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Game Boy / Game Boy Color
Check the dumping hardware overview for a list of known preservation hardware.
If you need help, please come chat with us on the VGPC or No-Intro discord servers.
Introduction
Important Notes
- Unopened games should have their ROM and save data dumped before attempting to play them. This avoids inadvertent modification of the data and helps preserve any possible rewritable data in its unused/“factory” state. This is especially important for types of cart that store the ROM on rewritable media, or games that come with special save data pre-installed. But it is not necessarily possible to know in advance, hence why its advisable to dump first. Note in your submission whether the physical media was sealed and include a photo of the cart/packaging in its sealed state, if possible.
- You should clean the physical media's electrical contacts before trying to dump it, then dump it, clean it again and dump it a second time, checking if both dumps match using a file comparison tool or calculating the SHA256 of each file and comparing those values. This helps ensure that dirt on the contacts is not causing interference, and that dirt was fully removed during the cleaning process.
Luckily there are numerous tools available for dumping Game Boy / Game Boy Color games, so you should be able to find a great dumper that suits your need.
Note on the Submodule GB01: This is not currently recommended, as there is no known way to manually change the dumping settings and the automatic setting detection does not work on some carts.
Tool Overview
| insideGadgets GBxCart RW v1.4 | BennVenn Joey Jr V2++ | Sanni Cart Reader | Epilogue GB Operator | J.Rodrigo Cart Flasher | insideGadgets GBxCart RW v1.3 | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| tested with FW: R36+L7, SW: FlashGBX v3.14 | tested with FW: V2_02_29 Beta Firmware 64K | untested / source code analysis | untested / according to official website | tested (no FW update capability) | tested with FW: L1, SW: FlashGBX v3.14 | |||||||
| Media Type | ROM | Save | ROM | Save | ROM | Save | ROM | Save | ROM | Save | ROM | Save |
| No Mapper | ✓ | – | ✓ | – | ✓ | – | ✓ | – | ✓ | – | ✓ | – |
| MBC1 ≤ 512 KB | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| MBC1 > 512 KB | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| MBC1M | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | ??? | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| MBC2 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| MBC3 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| MBC30 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| MBC5 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| MBC6 | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ |
| MBC7 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ (partially) | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ |
| MMM01 | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | ??? | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| M161 | ✓ | – | ✗ | – | ✗ | – | ✗ | – | ✗ | – | ✓ | – |
| HuC-1 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| HuC-3 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| TAMA5 | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ |
| NP GB Memory | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ |
| GB Camera | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| E201264 Dev Cart | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | ??? | ??? | ??? | ??? | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Sachen | ✓ | – | ✗ | – | ✗ | – | ✗ | – | ✗ | – | ✗ | – |
| Wisdom Tree | ✓ | – | ??? | – | ✗ | – | ✗ | – | ✗ | – | ✓ | – |
| Action Replay | ✓ | – | ✗ | – | ✗ | – | ✗ | – | ✗ | – | ✓ | – |
| Xploder GB | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
| 256M Multi Repro | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
Methods
Method 1 - GBxCart RW
Supports: GB/GBC/GBA, Game Boy Camera, and Nintendo Power Carts and Bootleg flashing
Please see the the page for Lesserkuma's open-source software for the GBxCart RW, FlashGBX.
Method 2 - The Joey Jr
Supports: GB/GBC/GBA, Game Boy Camera, and Nintendo Power Carts and Bootleg flashing
For latest official instruction on how to use the Joey Jr, please see the official user guide.
Method 3 - Sanni Cart Reader
The Sanni Cart Reader comes with Game Boy / Game Boy Color dumping capabilities by default. Follow the Sanni Cart Reader wiki for proper settings, and dumping instructions.
Identifying Game Versions
SSS-(T)GGR-V
S = System (DMG = Game Boy, CGB = Game Boy Color)
T = Type (N = Normal)
G = Game code (e.g. KY = Kirby's Dream Land)
R = Region (A = World, J = Japan, E = USA, P = Europe)
V = Version (starts at 0)