tixul/ngpcraft_emulator

NgpCraft Emulator lets a computer run games made for the Neo Geo Pocket and Neo Geo Pocket Color, two small handheld gaming consoles from the late 1990s. It works by pairing a fast core written in C++ that recreates the console's original processor and graphics chip with a desktop application window built using PyQt6. The emulator's timing has been carefully matched to real hardware, including small delays and processing costs measured from actual consoles, so that games which rely on precise timing run at their correct speed instead of running unusually fast, which is a common problem in other emulators. The project has also tested its processor support against a set of ninety real game cartridges to check that none of them get stuck due to unsupported instructions. The application includes a game library with cover art, search, sorting, and favourites, and it tracks how much each game has been played. It can boot games either instantly or by simulating the console's real startup screen if a genuine BIOS file is supplied. Players can save and load their progress using either the game's own built in save system or eight separate save state slots, rewind gameplay, change playback speed, take screenshots, and use game controllers with configurable buttons. There is also a debugging mode aimed at more advanced users, offering step by step code inspection, memory viewing, and audio analysis, plus a tool that automatically tests a ROM file and reports what might be wrong with it. The interface is available in English and French and can be switched without restarting. To run it from source, a user needs Python 3.10 or newer, and can install the required packages before starting the shell script, a prebuilt version for Windows is bundled so it works immediately without a separate Python setup. For people who prefer not to install Python at all, ready made builds for Windows, Linux, and macOS are available from the project's releases page. The emulator does not include any games or BIOS files itself. Users must supply their own legally obtained ROM files and, for most homebrew games and a couple of specific commercial titles, an actual console BIOS file placed in a folder next to the application.