A Quick Blog Entry About Gp2x Performance..

[Prophet]

Don't know if anyone have mentioned this because I'm to tired to read all posts so I skipped a few.

GP2X may have only 2 200MHz CPUs but don't forget they they have 2D acceleration so for 2D games they will really shine compared to a 400MHz CPU without 2D acceleration. This is why GPH didn't put in a 400MHz CPU. It's right there in their FAQ had you bothered to take a look.

http://www.gpx2.com/support/support_sugest...bunho=1&part=02

"We inform you that 400Mhz without 2d accelerator would rather be lower than 200Mhz."

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That can easily be interpreted as a smokescreen.

Because it's very application dependent. In some cases that will be true, 200Mhz + 2D acceleration might be faster than 400Mhz without 2D acceleration. But in other cases, like some emulators where you have multiple CPU's to emulate, the bottleneck could be in CPU speed and not rendering speed.

I personally think they had video playback in mind when they wrote that - the GP2X can probably do a fine job of decoding video, certainly better than a 400Mhz PDA without any 2D hardware to help. But for tasks that need raw number crunching that 2D accelerationmay not help much. That's where the second CPu comes in though, and hopefully the whole mess combined will work out to be pretty good in the end. I think it will.

 

[Esn]

I don't really get impressed by hardware too much; its like this.. we were all promised flying cars 30 years ago, but we don't have them yet.

http://www.moller.com/skycar/

Besides, on a personal level, I don't get 'excited' like other people. Somewhere along the line when I was a kid I decided I wouldn't let things scrae me, and I woudl try and act The Righty Way and Do Good, and in that same pass I don't get 'frothing excited' like other people do. My wife hates it.. Its like I'm on permanent prozac or something.. I am nearly incapable of being unhappy, but by the same token, I nevert get really excited either

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Skeezix, you're not Swedish by any chance, are you?

 

[Prophet]

Skeezix is Canadian.

 

[DaveC]

(stream of cosciousness follows)

getting a good kernel in thereis huge (to me; replacing the kernel with my own OS isn't a top priority, like it is for Squidge Good controls is good (so far GP32 is probably one of the best, better than PSP even for digital controls).


jeff

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Wouldn't you have to throw out linux to get rid of the overhead? If you ported Castaway to the GP2x using it wouldn't it be slow, maybe even slower than it is on the GP32 now? I was under the impression that linux is a CPU and memory hog. Certainly it has more overhead than the old GP32 which basically had none.

 

[Esn]

Skeezix is Canadian.

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Close enough.

/Canadian also. But Sweden has even more of that kind of thing (I call it "rational thinking", others call it "lack of passion" - take your pick )

 

[Digital Awakening]

I personally think they had video playback in mind when they wrote that - the GP2X can probably do a fine job of decoding video, certainly better than a 400Mhz PDA without any 2D hardware to help. But for tasks that need raw number crunching that 2D accelerationmay not help much. That's where the second CPu comes in though, and hopefully the whole mess combined will work out to be pretty good in the end. I think it will.

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Correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't GP2X have separate video decoding hardware? IIRC someone said that the 2D acceleration will speed up various image handling stuff.

 

[x68000]

i'm sure i read that squidge said that the second core was fully open and he had no problems accessing it. If that is the case then this could give the gp2x the processing shove needed for cpu intensive emulation.

I'm sure codesmith made a good post on the subject when all the spec sheets were leaked the other week.

EDIT: here it is! http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?showt...29&#entry273429

 

[Prophet]

I personally think they had video playback in mind when they wrote that - the GP2X can probably do a fine job of decoding video, certainly better than a 400Mhz PDA without any 2D hardware to help. But for tasks that need raw number crunching that 2D accelerationmay not help much. That's where the second CPu comes in though, and hopefully the whole mess combined will work out to be pretty good in the end. I think it will.

​

Correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't GP2X have separate video decoding hardware? IIRC someone said that the 2D acceleration will speed up various image handling stuff.

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Yes. But that may or may not be very useful in accelerating rendering in emus. Hopefully it will be.

Either way, as Skeezix said - 400Mhz+GPU would've still been better than 200Mhz+200Mhz+GPU. But it doesn't really matter anymore. We have what we have, and it's not so bad.

 

[Eolair]

Skeezix, you're not Swedish by any chance, are you?

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Skeezix is Canadian.

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Close enough.
/Canadian also. But Sweden has even more of that kind of thing (I call it "rational thinking", others call it "lack of passion" - take your pick )

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Lol, I'm Swedish. I'm not sure if I should resent those comments or not

Anyway, I blame it all on the cold! It's hard to get passionate about anything when it's cold and it seems like it's always cold up here.
Being up north, maybe Canadians have the same problem with cold?

 

[xafier]

Personally I like the idea of the two CPU's, I think it'll be fun devving for it as I've never done any coding specifically for dual CPU systems... I've done a fair bit of multi-threaded coding but never specifically for multiple CPU systems... it should be a nice learning curve for me, its part of the reason I'm going to get a GP2X mainly because at work I'm doing C# and .NET work all day and by the time I get back to University next year after my placement year all my C/C++ skills will have started to fade...

the next 12 months I plan to get my C++ skills better than ever, learn some ARM9 assembly and kick out a few applications and maybe a couple small games... and continually trying to pursaude my friend to get a GP2X so we can combine our skills

 

[skeezix]

Personally I like the idea of the two CPU's, I think it'll be fun devving for it as I've never done any coding specifically for dual CPU systems... I've done a fair bit of multi-threaded coding but never specifically for multiple CPU systems... it should be a nice learning curve for me, its part of the reason I'm going to get a GP2X mainly because at work I'm doing C# and .NET work all day and by the time I get back to University next year after my placement year all my C/C++ skills will have started to fade...

the next 12 months I plan to get my C++ skills better than ever, learn some ARM9 assembly and kick out a few applications and maybe a couple small games... and continually trying to pursaude my friend to get a GP2X so we can combine our skills

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Thats the spirit

jeff

 

[supaimposter]

You forgot 1 other handheld machine The Gizmondo, once firefly finishes the SDK this machine could do emulators realy well

400mhz and 128bit nvidia graphics card

Dont Underestemate it

 

[skeezix]

The Giz is also one of the most hideously ugly machines ever to be released, with a crippled OS and nasty DRM problems. *peachy* (Not to mention the odd match of features in the devicel Heck, why didn't they go all the way and get Pocket PC on there instead of the lower level and thus lose all the existing apps? Its like they're trying really hard to get Tapwaved

jeff

Hardware wise its actually a pretty good machine; solid GPU and other specs, fast CPU etc, but the other aspects kill it in my book.

 

[supaimposter]

The Giz definatly aint ugly if u see one in real life u'll know what i mean

 

[Gandysampras]

My brother owns a Gizmondo, and I have to say, they really are UGLY!

 

[x68000]

with the new cheaper units in the uk now out at 129.99, i see they have compensated for the cheaper price by force downloading advertising onto the system.

who's to say that they won't automatically upgrade your firmware everytime you turn it on?

 

[Huxley]

Hardware wise its actually a pretty good machine; solid GPU and other specs, fast CPU etc, but the other aspects kill it in my book.

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Including Gizmondo's rather dubious business practices? Unless they suddenly do a 360 (the phrase, not the console) and open this thing up for homebrew, I wouldn't touch it with a 10ft clown pole.

 

[x68000]

Hardware wise its actually a pretty good machine; solid GPU and other specs, fast CPU etc, but the other aspects kill it in my book.

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Including Gizmondo's rather dubious business practices? Unless they suddenly do a 360 (the phrase, not the console) and open this thing up for homebrew, I wouldn't touch it with a 10ft clown pole.

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i see the guy who initially cracked it has now lost interest and they are pleading with squidge to help them out.

He's probably seen sense, sold it and pre ordered a gp2x!

 

[Jarska333]

Turn 360 degrees, and you end up facing the same way.

 

[skeezix]

*g* Wow, I've not seen it expressed all together like that. What joyous reading

jeff