Emulation Games Not Working...


daclassicgamingmaster

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Hey there, Im daclassicgamingmaster (DCGM for short), and I love classic games. I recently bought a GP32 BLU on ebay, and its supposed to be guaranteed 166mhz. Before I start, lemme just say im 17 years old, and NOT good with computers. I am however, determined to master this system.

My first question is how do I know it's guaranteed 166? How do I know the seller isnt just lying?

Second thing is the system came with 2 cards, one a 16, the other an unused 128. The 16 has a bunch of nes emus on it, and the opening title screen (when the roms are run) says "little John" and it has a picture of an animated kid. I read you FAQ and I saw that listed. Does that mean what was downloaded was a sort of "kit" of working nes games? That's all running fine.

My final question (for now :D ) is I got 2 cds. One was a GP manager, which has been downloaded and workds fine, and the second disc was all games and apps. On it are some games called "tomak save the world again", and "little Wizard". I formatted my 128 smc, and clicked "file >>install game". After about 4-5 min of waiting for the download to finish, I got a pop up saying it downloaded successfully. (note the file was .zpk). I got the distinct feeling everything was OK, but then I tried to play them both and when I click the bar on the system that has the game's name and a small pic on the left side, I get a screen that says "GP32 data loading", then get taken back to the select game screen.

I tried to be as detailed as possible in my occurences. I hope they were enough to identify the problem. If you guys could be so kind as to help me out, it'd be great. I look foward to being an active member of this community. God knows I have a jillion questions...... :D
 
daclassicgamingmaster posted on Aug 31 2005 at 04:35 AM said:
Hey there, Im daclassicgamingmaster (DCGM for short), and I love classic games. I recently bought a GP32 BLU on ebay, and its supposed to be guaranteed 166mhz. Before I start, lemme just say im 17 years old, and NOT good with computers. I am however, determined to master this system.

My first question is how do I know it's guaranteed 166? How do I know the seller isnt just lying?

Second thing is the system came with 2 cards, one a 16, the other an unused 128. The 16 has a bunch of nes emus on it, and the opening title screen (when the roms are run) says "little John" and it has a picture of an animated kid. I read you FAQ and I saw that listed. Does that mean what was downloaded was a sort of "kit" of working nes games? That's all running fine.

My final question (for now :D ) is I got 2 cds. One was a GP manager, which has been downloaded and workds fine, and the second disc was all games and apps. On it are some games called "tomak save the world again", and "little Wizard". I formatted my 128 smc, and clicked "file >>install game". After about 4-5 min of waiting for the download to finish, I got a pop up saying it downloaded successfully. (note the file was .zpk). I got the distinct feeling everything was OK, but then I tried to play them both and when I click the bar on the system that has the game's name and a small pic on the left side, I get a screen that says "GP32 data loading", then get taken back to the select game screen.

I tried to be as detailed as possible in my occurences. I hope they were enough to identify the problem. If you guys could be so kind as to help me out, it'd be great. I look foward to being an active member of this community. God knows I have a jillion questions...... :D

OK, one thing at a time...

1) Try this clockspeed tester to see what frequency your unit can handle.

2) Little John is an NES emulator (a very good one) with a graphical frontend built in. It doesn't come with ROMs pre-installed.

3) The two commercial games are bound to the unit ID of the GP32 they were originally bought for, which is apparently not the one you have. Neither game is terribly good, but you might be able to find a used boxed version (works on all GP32s) in the Marketplace section here.
 
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so the little john emulator is just a shell (basically), and you kinda fill up the shell with roms. (I said I wasnt very computer saavy, so there you go :D. Im more of a software man than anything). Im just trying to get the jist of the the whole rom thing. I dont emulate much, so Im not all that educated on the subject.

As for the commercial games, I was just messing around to see if I could get the hang of transfering them over. whether the games are good or not I could care less. What matter is that im doing everything right, right? ;)
Perhaps the previous owner downloaded anything, despite the games not being properly compatible

it's 1:00 am now, so ill try the test to see what my system can run at. Thanks for all the help so far. If anyone else has something to help me out with it's all greatly appreciated :) :)

EDIT: the link to the tester brings me back to this topic.....
 
The GP32 has several differnt Homemade firmwares (basically the operatign system of the machine) and two that are official. The first official one has a springy toy like interface for which you'll need a program called freelauncher on the SMCard and the other is more profesional looking that has a built in launcher. But I'll assume you could also have a homemade multifirmware which I dont have much experience with. Describe what you see when you turn it on and I'm sure someone can help you further.

LittleJohn and other emmulators are programs that run Roms like software, if you have the software on the card all you have to do is have it doublecheck to make sure the program's list is uptodate with which roms you have on your card by refreshing the list. (some emmulators can read Roms in .zip format and some read them Unzipped. Littlejohn shoud read them Zipped.) Don't ask for Roms here, you wont get assistance with that on an open forum (PMs are safe tho) but usually Googling will fix that problem.

As for the commercial games they were likly purchased online and downloaded, this means they belong to whoever first bought them and the method to verify the games has since dropped off the internet making the games pretty useless unless you can crack the protection, also something you can't ask about here.

A suggestion to you would be to get a card reader as it's a lot easier to drop FXEs on your card with it than GPmanager.

Hope that helps, I'm not the most knowlegeable person here but someone will correct me if I'm wrong on somthing I'm sure. Also you can try looking up the Gampark Newbie site as it should be filled with lots of info as well.

Congrats on your purchase and goodluck in your attempts to master it!
 
thanks. As for the little john thing, everything runs fine, so thats not really my concern. NES games are great, but i wanna put some other stuff on.

Another question i would eventually ask here once I was able to figure this stuff out somewhat, is about the card reader. My purchase DID come with an 18-in-1 USB card reader. when plugged in, the device is recognized and when I open my computer, I have "devices with removable storage f,g,h,i". All dont work except one of them, which allow me to access my smc. Exactly how will using a card reader benifit me other than providing quicker transfer speed? What exactly do you mean by "dropping FXCs"?

Now heres gonna be my first test: to download the clock speed tester on this site, do I put it onto a CD-RW? Exactly how do I go about downloading game/apps/software, etc from the net and ultimatly transfering it to my GP32?

thanks again guys. im such a n00b ;)
 
http://newbie.gp32x.de/gp32/basics.htm

there's a really nice guide there that explains where programs go on your SMC card and which directories should hold the program. Usually, homebrew or emulators will go in the GPMM folder on your SMC. The best suggestion is to just read the readme.txt file that is in almost EVERY homebrew that you download, it'll usually have specific instructions on how to install. There's no need to use the GPManager, just hook it up into the card reader and drag-n-drop what you need onto your SMC in the correct locations and it should work. Also, there's no need to burn it onto a CD unless you're backing it up for yourself for later.

Your card reader has 4 slots, when only 1 of them is being used, only 1 will be accessible in Windows, the others are inaccessible because they don't have a card in it :)

If you describe your launcher further, we may be able to help you to load the commercial games you have. (If they are for YOUR GP32)

Have a look through this site, it's made just for you: :D

http://newbie.gp32x.de/
 
That website is awesome. thanks, it is helping me to understand this system A LOT better.

As for the laucher, when the system is powered up, there is a white screen that says Gamepark, and below it is a multi-colored spectrum loading bar. then Im at a menu that has 2 options, "play", and "PC-link". on the left is a bouncing thingy.

Is that what you mean by launcher?
 
yes, that's the launcher. You have the European Firmware, if I'm not mistaken. Either way, whatever it is, you definitely have a launcher and the same firmware I have...

What he means by dropping FXEs is this... When you use the file transfer program that comes with the GP32, it takes longer and uses the GP32's batteries. It's kind of a pain in the ass... and I dunno if I just didn't look into it enough, but it doesn't work with Windows XP. You're better off using a smart media card reader anyway for the reasons I already mentioned... you can just drag and drop FXEs(a .fxe file is basically a .exe for the GP32. In other words, .fxe files are the main program files. Without a .fxe, you don't have a program) onto the card. It's much faster and much easier. Please tell me you at least know what I mean by drag and drop.

One more thing... when using a card reader, all .fxe files will go into a folder called GPMM. if you happen to have an MP3 player, the .fxe for that will go in the GPMM folder too, but the MP3s will go in a folder labeled MP3(if it's not there, just create it). If you're using GPcinema(divx player) for movies, you can put the movie files wherever you want.

Hmm... as of right now, I don't know what else to tell you... just feel free to ask any other questions you might have in the future... also, good luck, and enjoy your GP32.
 
Anyone who thinks we arn't still a friendly community should look here!!!

:D
 
you guys seem pretty helpful to me...

anyway, I was able to download "another world" from this site, and I used GP manager, but it couldnt find the file in the folder. I saw that it wasnt zpk or fpk(I think that was the other one), so I used the card reader and dragged and dropped it in. IT WORKED!! YAY!
er, one problem.....it had a large white line on the top of the screen, and the game seemed kinda slow. I saw the reviews saying this is a pretty awesome game, so there must be some kinda problem.

Also downloaded GPnoid, and when I dragged and dropped it and tried to run it, it said "fenix runtime not found". is that something i need? if so where do I find it?
 
hmm... I'm not sure about the fenix runtime thing, but I can definitely tell you why there's a large white bar on your screen.

When Gamepark made the backlit unit, they used to use a samsung screen... but somewhere along the line, without telling anybody, they decided to start using a cheaper taiwanese screen, which screwed up a lot of stuff. Some older software has that damn white bar when you try to run it on a GP32 with a taiwanese screen(these GP32s are called BLU+). Most of the software has been fixed, but apparently either you have an older version of Another World, or it hasn't been fixed yet for some odd reason that I'm not aware of. So remember that, if you ever see a program with different versions, and one is labeled "BLU+ version," that's the one you need to get because otherwise, you'll have that stupid bar.
 
i dont have a BLU+ thou...the box doesnt say it, nor does the back label of the system.

Also, the speed tester to see how fast the system can run at has the same bar. Exactly how do I use that program?
 
yeah, I know. it's not the official name for the system. Gamepark still just calls them BLU, but someone here(I think... don't know for sure, or who it was) decided to call them BLU+ so there isn't any confusion about whether a unit's screen is samsung or the taiwanese one. Yours is definitely a BLU+ if it has the white bar.

Does the white line you see on your system look like this?

gp322233.jpg


That's what a BLU+ will look like when running a program that hasn't been fixed for BLU+ units.
 

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yessir, thats the line....ARGH is it a bad thing that I have a blu+?

also, exactly how do I use the clockspeed tester? im looking for a version for the BLU+ now...

EDIT: cant find the other version....i dont think it matters thou, its not like i need to see past that line like in a game
 
No bad thing to have a blu+, just find the software that works for it!

BTW, have you not tried the mega drive/genesis emulator called DrMD? It's good...
 
not yet. im still trying to figure out how to get the hang of all this. this is the first system ive owned that is totally open source, and it takes a bit getting used to. I think i have the hang of it. my next step is to get some snes games on this baby. snes is teh h0tn3ss :D
Any suggestions? it cant be anymore difficult to put those games on than emus and homebrew games like another world right??

and can someone PLEASE tell me hoe to use that damned clockspeed tester!
 
Nope, it's not bad at all to have a BLU+. That's what mine is, and I haven't run into any problems(except for OSNES9XGP, but that's all over now) yet. Look around in the Another World options, there might be an option to choose between the type of LCD screen you have like in DrMD.

Hehe, I'd love to tell you how to use the clock tester, but I've never done it myself, so I have absolutely no idea.

For SNES, I would suggest using OSNES9XGP v.03 BLU+ version... I'm not sure exactly where you can find it... I'd imagine someone added it to the GP32X file database, but I don't know for sure. So if you need it, just let me know, and I'll be glad to email it to you or send it to you thru AIM or Yahoo IM.

As far as games are concerned, unfortunately most games will run a bit slow, so the only games really worth getting unless you don't mind really slow speeds in most games are RPGs. Try Chrono Trigger(frameskip 3 at 150mhz will give you about 90% speed, a little slower during fights), The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past(about 90% speed at frameskip 2 or 3, I forget what mine's set to), Seiken Densetsu 3(only about 85% speed at frameskip 3 unfortunately, but it's a great game... might wanna try it on your computer though instead), Kirby's DreamCourse(slow too, about 90%, but it's an interesting kirby based golf game, and the speed isn't really important), UN Squadron(don't know how fast, I haven't tested it yet, but it's a great game), FF4, FF5, and FF6(a lot of people seem to like all 3 a lot, but I can't get into them myself), Super Mario World(decent game, I don't like it too much personally, but a lot of people do... it'll run about 95% speed with frameskip 2. I'd reccomend Super Mario ALL Stars, but when you can play all of the games contained in that compilation with LittleJohn at full speed, what's the point?) if you like it, and that's about all I can reccomend. If you really can't live without perfect SNES emulation, you might as well not bother playing SNES on the GP32 at all. If that's the case, you should wait a while for the GPX2.
 
yeah, I was able to find a modded another world. the games not that great anyhow.

What's the best program/app for snes for the BLU+? Mario world, mario allstars, donkey kong, all that good stuff is what I want :D
 
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