Visual Boy Advance GX

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Visual Boy Advance GX
Vbagx-logo.png
General
Author(s)Tantric
Contributor(s)Carl Kenner
TypeHandheld emulator
Latest Version2.2.5
Links
Download
Discussion
Source
Downloadable via the Homebrew Browser
Peripherals
Wiimote4.svg SensorBar.svg Nunchuck alternative.svg ClassicController.svg GameCube Controller DVD Loads files from SDHC cards in the Front SD slot USB mass storage device Local WiFi Internet
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Visual Boy Advance GX is a Game Boy Advance / Game Boy emulator for the Wii based on VBA-M. The GUI is powered by libwiigui.

Contents

Features

Notes from the Developer

Installation

Wii Channel

wilsoff and MrNick666 were gracious enough to create an official Wii Channel. You can find it on the Downloads page.

Prerequisites

Installation

  1. Copy the installer files to your SD/USB device
  2. Launch the installer from HBC
  3. Click Install
  4. Done!

Loading Games

From DVD

From Network (using SMB)

Using the emulator via network requires that your Wii is configured for your wireless network, and that you've set up a file share. You must provide a username, password, share name, and IP address to log in to the file server (in settings.xml). This XML file is created for you upon first loading the emulator and entering/exiting Preferences. Here's an example snippet for your XML configuration file: 

<section name="Network" description="Network Settings">
   <setting name="smbip" value="192.168.4.19" description="Share Computer IP" />
   <setting name="smbshare" value="wiifiles" description="Share Name" />
   <setting name="smbuser" value="yourusername" description="Share Username" />
   <setting name="smbpwd" value="yourpassword" description="Share Password" />
</section>

Also be sure to mirror the required directory structure within your share folder, or change the LoadFolder and SaveFolder values in the XML file. See the tinysmb page for additional information and troubleshooting.

Language Patches (IPS/UPS)

IPS files must be placed in the same folder as the ROM you are loading, and named identically to the ROM name, except with a IPS extension. They will be loaded automatically upon loading the game.

Patches can be used to colourise a monochrome gameboy game, or to translate a game into your language, or to stop the game from needing special hardware. Search the internet for patches. Many games have been translated by fans. They can be in IPS or UPS format. You don't need to patch anything yourself. Just put the IPS or UPS file in the vbagx/roms folder along with the rom itself. The patch must have the same name as the rom. Patches can not be put inside the ZIP file. If a rom is zipped, you might need to check inside the zip for the actual rom filename.

You must not use patched versions of Boktai roms! (Except for the translation patch for Boktai 3, which is highly recommended). The patches are for old emulators that don't support the solar sensor. VBA GX and NO$GBA support the solar sensor natively, and the patch will stop them from working.

You must also not use patched versions of WarioWare Twisted, Kirby's Tilt n Tumble, or Yoshi's Universal Gravitation (Topsy Turvy). The original roms are fully supported, and the patch will stop them from working.

Editing Palettes

Games for Gameboy Advance, Gameboy Color, and Super Gameboy, are already in colour, and changing palettes for these games will have no effect. Unfortunately, some Super Gameboy games are programmed in greyscale and that can't be changed yet.

Monochrome games for the original Gameboy had four shades of grey. But with VBA-Wii you can define your own colour palettes for these games.

VBA Wii comes with palettes for these games: Alleyway, Baseball, Duck Tales, Kid Icarus, Magnetic Soccer, Malibu Beach Volleyball, Marble Madness, Metroid 2 (not DX), Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat II, Mortal Kombat 3, Mr. Do!, The Simpsons: Bart and the Beanstalk, Super Mario Land, Tennis, Tetris, and TMNT: Fall of the Foot Clan

Other games will use a default palette of green background, white status bar, red sprites and blue sprites. This palette makes palette editing easier, but isn't all that suitable for most games. You should usually either edit the palette for these games, or switch to black and white mode. Or you can edit the default palette by manually editing the "sd:\apps\vbagx\palette.xml" file.

To switch between black and white and palette mode, start a game, go to the HOME menu, choose "Game Settings", choose "Video", and click on "Colorize Mono GB". The game "Megaman 1" will always be in black and white, to prevent flashing.

To edit the palette for the current game, go to the HOME menu, choose "Game Settings", choose "Video", and click on "Choose Palette" to go to the Palette Editor.

After editing the palette, the palette might appear screwed up in the game until the game changes palettes. To fix that, you might need to save the game and then start the game again, or you might need to press start to pause or go to the menu, then press start again, or you might need to try moving your sprite to the far left side of the screen.

Palette Editor

The colours are divided into 4 columns, which are arranged by brightness.

The first column is the background. The bottom "background" colour is used for both the background tiles, and also for parts of the screen not covered by background tiles or any sprites. Sometimes the background can go in front of some sprites, and in those cases the bottom background colour is transparent.

The second column is the "window". Usually that means the status bar and HUD, but it's sometimes used for other things, for example in Mortal Kombat 1, the entire game screen except the status bar is the window. VBA Wii is the only Gameboy emulator that lets you change the window colours, in other emulators the window uses the background colours.

The third column, "OBJ", is for sprites that use palette 0. Sprites only have 3 colours, because one is always transparent. Games can choose which three of the four brightness levels will be used (that's why there are two sprite palettes). In the editor it's assumed that the first three brightness levels will be chosen. When the game chooses different brightness levels, some of those colours will be brightened or darkened in-game. Black is assumed to be 10% brightness, while dark grey is assumed to be 40% brightness. That means half the time, the colour you choose for OBJ 2 will appear 4 times darker in-game, so you might need to make it very bright. Other colours also will appear at different brightnesses, but not by a factor of 4.

The fourth column "SPR", is for sprites that use palette 1. It has the same issues as specified above. VBA on other platforms uses the same colours for both palette 0 and palette 1, but VBA Wii lets you change them separately. Palette 1 is often used for some monsters, or for when your character takes damage, or for making collectible items flash.

Clicking on any colour will pop up a colour editor window. You change a colour by choosing how much red, green, and blue are mixed together. You can only go up or down 8 at a time. It is in hexadecimal, which means it goes up to F instead of up to 9. F means 15.

Clicking on the "load / save" button will save the palette changes. Unless you are worried about a power failure, this is unnecessary, since they are saved automatically when you close. This button will have more features in the next version.

The palette will be saved whenever you close the editor window.

As mentioned above, after editing the palette, the palette might appear screwed up in the game until the game changes palettes. To fix that, you might need to save the game and then start the game again, or you might need to press start to pause or go to the menu, then press start again, or you might need to try moving your sprite to the far left side of the screen.

palette.xml

Once the emulator has created the palette.xml file (by playing a mono game), you can edit it manually to change the palettes. This might be quicker and easier than editing inside the emulator. It also lets you edit the default palette to something more suitable. And it lets you set some games to play in Black and White mode.

You can, and should, share your palette.xml with other users if you have made palettes for other games.

Game names in the palette.xml file are based on the ROM's internal name, not the filename. That means you only have to set the palette once even if you have several files for different regions. It also means you can use other people's xml files without worrying what they named their ROMs. If you need to know the game's internal name, you can check in VBA-M on the PC, or some websites will tell you, or you can just start editing the palette in the emulator and then it will be added to the XML file for you.

When "use" is set to "1" that means that game will be in palette mode. When "use" is set to "0", that means that game will always be in black and white mode.

Colours are specified in hexadecimal, in the format: 0xRRGGBB. FF is the brightest, 80 is half brightness, 00 is black. VBA-Wii only uses 15-bit colour, so the last digit will be rounded down to either 8 or 0. But if palette support is ported to other platforms, then they might not be rounded on those platforms.

Controls

In Menu

GameCube Controller Wiimote.svg WiimoteHorizontal.svg Wiimote.svg+Nunchuck alternative.svg ClassicController.svg Action
Gamecube D-Pad Up / Gamecube D-Pad Down or GameCube Control Stick Wiimote D-Pad Up / Wiimote D-Pad Down Wiimote D-Pad Up / Wiimote D-Pad Down Wiimote D-Pad Up / Wiimote D-Pad Down or Nunchuck Control Stick or Nunchuck C Button Classic D-Pad Up / Classic D-Pad Down or Classic Left Control Stick Move through the Menu
Gamecube D-Pad Left / Gamecube D-Pad Right or GameCube Control Stick Wiimote D-Pad Left / Wiimote D-Pad Right Wiimote D-Pad Left / Wiimote D-Pad Right Wiimote D-Pad Left / Wiimote D-Pad Right or Nunchuck Control Stick Classic D-Pad Left / Classic D-Pad Right or Classic Left Control Stick Page up / page down
Gamecube A Button Wiimote A Button Wiimote 2 Button Wiimote A Button Classic a Button Select menu item, change setting
Gamecube B Button Wiimote B Button Wiimote 1 Button Wiimote B Button Classic b Button Swap between list box and buttons
Wiimote HOME Button Wiimote HOME Button Wiimote HOME Button Classic HOME Button Exit (main menu), return to game (game menu)

Keyboard and mouse don't work in the menu yet, only in-game.

In Game (by default)

The controls can be changed in "Controller Configuration" menu.

GameCube Controller WiimoteHorizontal.svg Wiimote.svg+Nunchuck alternative.svg ClassicController.svg Action
GameCube D-Pad or GameCube Control Stick Wiimote D-Pad Wiimote D-Pad or Nunchuck Control Stick Classic D-Pad or Classic Left Control Stick GBA DPad
Gamecube A Button Wiimote 2 Button Nunchuck Z Button Classic b Button A
Gamecube B Button Wiimote 1 Button Nunchuck C Button Classic y Button B
GameCube L Trigger Wiimote B Button Wiimote 2 Button Classic L Trigger L
GameCube R Trigger Wiimote A Button Wiimote 1 Button Classic R Trigger R
GameCube Z Button Wiimote - Button Wiimote - Button Classic - Button SELECT
GameCube START Button Wiimote + Button Wiimote + Button Classic + Button START
Left
Error creating thumbnail: convert: unable to read font `/usr/share/fonts/default/TrueType/arial.ttf'.
 Wiimote HOME Button Wiimote HOME Button Classic HOME Button Emulator menu
Error creating thumbnail: convert: unable to read font `/usr/share/fonts/default/TrueType/arial.ttf'.
Right 		Wiimote A Button+Wiimote B Button Wiimote A Button+Wiimote B Button Classic Right Control Stick Right Turbo Mode
Error creating thumbnail: convert: unable to read font `/usr/share/fonts/default/TrueType/arial.ttf'.
Up/Down 		Classic Right Control Stick Up/Down Zoom In/Out

Match Wii Controls

Special Wii controls exist for many games. See link for more details.

Changelog

2.2.5 - May 15, 2011

2.2.4 - March 23, 2011

2.2.3 - March 19, 2011

2.2.2 - October 7, 2010

2.2.1 - August 14, 2010

2.2.0 - July 22, 2010

2.1.9 - July 20, 2010

2.1.8 - July 14, 2010

2.1.7 - June 20, 2010

2.1.6 - May 19, 2010

2.1.5 - April 9, 2010

2.1.4 - April 9, 2010

2.1.3 - March 30, 2010

2.1.2 - December 23, 2009

2.1.1 - December 7, 2009

2.1.0 - December 2, 2009

2.0.9 - November 30, 2009

2.0.8 - October 7, 2009

2.0.7 - September 16, 2009

2.0.6 - July 22, 2009

2.0.5 - July 9, 2009

2.0.4 - June 30, 2009

2.0.3 - May 30, 2009

2.0.2 - May 26, 2009

2.0.1 - April 30, 2009

2.0.0 - April 27, 2009

1.0.9 - April 7, 2009

1.0.8 - April 6, 2009

1.0.7 - January 27, 2009

1.0.6 - December 24, 2008

1.0.5 - November 19, 2008

1.0.4 - October 28, 2008

1.0.3 - October 15, 2008

1.0.2 - October 6, 2008

1.0.1 - September 18, 2008

1.0.0 - September 16, 2008

Retrieved from "http://www.wiiflowiki.com/Visual_Boy_Advance_GX"
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