Editing the GameBoy Virtual Console Palette

How to Change the GB VC Palette to the Original

It's one of those things that leaves me scratching my head: "Why the hell didn't Nintendo take the time to perfect the color palettes of the GameBoy VC releases?" Instead, we got eye-bleeding pukotron green. So I changed the palette to be more like the original. It's pretty easy and straightforward. Well, here we go.

_________________________________________
What You Need

  • Notepad
  • Your favorite GB VC rom-editing tool
  • An injected .3DS GB VC rom (or injector tool)

______ _ __________________________________
What To Do

Step One - ROMFS

First, you need to get access to a GB VC rom's ROMFS contents using the rom editor. If you don't know how or you need the tools:
Google: "[TUTORIAL] - Convert GameBoy(GB) ROMs to GB VC 3DS and CIA files" (including the quotation marks).

Click on the first link.

Click on thread # 118 "[TUTORIAL] - Convert GameBoy(GB) ROMs to GB VC 3DS and CIA files".

Download the tool pack.

Follow the tutorial on that page after you're done with this one; the tool pack contains the injector, ROMFS contents, and the .3ds rom.

Step Two - Config.ini

Once you have the ROMFS contents, open the "Config.ini" file in Notepad.
wqu9uq.jpg


The part we are gonna edit is right at the top of the file.
51dfra.jpg


Change:
Code:
Color0 = c23,31,4
Color1 = c19,29,5
Color2 = c11,17,8
Color3 = c9,9,9
ColorLCD = c20,27,7

To:
Code:
Color0 = c27,31,25
Color1 = c14,23,11
Color2 = c4,11,8
Color3 = c0,2,3
ColorLCD = c17,29,13

It should now look like this:
eff09u.jpg


Type: [ctrl]+S to save.

...And that's that. You now have the config.ini to put into a GB VC rom for an old school GB experience. If your using the ini and injector tool from that site, the ini will be applied to all subsequently injected roms.


__________________________________________
Using Different Palettes

To use different colors or to have a custom ini for each game, you need the RGB values for each desired color, plus the LCD. The RGB values on image-editing software is typically 8-bit (0-255), but the ini uses 5-bit RBG (0-31). Once you have the 8-bit RGB values of your colors selected, we need to convert them to 5-bit values. To do this:
Code:
(a*31)/255=b

where:

a is the 8-bit value

and

b is the 5-bit value (the number to type into the ini)

Example:
8-bit value: 78

(78*31)/255=9.487

5-bit value: 9

Remember, you need to do this for each R, G and B, for each color (0,1,2,3, and the LCD color). That's a total of 15 values!

0,1,2, and 3 are the four colors of the GB palette from lightest to darkest, and the LCD is the color shown between frames (e.i. between the start-menu and main game-room). That's all there is to that.

So say goodbye to puke-green GB games and hello to infinite custom color possibilities.

Have fun and thanks for reading my first ever web-tut'!
 

kehkou

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cool stuff :) thanks
it would be cool to some some pictures of your custom palettes in action!
Good idea, but I assure you it looks just like on a real GB. But I second this; I invite anyone to show off your custom palettes. (I've only made this original GB one)
 
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dannyboy941

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With the config file can you do more like enable wireless(for the beta link cable function) option or cheats if you know about the headers really intressing Emulator of Nintendo that they made it but you need turn the patches off to avoid issus works only with gbc and gb sofar i try other types like from sega or nes there i get crash or blackscreen how ever not works even as cia too.
 
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kehkou

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With the config file can you do more like enable wireless(for the beta link cable function) option or cheats if you know about the headers really intressing Emulator of Nintendo that they made it but you need turn the patches off to avoid issus works only with gbc and gb sofar i try other types like from sega or nes there i get crash or blackscreen how ever not works even as cia too.
Sounds neat. I noticed different options like sound mixing, menu graphics, demo options, and input turbo; how do you enable/use wireless GB (C) though? Is it just for development purposes or can you play multiplayer like the upcoming Pokemon releases?
 
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