Original Post

I’m not new to this site as I’ve visited it a number of times off and on over the years. 3D is a huge hobby of mine, and the Virtual Boy is no exception to my fascination of the subject.

Recently I’ve acquired a Sceptre 32 inch 3D tv, and not only do I use it as my main living room tv monitor, but I also use it as a computer monitor and I’ve used it to watch a number of 3D youtube videos as well as play most of my games in 3D on it.

But now I’m a bit stumped… I’d like to be able to play some Virtual Boy games on this device. The problem is, I cant seem to find a decent emulator that would fit the specifications needed to do this. The emulator would need to be able to play both left and right images side by side and both perfectly stretched across the screen. I would then simply set my 3D tv to combine the images via the side by side mode.

there are a couple of emulators that do support the simple side by side method but they either wont stretch perfectly across the screen, or they do but only by width, thus stretching the image too thin vertically [also that same emulator distorts the colors into this horrendous red and blue color]

I found one that I can use with just simple anaglyph [red and blue] glasses, but this entirely defeats the purpose of my new 3D telly.

Can anybody in this community please point me to a good emulator or something that does what I need it to do?

thanks in advance for any help πŸ™‚ if y’all are nice enough I just might become a regular here!

9 Replies

I once played vb games using mednafen on my 3d tv using sideBySide mode. The configuration can be a little tricky but if you want to I can search for my config file.

that would be awesome, actually πŸ˜€ thanks!

MisterBull wrote:
that would be awesome, actually πŸ˜€ thanks!

Apparently my config got lost so I hacked together a new one. It is better then my previous one but still not perfect. madnefen will display the game fullscreen sidebyside but the image wont fill the whole screen. The config is optimized for full hd. If you compare my config with the original one you will see what I changed. Would be cool if you could post an improved version.

thunderstruck wrote:

MisterBull wrote:
that would be awesome, actually πŸ˜€ thanks!

Apparently my config got lost so I hacked together a new one. It is better then my previous one but still not perfect. madnefen will display the game fullscreen sidebyside but the image wont fill the whole screen. The config is optimized for full hd. If you compare my config with the original one you will see what I changed. Would be cool if you could post an improved version.

I’ll give it a quick try.

I did play with the config file yesterday [kinda wish they’d make a config.exe for this sort of thing, or at least add it to the windows menu gui…] there’s quiet a bit of variables to work with in that file. I did manage to get the side by side to work, but I could not for the life of me get it to go full screen :/

So here’s hoping your config file works! πŸ˜€

huh. I still cant get it to go full screen πŸ˜›

I’ll toy with it some more later on. got a bit of housework to do. πŸ˜›

Thanks for the config file though πŸ™‚

That’s strange. It should go to fullscreen if you set video.fs to 1. Just drag and drop a .vb onto the mednafen.exe after you copied the config. Note that mednafen will change the config file if you start it. Meaning, if you leave fullscreen mode it will set video.fs to 0. You should also make sure your graphics card supports the resolution specified by vb.xres and vb.yres.

I figured out that you can toggle full screen mode by pressing alt+enter

After that I tinkered with the config file a little. Made it so that both images would stretch across the display, changed the palette color from red to black&white and configured my control scheme to work with my gamepad. And turned on the parallax layers for backgrounds and objects.

here’s the altered config file just in case you want to see what I’ve done. πŸ™‚

I’ve managed to get it to work exactly how I want it.

Again, very much thanks for your help!

I’ve got one to share, too!

If you have a passive 3-D monitor like the ASUS VG23AH, there’s no need to switch to “3-D mode”. The mechanism that sends each image to the correct eye (called FPR or “film-type, patterned retarder” in the VG23AH) is always active (but only visible when wearing the glasses). All you need is a source with the two images horizontally interleaved. Most (all?) VB emulators support this mode, and Mednafen is no exception. The scaling parameters do need a bit of tweaking to get a large image with the right aspect ratio, and that’s what I’ve done here. I scaled it up to the largest integer multiple that fits in 1920×1080 (full-HD). There’s a bit of “readme” stuff in the file, for the curious.

Enjoy!

  • This reply was modified 11 years, 7 months ago by RunnerPack.

MisterBull wrote:
I’m not new to this site as I’ve visited it a number of times off and on over the years. 3D is a huge hobby of mine, and the Virtual Boy is no exception to my fascination of the subject.

I’m a 3D fan as well. Have several collections — Viewmaster, Tru-Vue, Keystone. When I can combine multiple addictions (like getting 3D pics of the Graff and Hindenburg Zeppelins) I’m even more ecstatic! πŸ˜€

I have a home-made camera, started with a Revere front-plate (which I stepped down to 2.5 inches). It shoots five-hole half-frames (pairs), Made a viewer that uses amici-roof prisms, shoot color slide film. It’s getting very hard to find slide film & processing! I hate digital!!!

Have you ever shot “Hyperstereos”?

Recently I’ve acquired a Sceptre 32 inch 3D tv, and not only do I use it as my main living room tv monitor, but I also use it as a computer monitor and I’ve used it to watch a number of 3D youtube videos as well as play most of my games in 3D on it.

I’d love to hear if you get it to work. Imagine changing colors on something like “Wario Land”, and playing it in 3D! Though I tried a 3DTV once, started giving me a headache as soon as I put on the glasses. Not sure why.

I’d like to see a movement to bring back 4×3 format; Human eyes are NOT widescreen (nor high-resolution), the world is not widescreen, best theater in town is Imax — not widescreen! “Widescreen” was a gimmick (started by Fox in 1953 with “The Robe”) because movie makers were afraid TV would bankrupt theaters. There are a LOT of people like me who despise widescreen (and digital)! But there’s no spokesman or venue for us. I paid a small fortune for a device that FIXES dvd movies/tv, I don’t have to watch ANYTHING “widescreen” any more!

Thanks in advance for any help πŸ™‚ if y’all are nice enough I just might become a regular here!

You’re very welcome here; everyone here is (are?) 3D “enthusiasts”!

πŸ™‚

 

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