GP2X questions...

Fysh

For a good while now I've found myself getting somewhat bored of the current generation of games and preferring to fire up MAME or a few 16 bit emulators so I figure I might give the GP2x a go as a handheld. Thing is, being the device that it is you can't just walk into Gamestop and pick one up.

Other than GP2x.co.uk are there any reliable retailers I can order one from that won't end up with me getting screwed on postage?

Also, does anyone on here have any experience with them? How much time would it take to get things up and running? I'd be mainly looking to get MAME and probably SNES and MegaDrive emulators running on it; I don't mind putting in a bit of time to get them up and running, just want to know what to expect in advance.

trout

Fysh wrote:

For a good while now I've found myself getting somewhat bored of the current generation of games and preferring to fire up MAME or a few 16 bit emulators so I figure I might give the GP2x a go as a handheld. Thing is, being the device that it is you can't just walk into Gamestop and pick one up.

Other than GP2x.co.uk are there any reliable retailers I can order one from that won't end up with me getting screwed on postage?

Also, does anyone on here have any experience with them? How much time would it take to get things up and running? I'd be mainly looking to get MAME and probably SNES and MegaDrive emulators running on it; I don't mind putting in a bit of time to get them up and running, just want to know what to expect in advance.

I bought mine from gp32x.co.uk ... same place I got my GP32 several years ago. No complaints, fast and efficient to deal with ... prices are good too. I'd recommend them.

There used be a crowd called Lik-Sang in the Far East who would ship them to Ireland for slightly less than the UK & German retailers ... but I think Lik-Sang are out of business now.

Splash out and get yerself a card reader, so you can do the data transfer from yer PC or Mac ... it's not at all difficult to get MAME and other emulators up and running, and there is a reasonably helpful community. Get the biggest card you can afford ... saves swapping them in and out.

This site here has an active forum, with FAQ and other useful info ... it also holds a library of emulators and freeware / PD stuff. http://www.gp32x.com/

Go on ... well worth the money, you won't be sorry, hours of fun and games .:)

Trode

Like Trout said, the machine is a cinch to get up and running, and I never needed a separate card reader, the included USB cable makes the console itself do that admirably. How easy the emulators are to use varies, but just getting a game started is usually no harder than on an equivalent PC emu, just point it at your Roms folder. There are a few that can be a bit of a pain,with hard-coded filepaths and confusing controls,but it's not too hard to figure out.
One thing to bare in mind is that SNES and arcade emulation is fairly weak on the GP2X. The community is quite active, so there may be( or recently have been) improvements in these areas I'm unaware of, but in my experience some games work,most are playable but slow, some are horrible stuttery messes and some just make it fall over. MAME is better than SNES, partly because it's restricted to a shorter(and seemingly arbitrary) list of compatible games. Of course, I may have just been unlucky with the games I tried out, but I have a feeling you'll have a better time with older stuff, so as long as you're thinking 1942 rather than Mars Matrix and Mario World rather than Donkey Kong Country, you might be fine.
That said, the Megadrive and 8-bits work fine, and I haven't tried it but I've seen impressive clips of GBA and MegaCD stuff running. Plus there's actual freeware and game interpreters being made for it besides emulation.

trout

Current port of MAME on GP2X claims to support 1100 ROM sets ... but this includes clones ... there is a list of supported games in the ZIP file here on the homepage of the developer http://www.talfi.net/gp32_franxis/

I had the same experience as Trode when I first played with it, but a few visits to the forum pointed me at a util called CLRMAME which needed to run against my ROMS folder. This improved the experience a whole lot.

Bear in mind, the physical limitations of the handheld 2 x 240 Mhz CPU and 64 Mb of RAM will restrict the list of games ... even if you overclock.

Still ... it's impressive!

Fysh

Thanks for the answers lads, pretty much what I was hoping to hear. Must admit I'm looking at the more classic 16-bit type games from the emulation perspective - more "final fight 3" than "donkey kong country", so it sounds like I should hopefully be ok.

Reckon I'll be ordering this in the next couple of days, I'll post up again when it arrives and I get a chance to play with it.

Fysh

Woohoo, it's just arrived! (Got it posted to work, which may turn out to be a mistake cos I'm clearly going to be distracted by it all day...)

Right, now to rummage through the software and see what we can do with my existing 1GB SD card...

Fysh

W00t, got it up and running with MAME and PocketSnes! For some reason DrMD doesn't seem to like either my memorycard or Firmware version3 (possibly related to the fact that on firmware 3 the SDL installation doesn't go through as it says it should in the manual). But anyway, the main thing is portable emulation. Joy!

Trode

Did you get the latest version of DrMD from the site? The one on the disks that came with the machine wouldn't work for me either, but the one I downloaded was grand. If not, Picodrive is a worthy, if slightly less compatible, substitute. Plus, it can alledgedly run MegaCD games if you feel like shoving and entire ISO onto your card.
On a related note, I've been trying out the newest version of the GBA emu Gpsp, and it's really impressive. I've only tried a handful of games so far, but they ran damn near perfectly.

trout

Fysh wrote:

W00t, got it up and running with MAME and PocketSnes!

Check out the spectrum, commode, Macintosh and ST emulators too ... apparently there is a Playstation emulator, which I've never explored.

Also see interpreters for Doom, Hexen, Duke Nukem and my personal favourite ... Descent.

It is quite astonishing how well these games run on the handheld

Glad you made the decision ... best money you'll ever spend

Trode

trout wrote:

Check out the spectrum, commode, Macintosh and ST emulators too ... apparently there is a Playstation emulator, which I've never explored.

Also see interpreters for Doom, Hexen, Duke Nukem and my personal favourite ... Descent.

It is quite astonishing how well these games run on the handheld

Glad you made the decision ... best money you'll ever spend

I second this It really is a superb little machine, and despite the slightly ludicrous optimism of trying to run PS games on it, the amount of stuff it can do is amazing.

Are either of you using the latest version of PocketSNES? How's it working for you? I've been meaning to try it again, but unless it runs most games at a decent speed I probably won't bother.

Fysh

I've been trying the CD-provided versions of most things, just to get up and running. Pocketsnes seems fine for most things, although Mario Kart was disappointingly glitchy on the first run. Final Fight 3, on the other hand, ran just fine, but there do seem to be comments here and there about its emulation being patchy.

I've fetched a copy of the GBA emulator but it won't run for me as it's whingeing that I've got the prototype BIOS rather than the full-release version (tho in fairness this is mentioned in the notes for it). Will be tinkering with that, wouldn't mind getting the GBA Castlevania games running on there as well.

Might try out the PSX emulator over the weekend, depending how much joy I have getting Mame running (some of the games won't launch, tho I suspect this is more an issue with my copies of them). Need to get the Descent and DukeNukem ports on there as well, actually...hmm, looks like I'll be busy for a while

Fysh

Update on PocketSnes - I'm using version 6 and most things seem to run ok on it, though I've noticed that mode-7 intensive stuff like F-Zero or Mario Kart work better without sound. Setting Frameskip to 2/3 and processor speed to 220MHz gets it running smoothly enough, but with sound off I can barely notice any difference between the emu and the original.

Other stuff seems to run fin, was playing Sunset Riders and Ninja Warriors yesterday evening and the only awkwardness was forgetting to change the controls over to my preferred layout

Edited: Version SNES? I meant version 6, of course