in3D wrote:
Thanks for the advice, but I have a few problems.
1: I can’t afford the Windows C Dev Kit, or whatever it’s called. That’s why I need something in Visual Basic, because it’s free.
2: I tried running Mednafen, but all I could see it do was add a few directories to it’s folder. No window was displayed. Is it supposed to be like this? I’m curious to know what I’m competing with.
But that’s OK, because my basic goal is to make all Nintendo games, new and old, available in 3D. So I’ll just look for a GBC emulator instead!
I think you mean Visual Studio. Visual C++ Express is available for free. However, if you’re going to be hacking away at an emulator, I wouldn’t be using Visual Studio. The reason you couldn’t get Mednafen to do anything is because it’s command-line based. If you’re going to be running mednafen (and especially if you’re going to be compiling mednafen) you had better understand the command line. I don’t even know if you can build Mednafen with Visual C++. Most open-source emulators are going to build with MinGW GCC.
I don’t know what kind of programming experience you have, but if at this point Visual Basic is the language you’re most comfortable with, hacking away at an emulator may be a bit over your head. I’m not trying to be mean, I just don’t want you to get frustrated. I’ve been there and I know what it’s like. If you’re a lot more experienced than that, please feel free to disregard my advice. Just trying to help. 🙂
DogP wrote:
If they release some really good first party games, I’ll most likely pick it up just for them… but the 3D on that tiny screen just isn’t really immersive. 3D on a small screen (like 3D cell phone screens) just seems a little pointless. VB FTW!
I agree with you and find it really funny. I’ve only played with a 3DS for a few minutes, but I knid of noticed the same thing, the immersiveness (is that even a word?) just isn’t there. Unbelievably, the clunky visor that you have to press your head into actually helps. On a funny side note, I was curious when the 3DS came out, so I checked some specifications… did you know that up until the 3DS top screen, the Virtual Boy “screen” had a higher resolution than any single screen on a Nintendo portable?
Vaughanabe13 wrote:
Plus the launch lineup is terrible and until the remakes of Zelda and Star Fox 64 come out I have zero excitement for any of the games. I’ve tried Pilot Wings, Street Fighter and a few others and they were only impressive for about 5 minutes. Pilot Wings is pretty worthless if you look at it as a game and not just a 3D tech demo.
Plus the online store wasn’t out at the console launch which is very bad form. Why release a device before its not ready and before there are any attractive games for the system? The sales for the 3DS are apparently underwhelming and I would not be surprised in the least if the 3DS goes the way of the Virtual Boy. At this point in time 3D is just a buzzword that stands for “more expensive and not worth it.” Consumers just don’t want 3D. They don’t want it at home on their TV, they don’t want to pay extra at the theater, and they don’t want an ugly brick of a gaming system that has to be held a foot from your face.
Yeah, I’m starting to draw some interesting parallels between the VB and the 3DS. Poor launch title support, negative press, “It hurts my eyes”, the whole bit… I think most Nintendo fans are holding out until Starfox 64 and OoT, but you’d better hope it survives that long or the 3DS will relive it’s older sibling’s unreleased game nightmare as well. 😯
The problem with eBay is that the extremely rare items like the debugger just might end up in a closet somewhere and that would be the end of it. Do you think there are any museums that might want the really rare stuff? I know the CHM has some video game stuff, but the VB probably isn’t iconic enough for them to want and super cool ultra rare one-of-a-kind VB prototypes… 😕
I’d love that giant prototype, but
a) No money
b) No space
c) No reason to have it 😀
The VB is a very fun console. Most of the games are pretty mediocre, but the thing that pulls the system together is the subtle “wow” factor you get from everything. It’s really immersive, and the 3D effects on most games are pretty nice. (And don’t let the red-only displays get you down. Just remember that it’s the same bit depth as the Gameboy, and that until the release of the 3DS it had the highest resolution screen of any Nintendo portable.) My favorite titles for the system are probably Teleroboxer, Galactic Pinball, and Wario Land (in that order) which aren’t hard to find games. Even if you can only get a system with Mario’s Tennis, you can expand from there. (And Mario’s Tennis is fun for a couple hours.)
I have to agree with you about the prices, I recently started a topic about how inflated they’ve become in the last few years. These days, if you can find a system that’s complete (the stand and foam visor really improve the enjoyability) and comes with a couple decent games (the only bad games are really Virtual League Baseball and Waterworld) for under $50, it’s probably a good deal. Hope you can find one!
That’s odd, that’s not usually the part that breaks. Of course, that could be a good thing, since you could find someone with another broken stand (the more common kind) and still be able to use it to fix yours. I don’t know if you’re going to find any spares here (unless DogP has some lying around :-P), but you might check eBay for broken stands. I don’t think that any homebrewed solution is going to be as sturdy as the OEM clip. If you still have the piece that broke off you could always try epoxy if you haven’t already.
Boneriver wrote:
Back again. I seem to be able to temporarily fix the glitchy display by leaving the Virtual Boy on the ground with the eyepieces facing upwards. I don’t know why this works, but it seems to do the trick for now. Unfortunately, it’s very easy to accidentally knock the cables out of place again while playing.
It’s not so much “knocking them out of place”, as the cables are really light, and although the glue is bad, they’re still securely fastened at either end. Although I have no idea why leaving the system face up would make it work…
Yeah, my first time actually playing a Virtual Boy was at Goodwill. They had a console with the visor and stand for $15, and I thought it was a cool toy, but I didn’t want to buy on impulse. It didn’t matter in the long run, but I still wish I had nabbed it.
Yeah, you’re right about having to pay someone to insert the battery, I hadn’t thought about that. I also didn’t think the mechanical stress of being dropped would be an issue. The engineers know what they’re doing, and I know the savings add up, ($0.01 over 1 million cartridges is $10,000 after all!) but I still wish it was possible to make things easier on people who want to use the product later… Things just aren’t built to last anymore. 🙁
DogP wrote:
I assume it’s this style holder: http://www.sparkfun.com/products/7948 ? If so, you should make sure the copper pad underneath is clean… sometimes the copper oxidizes, causing bad contact. With those holders, the PCB itself is the bottom contact, rather than typical battery holders, which have metal contacts for + and -, which get soldered to the board.
DogP
Right, I thought of this a few minutes after I posted. I remember when I was looking for a battery holder to replace a battery in one of my Genesis games, I came up with those mostly. I seem to recall that someone who did those kind of replacements said that they had never found a plastic battery holder that was small enough to fit in a Gameboy cartridge.
That’s good news for Flashboy+ owners about the batteries just being dirty. I wish cartridge manufactures had just used battery holders instead of soldering the battery on. I can’t imagine it would have been that much more expensive.
Lester Knight wrote:
some good news for FB+ users. below is a response from richard.
BTW it does not require any soldering to replace the battery, it fits in a holder on the PCB. All you need is the screwdriver for the 2 screws that hold the cart together.
I missed this when you posted it, so… Really?! I didn’t know they made holders that small. I might have to ask Richard where he bought them and see if I can get mine hands on some for all my Gameboy save batteries that have died…
I wouldn’t risk heating up the whole system, as the case (among other parts) probably can’t take the heat. Wrapping it in a towel won’t work because there aren’t any parts inside the Virtual Boy that produce excessive heat. (Note that there aren’t any vents on the case that a towel would block.) All the fixes for the ribbon cables have to be applied directly to the ribbon cables themselves, so if I were you, I would just go without Virtual Boy for a few days until your bits get there. 🙁
VirtualJockey wrote:
I would also like to note that VB prices are probably driven up because Fwirt stole my Vertical Force (Hard Mode) highscore 2 days ago 🙁
I’ll bet I could have gotten it even higher if I’d spent more than 30 minutes on it… 😀 I figured I should start putting some high scores up…
But all that aside, I agree that the Virtual Boy was undervalued, but I think it’s being overvalued at the moment. I wouldn’t say that there are any Virtual Boy games that are as much of a masterpiece as say, Super Metroid, but even common VB games are selling for as much as a copy of SM goes for. I also think rarity is not as much of an issue as it’s made out to be. Although Virtual Boy stuff is uncommon, there still should be enough copies of most games to go around (Aside from Virtual Lab and Space Invaders). In some ways, I think it was good for the VB community that the system was kind of obscure, as it guaranteed that all the hardcore fans would be able to find copies of the games they wanted. I just wish I had picked up a copy of Nester’s or 3D Tetris back when I could afford it. >:(
If you have your volume up, both Mario’s Tennis and Teleroboxer (very common games) have music at the warning screen, so you could use those to make sure it’s not a more serious problem.
Huh, I emailed him my updated source archive back when I posted that, but he never emailed me back about it or updated the firmware version on the DIY page, so I assumed he never received it or didn’t care. It’s funny to see that product in the store now, I wonder if he merged my code or wrote a version himself… Either way, that’s pretty cool. It’s a whole different experience playing with a real VB pad, so hopefully that option will be accessible to more people now.
Vaughanabe13 wrote:
Thanks for the heads up and thus, making your chances of winning a little bit worse! 😀
Eh, don’t mention it. I thought about keeping it to myself, but everyone would probably have found out by the end of the day anyway. I figure there’s already going to be a few thousand entries, so why not increase the chances of it going to someone who will actually appreciate it?
My question would be, are the cameras the right distance apart? They looked too close together in the pictures to get a good VB shot to me. As far as the POV issue, you’re probably going to see “scanlines” as the camera refresh overlaps with the time when the display is in the middle of the frame. (But will they be vertical in the VB’s case?) It’s still a cool idea though.
Of course, this whole problem would be resolved in a way if Nintendo would release some of the VB games they still have the rights to on 3DS. I really think Teleroboxer has further potential…
Or you could do some craaaazy green wiring on the SRAM since it’s only a prototype. 😯 Good to hear it’s coming along. I guess we’ll hope to see some screenshots soon!
If multiple media sources are doing this, then I’d say the 3DS is having the same problem the VB did, but to a lesser extent. The difference between the two is that the 3DS is capable of games without 3D, and is essentially a more powerful DS, so it will still sell. I don’t understand how people see touch and motion controls (which I kind of hate) as “revolutionary”, where 3D is relegated to a pesky gimmick. Wii bowling has probably hurt me more than VB ever did. 😛
