CHIP‑8 Emulator

A CHIP‑8 emulator written in Go, using SDL3 for graphics, input, and audio. I built it to learn emulation development. Any feedback is greatly appreciated.

Status: Early but playable. Core opcodes implemented; audio, timers, and input are wired up. Currently only CHIP-8 is fully supported.

Screenshots

Quick Start

Prerequisites

• Go (tested with 1.23.1)
• SDL3 runtime
• Go module: github.com/jupiterrider/purego-sdl3/sdl

Build & Run

# Clone
git clone https://github.com/KonyD/chip8-emulator.git && cd chip8-emulator

# Run a ROM
go run . name="games/UFO [Lutz V, 1992].ch8"

# Or build
go build -o chip8
./chip8 name="games/UFO [Lutz V, 1992].ch8"

Place .ch8 ROMs under ./roms/.

Controls

 CHIP‑8 Keypad        Mapped Keys
 ┌───┬───┬───┬───┐    ┌───┬───┬───┬───┐
 │ 1 │ 2 │ 3 │ C │    │ 1 │ 2 │ 3 │ 4 │
 ├───┼───┼───┼───┤    ├───┼───┼───┼───┤
 │ 4 │ 5 │ 6 │ D │    │ Q │ W │ E │ R │
 ├───┼───┼───┼───┤    ├───┼───┼───┼───┤
 │ 7 │ 8 │ 9 │ E │    │ A │ S │ D │ F │
 ├───┼───┼───┼───┤    ├───┼───┼───┼───┤
 │ A │ 0 │ B │ F │    │ Z │ X │ C │ V │
 └───┴───┴───┴───┘    └───┴───┴───┴───┘

Additional:

• Esc - Quit
• Space - Pause/Resume
• R - Reload current ROM
• O - Decrease volume
• P - Increase volume
• J - Decrease color lerp rate
• K - Increase color lerp rate

Configuration

Parameter	Type	Default Value	Description
name	string	roms/tests/1-chip8-logo.ch8	The ROM file to load. Example: name="games/Tank.ch8" will load roms/games/Tank.ch8.
scale	uint32	10	Scales the window size. Each CHIP-8 pixel is drawn as a scale × scale square.
pixelOutlines	bool	false	If true, draws outlines around pixels for a grid-like effect.
instsPerSecond	uint32	500	The emulated CPU speed in instructions per second (like the clock rate / Hz). Higher values = faster emulation.
colorLerpRate	float32	0.7	Controls how fast colors transition (lerp rate). Smaller values = slower transitions, larger values = snappier transitions.

Roms used

• test roms: https://github.com/Timendus/chip8-test-suite
• games: https://github.com/kripod/chip8-roms