drak
Behind The Logo Team 
So shiny a vulpix.
Posts: 533
|
Post by drak on May 1, 2006 22:35:42 GMT -5
How nice is the GP2x, really? XD I'm starting to care about handhelds a lot more than consoles, and the GP2x sounds like it could be amazing with all the stuff it can do. But it almost sounds kinda unbelievable... like it can do a lot of things, but not do them too great. XD So what I'm wondering is...
How well does it emulate games? Is the SNES/Genesis emulation perfect? What other systems can it do? :[] GBA !!? How well does the system's gamepad (with the analog thingy) work for games?
And how's the other media stuff? Like, is it worth using as a music player, or a movie viewer? XD Images? Flash?
Does it have any internet capabilities? :[] Like maybe some kinda wifi addon and a browser or something?
And... what other programs are availiable for it? XD Anything utility-ish like calculators or word processors or graphics programs or anything? I dunno, I'm mainly wondering what the extent of its power is.
And um, any experience with the TV-display cable thing? XD That sounds like it could be very fancy, being able to pop emulators, images, and video onto the TV from the thing. And is there a rechargable battery thing for it like the DS/PSP instead of the normal battery use?
SO YEAH. Sorry for huge amount of questions, but I have a bit of money saved up and was thinking of splurging on DS/GBA games but now I'm kind of wondering if I should look into a GP2x XD 'cos it sounds... mighty fancy.
|
|
|
|
Post by Kulock on May 2, 2006 2:25:12 GMT -5
I'm curious about the answers to these, but I don't know if you'll get his attention without a PM.
|
|
drak
Behind The Logo Team
So shiny a vulpix.
Posts: 533
|
Post by drak on May 2, 2006 4:57:56 GMT -5
... I.... forgot there was a PM sysem.
...
I'LL GET RIGHT ON THAT.
|
|
Sofox
Behind The Logo Team
Yeah, I'm still a jet propelled fox, deal with it
Posts: 1,273
|
Post by Sofox on May 2, 2006 6:40:20 GMT -5
It's okay, I can reply, wait a moment... EDIT WITH FULL REPLY: Okay, the GP2x is a pretty sweet handheld, but it does have it's limitations. The main and biggest attraction of it is that it's completely open source. Anyone can develop for it. You can write an SDL program, then make a few edits to it, compile it using a special toolchain, transfer it onto an SD card, put the card in you GP2x, and voila, you have your own program running on the handheld (the latest firmware even lets you use external storage through USB host, or on part of the 64MB internal flash memory). Because of this, it's natural that the vast majority of stuff for the GP2x comes from homebrew and independant coders around the world. Though commercial stuff is on the horizon, and the bundled firmware does have nice program. Homebrew conists of a wide range of games, demos, ports, interpreters, and emulators. For a full list of everything you can download (except Wolfenstein 3d, because the server is in Germany) go here: archive.gp2x.de/cgi-bin/cfiles.cgiAs for emulators, Mega Drive (Geneisis) is near perfect, full speed and sound, the odd sound or graphic glitch here and there but that's about it. Neither SNES or NES is perfect yet, though honestly I havn't tried either of them, and GBA emulator hasn't been realised yet. There are other emulators that work well, like Neo Geo and Mame I think, but I havn't tried them either. I have to say though, that the stick isn't the best. It's actually a digital stick that looks like analogue stick, and does have some trouble with diagonals. It's also a little uncomfortable but I bought a new stick cap that makes it a lot more comfortable. However they are apparently going to have a better stick in future models. It's definitly good with Media stuff. While some people have had difficulty with their video files and have needed conversion, I can say I've put episodes of Sonic X, Code Lyoko and Parker Lewis Can't Lose, Red Vs. Blue all directly onto my GP2x (on a 1GB SD card) and they've all played pretty much perfectly straight off the bat with no conversion. Good picture quality too, and ironically, you can fast forward, rewind and jump ahead or back faster then on a pc because your dealing with solid storage. There's an image viewer if you want it, along with a e-book reader. Music player is fine to, given you've got a bunch of options listening and a headphone jack, although remember, your limited to SD card, on board memory, and external storage when it comes to storing music on it. There's a flash player in the works, but I believe it still early on yet. No wifi or browsing connectivity yet. It's possible that this could be done in the future, through USB host or an SDIO wifi, but for now there's no option. There's a fair few utilities for it already, calculator, notepad (through Edgewrite), screen capture, basic drawing programs. The GP2x is a very powerful device, and so anyone who really wants to write an application or program for it should be able to. I havn't tried the TV out yet, but I hear it works well. As for battery life, the new firmware is said to prolong it even more then before, but generally your looking at 4-5 hours. I need to warn you though, standard Alaline AA batteries won't last very long in the GP2x as it does take up a bit of power. That's why every serious GP2xer has a set of Nimh AA rechargable batteries that can keep the unit going for a long time and be continually recharged. Anyway, for stuff I havn't mentioned here, here are some websites: archive.gp2x.de -Archive containing practically everything you can download freely for the GP2x wiki.gp2x.org -Wiki containing a large body of info on practically every aspect of the GP2x www.gp32x.com -Great site with biggest English speaking GP2x community www.gp2x.com -Official site www.gp2x.co.uk -UK retailer and good supporter of the community www.gp2x.com - official english site |
|
|
|
Post by Ink The Echidna on May 2, 2006 6:55:48 GMT -5
...Drak... you forgot...
You worry me at times.
|
|
|
|
Post by Kulock on May 3, 2006 1:47:16 GMT -5
Considering he PMed me not too long ago to get that USB Drive (which I haven't sent out yet ^_^  ... |
|
|
|
Post by Robert on May 3, 2006 14:40:37 GMT -5
ironically, you can fast forward, rewind and jump ahead or back faster then on a pc because your dealing with solid storage. I hope for the day when hard drives are a thing of the past, once memory like this becomes vast, cheap, and reliable enough. I don't think that day is too far off. |
|
Seph
Behind The Logo Team
Luigi and Marth for the win.
Posts: 3,390
|
Post by Seph on May 3, 2006 17:46:44 GMT -5
ironically, you can fast forward, rewind and jump ahead or back faster then on a pc because your dealing with solid storage. I hope for the day when hard drives are a thing of the past, once memory like this becomes vast, cheap, and reliable enough. I don't think that day is too far off. You probably already know this, but there are cards that you can hook into the motherboard that use RAM as actual storage, and make it retain its charge after the PC is off for about 16 hours. |
|
|
|
Post by Robert on May 3, 2006 19:18:59 GMT -5
I hope for the day when hard drives are a thing of the past, once memory like this becomes vast, cheap, and reliable enough. I don't think that day is too far off. You probably already know this, but there are cards that you can hook into the motherboard that use RAM as actual storage, and make it retain its charge after the PC is off for about 16 hours. Actually, I didn't know that, though it sure sounds feasible. It's not a bad idea except for the fact that it's not really nonvolatile. (With a battery I guess it'd be comparable to the way game carts have held save data for years.) I guess that makes perfect sense, though. Memory is getting a lot cheaper than flash for gigabytes and doesn't have the rather small 100,000 rewrite limitation. Just build a board that supports a fairly substantiial total amount and give it a better backup system and you'd have a decent replacement for a harddrive. |
|
...
