pureikyubu 1.9 — Release Notes

September 2026 · previous release 1.8 (September 2026) · Markdown version

Version 1.9 is the feature release. The emulator gains a second machine — a from-scratch Game Boy Advance and Game Boy core — a second rendering path — a complete software implementation of the Flipper graphics blocks — and a new debugger, a local MCP server for LLM agents, a hardware-interface profiler, a headless build and a DSP recompiler. The whole source tree was audited for the data it loads, and the debug interface speaks UTF-8. On the compatibility side the Metroid Prime intro movie runs several times faster and the release reaches the game's title screen, Super Mario Sunshine boots and plays its intro, and titles such as Star Wars Rogue Squadron III, Super Monkey Ball 2, Prince of Persia and Soul Calibur II get their pictures.

The new DebugUI2 debugger with the Gekko registers, the disassembly, the memory dump and a session picture
The new debugger.Every panel is the Markdown of a JDI command: the message history and the command line on the left, the Gekko registers, the Gekko disassembly, the physical memory and a session picture on the right.
Super Mario Sunshine reaching its intro cutscene
Super Mario Sunshine.Boots, plays its intro FMV and reaches the scene after it, once the cache-management instructions stop faulting on a direct-store segment.

Highlights

Added

The integrated Game Boy Advance and Game Boy (issue #388)

Metroid Fusion running on the integrated Game Boy Advance
Metroid Fusion.Booted by the emulator's own boot ROM on the integrated Game Boy Advance, drawn at 60 fps.
The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening DX in the Game Boy mode
Link's Awakening DX.The Game Boy machine inside the GBA runs DMG and CGB cartridges; the colour picture path is still work in progress.

The software GFX pipeline (issue #384)

The new debugger — DebugUI2 (issues #371, #397, #407)

The MCP server (issue #383)

The hardware-interface profiler (issue #394)

The headless build (issue #382)

The DSP recompiler (issue #375)

The UTF-8 pass (issue #372)

Input verification and the security review (issue #381)

Tooling: the DolphinSDK demo sweep (issue #385)

Changed

Gekko and the command processor

Timing units

Build and layout

Fixed

Graphics

CPU, DSP and interrupts

Games

Soul Calibur II rendered by pureikyubu
Soul Calibur II.A third-party 3D title rendered through the XF/TEV shader pipeline.

Known issues

Up next

Release 2.0 will be the next major version, the peripheral release: it is aimed at the emulation of the console's peripheral devices — the EXI bus and the devices on it (memory cards, the Broadband Adapter, the RTC), the serial interface and the pads, the disk interface and the drive, and the link port the GBA side already has — and it should close out many of the emulator's features, so that the list of "not implemented yet" above shrinks to what genuinely does not matter.

After that the project moves into its steady state: planned, methodical improvement — performance work and bug fixing release after release, rather than another feature push. The architecture is in place; what remains is making what is there faster, more exact and more complete.

Building

Windows. Open scripts/VS2026/pureikyubu.sln in Visual Studio 2026 and build. SDL and Win32 front ends both have Debug and Release configurations; the GBA library, gba_bench and the pureikyubu_headless target are part of the solution (the headless target is not built by "Build Solution").

Linux.

sudo apt install libglew-dev
git clone https://github.com/emu-russia/pureikyubu.git
cd pureikyubu
git submodule update --init
cd build && cmake .. && make
./pureikyubu pong.dol

Tests.

MSBuild scripts/VS2026/pureikyubu_test.slnx -p:Configuration=Release -p:Platform=x64
vstest.console.exe scripts/VS2026/x64/Release/pureikyubu_test.dll /Platform:x64

The portable machines have their own harness:

testing/gba_bench/check.sh

The previous releases are still available: Release Notes 1.9.1 · Release Notes 1.8 · Заметки о релизе 1.8 · Release Notes 1.7. The long story of the work after release 1.6 is in the digest.