Virtual Boy Documentation

Last updated August 11, 2015
Valid as of 0.9.38.6

Table of Contents:

Introduction
Settings Reference

Introduction

Virtual Boy emulation in Mednafen is original code, except for an extremely modified(optimizations, bug fixes, and better all-around emulation) V810 emulator core taken from Reality Boy years ago for PC-FX emulation.

Virtual Boy ROM images must each have an extension of ".vb" or ".vboy" to be recognized as such. Mednafen versions prior to 0.9.13 allowed ".bin" as well, but this conflicts with the Sega Megadrive emulation module.

Due to how the left+right views are transformed into a single image, enabling most of the image filter effects(bilinear interpolation, OpenGL pixel shaders, special scalers, etc.) is not recommended. However, they will work properly with the "cscope" and "sidebyside" 3D modes, and may work tolerably with the "anaglyph" 3D mode. This limitation may be corrected in the future by refactoring the 3D mode mixing out to the driver side, post individual filtering for each left/right view; however, this would significantly negatively impact performance.

To use the "hli" mode with a "Line Interlaced 3D" monitor, you'll want to set "vb.yscale(fs)" to 1, "vb.liprescale" appropriately, and "vb.xscale(fs)" to 2 multiplied by the value of "vb.liprescale".

NOTE: The "hli" and "vli" modes will not work properly in windowed video output mode; you may need to adjust the window's position to get the lines to line up correctly for the 3D effect to work.

Settings Reference

Caution: Any settings that change emulation behavior as seen from the emulated game are shown with the setting name bolded in the table. One should be conscious of these settings if one has changed them from the default values when using network play or movies, as they can cause desychronizations if not set the same among hosts(or between the recording emulator and the playing emulator).

Setting:	Value Type:	Possible Values:	Default Value:	Description:
vb.3dmode	enum	anaglyph cscope sidebyside vli hli	anaglyph	3D mode. anaglyph - Anaglyph Used in conjunction with classic dual-lens-color glasses. cscope - CyberScope Intended for use with the CyberScope 3D device. sidebyside - Side-by-Side The left-eye image is displayed on the left, and the right-eye image is displayed on the right. vli - Vertical Line Interlaced Vertical lines alternate between left view and right view. hli - Horizontal Line Interlaced Horizontal lines alternate between left view and right view.

vb.3dreverse	boolean	0 1	0	Reverse left/right 3D views.

vb.allow_draw_skip	boolean	0 1	0	Allow draw skipping. If vb.instant_display_hack is set to "1", and this setting is set to "1", then frame-skipping the drawing to the emulated framebuffer will be allowed. THIS WILL CAUSE GRAPHICAL GLITCHES, AND THEORETICALLY(but unlikely) GAME CRASHES, ESPECIALLY WITH DIRECT FRAMEBUFFER DRAWING GAMES.

vb.anaglyph.lcolor	integer	0x000000 through 0xFFFFFF	0xffba00	Anaglyph maximum-brightness color for left view.

vb.anaglyph.preset	enum	disabled red_blue red_cyan red_electriccyan red_green green_magenta yellow_blue	red_blue	Anaglyph preset colors. disabled - Disabled Forces usage of custom anaglyph colors. red_blue - Red/Blue Classic red/blue anaglyph. red_cyan - Red/Cyan Improved quality red/cyan anaglyph. red_electriccyan - Red/Electric Cyan Alternate version of red/cyan red_green - Red/Green green_magenta - Green/Magenta yellow_blue - Yellow/Blue

vb.anaglyph.rcolor	integer	0x000000 through 0xFFFFFF	0x00baff	Anaglyph maximum-brightness color for right view.

vb.cpu_emulation	enum	fast accurate	fast	CPU emulation mode. fast - Fast Mode Fast mode trades timing accuracy, cache emulation, and executing from hardware registers and RAM not intended for code use for performance. accurate - Accurate Mode Increased timing accuracy, though not perfect, along with cache emulation, at the cost of decreased performance. Additionally, even the pipeline isn't correctly and fully emulated in this mode.

vb.default_color	integer	0x000000 through 0xFFFFFF	0xF0F0F0	Default maximum-brightness color to use in non-anaglyph 3D modes.

vb.disable_parallax	boolean	0 1	0	Disable parallax for BG and OBJ rendering.

vb.input.instant_read_hack	boolean	0 1	1	Input latency reduction hack. Reduces latency in some games by 20ms by returning the current pad state, rather than latched state, on serial port data reads. This hack may cause some homebrew software to malfunction, but it should be relatively safe for commercial official games.

vb.instant_display_hack	boolean	0 1	0	Display latency reduction hack. Reduces latency in games by displaying the framebuffer 20ms earlier. This hack has some potential of causing graphical glitches, so it is disabled by default.

vb.liprescale	integer	1 through 10	2	Line Interlaced prescale.

vb.sidebyside.separation	integer	0 through 1024	0	Number of pixels to separate L/R views by. This setting refers to pixels before vb.xscale(fs) scaling is taken into consideration. For example, a value of "100" here will result in a separation of 300 screen pixels if vb.xscale(fs) is set to "3".

Setting:	Value Type:	Possible Values:	Default Value:	Description:
vb.debugger.disfontsize	enum	xsmall small medium large	small	Disassembly font size. Note: Setting the font size to larger than the default may cause text overlap in the debugger. xsmall - 4x5 small - 5x7 medium - 6x13 large - 9x18

vb.debugger.memcharenc	string		shift_jis	Character encoding for the debugger's memory editor.

vb.enable	boolean	0 1	1	Enable (automatic) usage of this module.

vb.forcemono	boolean	0 1	0	Force monophonic sound output.

vb.pixshader	enum	none autoip autoipsharper scale2x sabr ipsharper ipxnoty ipynotx ipxnotysharper ipynotxsharper	none	Enable specified OpenGL pixel shader. Obviously, this will only work with the OpenGL "video.driver" setting, and only on cards and OpenGL implementations that support pixel shaders, otherwise you will get a black screen, or Mednafen may display an error message when starting up. Bilinear interpolation is disabled with pixel shaders, and any interpolation, if present, will be noted in the description of each pixel shader. none - None/Disabled autoip - Auto Interpolation Will automatically interpolate on each axis if the corresponding effective scaling factor is not an integer. autoipsharper - Sharper Auto Interpolation Same as "autoip", but when interpolation is done, it is done in a manner that will reduce blurriness if possible. scale2x - Scale2x sabr - SABR v3.0 GPU-intensive. ipsharper - Sharper bilinear interpolation. ipxnoty - Linear interpolation on X axis only. ipynotx - Linear interpolation on Y axis only. ipxnotysharper - Sharper version of "ipxnoty". ipynotxsharper - Sharper version of "ipynotx".

vb.scanlines	integer	-100 through 100	0	Enable scanlines with specified opacity. Opacity is specified in %; IE a value of "100" will give entirely black scanlines. Negative values are the same as positive values for non-interlaced video, but for interlaced video will cause the scanlines to be overlaid over the previous field's lines(only if the video.deinterlacer setting is set to "weave", the default).

vb.special	enum	none hq2x hq3x hq4x scale2x scale3x scale4x 2xsai super2xsai supereagle nn2x nn3x nn4x nny2x nny3x nny4x	none	Enable specified special video scaler. The destination rectangle is NOT altered by this setting, so if you have xscale and yscale set to "2", and try to use a 3x scaling filter like hq3x, the image is not going to look that great. The nearest-neighbor scalers are intended for use with bilinear interpolation enabled, at high resolutions(such as 1280x1024; nn2x(or nny2x) + bilinear interpolation + fullscreen stretching at this resolution looks quite nice). none - None/Disabled hq2x - hq2x hq3x - hq3x hq4x - hq4x scale2x - scale2x scale3x - scale3x scale4x - scale4x 2xsai - 2xSaI super2xsai - Super 2xSaI supereagle - Super Eagle nn2x - Nearest-neighbor 2x nn3x - Nearest-neighbor 3x nn4x - Nearest-neighbor 4x nny2x - Nearest-neighbor 2x, y axis only nny3x - Nearest-neighbor 3x, y axis only nny4x - Nearest-neighbor 4x, y axis only

vb.stretch	enum	0 full aspect aspect_int aspect_mult2	aspect_mult2	Stretch to fill screen. 0 - Disabled full - Full Full-screen stretch, disregarding aspect ratio. aspect - Aspect Preserve Full-screen stretch as far as the aspect ratio(in this sense, the equivalent xscalefs == yscalefs) can be maintained. aspect_int - Aspect Preserve + Integer Scale Full-screen stretch, same as "aspect" except that the equivalent xscalefs and yscalefs are rounded down to the nearest integer. aspect_mult2 - Aspect Preserve + Integer Multiple-of-2 Scale Full-screen stretch, same as "aspect_int", but rounds down to the nearest multiple of 2.

vb.tblur	boolean	0 1	0	Enable video temporal blur(50/50 previous/current frame by default).

vb.tblur.accum	boolean	0 1	0	Accumulate color data rather than discarding it.

vb.tblur.accum.amount	real	0 through 100	50	Blur amount in accumulation mode, specified in percentage of accumulation buffer to mix with the current frame.

vb.videoip	enum	0 1 x y	0	Enable (bi)linear interpolation. 0 - Disabled 1 - Bilinear x - Linear (X) Interpolation only on the X axis. y - Linear (Y) Interpolation only on the Y axis.

vb.xres	integer	0 through 65536	0	Full-screen horizontal resolution. A value of "0" will cause the desktop horizontal resolution to be used.

vb.xscale	real	0.01 through 256	2.000000	Scaling factor for the X axis in windowed mode.

vb.xscalefs	real	0.01 through 256	1.000000	Scaling factor for the X axis in fullscreen mode. For this settings to have any effect, the ".stretch" setting must be set to "0".

vb.yres	integer	0 through 65536	0	Full-screen vertical resolution. A value of "0" will cause the desktop vertical resolution to be used.

vb.yscale	real	0.01 through 256	2.000000	Scaling factor for the Y axis in windowed mode.

vb.yscalefs	real	0.01 through 256	1.000000	Scaling factor for the Y axis in fullscreen mode. For this settings to have any effect, the ".stretch" setting must be set to "0".