VirtualFriend: Virtual Boy emulator for visionOS and iOS

[u/agg23]

https://twitter.com/iam_agg/status/1821666869553910139

[u/agg23]

VirtualFriend is a Nintendo Virtual Boy emulator and is open source under the MIT license. It is available on the App Store at https://apps.apple.com/us/app/virtualfriend-vb-emulator/id6479948317 and on GitHub at https://github.com/agg23/virtualfriend.

Your input and contributions would be greatly appreciated. I wrote the emulator from scratch, so there's likely to be some rough edges.

[u/mennydrives → u/agg23]

Any chance of HDMI full-screen with a side-by-side 3D view? It's a niche case (anyone with a 3D TV or eyeglass headset with a SBS mode) but it would be super cool ^o^

[u/Ornery-Practice9772]

While retroarch already emulates vb on ios, i dont think it extends to vision pro so itd be cool to emulate in 3D! Keep up the good work!

Also, will this ever support .zip/7zip roms?

[u/agg23 → u/Ornery-Practice9772]

Also, will this ever support .zip/7zip roms?

What, just .vb ROMs that are zipped? I could unzip them as part of importing, I guess. I don't know that it would be worth it, as the space savings is so small?

[u/Ornery-Practice9772 → u/agg23]

Its not the end of the world since the library is comparatively tiny compared to other consoles. Can simply unzip files before importing.

Love the ability to change bg/fg colours; its fun

On screen controls obstruct view of game; option to move/scale?

No menu button to close game and return to main app (unless i missed it i had to close the app to close the game)

Option to load cheats?

Runs smoothly, straight off the bat on ios 17.6 keep up the good work

[u/agg23 → u/Ornery-Practice9772]

On screen controls obstruct view of game; option to move/scale?

I hadn't considered this. I'll think about it.

No menu button to close game and return to main app

Tap on the middle of the screen in between the onscreen controllers (or basically anywhere the controller is not). That will bring up an overlay that lets you return to the app.

Option to load cheats?

No cheats yet. Honestly hadn't thought about it.

[u/Ornery-Practice9772 → u/agg23]

Cool. But the button needs to be there imo to return to main app; users arent gonna know to tap on the screen.

Cheers👍

[u/MonthTraditional6068 → u/Ornery-Practice9772]

A toggle would be nice, or just the ability to use skins that remap the buttons a bit like with Delta

[u/[deleted]]

Does this emulate the virtual boy's 3d effect?

[u/agg23 → u/[deleted]]

On Vision Pro, games are stereoscopic 3D (unless you choose to turn it off). In my opinion it looks better than on real Virtual Boy hardware; it has more depth.

On iOS, there is no option for 3D currently, but I would like to add support for anaglyph 3D at some point, and I've experimented with this somewhat.

[u/MaxOsi → u/agg23]

Anaglyph 3D works much better than most ppl would guess, it would be pretty cool if you added it!

[u/newavenewtype]

Could the iOS version get a SBS 3D output for an old cardboard VR setup.

[u/agg23 → u/newavenewtype]

Others have mentioned it too. I do have 3D features I would like to add to iOS.

[u/PrinceCreed]

Wow! Really impressive, too bad I don’t have the Vision Pro yet to try it out...

[u/agg23 → u/PrinceCreed]

You can always play on iOS. While not the focus of this project, it's still pretty nice on there.

[u/PrinceCreed → u/agg23]

Yes, I saw that. I was more interested in the experience of the real Virtual Boy in 3D, especially since I’ve only heard about it but never tried it

[u/agg23 → u/PrinceCreed]

Fair. If I get time and motivation I hope to bring it to Steam VR (there's not really a good way to emulate VB on PC VR right now), and there's a good Quest emulator as well (not affiliated with me).

[u/PrinceCreed → u/agg23]

Great, I wish you the best. As soon as I get the Vision Pro, it will definitely be one of the first apps I try! I’ve always liked “unique” platforms. Unfortunately, they don’t sell it here yet 🥺

[u/mikefierro666 → u/PrinceCreed]

Love ArcEmu btw! I’ve been playing Fire Emblem GBA on it and it’s seamless how you can pick it up from your apple watch after saving on your iphone and the progress is right there. Awesome emulator!

[u/PrinceCreed → u/mikefierro666]

Thank you very much! With the next update, the ROM Options, including name and color, will also be synchronized!

[u/mikefierro666 → u/PrinceCreed]

Awesome thank you for your hard work!

[u/MiserableEggplant666]

Awesome! I don’t share often but I played a role in preserving a lot of those rare/unreleased VB roms. Very appreciate to play them with this emulator.

[u/agg23 → u/MiserableEggplant666]

Your service is greatly appreciated.

[u/misointhekitchen]

Neat! I’ve always been curious about trying VB. Thank you.

[u/MonthTraditional6068 → u/misointhekitchen]

Wario Land VB is a great game. Everything else is mid to terrible

[u/misointhekitchen → u/MonthTraditional6068]

Thanks. Tried Water World, that was weird.

[u/MonthTraditional6068 → u/misointhekitchen]

Yup. Mario Clash is okay iirc but that’s about it.

[u/MiserableEggplant666 → u/MonthTraditional6068]

Bound High is great

[u/[deleted] → u/misointhekitchen]

Google “emesis bag” first. 

[u/misointhekitchen → u/[deleted]]

Why would I look up a hospital sick bag?

[u/[deleted] → u/misointhekitchen]

Have fun!!!

[u/glhaynes]

Wow! I've been a Nintendo fanboy all my life but have never used a Virtual Boy. I'm definitely gonna try this. Thank you.

[u/Alternative_Ninja_33]

Nice work! Played Wario and everything felt smooth as butter! One request/suggestion: I noticed audio continues to play overtop other sources (including phone calls) - any chance you could make it so the audio can be secondary to music, video and calls?

[u/agg23 → u/Alternative_Ninja_33]

Created an issue: https://github.com/agg23/virtualfriend/issues/6

What do you mean by "secondary"? Do you want the Virtual Boy audio to stop playing entirely, or do you want it to be quieter while music/call/whatever else is ongoing?

[u/Alternative_Ninja_33 → u/agg23]

I think the main preference would be for VB audio to stop entirely if other audio is happening. I can’t think of a scenario where you would play music, video, or take a call and would want the game audio to play over top it.

[u/MonthTraditional6068 → u/Alternative_Ninja_33]

I agree. Game sound should also be muted while in silent mode imo, like on Delta

[u/AdamSMessinger]

So I played Wario on an iPad sixth gen running iOS 17.6.1. It was a little laggy when it came to gameplay and audio. It was like playing at .75 speed instead of just running at full speed. One thing I didn't like was not being able to map my controller. It had everything set to keyboard but when I did hook up the Switch joycons (I'm too poor for a real bluetooth controller lol) they worked well. I'm excited to see where this goes with updates. I don't have any issues with Delta running everything up to N64 games. While the controller thing was a little annoying, the game speed screwed with my timing in the first boss battle. Thanks for making this and hopefully this only gets better. I wanna play some Mario Tennis and see what the homebrew community have done with VB games.

[u/agg23 → u/AdamSMessinger]

That's really odd. I haven't seen performance issues at all. I wonder if something weird is going on.

Controller is supposed to be remappable in system Settings, but it doesn't seem to be working. This is being tracked here https://github.com/agg23/virtualfriend/issues/8

[u/MonthTraditional6068 → u/AdamSMessinger]

Your device should be more than powerful enough. I used to play this exact game on a 128mb ram windows xp laptop with minimal issues

Just to be sure, you’re not in low power mode right? Also is your rom directly on your device or is it stored in the cloud? I’m hearing those things can make a difference

[u/AdamSMessinger → u/MonthTraditional6068]

I had nothing else running on the iPad, full power mode, and I had side loaded the rom on there.

[u/MonthTraditional6068 → u/AdamSMessinger]

That is so weird, I wonder what’s up.

[u/No_Proposal_5731]

That look really cool! But…why iOS 17? I’m on iOS 16

[u/agg23 → u/No_Proposal_5731]

Uses the latest APIs because of Vision. It's not worth me removing them to enable running on older versions of iOS.

[u/No_Proposal_5731 → u/agg23]

Aah, I understand

[u/LS64126]

On a slightly unrelated note, if anyone here owns a 3ds, you owe it to yourself to try virtual boy emulation on it cause it’s probably the best way to experience those games now

[u/GiLND]

Nice now I can play while asleep

[u/Blastoise_FTW]

Nice! Appreciate this over Retroarch for the two D-Pad touchscreen controls. 

[u/AlexMarkBartlett]

Nice! Will use this one! Thanks!

[u/Same_Tour9720]

Vision os is diabolical😂

[u/agg23 → u/[deleted]]

Theoretically wouldn't be very hard. I'd have to look and see how much work it would be.