Emulator Red Viper - Virtual Boy emulator

[Floogle]

Thanks for adding the link!

Savestates are planned.

N3DS C-Stick is mapped to the right D-Pad.

Does the 3D Tetris crash happen if it's the first ROM you load? I suspected that was related to things not being reset fully, but if it happens from a clean boot it's probably something else.

Would it be possible to adjust the depth between the layers using the 3D slider? The Virtual Boy has the eye distance adjustment and I was wondering if it was similar to how depth adjustment works in 3DS games.

Can't do much about this unfortunately. On the Virtual Boy, you can draw sprites and tile layers with a "parallax offset", so this part would work with a slider. Not everything is drawn this way though, as some layers can be assigned to specific eyes, so that each eye effectively a completely different image (you'll see this in some game logos).

 

[AmandaRose]

Thanks for adding the link!

Savestates are planned.

N3DS C-Stick is mapped to the right D-Pad.

Does the 3D Tetris crash happen if it's the first ROM you load? I suspected that was related to things not being reset fully, but if it happens from a clean boot it's probably something else.


Can't do much about this unfortunately. On the Virtual Boy, you can draw sprites and tile layers with a "parallax offset", so this part would work with a slider. Not everything is drawn this way though, as some layers can be assigned to specific eyes, so that each eye effectively a completely different image (you'll see this in some game logos).

Yes it crashes for me if it's the first rom loaded

 

[hippy dave]

This is amazing. I've always been curious though, would it be possible for virtual boy roms to be edited with DX like hacks that add full color? Like how many Game Boy roms have been edited to be full color in recent years. Would be so amazing to one day see a full color version of VB Wario Land.

The game boy hacks use the capabilities of the GBC, so it's a real existing feature set to work with. There was never a colour version of the VB (well, red is a colour, but you know ), so the only way to do it would be to add invented new capabilities to the emulator(s), and then hack the games to use them. Possible but idk how likely it is that someone will ever want to take on that work.

 

[WalterSlovotsky]

I'm honestly surprised this was never tried up until now. I always thought it would be the perfect place for a Virtual Boy revival, if Nintendo were willing to do it.

Finally have a reason to dust off, charge and boot up my 3DS again.

 

[ciaomao]

With the 3dsx it freezes after I have selected the rom. If I use the cia, an additional message "couldn't initialize audio. did you dump your DSP firmware?" appears at startup. Is a specific 3ds firmware required? Mine is still 11.2.0.

 

[raxadian]

I can confirm that it works perfectly on the Old 3DS.

Wario Land's 3D effect is surprisingly good, I'm impressed.
View attachment 422278

Okay now I wanna try it.

 

[ihaveahax]

With the 3dsx it freezes after I have selected the rom. If I use the cia, an additional message "couldn't initialize audio. did you dump your DSP firmware?" appears at startup. Is a specific 3ds firmware required? Mine is still 11.2.0.

You need to dump the dsp firmware. With Luma3DS you can do this:

1. Press (Left Shoulder) + (D-Pad Down) + (Select) at the same time to open the Rosalina menu
2. Select "Miscellaneous options"
3. Select "Dump DSP firmware"
4. Press (B) to continue
5. Press (B) to return to the Rosalina main menu
6. Press (B) to exit the Rosalina menu

 

[JORGETECH]

N3DS C-Stick is mapped to the right D-Pad.

I didn't notice the C-Stick mapping, but I'm still trying out games for the first time so I could have easily missed that.

Can't do much about this unfortunately. On the Virtual Boy, you can draw sprites and tile layers with a "parallax offset", so this part would work with a slider. Not everything is drawn this way though, as some layers can be assigned to specific eyes, so that each eye effectively a completely different image (you'll see this in some game logos).

Yes, I now remember Rodrigo Copetti's article about the Virtual Boy mentioning that, it makes sense that some of the graphical features of the system conflict with the 3DS parallax effect.

 

[legofordman]

First off, THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR MAKING THIS!!!! This is amazing! But I do have a request for a possible feature for this, could you maybe make it so people with a circle pad pro can use the circle pad pro to use it as the right dpad?

 

[Vague Rant]

Does the 3D Tetris crash happen if it's the first ROM you load? I suspected that was related to things not being reset fully, but if it happens from a clean boot it's probably something else.

Ditto AmandaRose, all three of my crashes were with 3-D Tetris as my first/only launched ROM.

On the features front, it would be nice to get support for the ZL/ZR buttons on New 3DS. That would allow the 3DS to match the number of inputs on the Virtual Boy. In particular, I think they'd be ideal B/A buttons when the right D-pad is using the 3DS face buttons. For a game like Red Alarm, that would put throttle on ZL/ZR instead of the touch screen.

 

[raxadian]

Relevant:

 

[Kwyjor]

would it be possible for virtual boy roms to be edited with DX like hacks that add full color?

Ayoye, that question again. >_< It is "possible" to reverse-engineer each game, rewrite them in brainf*ck and run them on a toaster, but no one is going to do that.

There is in fact a WIP project for Jack Bros in color, but I very much doubt it is compatible with this particular emulator.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Megaten/comments/izzu2j/jack_bros_colorized/

 

[duwen]

Fantastic work! Finally giving us the VBoy emulator that Nintendo should've given us a dozen or so years ago!
Looking forward to hopefully seeing more of the homebrew working in future updates aswell as sample playback being implemented.

 

[ciaomao]

You need to dump the dsp firmware. With Luma3DS you can do this:

1. Press (Left Shoulder) + (D-Pad Down) + (Select) at the same time to open the Rosalina menu
2. Select "Miscellaneous options"
3. Select "Dump DSP firmware"
4. Press (B) to continue
5. Press (B) to return to the Rosalina main menu
6. Press (B) to exit the Rosalina menu

i see. i hacked my 3ds a while ago. I still use theme hax with GW…

 

[raxadian]

Okay, can you add a "Gameboy" filter so things look Gameboy green or black and white without having to guess with the color pallette?

Fun fact, The Virtual Boy LOOKS basically as a Gameboy with 3D effects. Why? Cause Nintendo was really stingy with Ram memory.

*Edited

 

[Dakangel]

Okay, can you add a "Gameboy" filter so things look Gameboy green or black and white without having to guess with the color pallette?

Fun fact, The Virtual Boy is basically a Gameboy with 3D effects. That's why it was so underpowered. Had they used the Super Nintendo hardware as a base the games graphics would have been better.

To the contrary , Virtual Boy is a 32bit generation toy, more powerfull than the snes but with a limited gameboy / wonderswan color palette.

 

[SolidSonicTH]

I have to know: does this exclude 2DS players or is the 3D functions of the emulator optional? I actually haven't found any reports of such (and I own an n3DS so it wouldn't be something I can test).

EDIT: Actually I guess I could...I could just disable the 3D effects on my own system. :|

That was pretty derp.

 

[TurboLolo]

Hi, did get solution for freezing when selecting ram? I have DSP fw dump but still get massage couldn't initialize audio.

 

[raxadian]

To the contrary , Virtual Boy is a 32bit generation toy, more powerfull than the snes but with a limited gameboy / wonderswan color palette.

I just found the reason why the 3D was so basic is because Nintendo go to means of making things cheaper is being stingy on the Ram memory. (And yes that even applies to the Nintendo Switch. Several videogame companies outright had to tell Nintendo that the Nintendo Switch had to have at least 4 GB of ram or they wouldn't develop for it at all. And coming right back from the Wii U fiasco Nintendo actually listened.)

Sure Nintendo pass the cost to the companies to add Ram on the Virtual Boy game cardridges if they need extra ram, I am sure nothing can go wrong with that -_-

To be fair 16 MB of ram would have upped the costs a whole lot, most personal computers at the time had 8 MB at most (4 MB was recommended for Windows 3.x) and cost way more that most videogame consoles not named Neo Geo.

 

[Kwyjor]

I just found the reason why the 3D was so basic is because Nintendo go to means of making things cheaper is being stingy on the Ram memory.

The stories of its development are well-established at this point. There were severe limitations on the display technology that were largely unrelated to RAM.