Virtual Boy Emulator

Over at another forum, the idea of a Virtual Boy emulator came up, and it sounds like a really cool idea. There are a bunch of emulators out there that are open source for the system, and most of them feature settings which lets you modify the 3D settings so that it works with different kind of goggles, or just plain 2D gaming. It also has some very good games that would work great on a TV, and the Wii+Nunchuk or double sticks on the classic controllers would work for the dual dpads on the original console. It's one of the last old systems not emulated on Wii by Nintendo so it would be nice to have them all on one console.

Figure out the best open source virtual boy emulator and someone might do it.

I think the best would be Reality Boy, which is open source. It runs with a 90% compatibility rate. However recently Mednafen added VB support and they have 100% compatibility, so I dunno if you could take some code to optimize a wii port.

There's more info on the different alternatives here.

[www.planetvb.com]

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corey89
I think the best would be Reality Boy, which is open source. It runs with a 90% compatibility rate. However recently Mednafen added VB support and they have 100% compatibility, so I dunno if you could take some code to optimize a wii port.

Since Mednafen has 100 % compability, it should be the preferred one or is there any other reason, it isn't appropriate for he wii?

Mednafen is open source (http://mednafen.sourceforge.net/releases/).

"Mednafen is a portable, utilizing OpenGL and SDL, argument(command-line)-driven multi-system emulator with many advanced features. The Atari Lynx, GameBoy (Color), GameBoy Advance, NES, PC Engine(TurboGrafx 16), SuperGrafx, Neo Geo Pocket (Color), PC-FX, and WonderSwan (Color) are emulated."

Perhaps this is the reason for any hesitation: it's not just a VB emulator, so a more slender program might be the most suitable if VB emulation is all that is needed. Sounds cool though, since there's a couple of systems not covered on the Wii yet, and it uses Open GL and SDL.
I'm not wise enough to determine whether it contains any x86 assembly optimizations like ZSNES, so someone else will have to look into that if they're interested.

Alright, I looked through all of them personally and reality boy is definitely the easiest and simplest to port. So much so that I've decided to do it myself. It may take a bit more time than I'd like as I'm a little preoccupied with this other emulator I'm working on :P

The SVN I've set-up for the project is here: [code.google.com]

If someone has a free time, making a logo to be used for the SVN and for the homebrew channel would be cool ;-)

If anyone wants to work on the project with me, please get in touch.

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Arikado
Alright, I looked through all of them personally and reality boy is definitely the easiest and simplest to port. So much so that I've decided to do it myself. It may take a bit more time than I'd like as I'm a little preoccupied with this other emulator I'm working on :P

The SVN I've set-up for the project is here: [code.google.com]

If someone has a free time, making a logo to be used for the SVN and for the homebrew channel would be cool ;-)

If anyone wants to work on the project with me, please get in touch.

I'll go ahead and do the logo and whatnot

EDIT: Logo done. Just tell me what you want changed, I've got it saved as a PSD with layers as well as a PNG





Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/20/2010 03:01AM by cactusjack901.

Actually, it looks fine as it is. Great job :)

If you could please downsize it to 128 x 48 it would be the perfect size to be the HBC logo for the app as well.

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Arikado
Actually, it looks fine as it is. Great job :)

If you could please downsize it to 128 x 48 it would be the perfect size to be the HBC logo for the app as well.

Sure, I figured it'd look better if I made it in a higher res first. It'd also be easier to find any errors I made

Edit: Here you are, one icon.png


Oh the joys of not having a job



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/20/2010 03:28AM by cactusjack901.

Yeah, again, it looks great. Don't get rid of the high-res version or anything. It's awesome. I just need the smaller size so it's hbc compatible.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/20/2010 03:24AM by Arikado.

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Arikado
Yeah, again, it looks great. Don't get rid of the high-res version or anything. It's awesome. I just need the smaller size so it's hbc compatible.

Yeah, sorry I took so long to post it, I accidentally clicked post before I even resized the image, and then had to edit into the post =p

Heh, don't worry about it. Your logo is on the SVN now. Great work once again =)

Coincidence strikes again. First, a couple of mounths ago. I was considering trying to port DeSmuME. Some weeks later Arikados claims he will start to do and I decide to help him. I fail a thousand times helping him and recently I realize DeSmuME is way to complex for me to port so I decided I'll do something else.

Then this topic comes up and like 3 days ago I decided to try to port a virtual boy emulator as the virtual boy system isn't as demanding as the DS and should therefore not be as impossible to port as DeSmuME is.

2 Days ago I decided Reality Boy is probably the best emulator and I also noticed the simplicity of it which encouraged me alot to continue working on it.

And yesterday I actually e-mailed David Tucker (the author of Reality Boy) about some info of Reality Boy.

This time I'm not going to try to help you, Arikado. I'd probably just delay your work anyway. Despite that, I'm mainly doing this in the purpose of learning, so I think I'd be better off doing it myself.

I also want to make clear that I by no means want to stop or slow down your project. There's a great chance that I will fail anyway, so you better continue it! ;D (I don't think this even wouldn't have stopped you from making it, but I thought, I'd let you know my stance.)

Also, I realize, this may look like a pure lie, regarding how unlikely it is to happen. (I mean, first DeSmuME and now this.) But if you're uncertain about that, you could always ask David Tucker whom I e-mailed before you stated you were going to port Reality Boy.

Why am I writing this? I don't know! Maybe just not to look like an idiot who steals your work if I'd happen to realese my emulator before you do, Arikado (which is very unlikeley to happen anyway, but as it isn't impossible, so I better write it.).



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/20/2010 12:03PM by profetylen.

My suggestion, is that the two of you keep the projects separate, but keep in contact about it. If Arikado hits a brick wall that you didn't, he can ask you, and vice versa. Then, somewhere down the line, maybe merge the two projects.

For example, you, may use libwiigui to make an interface like Tantric's emulators do, and Arikado may not, but down the road, maybe your GUI is better, but Arikado's backend is superior, why not merge them. Get what I mean?

Profetylen, best of luck to you. You're welcome to have anything you want from my SVN; Just remember to credit me if you win our little race with some of my source ;-)

The reason I chose to do this is because Reality Boy is tailor made for ALLEGRO. Coincidentally, I know ALLEGRO better than I know any other library. I've been writing code with it for more than 3 years.

One of the problems we had with porting DeSmuME was that we couldn't figure out what stuff does so we didn't know how to rewrite. This is partly because OpenGL was confusing as all hell and partly because I had no experience in emulation and didn't understand the different components of it. So now that I understand how emulation works and the code is written under a library I know like the back of my hand, I hope to have this done pretty quickly.

The only brick wall I see in my future is getting the color pallette to operate under GX and rewriting ALLEGRO's blitting functions under GX. But it's nothing a little research and a few /msgs can't overcome.

Lastly, Profetylen, if you change your mind you're welcome to e-mail me for help or come on board to my project any time you want. Again, best of luck to you =)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/20/2010 02:30PM by Arikado.

@Cactusjack: Yep, I get what you mean :)

@Arikado: Thank you, Arikado! Of course, I'll credit you if I use something! The thing is, if I want to get on board, you'll most likely work so quickly compared to me and I won't have the time to write any code of my own, only study yours and, because of that I wont learn as much as if I do it all on my own. However, if I realize that this project is to hard, so I can't do it on my own, I'll of course consider getting on board you project!

Another thing: Since Reality Boy Wii is now unavailable, my project doesn't have a name. And since Arikado will probably make the better emulator, it would be fun if my project could at least beat him in one genre, namely the naming. Suggestions anyone? (We need something über catchy here ;P)

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profetylen
@Cactusjack: Yep, I get what you mean :)

@Arikado: Thank you, Arikado! Of course, I'll credit you if I use something! The thing is, if I want to get on board, you'll most likely work so quickly compared to me and I won't have the time to write any code of my own, only study yours and, because of that I wont learn as much as if I do it all on my own. However, if I realize that this project is to hard, so I can't do it on my own, I'll of course consider getting on board you project!

Another thing: Since Reality Boy Wii is now unavailable, my project doesn't have a name. And since Arikado will probably make the better emulator, it would be fun if my project could at least beat him in one genre, namely the naming. Suggestions anyone? (We need something über catchy here ;P)

Well, it may be the sleep deprivation but "Realitii Boy" seems to work in my head. Once you decide on a name, I'll throw you together an icon as well.

I can't code, and I feel I don't give enough to the homebrew community, so I'm just gonna do whatever artwork people need for their projects (unless it requires me to actually freehand-draw something, because I can't draw. Pixel art, and cobbling things together from multiple pieces however, I can do no problem)

In other news: I just got an idea to make an official Wiibrew mym

SLEEP-DEPRIVATION-MAN, AWAYYYY!!!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/20/2010 04:31PM by cactusjack901.

@cactus: I'll consider that name, but I'll let the name part of my brain grow for a while before I decide. If I need an icon, I'll let you know. :) You can't code? That's a suprise. For some reason you seem like a guy who can!

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profetylen
@cactus: I'll consider that name, but I'll let the name part of my brain grow for a while before I decide. If I need an icon, I'll let you know. :) You can't code? That's a suprise. For some reason you seem like a guy who can!

Oh, I know all sorts of computer theory and whatnot, I just never sat down and learned C, or any other programming language, and have no idea where to begin.

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cactusjack901

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profetylen
@cactus: I'll consider that name, but I'll let the name part of my brain grow for a while before I decide. If I need an icon, I'll let you know. :) You can't code? That's a suprise. For some reason you seem like a guy who can!

Oh, I know all sorts of computer theory and whatnot, I just never sat down and learned C, or any other programming language, and have no idea where to begin.

I begun C++ here: [newdata.box.sk] if you're interested.