100 Hand Painted Special Edition Pandoras

[MooTheKow]

Errr.. so at the moment if someone doesn't particularly care about amiga - which emulators are actually in a state where they can actually be used to play games (which is what I've been waiting the last 2 years to do ). I.e. when I finally get the thing in my hands - what can I actually play from day one? I must be a bit out of the loop as I'm not familiar with what things like Vice, Stella, or GPFCE are. What is the status of Picodrive? (thought I saw on another thread that it wasn't read yet?)

 

[Dead1nside]

My gaming desires aren't on the thoroughly retro side of the spectrum. I've been mainly interested in Gameboy, SNES, Megadrive, Playstation, N64 and the possibility of Dreamcast. As well as playing the myriad of homebrew that I hope really pushes the Pandora.

 

[Jumpman]

I completly agree with Ed in regards to overclocking. I never saw it as an issue, exept for N64 and above. Maybe a PS1 game here and there, or maybe even an DSP SNES game, but with those emu optimized, they shouldn't be an issue either.

I didn't order my Pandora for N64 games, I knew we would someday see and emu, but I never thought it would be so great so soon. N64, Dreamcast, ect are all just icing on my cake. I never overclocked my GP2X, or my wiz, as normally it just makes the emulator run unstable(IMO), but I would consider it to run a couple of N64 games if it helps.

I really do believe that 99% of the time, it will never be necessary.

Chris

 

[juniorm33]

But it's there if required, that's my point. I'm not saying that people shouldn't aim for 500Mhz, and if your only interested in the emu's that has been listed, then your fine anyway.
I know most people only care about those but I don't.
If someone released a new game with an engine that struggles I'd have no issue overclocking and if I'm unlucky to not be able to overclock to the required speed, then that's just a shame. This could happen now or a year down the line.

Or apps that aren't game related at all.
If I'm doing a bit of coding on the move and I put a compiler on there then I'll overclock it just so it compliles a bit quicker
No one's saying that there isn't a wealth and majority of things that doesn't need overclocking, but I'm sure there will be some. And we're lucky that we have that headroom to play with if required.

 

[MonkeyChops]

Overclocking? What for? Except N64 perhaps.

DOSBOX DEFIANTLY!*

*fixed

I can't wait to play with dosbox. Tons of childhood reliving to do!

 

[BCable]

Overclocking? What for? Except N64 perhaps.

DOSBOX DEFIANTLY!*

*fixed

I can't wait to play with dosbox. Tons of childhood reliving to do!

Who's defying whom?

 

[MonkeyChops]

Overclocking? What for? Except N64 perhaps.

DOSBOX DEFINITELY!*

*fixed

I can't wait to play with dosbox. Tons of childhood reliving to do!

Who's defying whom?

lol

man does my spelling suck

*fixed again

 

[EvilDragon]

Errr.. so at the moment if someone doesn't particularly care about amiga - which emulators are actually in a state where they can actually be used to play games (which is what I've been waiting the last 2 years to do ). I.e. when I finally get the thing in my hands - what can I actually play from day one? I must be a bit out of the loop as I'm not familiar with what things like Vice, Stella, or GPFCE are. What is the status of Picodrive? (thought I saw on another thread that it wasn't read yet?)

Well, PicoDrive is the best emulator I know on the Pandora so far, however, SMS is only halfway implemented and notaz wants to finish that before releasing it. But scrolling is smoooooth (as usual )
So it will take a while longer, but it's perfect.

UAE4ALL is perfect for normal Amiga gaming (emulates Standard A500 fullspeed without frameskip).
It's very optimized and therefore not 100% compatible (i.e. collecting crystals sound wrong in Turrican 2), it's a direct GP2X Port, so it has the same bugs / features as the gp2x version, but runs fullspeed with sound and without frameskip (Speedball 2 is fun here )

Hatari works without any problems already, as does Vice (C64 and CBM machines) and Stella (VCS2600). They all run with 500MHz fullspeed with sound and without frameskipping. Colem, too

Pickle is working on gpfce and except for a wrong palette (was just a quick compile), it also runs fullspeed with sound.

 

[MooTheKow]

Well, PicoDrive is the best emulator I know on the Pandora so far, however, SMS is only halfway implemented and notaz wants to finish that before releasing it. But scrolling is smoooooth (as usual )
So it will take a while longer, but it's perfect.

UAE4ALL is perfect for normal Amiga gaming (emulates Standard A500 fullspeed without frameskip).
It's very optimized and therefore not 100% compatible (i.e. collecting crystals sound wrong in Turrican 2), it's a direct GP2X Port, so it has the same bugs / features as the gp2x version, but runs fullspeed with sound and without frameskip (Speedball 2 is fun here )

Hatari works without any problems already, as does Vice (C64 and CBM machines) and Stella (VCS2600). They all run with 500MHz fullspeed with sound and without frameskipping. Colem, too

Pickle is working on gpfce and except for a wrong palette (was just a quick compile), it also runs fullspeed with sound.

So - things like MAME or SCUMMVM aren't actually functional/usable right now?

 

[Exophase]

Interesting, the machine is not out yet but people sound confident that more clock speed won't be of benefit to almost any programs. I should hope that what comes out on Pandora is not limited to what we're aware will be out now.

There are also a lot of assumptions about what will be optimized. I don't know about SNES9x being 3fps on GP2X, but this comparison sounds pathological. And with all due respect, the "everyone" who thought that SNES emulation couldn't be achieved to the extent it had didn't possess the technical acumen to really make that call. Likewise, this mentality leads to dangerous optimism - I've seen several arguments about how "no one thought X was possible but they were proven wrong, so who are you to say Y won't happen??" and they just don't really hold.

PS1 emulation "needing work" seems like cause for concern to me. This isn't the old bog standard SNES9x build, this is an emulator which is supposed to have years of specialization on ARM handhelds behind it. I don't mean to knock zodttd, but he has had more motivation to improve it on iPhone, so if that hasn't been happening to "enough" extent in the last two years why do you think something will suddenly happen within months of Pandora's release? Or will it be from someone else contributing? Bear in mind that the PS1 emulator is writing straight to the framebuffer, so there isn't an easy performance grab for improving how the screen is updated.

Further, you shouldn't extend your hopes too high for OGL ES 2 acceleration for PS1 - while it can happen I'm sure there will be some compatibility issues. People have been trying to hack around incompatibilities between OGL/D3D and PS1 for years and ES 2 is actually substantially less flexible in a number of ways.

Anyway, here are a number of reasons why I think overclocking will be desirable:

- Already mentioned, but N64 is a total given - right now you need frameskip for everything at 600MHz. So there's plenty to gain, and not just for the most demanding games.
- All the fringe emulators that we know people are working on like Dreamcast and PSP. Regardless of what one person thinks about their playability, there will be people who insist on using them no matter what, and will want to make it as fast as possible.
- Then platforms like DS that we don't know of anyone working on but if something like this comes out...
- And the inevitable ports of Yabause and what not that will run like crap but slightly less so overclocked to the maximum
- Have a pretty good feeling that if Flash ever works in any form it's going to beg for this
- More headroom for special filters and whatever other crazy options like emulating audio at several MHz
- More headroom for fast forwarding faster through boring RPGs
- Higher framerate on 3D games
- Get compute tasks done faster - especially for things like movie encoding and compiling (remember all the people who want to compile on Pandora?)

 

[Mithrildor]

Though we probably make public beta testing with future firmware images. Put them on your SD Card and help us make this thing better

Public beta? Isnt it possible to download changes from a website, pack them into an image and run it from SD card?

@Exophase:

I think everything will speed up alot when the first batch is out and some more coders get their hands on it and then it will speed up more once other great devs know the Pandora is awesome and that they will get it soon and they order their batch 2 pandoras

 

[Exophase]

@Exophase:

I think everything will speed up alot when the first batch is out and some more coders get their hands on it and then it will speed up more once other great devs know the Pandora is awesome and that they will get it soon and they order their batch 2 pandoras

And if you expect all of this to apply to PS1 emulation then you're naive.

 

[Mithrildor]

@Exophase:

I think everything will speed up alot when the first batch is out and some more coders get their hands on it and then it will speed up more once other great devs know the Pandora is awesome and that they will get it soon and they order their batch 2 pandoras

And if you expect all of this to apply to PS1 emulation then you're naive.

Ok not PS1, but I guess other consoles..

 

[Exophase]

Ok not PS1, but I guess other consoles..

How concerned are we about other consoles? Is it SNES? Then yes, I think SNES will be okay.

 

[Patrick R Ludvigsen]

Without a doubt, if voltage upping becomes possible, then I'll do it even if it will remove my warranty for issues related to CPU. Not sure if I'd do it if it would remove all of the warranty though.

Though didn't that TI sheet say that it would have 44K hours of poweron time with the worst voltage abuse?

 

[Pleng]

Well, besides N64, I can't think of much that NEEDS overclocking.

OK so, playing devils advocate here, if this is the case then what is the point in the special editions being guaranteed to clock higher...?

 

[WizardStan]

OK so, playing devils advocate here, if this is the case then what is the point in the special editions being guaranteed to clock higher...?

Some people like their websites loading up half a second faster, or whatever else. Just because you don't need something doesn't mean you can't want it.

 

[Exophase]

Though didn't that TI sheet say that it would have 44K hours of poweron time with the worst voltage abuse?

If OMAP3430's capabilities are any indication - and I expect this part to be functionally identical - then you can software configure voltage well in excess of OPP5 levels. On N900 you can set it all the up to at least 1.5V.

 

[Uh...Clem]

I really wish there was an Atari Lynx emulator in the works. I don't see one on the projects Wiki page. I love this addictive Lynx game, Crystal Mines II:

http://www.ataritimes.com/article.php?showarticle=312

I have a Lynx II and own that cartridge along with many others, but the Lynx is, ahem, rather large and when disconnected from its AC adapter/wall wart, eats batteries for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

 

[Awakening]

Don't forget that DOSBox will benefit from overclocking as well.