHIP-8 / S-CHIP / XO-CHIP

Supported Variants

• CHIP-8
• S-Chip Legacy
• S-Chip Modern
• XO-Chip (supporting audio and up to 4 planes)

Features

• Completely passes Timendus’s chip8-test-suite v4.2
• Completely passes CubeChip test suite
• Supports ROM database auto-detection of:
  • Variants
  • Quirks
  • Recommended palettes
  • Recommended keybindings
  • Recommended execution rate

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Game of Life

Supported Modes

• Normal Mode
• Toroidal Mode
• Pan/Zoom support planned

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CPUs

• Passes extensive test ROM suites for:
  • 8080 (official and unofficial opcodes)
  • Z80 (official and unofficial opcodes)
  • SM83 (official and unofficial opcodes)
  • Ricoh 2A03 (NES-6502) (official and unofficial opcodes)
  • ARM7TDMI (ARMv4T instruction set)

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Additional

• Supports Save States and Load States
• Supports OTA updates
• Supports dynamic drag and drop of ROMs including multipart ROMs for Space Invaders and Pacman/MsPacman

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Variants

Masquerade is available in two variants, differing in their underlying libraries:

P0052: ImGui + SDL3 + OpenGL3 (Recommended)

Modern UI framework with enhanced features and performance.

Technology Stack:

• ImGui for interface
• SDL3 for windowing and input
• OpenGL3 for rendering
• nativefiledialog-extended for file dialogs
• Boost libraries for INI parsing

P0010: OLC (Deprecated)

Legacy variant based on One Lone Coder’s Pixel Game Engine.

Note: P0010 is no longer supported. Users should migrate to P0052 for latest features and updates.

Technology Stack (Legacy):

• Forked version of One Lone Coder’s Pixel Game Engine
• One Lone Coder’s Sound Wave Engine
• Boost libraries for INI parsing

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Automated Test Reports

• Game Boy / Game Boy Color (GB/GBC) : GB Emulator Shootout

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Credits and Acknowledgments

Documentation and References

Game Boy / Game Boy Color

• GB Pandocs - Comprehensive Game Boy documentation
• GB Dev Wiki - Memory Bank Controller documentation
• Codeslinger’s Blog - Game Boy emulation guide
• Night Shade’s Audio Implementation - Audio emulation guide
• The Ultimate Gameboy Talk - Technical reference
• Antonio’s Technical Documentation - Game Boy Advance technical guide

Game Boy Advance

• GBATEK - Comprehensive GBA reference
• TONC - GBA programming tutorials
• NBA HW Docs - Hardware documentation
• GBA Docs - GBA development documentation
• Dillonb’s Cartridge Guide - Flash cartridge implementation
• GBA PPU Access Pattern - PPU timing documentation

Nintendo Entertainment System

• NES Dev Wiki - Comprehensive NES documentation

Reference Emulators

• Gearboy - GB/GBC reference and testing
• gbmulator - GB/GBC testing
• NBA - GBA reference and testing
• SkyEmu - GBA testing and UI theme inspiration
• Dillonb’s GBA Emulator - CLI logger/debugger inspiration

Test Suites and Test ROMs

• Blargg test ROMs for GB, GBC, and NES
• jsmolka and alyosha-tas test ROMs for GBA
• AGS Test Suite by DenSinH - GBA test ROMs
• Tom Harte’s SingleStepTests for 6502 and SM83 CPU testing

Community

• Emulator Development Discord - Active community support and development discussions

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License

See the repository for license information.

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Web Version

Downloads

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