Red Viper 3DS
From GameBrew
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| Red Viper | |
|---|---|
 | |
| General | |
| Author | Floogle, danielps, and others |
| Type | Handheld |
| Version | 1.1.2 |
| License | Mixed |
| Last Updated | 2025/09/24 |
| Links | |
| Download | |
| Website | |
| Source | |
This is a Virtual Boy emulator for the 3DS, building on what mrdanielps's work on r3Ddragon which itself is based on Reality Boy / Red Dragon by David Tucker. Some games may play samples at an incorrect speed.
Features
- All officially licensed games are playable at full speed, even on the original 3DS.
- 3D support.
- Game saves and savestates are supported.
- 3DS display runs at 50Hz, like the Virtual Boy.
- Fully customizable button mapping, including New 3DS inputs.
- Virtual right D-Pad or A/B buttons on the touch screen.
- Configurable color filter.
Installation
Download the latest release on release page:
- 3DSX - Place in sdmc:/3ds/red-viper/ and use it with the Homebrew Launcher.
- CIA - Installable to the home menu using FBI.
Alternatively you can install it via Universal Updater.
You also need to dump the DSP firmware.
ROMs (.vb) can be placed in any directory on your SD card of choice. The emulator will remember the location of the last ROM you loaded.
User guide
Compatibility list
Screenshots
Media
red viper v0.9.0 - virtual boy wario land 3ds capture (Meyadin)
Compatibility
Does not work with flashcart like Gateway 3DS: Red Viper uses a dynamic recompiler, which requires functionality only available when Luma is installed. Flashcarts cannot provide this, and therefore unfortunately cannot run Red Viper.
Known Issues
Changelog
v1.1.2 2025/09/24
- This release fixes a bug introduced in v1.1.0 where savestates from prior versions could no longer be loaded.
v1.1.1 2025/09/22
- Fixed Virtual League Baseball 2's title screen advancing immediately.
- Fixed a regression in v1.1.0 which caused enemies to disappear in Red Alarm and scoring in Space Invaders to break (#94).
- Fixed keyboard showing up when selecting the red monochrome tint.
- Improve graphical oddities when exiting pause menu in Golf.
- Improve occasional glitches during Jack Bros. level transitions.
- Improved performance regressions introduced in v1.1.0.
- Fixed softlock when loading abarth's wireframe demo.
- Fixed ROM loader crash in folders with only one ROM (#90).
- Disable antiflicker when software rendering is active - in this case, there is likely no flickering to protect against, and it was causing issues.
v1.1.0 2025/08/15
- Improve software renderer and enabled it for Test Chamber on New 3DS, fixing see-through black walls
- Fixed XB instruction not saving when register is in-memory, resulting in crashes in the comet shooting minigame in Galactic Pinball's Colony stage (#87)
- Numerous improvements to interpreter
- These changes do not affect any existing games, but do make it easier to test the emulator in alternate environments
v1.0.2 2025/08/01
- This patch addresses an issue introduced in v1.0.1 where accessing the multicolor shade selector screen too many times in one session would crash the emulator.
v1.0.1 2025/07/30
- Multicolor changes:
- Up to 4 palette slots are available, configurable per game.
- Color entries and brightness scale can now entered directly using hex color values.
- These same raw color and brightness values are visible within the emulator.
- Boost maximum brightness scaling factor from 2x to 4x.
- Fix random crashes during screen transitions in Golf.
- Fix bug where toggling anaglyph mode while in-game caused games to speed up.
- Ensure Circle Pad Pro applet runs at 60Hz.
v1.0.0 2025/07/22
- New "Multicolor" mode, allowing for more versatile color remapping.
- Circle Pad Pro support.
- Software renderer to reduce visual glitches, enabled in Golf.
- Double buffering to hide garbage frames and improve frametime accuracy, enabled in Red Alarm and Bound High.
- Numerous performance improvements.
- In particular, interrupt checking was moved from a polling-based system to predicting exactly when the next interrupt will trigger, improving performance particularly in the Space Invaders intro.
- A ROM can be bundled with a Red Viper CIA, to create what is commonly called a "forwarder".
- An error code is now shown when loading a ROM fails.
- Fix "Discard" not correctly restoring settings for New 3DS Speedup.
- Fix occasional graphical glitches on touch screen when toggling Home Menu.
v0.9.8 2025/03/10
- Improved timer emulation to fix sample playback in Galactic Pinball and Teleroboxer.
- Added memory access time emulation, which fixes numerous games.
- Fixes sample playback in Virtual Bowling and Niko-Chan Battle, along with improved timer emulation.
- Improves emulation performance in 3D Tetris.
- Correctly emulated game speed in Golf.
- Fixes Blox 2 intro cutting off early.
- Fixed graphical glitches and fixed intro chime in Waterworld.
- Improved audio emulation to fix some homebrew, including the Blox games and the Formula V demo.
- Allow loading savestates from older versions.
v0.9.7 2024/12/18
- Added anaglyph mode, with configurable colours for each eye.
- 2DS users can configure a depth offset in anaglyph mode, as they have no depth slider.
- Add render time emulation, including a toggle to turn it off.
- Fix audio bug in Colony intro in Galactic Pinball.
- Fix various issues in the Game Boy emulator.
- Fix Red Alarm wireframe graphics drawing on top of UI.
- Add a hack for Jack Bros. to make the intro chime play at roughly the correct speed.
- Apply game fixes based on game ID rather than checksum, for better compatibility with ROM hacks.
- Increased frameskip aggressiveness to improve performance in Elevated Speed.
- Update software framebuffer more conservatively to improve performance in Waterworld and 3-D Tetris.
- Adjusted gamma correction for improved visibility.
- Fix D-Pad ABXY mirroring having an incorrect right input.
v0.9.6 2024/06/16
- Added antiflicker option to mitigate image retention issues, particularly on IPS models.
- Added an input display (buttons light up in red if turbo is enabled and blue if toggle is enabled).
- Fixed a critical bug where the emulator crashes when starting a game if the home directory doesn't exist.
v0.9.5 2024/06/12
- Control changes:
- New "Custom" control scheme (#67).
- In the Custom control scheme, any 3DS button can be mapped to any VB button.
- Toggle and Turbo modes are available for each button.
- The previous control menu is still available as "Preset" for its ease of use.
- Added remapping option to 3DS D-Pad in Preset mode (#65).
- Virtual buttons on the touchscreen can now be set to the face buttons by default.
- "Switch" button can now be turned off.
- Other settings changes:
- Configurations can now be game-specific, including controls, graphics, etc.
- Moved rv_config.ini to a more standard location (sdmc:/config/red-viper).
- The red-viper directory with savestates and per-game configs can be moved by manually editing rv_config.ini.
- Added VBLink for homebrew developers, accessible by pressing Y on the main menu (will be supported in future versions of VUEngine Studio).
- Other changes:
- Improved stability for capture cards.
- Fixed occasional bug where the emulator would crash on startup.
v0.9.4 2024/04/29
- Added savestates.
- New splash screen by Morintari.
- Added a fallback interpreter when executing code from RAM to fix Formula V.
- Fixed the reset button on the touchscreen config turning off the touchscreen.
- Fixed the default file select cursor being offset in folders with subfolders.
- Added toggle for New 3DS speedup.
v0.9.3 2024/04/11
- Run 3DS displays at 50Hz (thanks to everyone in #46 who knows much more about this than I do!).
- Improve frame pacing by rendering on VBlank.
- The image is now displayed in full 24-bit colour.
- Various renderer optimizations, significantly improving performance in Elevated Speed.
- Improved audio clarity.
- Fixed issues with various sound effects in Wario Land.
- Fixed compatibility hack for Virtual Lab's English patch.
- Improved performance in Nester's Funky Bowling.
- Compatibility fixes for lots of homebrew.
- Add a confirmation prompt to Reset and Quit menu options.
- Game progress is now saved when entering sleep mode.
v0.9.2 2024/03/26
- Emulation improvements:
- New audio engine allowing for sample playback.
- 16MB ROMs can now be loaded on o3DS.
- Fixed music speed in Golf.
- Faster affine layer drawing.
- Various other emulation bugfixes (including by @pizzarollsroyce).
- UI improvements:
- Button input in GUI (by @JeffRuLz).
- Zip file support.
- Improved debug dumps for easier crash reproduction.
- Allow mapping face buttons to the triggers on N3DS (by @vaguerant).
- Button to turn off the touchscreen backlight (by @vaguerant).
v0.9.1 2024/03/02
- Features:
- Fixes:
- Fixed random crashes in T&E Soft's games (Red Alarm, 3D Tetris, Golf).
- Fix crash when closing through home menu while in the pause menu.
v0.9.0 2024/02/25
- Many updates from r3Ddragon v0.87, including:
- New hardware renderer.
- Fully implement instruction set.
- Busywait optimization.
- New UI.
- Improved controls.
Credits
- Everyone mentioned in the license. Without Reality Boy and Red Dragon it wouldn't have been possible.
- smealum and contributors - ctrulib.
- Vappy, Team Fail, HtheB, hippy dave and kane159 on GBAtemp - early testing.
- benhoyt - inih.
- Myria - libkhax
- thunderstruck - CIA banner sound (taken from Fishbone).
- nop90 - Reality Boy backports and fixes.
- danielps - Initial 3DS port and V810 dynarec.
- Floogle - 3DS hardware renderer; many optimizations, bugfixes, and other improvements.
- djedditt - Enhanced 3D depth slider support.
- Morintari - splash screen artwork.
- nevumx - Custom control scheme.
- All GitHub contributors.