[ElmerPCFX]

The Mednafen emulator is (arguably) the best emulator to use for debugging your VirtualBoy homebrew game, because of its excellent compatibility and its wonderful built-in debugger.

Unfortunately, the debugger defaults to using low-resolution 5×7 pixel fonts that are poorly defined, and then it displays them on small pages that are 640×480 pixel-or-less in size.

This makes the debugging screens very hard to read, especially on modern high-resolution monitors.

In order to avoid eyestrain and annoyance, I’ve patched the Mednafen source to use slightly larger and better-defined fonts, and then to display them on larger 800×600 pixel pages.

The patches and a build script (for Windows and Linux) can be found on github here … mednafen-happyeyes

Prebuilt Windows downloads are available in the following links for Win32 and Win64.

The prebuilt versions only support the PC Engine, PC-FX, VirtualBoy, PlayStation and WonderSwan, but you can compile your own version with other console platforms if you wish.

The result looks like this (using the PC Engine debugger as an example) …

Rather than the headache-inducing original …

P.S. You have to click on the pictures to view them full size to really see the difference.

• This topic was modified 5 years, 4 months ago by ElmerPCFX.
• This topic was modified 5 years, 4 months ago by ElmerPCFX.

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I guess I might be one of the few who really appreciates this. Thanks allot!

You can already change the font size in the configuration file. I must be missing something.

But what I would really like is the ability to have a large debugger display without also having to stretch the game display. I have to stretch it 3 times vertically to fit the debugger with a 9×18 font, but then games are almost impossible to play/test. Going full screen solves it, but it’s a little inconvenient.

And pressing Esc shouldn’t quit the emulator when I’m in the debugger!

HorvatM wrote:
You can already change the font size in the configuration file. I must be missing something.

Yes, you are.

Sure, you can change the disassembly font size in the Mednafen configuration file, but you can’t change the register font, or watch font, or trace font, or the register alignment, or the memory editor font … and you certainly can’t make it use a larger debug display.

But what I would really like is the ability to have a large debugger display without also having to stretch the game display. I have to stretch it 3 times vertically to fit the debugger with a 9×18 font, but then games are almost impossible to play/test.

You would have to change how Mednafen calculates the window size to use … but that could possibly be done. If you really want it, then you have the option to dig into the source code and make it happen!

And pressing Esc shouldn’t quit the emulator when I’m in the debugger!

The same with this … if you don’t like it, then change it. Compiling Mednafen is really pretty easy, especially since I’ve provided a build script that you can change if you desire.

I just remembered this exists after being super annoyed with the tiny font. This helps allot. Thanks again.

Very cool! I haven’t played with the debugger much yet, but no doubt I will be getting to it sooner than later. So, a preemptive thanks for this!