A Few Questions...

[LittleTodds]

I'm going to buy my own GP2X in a few days, but before I do, I have a few questions:

1. How reliable is Play-Asia? I'm Australian, so if I buy my GP2X from there instead of gp2x.net.au I save about A$40.

2. I was thinking about buying a carry case, but they are about $25 on Play-Asia, and I couldn't find anywhere else I could get them. Should I get one, and where else can I get them?

3. Is it possible to play the Curse of Monkey Island on ScummVM? If so, how playable is it? Does speech work?

Thanks in advance.

 

[adamclement]

I'm going to buy my own GP2X in a few days, but before I do, I have a few questions:

1. How reliable is Play-Asia? I'm Australian, so if I buy my GP2X from there instead of gp2x.net.au I save about A$40.

ive heard they are very reliable but quite slow....also you may need to pay import taxes on top of other costs....we do in uk

2. I was thinking about buying a carry case, but they are about $25 on Play-Asia, and I couldn't find anywhere else I could get them. Should I get one, and where else can I get them?

Any nintendo DS case will do, i got mine for £5.....i've heard old gba cases are good aswell......official case is nasty i heard...cheap build quality.....DS and GP2x are very similar sizes.....

3. Is it possible to play the Curse of Monkey Island on ScummVM? If so, how playable is it? Does speech work?

i've heard it is but not sure...check their website...

 

[sehs33]

1. I got mine from Play-Asia and they were great, but I advice you get yours from a local dealer, you might need to return the unit for some reason one day and shipping to Hong Kong will be more expensive.
2. Slacking around enough, most people who got the original carry case said it sucks, go for a DS's case as adamclement suggested.
3. No it is not; according to:
http://wiki.scummvm.org/index.php/GP2X/Com...Supported_Games

Welcome to the board.

 

[gruso]

1. I'd shop at PlayAsia for games / some accessories, but not systems. As previously mentioned, if anything goes wrong with the unit you'll learn a quick lesson in false economy. I bought mine from gp2x.net.au, fast delivery and only down the road if I run into trouble.

2. What the others said. The official case protects well, but it's a tight fit. With mine, the squeeze resulted in the zipper going bad within weeks. It won't hold spare batteries either, unless you want them mashed against the screen.

Other tips:

- The GP2X is a harsh mistress when it comes to batteries - don't skimp on them! I got a 4 pack of 2700mAh "Inca" brand batteries (including charger) from JB Hifi for $60, and they're worth every cent. Get the same if you can, highly recommended.

- Do skimp on memory cards. Any more than $30 on a 4GB SD card is too much. http://www.staticice.com.au/cgi-bin/search...isk+4gb+sd+card

 

[Manjuu]

1. Can't comment on this; haven't tried purchasing from them yet.

2. I have the GP2X carrying case, and as mentioned before, the build quality is indeed shabby. It's riddled with design flaws. The net bag inside is useless (and upside down <_< ), and the case itself is quite cramped. The GP2X is also positioned upside down. Although, it does it's primary function (as a protective carrying case) satisfactorily (plus, it has the GP2X logo on it ).

3. I played "The Curse of Monkey Island" demo on the ScummVM for the GP2X before. I don't know about the full version, but the short demo was playable and had speech and all, but it didn't look that good (especially the text) as the native resolution was higher than the GP2X's screen.

 

[sbock]

The full version of "The Curse of Monkey Island" is fully playable with touchscreen and voice support, but the GP2x needs high overclocking. And as Manjuu stated, the text is not very good readable due to scaling.

Regards,
Stephan

 

[LittleTodds]

Thanks for all the replies. I think I'll get a DS case instead of the GP2X case, and buy my GP2X from gp2x.net.au.

I've got another question: I was going to buy a 4GB SD Card, but I've seen different speed rates, like Class2, Class4, Class6, 50x, 100x, 150x, 4MB/s etc. What is the difference between these, and can it affect the GP2X? What is a good speed for an SD card?

 

[Manjuu]

Thanks for all the replies. I think I'll get a DS case instead of the GP2X case, and buy my GP2X from gp2x.net.au.

Just make sure that the DS case would fit the GP2X. Cases that were designed for the original DS would most likely fit the GP2X correctly, while DS Lite cases are generally much smaller.

I've got another question: I was going to buy a 4GB SD Card, but I've seen different speed rates, like Class2, Class4, Class6, 50x, 100x, 150x, 4MB/s etc. What is the difference between these, and can it affect the GP2X? What is a good speed for an SD card?

The Class Rating (Class 2, 4, & 6) is only applicable to SDHC (Secure Digital High Capacity) cards, not the standard SD cards. The Class Rating tells you what the write speed of the card is, as shown in the following:
- Class 2: 2 MB/s
- Class 4: 4 MB/s
- Class 6: 6 MB/s

The X-speed Rating is the speed rating used for the standard SD cards. Unfortunately, unlike SDHC, the rating isn't as good, as different manufacturers might have different ways of measuring the speed. Generally speaking, this would what the speed might be:
- 6x: 0.9 MB/s
- 40x: 6.0 MB/s
- 66x: 10.0 MB/s
- 133x: 20.0 MB/s

Take note that these are write speeds (both for SD & SDHC); read speeds are usually higher.

It is always better to have a faster card (especially for digital cameras), but you have to take note on some things.

First, if you plan on using SDHC cards, you have to make sure that the device that would use this supports it. As for the GP2X, the F-200 supports SDHC out-of-the-box, while the F-100 needs either firmware 4.0 or a patch (for older firmwares) to support it. This also applies to an external card reader (if you plan not to use the GP2X as a card reader, which is recommended).

Next, even with a really fast card, the speed might be limited due to the limitation of the device using the card. The GP2X isn't fast, so the benefit isn't that great, although it still helps to have a slightly faster card (less stuttering & faster transfer speed). (Again, using an external card reader would be better, when transferring files.)

Finally, the faster the card, the more expensive it would be.

 

[LittleTodds]

Thanks. I still have a few more questions:

1. Does this mean that Class6 on SDHC is the same as 40x on SD?
2. Is Class6 the highest Class rating?
3. What speed would you recommend for an SDHC or SD card?
4. Why do you recommend using a card reader instead of the GP2X as a card reader?

 

[Manjuu]

1. It's hard to compare performance between different cards especially if from different manufacturers. It's important to know where the X-speed rating was derived from, as some manufacturers might use the X-speed rating to indicate the read speed, not write speed, or could just be peak values. While in SDHC, the Speed Class Rating tells you the minimum sustained write speed, and it could possibly go faster.

2. For now, it seems so. SDHC is relatively newer, and it seems to emphasize more on capacity than speed.

3. I don't really know, but for my case, I have two 2GB Kingston SD cards; one is a 10x (1.5 MB/s), while the other is 120x (18 MB/s), and according to Kingston's website, the X-speed rating is for write speed. When used on the GP2X, the performance difference is not really noticable as read speed is more important, which the 10x is sufficient enough, but I do notice fewer stuttering on the 120x. The big difference is during transferring or deleting files on the cards. It takes significantly longer in the 10x than in the 120x, especially when transferring/deleting multiple files.

4. Well this advice is more applicable to the F-100 model, as using the F-100 as a card reader didn't always work and could also be unreliable. For the F-200, the card reader is much better and more usable (as the USB netchip was changed to just a card reader chip). I don't really use my F-200 as a card reader, so I can't really say how big of a difference it is compared to using a seperate card reader (which also depends on how faster the seperate card reader can go, as well as the card being written to).

Also, the 4GB SD cards (not the SDHC ones) are non-standard compliant. They might not be read by some devices. I'm not sure, but it seems the GP2X F-100 can read some of them, but the F-200 cannot.