1emulation.com Gp2x Review And A Retort

[BobBorakovitz]

first, here is a link to the review in case someone missed it:
http://www.1emulation.com/forums/index.php...dule=gp2xreview

I really disagree with a lot of the review, and I want to share why I guess.
What do you guys think of the review?
Here's my reply on their board which will probably get me banned lol:

What a bunch of crap.

Neo Geo Emulation not good enough? PSP and DS are better. Dude WTF?

Neo Geo absolutely rocks on GP2X. It is the only portable console that can play ALL AES/MVS Neo Geo games at fullspeed. PSP just can't with it's limited 32meg of ram. Yes, you do have to overclock to 266 but you have to overclock with the PSP as well!

I'm not knockin the PSP, it's has it's good and bad points too.

The reviewer obviously missed the point that the GP2X is not a plug and play system. You have to fiddle around with the emulators a bit to get the top performance. He obviously tried everything once and determined that it was crap, instead of reading up about it on www.gp32x.de and updating the emulators and so on. It would have taken him a good month to go over everything in depth but there is a difference in expectations between a new GP2X User (Going WTF. Why doesn't this work?) and an experienced GP2X user (The new emu came out with the MMU hack, damn that's a 20fps increase!) is obvious.

He should have done his research and taken some more time to get everything working properly before the final judgement. For a guy who is a veteran emulation junkie, the review is very N00Bish. "Ultimate" should be nowhere in the title.

Anyhow, freaking 60fps in Samurai Showdown 5 Special with UniBios hacked full fatalities and blood says my GP2X kicks ass.
:thumbsup1:

I agree with your statements 100%! I've had my Gp2x since the beginning, I have the first edition and have had almost NO problems with it. I own a DS AND a PSP and I think that the GP2x is the best out of the 3 unless you like crappy rehashes of current console games. Gp2x DEFFINATELY get's much more play out of me than the other 2. But, all in all, the 2x is no comparison because it's not really a commercial handheld unit. It's MEANT for homebrew. If you're expecting big budget commercial games, go look elsewhere.

I think he was negative about the unit before even buying it. He didn't even try to figure it all out. Read near the end about the Utility section. He states that they're there to fix flaws in the system. But then he gives 3 examples of utilities that ENHANCE the system, not fix flaws. Is overclocking a flaw? How pathetic. Read through it again and tell me otherwise! eopleseybrow:

Neo-Geo works GREAT! I play SVC:Chaos on my 2x and it works lovely, provided you have a fast SD card. I have the same SD card he has also and it's crap slow. If he got a REALLY FAST SD card and tried it again, he'd find that it's the best program on the 2x. I get NO crashes in the menu, but I use an addon menu with pics and more settings called Rage2x, it makes the experience a lot nicer. Overall, he gave Gngeo2x NO chance. How sad is that for a reviewer?

Also, he makes it seem like overclocking is a big chore or something....and that it's gonna hurt the chip or degrade the life of it... that's just plain WRONG. I have a GP32 and it's been overclocked it's entire life and it's still kicking perfectly. And that's with a TON of usage and being carried around, dropped, etc. Overclocking is nothing more than a setting you choose, it doesn't get any easier than that.

Another thing is that he chose a NES emulator that isn't the best choice. FishyNES has been discontinued, the compatibility is crap on it. He must not have played many games on it. But if he would've bothered to do some research, he'd have found that the best NES emulator is GPFCE, it runs beautifully and has great compatibility.

The Sega Genesis he makes it seem like it emulates the 32x console when it doesn't. Once again, research would've provided that info. Hell, the freaking readme says that! The reviewer should research his statements if he's not sure about it. Take your time next time you review something.

MAME - I love how he is dissappointed that SF2 doesn't run, then says that he wanted to play more classic games on it! HAHAHA SF2 is NOT an arcade classic. If you want to play the real classics, it actually plays them great. Pacman, Asteroids, Tron, Robotron(!), Donkey Kong series, Missile Command, Dig Dug, Mr Do, hell I can even play Megaman Power Battles full speed with sound, so I don't know what you're on about here. Once again, you didn't even try. Negative from the gate.

SNES - obviously he has no experience emulating SNES on any handhelds. NO HANDHELD GAMING SYSTEM CAN PLAY SNES AT FULL SPEED! The processor just isn't fast enough for a simple port. If someone codes an emulator from scratch for the 2x, it'd be perfect. This is due to an overly complex sound chip in combination with all of the SNES's fancy graphics modes that make it slow. IE: Mode7, transparency, etc.

Another frustrating thing was that during his bashing, he didn't even mention the fact that there are practicly no mentions from anyone about dead pixels unlike the PSP & the screen has no crappy ghosting unlike the PSP. And he didn't mention any the great homebrew games either.

Overall, I give this review a big thumbs down due to the fact that he didn't even try or give it a chance before giving parts of it bad reviews. It's just depressing because I visit here pretty much everyday because I thought you guys had the best emulation news around. You're even on my linkbar in firefox. I'm just really disappointed. I guess I thought you guys knew what you were talking about when it comes to emulation.

PS - What's up with the gloves? Are you a burn victim or something? lol
And watching you play Duke Nukem was really painful, i wanted to poke my eyes out with a fork

 

[TelcoLou]

I stopped reading the review after this bit:

"Immediately when I saw the GP2x face to face, it was hard for me to read the buttons. Too many CRT monitors can do that to you, but I personally found it discomforting."

:lol:

 

[Shikaku]

Like a lot of devices, the GP2X is either meant for you or not meant for you. It is the least user friendly handheld on the market, and basically is a clunky little thing.... which is why I like it =)

 

[gaterooze]

I don't think he understands that overclocking on an ARM processor is VERY different to overclocking a PC. The way he talks about it, is like it's a bad, dangerous thing.

Neo Geo and MAME have been almost perfect for me, absolutely brilliant. I really don't see his complaints on those.

I also have to assume that he doesn't know how to overclock SquidgeSNES properly, because I can play SF2 Turbo at 50+FPS with sound.

This statement is pure nonsense: "You can't run any of the advanced 2D or 3D emulation (Neogeo, MAME, SNES) at full speed."

Still, not too terrible a review overall, just very misleading in some parts due to his own incapabilities.

 

[Azalin]

Least user friendly? Not at all!

Seriously, its only hard to use if you are either too lazy or too stupid to read the readme files for the programs. I have only had trouble getting one game to work, and that was Duke3d. Sure, its not like you can just pop in a cartridge and turn it on, but its still easier than most computers...

 

[DaveC]

What a crap "review". This guy expects full speed MAME for the newest stuff what a tard. How good is MAME on the PSP? Oh yeah they just ported the GP2X version

Then you have this:

"This system should only be advertised for Linux gurus and developers, no one else. If you want to emulate better, purchase a Sony PSP or Nintendo DS."

Oh yeah the DS can emulate a NeoGeo or Megadrive real well right? Well I guess if all you want is speccy or colecovision it is fine. All else and you are scaling out half of the pixels if it runs at all. This guy is a complete N008 and total PSP fanboi.

I guess I shouldn't be using the Gp2X as I am not a linux guru :rolleyes:

Neo Geo absolutely rocks on GP2X. It is the only portable console that can play ALL AES/MVS Neo Geo games at fullspeed. PSP just can't with it's limited 32meg of ram. Yes, you do have to overclock to 266 but you have to overclock with the PSP as well!

You should ask this guy on that forum how well NeoGeo, Megadrive/Genesis, and MAME run on the DS. Since he says we should get a DS instead it must run those better too right? Oh it doesn't run those very well if at all? Hmm I guess he is just full of shit then

 

[krosfyah]

Here's the previous topic with more disgruntled GP2x'ers..

http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?showtopic=31383

 

[stormyandcold]

The review isnt accurate, but not completely wrong.

As a guy who knows nothing about linux I've found the GP2Xperience excellent!

Love GnGeo2x and DrMd. (the best of the best atm especially GnGeo2x...shows whats possible on our GP2X.

Mame runs well with most games I've tried although he's right about SF2 (which IS a classic tbh). Dissapointed that Punch Out doesnt work well.

As for SNES emulation...its the least played out of the 4 emulators I use...needs more work but still enjoyable with either squidge or snes9x versions. (super punch out works nicely )

The GP2X has so much potential...it maybe years until homebrew shows off its capabilities.

For now, enjoy all the emulators and hope 1 day soon we'll get a must-buy game that will really push the GP2X forward.

Everyone who's seen mine has been impressed so far. Its my mini pc companion!

 

[DemonStar55]

"The volume buttons were interesting as I thought if you pressed the entire button itself, that it would mute. Unfortunately, you can only press it left and right to increase and decrease the volume."

hahaha

 

[BobBorakovitz]

haha, one of the admins just replied and said that he agrees that the review needs to be redone and that it was rushed. how funny is that?

man i just want to make fun of that glove some more! wtf is that thing from?!
it looks like Michael Jackson is playing a GP2x.
wearing that glove, no wonder he sucks so bad at duke nukem

 

[Epicenter]

I'd complain about a system too if I had to play it wearing oven mitts... there must be massive heat output running at that incredible 50 MHz overclock. :lol:

 

[krosfyah]

I got up in the middle of the night to get a drink and promptly burst out laughing when I saw some oven gloves on the kitchen counter. This is gonna stay with me forever.

 

[spoyser]

MAME - I love how he is dissappointed that SF2 doesn't run, then says that he wanted to play more classic games on it! HAHAHA SF2 is NOT an arcade classic. If you want to play the real classics, it actually plays them great. Pacman, Asteroids, Tron, Robotron(!), Donkey Kong series, Missile Command, Dig Dug, Mr Do, hell I can even play Megaman Power Battles full speed with sound, so I don't know what you're on about here. Once again, you didn't even try. Negative from the gate.

How do you set up the controls in Tron? I cannot for the life of me separate the spinner controls from the joystick, and similarly for Disc of Tron (my fave game of all time!)

 

[Alex.]

It' been said before http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?showtopic=31383

Ah well, freedom of speech is a double-ended sword

- Alex

 

[tmb_ayebe]

Lol, where abouts on their board did you post this? I'd like to see the reaction. :blink:

EDIT:
Lol never mind found it:
http://www.1emulation.com/forums/index.php...=gp2x&st=11

Good work!

 

[krosfyah]

http://www.1emulation.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=19249

 

[starpause]

Least user friendly? Not at all!

Seriously, its only hard to use if you are either too lazy or too stupid to read the readme files for the programs. I have only had trouble getting one game to work, and that was Duke3d. Sure, its not like you can just pop in a cartridge and turn it on, but its still easier than most computers...

which is more "user unfriendly"

sony, who tells their users what software is and isn't allowed to run on hardware they purchased. every time a firmware is released the user can do less.

or

gp, who tells their users to do as they please. every time a firmware is released the user can do more.

h34r: :rolleyes:

 

[Lint]

I think that review is pretty much lame too, but it got some bad points correctly:

my main agreement is playing videos, my gp2x halts most of the times and when not, sometime it display choppy videos, we have to have better video codecs...

he didn't mention how lame the stick in gp2x is, which would be much more reasonable than to complain about having to overclock to play neogeo games or trying to find some problem with DrMD

also "e-book reader" is such a shame, period.

everything else seems to be written by a psp fan
my gp2x also had that "bad cable", but it was fault of my usb extension cord, plugging the cable directly to USB host port will do it

but hey... it's clear the case that gp2x is not for the end bare (lame?) user that wants everything fancy and shiny

also anyone who send greetings to gp2x irc channel must be out of his mind <_<

 

[darkman]

BobBoraKovitz, You motivated me to sign up to that site and make a comment. I personally feel that the guy hasn't enough skills to load up an emulator on his PC and make it work. Journalism is certainly not one of his skills!

"darkman" has invaded their site.

 

[Alex.]

I would have let them have it myself, but ++'ing their member count would just encourage them

- Alex