32MB upgrade - N64 on GP, are you NUTS?

[ralp99]

hey. i hate free speech and newbies. (when did I say that?)
All I know is that I love that I can stick my GP32 in my back pocket and play it on the can if I am so inclined. If it was any bigger with all sorts of wires hanging out and I had to recharge the batt's after every session and had to spend megabucks to send it off to someone hoping that they could perform all these crazy mods on it.. Spend more money on a gazillion flashcards that I'd have to keep swapping out to fit all the games + movies I wanted to play..
Man, I'll just wait and see what's out a in few more generations, like I was saying.

Meanwhile.. have you guys looked at that vid of Mame running on GP32, and read the posts about what might be possible with it? Sure it's no N64, it can't play metal freaking slug, and that's fine with me! (they're great games, but with that truckload I'd never get to them anyway)

"The community needs experiments like this [ram soldering] to survive" -- I disagree. PSP, next Gameboy, Zodiac + N-Gage + B'ngo (for what it's worth) - THOSE all ensure that the handheld scene is going somewhere, whether sketchy gamepark stays in the picture or now (Of ocurse, I hope so). The point is it's finally going beyond Nintendo's low-tech 8-bit Gameboy technology (starting with the GBA) and we'll only benefit. Sure, some or many of these handhelds will fail or not be very welcoming to the homebrew dev's, but the scene's getting a lot more aggressive these days, don't worry too much about that (just wait till Microsoft chimes in with their own device, look at what a modder's dream the Xbox has become for example!)

The thing that sucks about these rants is that I could go on all day and just talk in circles.. whatever. It's kind of fun too. Anyway, I don't care too much what happens, I already have more games than I have got time to play and Mame/Genesis/SNES are well on their way to getting better, so that's pretty damn good I think.

 

[Shaking Spirit]

<Insert general slapping of ralp here >
I think you are missing the point. Nobody is saying that we NEED to do this for the GP32 to survive. We are doing it because we can. We CAN make a great system better. And I don't see anything wrong with that.
Just my €2s.

 

[generalnmx]

Seeing as how N64 doesn't work well even on a PC, I can agree with that...

I agree that a 32MB upgrade is needed for the GP32 "to survive", it's going to survive no matter what upgrades we do to it. I did say earlier that the GP32 is commericially dead outside of Korea, and it'll be up to us to upgrade the GP32 since Gamepark probably doesn't have the capital to take those types of endevours.

But with more RAM we may get some 32-bit games running on a very primitive level, like without sound.

 

[EvilDragon]

Well, the voltage setting alone does not affect the power drain.

You always have three parameters when dealing with battery draining:

Voltage (V) and Electric Current (I, measured in Ampere) and Energy (P, measured in Watt)

The formula is:

P = V*I

Basically, if you have 3 V and 2 A, this gives you a power of 6 W.

So processors can all use the same voltage, but usually they need a different amount of Electric Current, that's why some drain more battery power than others.
That's even the reason why the GP32 needs consumes more battery power when running faster - the voltage doesn't change, but the electric current.

Of course, processors get better and better over time and use less power while becoming faster, but basically you can say: The faster, the more power it needs.

Old 486 PCs ran easily using 100 W - modern PCs nowadays need 300 - 400W!

BTW: You can even calculate how long your batteries will last:
If you have an 1,5 V battery with 2000 mAh (Milliamperehours), this means that the battery lasts 1 hour if you use it in a hardware that needs 2A and 1,5 V.

 

[Daz_Genetic]

I love my GP32, I will stick in this scene for as long as I can, and I will use it to practice programming on. But as soon as hardware modifications become the standard, and I find that I am unable to use the majority of homebrew releases. Then I will be switching my attention to the Zodiac, or whichever handheld gives me what I am looking for without modifications.

Also, surely extra memory only means you can load bigger ROMs. I wouldn't think it make a GBA emulator any more likely, since it's failure so far has mainly been a processer thing anyway. Maybe people should be looking into ways of streaming ROMs so they don't have to be completely loaded all the time. I think a GBA emulator could probably be done and therefore the extra memory may be worthwhile, but I really don't think porting any existing emulators is going to cut it. I don't beleieve any one guy has the time, talent and dedication to really push the hardware to the limit to achieve such a goal.

It seems to me that loading ROM's is really the ONLY reason the majority of people are wanting this upgrade, but since all the good emulators on this system don't need it, it doesn't seem worth it. Perhaps if someone released a good GBA emu that loaded 4MB ROMs, this would prove the need for extra memory and THEN and only then would I even consider doing the upgrade.

 

[Evil_Cartman]

Well, i understand what you're saying, ralp99, but having a GP32 is about freedom, not being with nintendo, the big evil company . You can have your GP32 as you like it. Nobody is insisting that you upgrade your GP32. You can if you want faster speed, more ram and a lot more systems to emulate. Sure, keep your GP32 as it is, but dont come ranting about that all is doing it. You can keep yours as it is.

 

[declaration]

Well, i understand what you're saying, ralp99, but having a GP32 is about freedom, not being with nintendo, the big evil company . You can have your GP32 as you like it. Nobody is insisting that you upgrade your GP32. You can if you want faster speed, more ram and a lot more systems to emulate. Sure, keep your GP32 as it is, but dont come ranting about that all is doing it. You can keep yours as it is.

well said..... Thats the other great thing about this.... Everybody can choose whether or not to do it.

As for handheld future being taken care of by the Zodiac, PSP and B'ngo, we already have a great community, many games, utilities and emulators. Wouldnt it be great to have a kind of bakward compatability between these new "Super GP32s" and the normal ones, kind of like PS1 and PS2. Then we wouldnt have to start again and jump on every new piece of hardware that comes out.
As for choice in the future, i dont see it going in any direction different to that of commercial home consoles. Sony and Nintendo will rule the roost, leaving no room for the little boys.....

The worst thing (in my opinion) about the GP32 is the limit of the RAM and having more would just make it better and hopefully increase its life....