Got A Gp2x? Tell Us!


OrR

Corporate games suck.
Joined
Oct 7, 2004
Messages
1,411
Location
Hildesheim/Germany
Website
grvoid.com
I know that there are some people lurking here who have already got their GP2X. However, in the general chaos, bitching and stuff, their first reactions have either been carried away or they didn't dare to post them. Well, I'd like to hear some real reactions! How is the GP2X? How are the ergonomics? How does it sound? Did you already watch a movie on it? And finally, some first hand reports about the hyped hardware problems wouldn't be too bad either. ;)
 
Well, I posted last week already, but here goes...

I have been very much enjoying playing Quake and LinesX so far. I have watched a few videos as well. XviD gets horribly out of sync. You can actually see the video playing faster than the sound. DivX will occasionally freeze on me, though I don't know if this is because I bought a slow 80X SD card. The battery life is very poor. I will get approximately 1.5-2 hours out of a pair of Sanyo 2500 mAh rechargeables. The joystick does seem to stick a little on moving left or right. I'm not sure what to attribute that to. Also, volume on video files seems really low.

Those are the very few (and not major) problems so far. My power button hasn't fallen off. The headphone jack hasn't desoldered. The screen has no dead pixels and looks very bright and beautiful.

All in all I am very much enjoying this unit. I cannot wait for updated firmware that will hopefully fix these minor issues.
 
Have you tried the suggested fixes for the hardware problems that I head about:
Turning the joystick clockwise or anti-clockwise to make it a little more loose.
Cleaning the battery contacts, maybe even use some sand paper for it.
About the XviD problem: Does it happen with every XviD video?
Thanks for posting! :)
 
Have you tried the suggested fixes for the hardware problems that I head about:
Turning the joystick clockwise or anti-clockwise to make it a little more loose.
Cleaning the battery contacts, maybe even use some sand paper for it.
About the XviD problem: Does it happen with every XviD video?
Thanks for posting! :)

I have tried turning the stick counter clockwise a little. It seems to help a little. It could be that every program uses the joystick a little differently. I have noticed the problem mostly in LinesX and a little bit in Quake2X (Quake I) and hardly at all in the interface.

I haven't touched the contacts yet. I would rather wait for official news from GPH on that. I find it funny that people have been spouting these facts as gospel truth. They are unsubstantiated rumours as far as I can tell.

With regards to XviD, it happens to every XviD file I have tried. Every DivX file I have tired freezes as well. At that point I can still bring up the video player's interface, however, I can't fast forward or rewind and I can't exit the player back to the main interface.
 
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The joystick does seem to stick a little on moving left or right. I'm not sure what to attribute that to. Also, volume on video files seems really low.

Have you tried to hold the stick like you would hold a screw and turn it slowly counter-clockwise a few times? Of course, this is from "UNFOUNDED" sources, it seems to have pretty good "RUMORED" success rate because it'll loosen up the over-tighten screws.

After reading lots of those "UNFOUNDED RUMORS", I'm getting to realize that GP2x is going to be a whole new beast to me. I mean, with DS or PSP, I won't ever try to open them up that would result in void warrantee. With GP2x, I'm already very tempted to open it up and have some fun, or fix whatever hardware I may face. I'm even considering to replace the red LED to blue LED. The whole thing reminds me of toys (or radios) that I destroyed when I was a little boy who had no idea what he was doing, but was having lots of fun.

Since we're talking about replacing existing crap-tastic firmware with whatever cool thing to come, having some fun with the hardware itself won't be too far fetched idea. That way, GP2x becomes truely open-source/open-hardware. :)
 
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Have you tried the suggested fixes for the hardware problems that I head about:
Turning the joystick clockwise or anti-clockwise to make it a little more loose.
Cleaning the battery contacts, maybe even use some sand paper for it.
About the XviD problem: Does it happen with every XviD video?
Thanks for posting! :)
I find it funny that people have been spouting these facts as gospel truth. They are unsubstantiated rumours as far as I can tell.
That's why I'm asking you, to find out what is actually true and what not. :)
 
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The joystick does seem to stick a little on moving left or right. I'm not sure what to attribute that to. Also, volume on video files seems really low.

Have you tried to hold the stick like you would hold a screw and turn it slowly counter-clockwise a few times? Of course, this is from "UNFOUNDED" sources, it seems to have pretty good "RUMORED" success rate because it'll loosen up the over-tighten screws.

After reading lots of those "UNFOUNDED RUMORS", I'm getting to realize that GP2x is going to be a whole new beast to me. I mean, with DS or PSP, I won't ever try to open them up that would result in void warrantee. With GP2x, I'm already very tempted to open it up and have some fun, or fix whatever hardware I may face. I'm even considering to replace the red LED to blue LED. The whole thing reminds me of toys (or radios) that I destroyed when I was a little boy who had no idea what he was doing, but was having lots of fun.

Since we're talking about replacing existing crap-tastic firmware with whatever cool thing to come, having some fun with the hardware itself won't be too far fetched idea. That way, GP2x becomes truely open-source/open-hardware. :)

Codeninja...

I did say above that I had indeed tried rotating the joystick counter-clockwise "like you would a screw". It helped a little, but not completely. I am wary of loosening it too much.

I was never expecting a perfect unit. What threw me at first was the very poor battery life. I was not expecting that at all and was completely thrown when video wouldn't run after only half an hour on the included AA batteries.
 
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I did say above that I had indeed tried rotating the joystick counter-clockwise "like you would a screw".

Sorry, by the time I finish typing, those posts popped up in front of mine.

I was never expecting a perfect unit. What threw me at first was the very poor battery life. I was not expecting that at all and was completely thrown when video wouldn't run after only half an hour on the included AA batteries.

I was frankly anxious about the possibility of faulty unit, but unless I receive a total brick, I think I'll experiment with my unit like I said in my previous post. The prospect of having "that" kind of fun makes me even more excited about GP2x.
 
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codeninja said:
I'm getting to realize that GP2x is going to be a whole new beast to me. I mean, with DS or PSP, I won't ever try to open them up that would result in void warrantee. With GP2x, I'm already very tempted to open it up and have some fun, or fix whatever hardware I may face.

That's half the fun. My GP32 had a dicky shoulder button so I opened her up and shoved some folded paper under it = works perfectly! :lol:
 
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I have been very much enjoying playing Quake and LinesX so far. I have watched a few videos as well. XviD gets horribly out of sync. You can actually see the video playing faster than the sound. DivX will occasionally freeze on me, though I don't know if this is because I bought a slow 80X SD card. The battery life is very poor. I will get approximately 1.5-2 hours out of a pair of Sanyo 2500 mAh rechargeables. The joystick does seem to stick a little on moving left or right. I'm not sure what to attribute that to. Also, volume on video files seems really low.


I have to admit, all the doomsayers flinging rumors around had me worried,
but the issues that you mention sound easyly repairable.

thanks for the reassuring news.
 
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Perhaps you need to remove the "packed bitstream" from the divx or xvid file.

http://www.moitah.net/

^^Use this piece of software to do this and see what results you get ;)

I just checked the XviD file that I tested last night. It didn't have a "packed bitstream" to remove. Will removing the "packed bitstream" help with the DivX freezing?

Thanks
 
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I will get approximately 1.5-2 hours out of a pair of Sanyo 2500 mAh rechargeables.
Are those rechargables new ones and what kind of are they, NiMh, NiCd, Lithium, Coal-Zinc? :p

Thanks.
(Uh, this bothers me the most at the moment.. the battery time. But we'll see :))

Btw, just in case the machine has such a short for everyone runtime, may it be possible to exchange it? (IF they correct that in a new revision..!) Otherwise I wouldn't think of exchanging the little gp32_console baby I guess :rolleyes:
 
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I will get approximately 1.5-2 hours out of a pair of Sanyo 2500 mAh rechargeables.
Are those rechargables new ones and what kind of are they, NiMh, NiCd, Lithium, Coal-Zinc? :p

Thanks.
(Uh, this bothers me the most at the moment.. the battery time. But we'll see :))

Btw, just in case the machine has such a short for everyone runtime, may it be possible to exchange it? (IF they correct that in a new revision..!) Otherwise I wouldn't think of exchanging the little gp32_console baby I guess :rolleyes:

The batteries are NiMH. I fully think that the battery life will improve once we start seeing some firmware updates.
 
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Another thing to try if your having issues with out of sync xvid/divx video is to check that the audio stream is fized bitrate (CBR). Variable bitrate (VBR) MP3 audio often causes sync issues. The consilation in the case of the GP2x that if this is the problem, is easy enough to fix with a firmware patch.

Try encoding both a VBR and CBR MP3 audio version of the same video and try it. Most videos downloaded from p2p etc will be VBR, as this saves a little on filesize and offers better use of the available audio bandwidth (i.e. better overall quality for a smaller file size). You can check if an avi uses VBR or CBR (along with a whole host of other stuff that may be affecting playback) using GSpot:- Just drag your AVI onto it for all the details you'll ever need.

GSpot AVI Analysis Tool

Post up if this helps :D

#Wonderdog
 
Another thing to try if your having issues with out of sync xvid/divx video is to check that the audio stream is fized bitrate (CBR). Variable bitrate (VBR) MP3 audio often causes sync issues. The consilation in the case of the GP2x that if this is the problem, is easy enough to fix with a firmware patch.

Try encoding both a VBR and CBR MP3 audio version of the same video and try it. Most videos downloaded from p2p etc will be VBR, as this saves a little on filesize and offers better use of the available audio bandwidth (i.e. better overall quality for a smaller file size). You can check if an avi uses VBR or CBR (along with a whole host of other stuff that may be affecting playback) using GSpot:- Just drag your AVI onto it for all the details you'll ever need.

GSpot AVI Analysis Tool

Post up if this helps :D

#Wonderdog

It's something I would like to try. I just don't know how. What program do I need to use? And how do I extract the audio, reencode it, and then add it back with the video? I have AutoGK, but I can't get that to work with the latest version of DivX so I have to do everything XviD.
 
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It all sounds like one big pain in the arse at the moment. I should wait until a new firmware or players are available, re-encoding films is just not worth the hassle when you have little time.
 
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