[A series of questions before I spend all my money on a GP2X.]

[Nebetsu]

I want to buy a GP2X, but don't know if I should. I'd like to ask the community a series of questions before making any rash spending sprees (Since I would most likely get the 4GB sd card among some other accessories).

First (Most importantly): How's the battery life? The review says 5 hours, but how does it handle battery power under the following conditions:

1. Playing MP3's with the screen off/screensaver (assuming it has a feature for turning off the screen or having a screen saver).
2. Playing old games like NES, GBC, Genesis.
3. Playing some more advanced MAME games.
4. Playing movies.

As well I'm curious at how well the emulators are running at this moment.

How are Marvel VS Capcom and games from that era for MAME?
How is Metal Slug 3 for NeoGeo?
How are various more advanced games for SNES (ex: Star Ocean, Front Mission: Gun Hazard, Star Fox)?
Is the Genesis emulator as perfect as the review says it is?
How is the GBA emulator coming along?
How's DOSBox?
Is Quake 2 running at full speed yet?


I'm sorry for all the questions, but, as I understand it, things are really moving fast and what could be true before might be fixed now. Plus some people have found that certain emulators aren't as perfect as the reviews make you believe. If the GP2X is all that it seems to be, or even half of what it seems to be, I would love to get one. I just want to know what it can do before spending hours frustrating myself trying to get various things to work.

[yaustar]

Battery Life: For numbers 2-4, it be ~5hours on a decent set of ~2500mah rechargable batteries. Can't comment on 1 unfortunately.

CPS2 emulators haven't been written yet.
MS1 is full speed with sound and little overclocking
SNES emulator can't handle anything with a superfx chip in it. Can't comment on the games sorry.
GBA emu - currently stalled until the author has a new computer. He was currently working on a recompiler to get full speed (if it works)
DOSBox - Good question, just recently been updated and worked on at the moment
I can't remember a quake 2 port.

Sorry I can't help much :(

Hop over to http://gp32x.com t oget more information as the forums are much busier for the GP2X.

Its a nice bit of kit with you like messing about with hardware and gadgets and with two homebrew competitions finishing this fall, things are looking up. Hardware such as the break out box and TV out round it off really nicely :P

Video to watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_NrTS_ut74

[Nebetsu]

So by CPS2 emulators havn't been written yet, you mean Marvel VS Capcom won't work on the MAME emulator? And the SDK DOES very much interest me, even though I've only had a little bit of C and C++ experiance. I only know the basics. Probably the most advanced program I've made with C++ is a random name generator. I've seen pretty much all the videos and read as much as I can. I just want to know what to expect out of this thing. It sort of makes me sad that the SNES emulator is crippled... >> But thanks for the link. I'll ask the questions there. If I'm a little incoherant and hard to follow, it's because at the moment, I'm suffering from heat stroke and the computer room is conveniently next to the bathroom in case I throw up, so that's where I am right now... >> I should stop typing now.

[ACID]

I have bouth GP2X and PSP stick with PSP

[Nebetsu]

Why is that?

[yaustar]

If you can program in C/C++ and SDL on the PC, you can program on the GP2X really easily.

Snes is still being worked on from different angles, there is a SVN for the current SquidgeSnes while Squidge himself is working on a SE edition which did something stupid as 140fps on DKC (but only on DKC).

Some CPS1 games work on Mame but no CPS2.
http://www.talfi.net/gp32_franxis/

I expect to see a lot more interesting material coming from the GP2X then I am from the PSP just because of the differences in community.

[Nebetsu]

So how do I tell the difference between a CPS1 game and a CPS2 game? And I've had a little experiance in SDL. Not much, but a little bit. Also: I know that the PSX emulator doesn't work very well with 3D games, but how is it with Castlevania: Symphony Of The Night?

[yaustar]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CPS-1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CPS-2

SDL: http://lazyfooproductions.com/SDL_tutorials/index.php

PSX: Wait till the next release of it (sometime in the the next week maybe?) and we tell you then ;)

Lurk around the GP32X.com forum and you should give you a taste what to expect frm the system.

[Nebetsu]

Oh here's another one. What about Bubble Bobble 2 and Bubble Bobble 3 for MAME?

[yaustar]

By the looks of things, no. Mame2x supports all mame roms up to version 0.34 + some extras.

[Nebetsu]

Ok... That's kind of disappointing. Does it look like Mame2x will be able to support more than that sometime in the near future?

[yaustar]

Unless we start squeezing some juice out of the second core. Unlikely. That said, GP2X mame has progressed further then the PSPs. (Note that CPS1 and CPS2 have seperate emulators for the PSP)

[Nebetsu]

Why don't they start "squeezing some juice out of the second core"? Are they not even using it or what?

[yaustar]

Because it is damn difficult. It doesn't have a MMU unit so it has to be spoon fed instructions from the first core.

[Nebetsu]

Then... what's the point? Why is it there if no one wants to use it? And if it's not being used, why not find some way to turn it into a GPU in a firmware update or something... >> If you could have it pretend to be a 3D Graphics chip, it would solve a LOT of issues.

[yaustar]

You seriously think it isn't being looked at? We have NO clue why it was designed that way. And as I said before developers are working on it.

One is working on a 3d engine that can be offloaded
Dzz released a library to decode OGG
The PSX emulator I believe is using to some degree.

[Nebetsu]

Ah... It just kind of sounded like no one was using it. You know: This GP2X is looking a lot like the Playstation. You have the 2D games, then they started making some 3D games, then the graphics got better and better until FF9. I think that's probably what is going to happen with the GP2X. Maybe it wont look like FF9 in the end, but when the developers learn to best utilize the hardware, we're going to see some sweet games and emulators. It's a long shot, but maybe someday a N64 emulator will be doable. (Not that there's enough buttons for one, but it's still interesting to think about.)

[yaustar]

Actaully the playstation was always made for 3D. I believe you are thinking more along the lines of the Saturn. A superb 2D machine but with complicated hardware that took developers years to get the most out of it.

But I agree, the GP2X's future looks very promising. :)

[Nebetsu]

Oh ok. I just assumed that the 2D games like Breath Of Fire 3, Castlevania: Symphony Of The Night, and the older FF games were the older games and the 3D games were the newer ones. lol. I was looking at the PS1 emulator clips on youtube and man... They actually had FF7 running somewhat smooth. It looks VERY promising indeed! So I think it's settled. I want one and I'm going to save my money for the thing, the 4gig SD card, sd card reader, the power adapter, the tv out, and the carrying case. ^^

Oh here's another question: There's a lot of talk about overclocking. Isn't that bad for the processor?