I’ve been debating building a VB mini console based on Raspberry PI, my VB mini chassis, and mini NFC VB carts like was done for a custom NES mini.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zT5jY35rHAE

Curious what people think about a VB version of this?

Here’s the original guy who did it for the NES mini:
https://www.daftmike.com/2016/07/NESPi.html

Here is another question about this setup: could 2 player games be supported? I have only played Hyper Fighting 2player so I don’t have many data points. . It seems like if both players see the same screen for the game it might be more easily doable, but if each player has a different view split screen would be required which I would imagine is more difficult to emulate?. Just spitballing thoughts since I don’t know the technical details of all of this.

astro187 wrote:
Here is another question about this setup: could 2 player games be supported? I have only played Hyper Fighting 2player so I don’t have many data points. . It seems like if both players see the same screen for the game it might be more easily doable, but if each player has a different view split screen would be required which I would imagine is more difficult to emulate?. Just spitballing thoughts since I don’t know the technical details of all of this.

Don’t know of any emulator that implements linkport functionality. I have notes somewhere of someone building a new emulator and specifically adding linkport support but haven’t heard any updates in about a year.

All the parts have come in to build and test this. Just minus the case. If all works out well then I’ll start on the case design.

I’ve decided to pause this project for now.

All the pieces are there to make a console to play VB games in 3D via Raspberry PI, but I think the support and setup for the average user is going to be too much. The cost is also a bit too high with all the bells and whistles I had planned.

Thinking about picking this project back up. 2 versions. Maybe 3.

1) Just a simple Raspberry Pi case that people can use just because its cool. VB mini case. People can buy just the case.

2) A Pi case setup with Retro Pi as a VB console emulator. VB mini case. I assemble it all. I guess really just an assembled setup version of #1.

3) And then a case for console people who want to use a VB motherboard and Virtual Tap. VB mini case. I could ship with assembled or not.

Maybe with those 3 options I can justify doing this project and getting a printer to do so. I also got permission to use the VB mini case on Thingiverse from the original author. That design is more of a clone of the VB than my version. But it has some design work to make it actually work. It’s actually not useable directly from Thingiverse, I learned.

So I’ve been working on a raspberry pi concept myself. It’s not a mini but a way to utilize an empty VB case from one I consolized.

The idea is to put a pi 4 running mednafen in the VB case combined with the project relativity.com style screens. The nice part of this approach was the screens act as one large screen split into two parts. This allows me to use mednafen split screen mode to create the 3D effect.

I’ve got the kit pieces assembled and the screens are working nice, but now I need to get the pi working with it which involves hdmi to mini display port trickery, which I’m struggling to get working.

I’ve attached a picture of the screens working to give an idea of what I described above.

Attachments:

1. 

   b8ed0e63-b448-4a87-9f1d-2fb638464904-scaled.jpeg
   

I like option 3

[astro187]

I still had this on my list of retro projects I’m tracking from back in 2018 when you started talking about it! I would be interested in this and probably option 3. I’m sure the setup isn’t that big a deal, but saving my personal time is something I’m willing to pay for these days for some things. My main concern is that it would look good in anaglyph on a modern TV so you still get the 3D effect. To each their own, of course, but for me I’m not interested in playing VB games in 2D, so I never pursued a Virtual Tap/Consolizer option for VB.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 10 months ago by astro187.
• This reply was modified 3 years, 10 months ago by astro187. Reason: typo

OK, great. Likely going to pull the trigger on a new 3D printer tomorrow that can do a variety of materials in different colors.