Thinking Of Buying One


alexuz

Still Fresh
Joined
Aug 23, 2004
Messages
12
Location
Sweden - Stockholm
Website
Visit site
hello I'm totaly new here. I live in sweden and here its cold so I wan't something warm to play :lol:

I'm thinking of buying a GP32 180mhz + Chatboard from www.gbax.com
Is it a reliable site?

How is the GP32 evolving? I heard of it for about a year ago and its still mostly emulators, which is good.
I like emu's but my question is. Are these emu's any good?
I would mostly play GBC roms (and GBA roms but they don't work for GP32 i suppose?) and NES and SNES. Do these work good? both sound and graphics? Is it possible so Save in a game normaly on these emu's?

Thanks for any answers :D
 
Yes I like to think so :)

SNES is still slow with sound on (well its ok on some games, it varies).

The rest works really well.

180mhz is delayed due to crazy demand for them as its quite hard to get them to run at that speed. We're working on it!

You can always go for 166mhz or even cheaper sealed non modded version which we now offer.

-Craig

www.gbax.com
 
IF I buy I only buy 180mhz cause I wan't the best.

But if only NES works good on GP32... then thats not much for gaming?
SNES works but with no sound. How does GameBoyColor roms work then?

Does Sega Megadrive roms work any good?
And those DivX movies, any comments on them?

sorry for all the questions, but I wan't to know if I should buy this or a GBA:SP.
:rolleyes:
 
NES works great.
SNES works almost great.
GBC works great.
Master System - works great.
Genesis/Mega Drive- no sound yet (I think) but graphics & gameplay are fine.
GBA is under development...
Scummvm (Monkey Island, etc) works very well.
C64, Atari ST, Atari 800, Spectrum, etc are all almost perfect emulators.

Plus loads of great free homebrew games (eg. the brilliant Giana's Return).
And the Linux port...

DivX movies... they can be difficult to encode, but once you get it right it's well worth it - the quality is surprisingly good.

How can you even consider getting a GBA SP?
 
Now that is what I want to hear! Some facts! I just wan't to know what I'm buying.

You didn't say anything about the DivX player? If I wan't to wach a episode of Friends or The Simpsons. Is the picture and sound clear on the Cinema Free version?

Can I have a playlist for the mp3's?

Can I plugg in any headphones?

And a question to craigix: When is the 180mhz back in stock? Why should I buy a 166mhz when a 180mhz is available?
 
> NES works great.

Perfect, full speed and sound @ 133MHz.

> SNES works almost great.

About full speed with frameskip 2 and no sound @ 133MHz.

I like to think, that sound is only a problem, because the SPC700 engine is not optimized yet.

> GBC works great.

Not GBA, but GBA emu is on the way.. Don't expect it anytime soon, but it might be completed sometime, and then you will regret buing GBA.

> Master System - works great.

Perfect, yes, but all the master system games suck. Really.

> Genesis/Mega Drive- no sound yet (I think) but graphics & gameplay are fine.

No. There IS sound.
It depends, if you are running games, with don't use coprosessor for sound. Games I tested that worked:

Dynamite Headdy
Gunstar Heroes
Sonic 1 *
Phantasy Star IV *

* these are very fun games, worth checking out.

> GBA is under development...

Yep, like most the stuff is.

> Scummvm (Monkey Island, etc) works very well.

Not Monkey Island 2 - I never got past the copy protection..
This is OLD port, so I had problems with some of my LucasArt/Lucasfilm games and
Beneath a Steel Sky did not work. Beware, I own almost every game SCUMMVM supports, so... Most of them worked fine, though. I have tested the following to work perfectly:

Zak McKracken (both Original and 256-color version without soundtrack)
Maniac Mansion
Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis

Following games I did not get to work:

Beneath a Steal Sky (did not regonize)
Monkey Island 2 (could not get past copy protection)
Day of the Tentacle (I tried to copy the CD version without sounds, and it crashed)

I don't know about the mp3/ogg-support, because I wouldn't use it anyway. It takes way too much space on SMC.

> C64, Atari ST, Atari 800, Spectrum, etc are all almost perfect emulators.

Yes, if you like that stuff.

> Plus loads of great free homebrew games (eg. the brilliant Giana's Return).

Doom! You forgot Doom!
All the doom versions run at full speed with sound and music. I even heard there are some doom mods working..

"King of Fighters '91" was pretty good also.
And try "GPFinalWar" too.
I liked some other projects too, like "Universal Mercenary" and "Drunken Arcade Master"

Ofcourse there is Tetris, Sokoban, Solitaire, Chess and stuff like that.

> And the Linux port...

Yep, it is for people with chatboard. I don't have one, did not bother to try.

> How can you even consider getting a GBA SP?

Easy, better games are made for GBA SP. But you have to be very rich. Either you buy all your games or do piracy, which is a bad thing. If you want to get your copied games to work, you have to buy special hardware, which costs over 100e, and I'm not sure if it work after that. You can put 1-4 games on a small flash card, that you fake your GBA to think is an SMC carridge. And ofcourse, it is illegal.

Here:

GP32
+ You buy SMC card (< 50e)
+ About 50% larger screen, than your GBA
(in pixels (320x240), and in size)
+ Cheap
+ Normal Rechargeable batteries run fine
+ My GP32 is blazing fast with 133MHz
+ You have great development tools and community, if you want to do something yourself
+ Lots of FREE software
- Not so many games, as GBA
- Korean, so expect no support from GamePark, liksang and gbax will propably give you some, though. And manual is in English

GBA SP
+ Great games, big industry support
+ Can connect to your GameCube, but you need atleast 2 to make it fun
- You buy EZ2Flash card (> 100e)
+ But with card you can create your own programs
- End of product cycle (PSP, Nintendo DS, anyone?)
- Small screen
- Custom LiIon-battery (it dies, you buy replament and it costs)
- Slow (GP32 is roughly 10x faster), only GBA games run fast (there is no SNES emulator for GBA, guess why?)

So GP32 is like this custom thingy, and everybody writes new interresting stuff to it, and GBA is like old and "good enough" system, that has many games, because so many people have it - not because it is better in any way. Most of GBA games are remakes (Super Mario Advance, Sonic...), but some are actually good new games (Metroid Zero/Fusion, FFA Tactics) . Most of GP32 games run in emulator, and you should watch the community to get the latest games and patches, but it is fun. Sadly, most of the best stuff is still in beta, so you have to be active.

PS. DivX is fun. But don't go there. Your SMC is small. And you get about 1 megabyte/1 minute . So, you can fill your SMC with one movie. And you have to re-encode (eg. load many programs, and calculate more than 2 hours) to watch that movie. Load up games and demos instead.
 
> Now that is what I want to hear! Some facts! I just wan't to know what I'm buying.

Try these:
http://www.gbax.com/gp32review.html
http://www.the-gadgeteer.com/gamepark-gp32-review.html

Do your google :)

And get the BLU. Otherwise, you have the same problem that original GBA had:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2001-06-13&res=l

FLU is better than no light, but I think gamma is too high, distorting color balance (eg colors are "too light"), and BLU is the best you can get.

> You didn't say anything about the DivX player? If I wan't to wach a episode of Friends or The Simpsons. Is the picture and sound clear on the Cinema Free version?

The free version is the same as the commercial version. They stopped selling it.
You just have to reencode the whole episode, and it takes time and tools and know-how. It is not easy. You need to have old version of DivX or Xvid. Codecs are available at Entware's site, but you still need programs (try VirtuaDub).

> Can I have a playlist for the mp3's?

Yes. There are many players to choose from. I like Ogg, but MP3 players are free and available. My original firmware had MP3 player bundled with it, but now you have to download it.

Checkout GPMAD:
http://www.robertsworld.org.uk/gpmadmp3.html


> Can I plugg in any headphones? :

Sure. And GP32 has cool reverse-stereo speakers, if you don't have headphones ! ;)
The sound is pretty awesome, but remember, your SMC is only 128M max.

> When is the 180mhz back in stock? Why should I buy a 166mhz when a 180mhz is available?

It's only 14MHz? Less than 10%. Anyway, sure, you can go for the top-of-the-line, but if you have to wait, you can wait until Christmas 2005 and MAYBE get 2 x 333MHz Playstation portable..
 
JayLettu thanks alot! That was really helpfull! But I would really like to have DivX movies too, so I can buy two SMC cards, one thats 64mb for apps and games and one thats 128mb for Divx :)

Have your ever tried "Harvest Moon" and "Pokemon Gold" from GBC on the GP32?

Thanks for all the good answers, I can't figure out any more questions right now. But GP32 sounds great!

EDIT: yes the PSP is interesting but I think it will take AT LEAST 1 more year until it arrives to Europe. and when it does, I can give the GP32 (if I buy one) to my girlfriend just like I did with my old Playstation when I bought Playstation2 :D
Aren't I a good boyfriend... giving her all my old and used-out stuff B)
 
My advice: just get the BLU. It may not be "perfect" with regards to divx (I have never used it for movies so I don't know) but the emus etc make it well worth the money you will spend on it. As for PSP no one knows if it will be able to except homebrew/emus AT ALL (it uses proprietary media) so your GP32 will still be useful for emus.

As for SMC cards, don't waste your time on anything less than 128 Mb. They are cheap enough and youi will always need more storage.
 
The gp32 is like the amiga was 10 years ago... the scene is very large and the games are fantastic! (plus the demo's)
 
Don't forget the PC engine Emulator. Apart from not having save states it's one of the best emus on the GP :)

Theres also decent emulators for

c64
Atari ST
MSX

the list goes on. Buy one. As long as you don't expect perfect GBA emulation or SNES and Megadrive with sound and no frameskip you'll be more than happy.

PS 64 mb won't be enough for games and apps :) Most of us have more than one card. I've got 4 x 128 but started with 1 x 128.

EDIT: Movies are watchable. Quite good quality but you'll find most people watch cartoons and Anime. I personally have Southpark and simpsons on mine.

You can get around 120 minutes of quite good quality on a 128 card.
 
JayLettu posted on Aug 23 2004 at 06:00 AM said:
Yes. There are many players to choose from. I like Ogg, but MP3 players are free and available.
Hey hey hey!

You make it sound like that there are no Ogg players available for GP32, or that they at least cost money.
This is not true. I can think of at least 4 players (and name 3 of them): GPAMP, Yogg and (of cause) SvOrbis.

Greetings,
SvOlli
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Stockholm Solna. Where do you live?

Thanks for all the answers!
What games does the PC engine play? really old PC games?

So if I just buy one GP32 BLU it should be sufficient for playing everything even if its 166mhz. But I would still like the best 180mhz if I can get one :D
 
alexuz posted on Aug 23 2004 at 11:28 AM said:
What games does the PC engine play? really old PC games?

The PC Engine is a brilliant 16-bit console, similar to the Megadrive and SNES. Also known as the Turbografx 16. Read all about it here:

http://www.classicgaming.com/museum/tg16/

It has some fantastic games on it, a very impressive machine.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Back
Top