Dot Matrix is a Game Boy emulator written in C++.

Dot Matrix performs audio emulation, supports a number of cartridge types (ROM, MBC1, MBC2, MBC3, MBC5), and has a Dear Imgui powered UI.

The UI allows real-time modification of registers / memory, has visualizations for the LCD and sound controllers (inlcuding pitches for the two square wave channels), and has a debugger that supports loading symbol files.

Dot Matrix is capable of playing most Game Boy games. It passes all of Blargg's tests and over half of Gekkio's mooneye-gb tests.

Windows, macOS, and Linux are supported.

Dot Matrix uses CMake as a meta build system. Run CMake (with the provided Build directory) to generate project files for your compiler / IDE of choice.

The following CMake options are provided:

• DOT_MATRIX_WITH_AUDIO - Whether to compile support for audio playback
• DOT_MATRIX_WITH_BOOTSTRAP - Whether to compile support for loading the Game Boy bootstrap ROM (not provided in the repo)
• DOT_MATRIX_WITH_DEBUGGER - Whether to compile the Game Boy debugger (breakpoints, CPU stepping, etc.) - decreases emulation performance
• DOT_MATRIX_WITH_UI - Whether to compile in the Dear ImGui UI

There are three build targets:

1. DotMatrix - The standalone emulator executable
2. DotMatrixRetro - A Libretro core (dynamically loaded library)
3. DotMatrixTest - An executable that runs test roms

Dot Matrix comes will all necessary dependencies (except for GTK+ 3 on Linux) either as raw source files or git submodules. Run git submodule init and git submodule update to grab the submodules. If compiling on Linux, GTK+ 3 should be obtained via your package manager.