On this page you can find information about the software and hardware that is allowed and banned for speedrunning Game Boy games as well as some technical insights to keep in mind.

For game specific rules, please check out their respective leaderboards. There might be some game/community specific rules that you need to take into consideration. These mostly apply to how runs get timed and what game mechanics can or shouldn’t be used/abused depending on the category of the game.

You can check out the correct version and/or firmware of the mentioned emulators/tools on https://kleemans.ch/static/gb-emlator-timing

ALLOWED

Hardware

• Super Nintendo (NTSC) or Super Famicom + Super Game Boy 2
• Super Nintendo (NTSC) or Super Famicom + SD2SNES
• SuperNT + Super Game Boy 2
• GameCube + Game Boy Player
• GameCube + GBinterface

Emulator (on Windows)

• BGB
• Gambatte

Emulator (on Mac)

• Gambatte
• SameBoy
• GearBoy

BANNED

• VBA/VBA-M
• Bizhawk
• RetroArch

OTHER

• Super Nintendo (NTSC) or Super Famicom + Super Game Boy

Not recommended as it runs 2.4% faster but can be used if the time gets converted through https://nudua.com/convert