Hacking Virtual Boy for 3DS

[Immortal_no1]

What are people's views on porting the Virtual Boy to the DS? and then to the 3DS when flashcarts can run unsigned code?

DS mode Red and Blue for use with 3D glasses, 3DS mode using background layering of vectors, make something 2D appear 3D by making a layer of an image appear closer to you, giving you a more realistic experience of playing a virtual boy. If you want you can always play it in the dark with a towel covering your head covered by a baseball cap to make you look even more strange

I know it can be done for the DS, it's just time and effort.

What do you all think?

 

[CollosalPokemon]

Theoretically this sounds OK but the question is why? Virtual Boy virtually died (no pun intended lol) 15 years ago. There have been DOS virtual boy emulators if your so inclined on it, although I don't know if DSx86 supports them.

Or you can try building your own rom using something like Reality Boy's source code.

 

[RupeeClock]

There's only a small handful of worthwhile titles to do this for, namely Wario Land and maybe Mario Clash.

Still, it's be great to experience Wario Land Virtual Boy without blinding red.

 

[Snailface]

If porting the VB to the DS was my project, I would do it because it was interesting to me and a challenge. Honestly, I wouldn't give a damn if anybody else wanted it or not.

Sounds to me like you're interested so just give it a shot.

 

[kevan]

If porting the VB to the DS was my project, I would do it because it was interesting to me and a challenge. Honestly, I wouldn't give a damn if anybody else wanted it or not.

Sounds to me like you're interested so just give it a shot.

I don't think he is capable

He could be though! But of course we
need a 3DS hack first.

 

[Another World]

i've been playing through wario land on an actual vb and i find its a wonderful platformer. the red colors are rather soothing when compared to color 3d images. i'm always rather confused when someone refers to the vb has "blinding" or headache causing.

i'd love to see the entire 1st generation of vb games ported to the 3ds, the japanese only games fully translated, and then the few surviving 2nd generation games. dragon hopper and bound high would be easy ways to boost sales.

There's only a small handful of worthwhile titles to do this for, namely Wario Land and maybe Mario Clash.

i'd also suggest golf, jack bros., mario's tennis, panic bomber, red alarm, virtual lab, and teleroboxer

-another world

 

[granville]

The dark red/black certainly helped give VB Wario Land a certain sort of neat atmosphere. Though i wouldn't say no to colors. If colorized though, the game should retain a dark setting for the parts that it suits though.

Headaches were caused more by the uncomfortable way it needed to be played i think. Not so much the red and black palette. I wasn't ever really bugged by the colors. But needing to squint into the eyepiece like that, that's another story.

 

[Hadrian]

Wario Land VB is more than worthy of emulator being ported but I do wish and hope Nintendo would get the sense to put it on VC.

 

[Snailface]

If porting the VB to the DS was my project, I would do it because it was interesting to me and a challenge. Honestly, I wouldn't give a damn if anybody else wanted it or not.

Sounds to me like you're interested so just give it a shot.
I don't think he is capable

He could be though! But of course we
need a 3DS hack first.

QUOTE

VB specs from Wikipedia:
Processor NEC V810 (P/N uPD70732)
32-bit RISC Processor @ dual core 20 MHz (18 MIPS)

1 KB instruction cache
Memory 128 KB dual-port VRAM
128 KB of DRAM
64 KB WRAM (PSRAM)

I don't think the DS is capable.
But, oh well, maybe someday on the 3DS.

 

[cosmiccow]

This (and other 3D homebrew) and the region lock are two big reasons why I hope the 3DS gets hacked.

 

[Immortal_no1]

I was thinking about using the Supercard DSTwo's 400Mhz MIPS core to help out if the DS couldn't do it on its own...

 

[cosmiccow]

The DS should be powerful enough on its own. It's just that maybe without the 3D screen there is not so much incentive for doing it.

 

[Immortal_no1]

Everyone has to start somewhere

 

[Pleng]

I recall seeing some guy from Nintendo talking about how he'd be interested in reviving some VB games to the 3DS in the virtual console. Seems like a perfect platform for it (his words). I have no idea who he was, and how much sway he has within the organization. Was a long time ago; before 3DS was actually released IIRC

 

[mysticwaterfall]

Virtual Boy emulator with 3d!

Mentioned this a year ago, lol (in the "what homebrew do you want on the 3ds" thread)

That said, I'm still hopeful these will come as VC or as a collection cart. I don't see it possible on the DS though.

For those of you who have never experienced the better virtual boy games (wario, mario clash, red alarm, 3d tetris), the Wii emulator does a great job and even does 3D with old school red/blue glasses.

 

[Another World]

i think that if vb games are every officially brought over to the 3ds that they should have the option of red/black or color. i'd play most of the games in their original red/black but swapping to color would be a nice treat.

Headaches were caused more by the uncomfortable way it needed to be played i think. Not so much the red and black palette. I wasn't ever really bugged by the colors. But needing to squint into the eyepiece like that, that's another story.

i've played my vb for 2-3 hours and never had a problem. my only issue has been neck cramps because the stand forces me to hunch over a bit while playing. sometimes the eye shade can cause problems because when you are done gaming you quickly look up into the real work where there is the sun or lights. i've gotten around this by playing in a dark room. so when i look up my eyes do not have to adjust.

-another world

 

[duffmmann]

I think Nintendo would be smart to update the virtual boy games so that they can release them as virtual console titles, if they added color to the games. Wario Land would be awesome if they updated it to be in full color as opposed to red and black. But thats just my opinion.

 

[Quincy]

The dark red/black certainly helped give VB Wario Land a certain sort of neat atmosphere. Though i wouldn't say no to colors. If colorized though, the game should retain a dark setting for the parts that it suits though.

Headaches were caused more by the uncomfortable way it needed to be played i think. Not so much the red and black palette. I wasn't ever really bugged by the colors. But needing to squint into the eyepiece like that, that's another story.

No pun intended?

 

[LysolPionex]

I think they could easily add the VB game library to the virtual console list. Or as a VB gallery similar to G&W gallery (though I'd prefer VC).

As far as colors go, why not have it swappable like they do with the GB games (i.e. between grayscale and greenscale).

Until a few weeks ago, I wasn't sure how they'd handle not having a D-pad on the right side, but now that that slidepad extension has been developed, VB control emulation is no problem.

Also, the VB resolution was just slightly below the resolution of the 3DS in 3D mode (384 x 224 vs. 400 x 240), so graphics emulation shouldn't be an issue either.

Any other potential problems porting it from that hardware to this?

 

[Immortal_no1]

The main part apart from the obvious screen resolution is the colour depth model on the VB, as well as the Allegro libraries needing to be ported to the DS or a complete rewrite of allegro for just what is needed for this. I would prefer to do a rewrite, there's no point in using Allegro if it's not completely necessary.