A few questions before purchasing a GP32...

[Ramzy]

I'm Christmas shopping already, and I was considering buying a GP32 FLU.

1- How well does GP32 emulate the Sega GameGear and the SNES? Is sound enabled? Any frame-rate issues?

2- Where did you purchase your GP32 from? I'm thinking of getting mine from Lik-Sang to an American address. How many days would it take?

Thanks.

 

[ralp99]

arggghh! another post of "the same questions.." But I'm feeling generous tonight, so here ya go.

1. game gear and sega master system - spot-on. no complaints at all. you got perfect frame rates + sound. Snes? Currently, there's tons of issues with Snes. DO NOT BUY A GP32 if you want perfect SNES. The emu's that are out right now have high compatibility and lots of games are playable to a degree, some are just about damned perfect (well, a precious few..) and a lot of games are kind of hit-or-miss. Like, too choppy to enjoy with the framerate (fast action games, Mode 7 games). RPGs fare much better cause they are not so frame-rate dependant to begin with. As for sound, othe more recent emu has sound but you'll want to disable it (it plays slow anyway) as it slows down your emulator more.

if you overclock the Snes emulators, you can get a much more satisfying experience - only some GP32s can overclock, and even then it's luck of the draw (you can't ask a retailer to sell you one that will, a secondhand (or personal, used) sale is a different story). Overclocking eats up batteries faster and people used to think it would harm your GP32, but many of us have been doing it for months now with no ill effects at all (except for the extra battery drain, as I said).

There's a new SNES emulator on the horizon (release coming in the next week or month, I believe?) that sounds like it will be much more enjoyable than it's predecessors, maybe you should wait and see how this one turns out before you plunk down all that dough.

All that being said - GP32 is a system that demands you do some research before you're gonna get intimate with it. It's not hard, all these questions have been asked dozens of times on these boards before, if you could find your way here than you can also spend a little more time and dig through the archives - I am sure you will find lots of useful info in there (not trying to be a dick, just trying to encourage a little self-sufficience - like I said, we get zillions of these "couple questions about GP32" posts around here and people tend to get rude or misinformed). Anyway -- I love this thing, it's not for everybody but it's a great investment if you are into retrogaming and the scene is lots of fun to watch. I hope you like what you see!
(go for the front-lit unit!!)

one last thing - I live in Los Angeles and ordered my GP32 from GBAX.com (in the UK). Not during the holiday times mind you, but it took exactly a week to get here w/ no special shipping

 

[Bazzie]

First off all i could really reccomend an FLU, I have one 2!

About ur second question, i ordered mine at a special actionsale, but I can recommend GBAX.com!

 

[fasttimes]

I'm thinking of getting mine from Lik-Sang to an American address. How many days would it take?

Both my GP32's from Lik-Sang arrived in 3-4 days after placing the orders (4 months apart) to Los Angeles.

 

[Ramzy]

ralp99, thanks for taking the time to reply! I'm an N-Gage 'techie' and have both researched and used the N-Gage for quite a while.

So, you're telling me that despite some RPGs playing in acceptable frame-rate conditions, the sound is still choppy?

I'd like to compare this to the N-Gage's efforts to emulate the Gameboy Color's sound.

Oh, and does the GP32 have a Headphone Jack?

 

[pip]

ralp99, thanks for taking the time to reply! I'm an N-Gage 'techie' and have both researched and used the N-Gage for quite a while.

So, you're telling me that despite some RPGs playing in acceptable frame-rate conditions, the sound is still choppy?

I'd like to compare this to the N-Gage's efforts to emulate the Gameboy Color's sound.

Oh, and does the GP32 have a Headphone Jack?

The sound is not choppy if you use enough frameskip. Some games run perfectly well with 1 frameskip with sound on (such as soulblazer and Lufia 2). While others don't (Dragon Quest 5 for instance). Personally I cannot play without sound, so I always have it turned on.

Yes, you can plug in headphones or computer speakers if you want to.

 

[Ramzy]

Thanks again for replying.

I've done some research around this forum and I noticed that SNES and Genesis emulation strongly depends on the MHz strengh the particular GP32 system can reach. Now I'm not always the luckiest of people around and I doubt I'll be getting a quick one... is there any way humanly possible to distinguish a high MHz GP32? Does Lik-Sang's recent batch look good?

I'm looking for 172MHz...

 

[rcx21000]

I'm looking for 172MHz...

It's been proven (AFAIK) that anything above 166MhZ is rounded down to 166Mhz, even though the numbers are valid... So I wouldn't worry about going that high.

 

[reg_reagan233]

I just bought a GP32 FLU for Christmas! I bought it from Lik-sang. It only took 3 to 4 days for it to arrive and I live in a small country town in Australia!

Don't forget about the import tax and all that kinda stuff.