Timer and Divider Registers

NOTE

The Timer described below is the built-in timer in the gameboy. It has nothing to do with the MBC3s battery buffered Real Time Clock - that’s a completely different thing, described in Memory Bank Controllers.

FF04 — DIV: Divider register

This register is incremented at a rate of 16384Hz (~16779Hz on SGB). Writing any value to this register resets it to $00. Additionally, this register is reset when executing the stop instruction, and only begins ticking again once stop mode ends. This also occurs during a speed switch. (TODO: how is it affected by the wait after a speed switch?)

Note: The divider is affected by CGB double speed mode, and will increment at 32768Hz in double speed.

FF05 — TIMA: Timer counter

This timer is incremented at the clock frequency specified by the TAC register ($FF07). When the value overflows (exceeds $FF) it is reset to the value specified in TMA (FF06) and an interrupt is requested, as described below.

FF06 — TMA: Timer modulo

When TIMA overflows, it is reset to the value in this register and an interrupt is requested. Example of use: if TMA is set to $FF, an interrupt is requested at the clock frequency selected in TAC (because every increment is an overflow). However, if TMA is set to $FE, an interrupt is only requested every two increments, which effectively divides the selected clock by two. Setting TMA to $FD would divide the clock by three, and so on.

If a TMA write is executed on the same cycle as the content of TMA is transferred to TIMA due to a timer overflow, the old value is transferred to TIMA.

FF07 — TAC: Timer control

Bit  2   - Timer Enable
Bits 1-0 - Input Clock Select
           00: CPU Clock / 1024 (DMG, SGB2, CGB Single Speed Mode:   4096 Hz, SGB1:   ~4194 Hz, CGB Double Speed Mode:   8192 Hz)
           01: CPU Clock / 16   (DMG, SGB2, CGB Single Speed Mode: 262144 Hz, SGB1: ~268400 Hz, CGB Double Speed Mode: 524288 Hz)
           10: CPU Clock / 64   (DMG, SGB2, CGB Single Speed Mode:  65536 Hz, SGB1:  ~67110 Hz, CGB Double Speed Mode: 131072 Hz)
           11: CPU Clock / 256  (DMG, SGB2, CGB Single Speed Mode:  16384 Hz, SGB1:  ~16780 Hz, CGB Double Speed Mode:  32768 Hz)