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# Virtual Boy Documentation

Last updated December 31, 2010
Valid as of 0.9.16-WIP

Table of Contents:

Introduction

Settings Reference

## Introduction

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 conjuction 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 |  | small | Disassembly font size.
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 ipxnoty ipynotx ipsharper ipxnotysharper ipynotxsharper scale2x | 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 ipxnoty - Linear interpolation on X axis only. ipynotx - Linear interpolation on Y axis only. ipsharper - Sharper bilinear interpolation. ipxnotysharper - Sharper version of "ipxnoty". ipynotxsharper - Sharper version of "ipynotx". scale2x - Scale2x
vb.scanlines | integer | 0 through 100 | 0 | Enable scanlines with specified opacity. Opacity is specified in %; IE a value of "100" will give entirely black scanlines.
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 | 0 | 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.
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 | boolean | 0 1 | 0 | Enable bilinear interpolation.
vb.xres | integer | 64 through 65536 | 800 | Full-screen horizontal resolution.
vb.xscale | real | 0.01 through 256 | 2.000000 | Scaling factor for the X axis.
vb.xscalefs | real | 0.01 through 256 | 2.000000 | Scaling factor for the X axis in fullscreen mode.
vb.yres | integer | 64 through 65536 | 600 | Full-screen vertical resolution.
vb.yscale | real | 0.01 through 256 | 2.000000 | Scaling factor for the Y axis.
vb.yscalefs | real | 0.01 through 256 | 2.000000 | Scaling factor for the Y axis in fullscreen mode.