A Few Questions before I make my purchase....

[Kop_007]

I was all ready to get the GBA SP but then I thought 'wait a minute - what am I doing-? For practically the same price I can get this and never really have to buy a game again....but still I have a few questions....

1. How easy is it to use ? ie Putting emus, games, software movies onto theGP32
2. WINXP - Is everything compatible - cos it's all I have.
3. What Emus work full speed with sound? I want it mainly for snes games (will I be dissapointed?)
4. Can I save games when playing a game in an EMU?
5. Should I wait for the backlit version? I couldnt play my GBA in the day because of glare and I couldnt play it at night cos it was to dark. It was abysmal. How does the standard non backlit version comapre?
6.How can I fit a 2 hour divx movie onto a 128mb SmartMedia Card? surely there is considerable loss of quality?
7. Is this the best thing ever, will I get more fun out of gaming with it than with the GBA?
8. Couldnt end the questions on an odd number. Do you think thst is correct?

Phew...

 

[bullet]

1. How easy is it to use ? ie Putting emus, games, software movies onto theGP32

So long as you read Readme's, its easy.

2. WINXP - Is everything compatible - cos it's all I have.

Yes.

3. What Emus work full speed with sound? I want it mainly for snes games (will I be dissapointed?)

SNES isn't 100% yet. Its getting there though. So if you were expecting 100% with perfect sound, then yes, you would be dissapointed.

4. Can I save games when playing a game in an EMU?

It depends on the emulators support for savegames.

5. Should I wait for the backlit version? I couldnt play my GBA in the day because of glare and I couldnt play it at night cos it was to dark. It was abysmal. How does the standard non backlit version comapre?

I doubt anyone here has seen a backlit irl, but the non-backlit works fine.

6.How can I fit a 2 hour divx movie onto a 128mb SmartMedia Card? surely there is considerable loss of quality?

Well, obviously. 10-15 fps at a reduced resolution + reduced sound quality. However, it doesn't mean its shit. I use it to watch TV shows, and its awesome.

7. Is this the best thing ever, will I get more fun out of gaming with it than with the GBA?

GBA has much better developer support. If you enjoy playing emulators, then you will like GP32. If you want to play brand new games then you should just get a GBA.

8. Couldnt end the questions on an odd number. Do you think thst is correct?

Does it really worry you so much to ask?

 

[Miles McCloud]

1. Pretty easy, you can use GPLink and the included cable to create a simple filebrowser\explorer type window to copy files to your SMC. Or get a seperate SMC reader/writer to save on batterys.

2. Don't have XP, but there are XP versions of the software. Shouldn't be a problem.

3. Game Gear/SMS, GB Mono, PCEngine, others I can't remember. SNES is full speed without sound, Or pretty close to full speed with sound and a frameskip of three. Varies per game, some are flawless, some downright unplayable.

4. Depends on the Emu. I think you're talking about Save States, not sure because I never use them. Just about all support saving, though.

5. If you plan on playing at night a lot, wait. If not, the screen is clear enough to see even in bad glare. MUCH clearer than the GBA.

6. I watched Back to the Future I and II on it, certainly not bad quality. Filesize was around 90 megs. Looks like crap on a PC, but because the GP32 has the same resolution as the encoded movie it looks pretty good. Had to use the contrast built unto the player several times in dark scenes though.

7. Thats a matter of opinion. My opinion is "Hell Yeah".

8. No, "thst" is not correct. B)

 

[Kop_007]

8. No, "thst" is not correct. B)

You spotted my deliberate error...ahem.

Thanks for the quick responses, you have just confirmed what I originally suspected.....I will be getting one of these bad boys. Gonna head over to GBAx.COM soon to place my order. I mean, if I want to play at night, I can always turn on the room light. Not a big problem at all.

What's this about an 'Afterburner' style upgrade kit for fitting the light at a later date? Do we know how much this will cost roughly?

Cant Wait!

 

[angrypants]

Ok here are the reasons I dig the gp32 and why it appeals to me so much. I like messing around with things and the gp32 deffinatly requires that. Not saying that its hard to use because its not you basicly dump files on the card and it goes. However that is alittle more work that just poping in a cartrige and playing a game. Also I am an emulator freak. I have tons of the stuff and i play it far more than I play my xbox or dreamcast. I still have me nes and atari2600 hooked up and play them all the time so that makes it worth it to me. I would much rather play a nes game than play a new gba game. Also i like the fact that its somthing diffrent than the norm. Its just kinda cool to play somthing that you will never see anyone eles with or see in the stores. I like the fact that games will be very cheap when joygp opens and it will be possible to get new games for cheap and just download them online. the same goes for games in general, due to the fact that it uses smc it allows companies to make demos and patches for games which is somthing that a normal cartridge based system can't do. It is also awesome because it can play mp3's out of the box and for a few bucks more it can play divx which is acctually more impressive than i thought it would be. As for the satus of the emulators I had heard that alot of them were slow and had no sound and so on but I am acctually supprized at how good most of them are. Snes which youmentioned is acctually more playable than i thought it would be. Snesemu is goot for the platform games because it is fast most games seem to run perfectly with no sound or save but still I am able to play fzero at a speed which while not perfect is still smooth and totaly playable. Snes9xgp is also a great emu, it is kind of slow though but is somewhat playable. I think once this one has another update and is given alittle more speed it will be worth the cost of the gp32 alone. It is alittle slow so its not good for platform games of games like mario kart but works well on rpg's which don't need alot of fast movment as well it has save support so if ya dig the snes rpg's which are amazing they are playable on it. The other emulators are pretty amazing too especialy pc engine I can't stop playing outrun and military madness. This emulator is so good you would think the games were specificly made for the system. Over all if ya like old game systems and want them portable the gp32 is for you. If you want to watch movies, read txt files, look at pictures, listel to mp3's in addition to play games the gp32 is for you. If you like playing around with things then it is for you. If you are a programer then the gp32 is for you. If you want newer titles and want the ease of use that the gameboy has then this is not your syetem. If the stuff that i memtioned sounds good then you should order one now the software for it is more impressive in real life than it is to read about, just about everything works better than i expected it to.