About To Buy A Caanoo. Questions.

[kadrik0]

Hi,

I'm new. The other day I was looking for the best handheld emulator. Technically I do have a psp, but it is the original launch model with a scratched up screen, aging battery, and limited 1 gb magicgate disc. It does have a custom firmware, but with the scratched up screen I was kind of looking for something better.

I ended up seeing the Wiz and Caanoo. I was tempted by the wiz, but I always regret buying last gen, plus I like the look of the shiny new white caanoo with arcade stick and improved ram should help a few things. I have a few questions. I know some are answered slightly in other posts, but emulators and opinions change rapidly as they improve this little guy. I just have a few questions. I'm not new to emulators. I modded my wii. I made an arcade MAME cabinet last year with a tankstick.

1. NES Emulation
Is it close to perfect now with most games? I know there may be an odd ball game that is iffy, but as long as the classics like TMNT, Super Mario Bros 1-3, Rad Racer, Megaman, Zelda, etc work fine then I should be ok. Also, as far as the emulator goes, did they include a gun emulator where you can use the control stick for games like duck hunt?

2. SNES Emulation
Is it close to perfect for almost all games? I know a game like Star Fox may still be a little out of reach, but will my Mario, Street Fighter 2, and Zelda Link to the Past all work pretty good? Any problems with import games. I am an anime fan and may try to play games like Dragonball Z Hyper Dimension on this baby. It should be ok.

3. Genesis Emulation
Is it close to perfect for most games? Just want to make sure games like Mortal Kombat, the Sonics, and games like Ecco all work ok. From the youtube videos I watched the sega emulation seems to be almost perfect.

4. NeoGeo Emulation
Is it pretty good emulation wise? I am a big fan of the Metal Slug, Samurai Showdown, King of Fighters, Street Fighter, and some of the top down shooters. Do all the good fighting games and metal slugs work fine?

5. MAME
MAME is all over the place even on PC. Does it work on most of the greats like Simpsons arcade, PacMan, DigDug, and most of the arcade style games made before 1995? I know games with steering wheels, guns, and the ball may work weird? Speaking of those games, does this little guy have support for steering wheels or guns or should I not even put those types of games on this baby?

6. Battery Life
Is it pretty good? Do you atleast get 4 hours off it? What is kind of the average?

7. Should a 16 gb class 10 sd card work fine for me with what I want to do? I just want to use this for games. I may download a few Caanoo titles, but I plan on loading most of the usa NES, Sega, SNES, Gameboy Advanced, best classic MAME games, and best of NeoGeo games. Possibly a few fighters like DBZ legends on the ps1 side of things but I will be very picky on ps1 titles if I even put on one.

8. Have they overclocked the Caanoo yet? I saw on youtube someone posted some info on that, but it was early enough it may not have been perfect.

9. Does cavestory for the caanoo work ok?

10. Any real issues with the Caanoo besides for being a little slow at getting out perfect emulators and the slight screen issue covering up some pixels?

11. Anyone have any issues with this seller on ebay. http://cgi.ebay.com/CAANOO-WIZ-2-GP2X-Linux-Handheld-Game-Emulator-Console-/110672288184?pt=Video_Games&hash=item19c49519b8 I saw he had the canoo for $127. Thinking about getting it from him so the savings can get me my 16 gb class 10 sd card for $23 off NewEgg (basically a 16 gb for the price most want for the cannoo).

Thanks for your help. I know a lot of the info is on the forum, but emulator change all the time. And even though some emulation may be glitchy on a rom or two it seems like updates are happening fairly quickly. Sorry, no pandara. I'm on a budget. Just got a 3ds, looking at a Caanoo, and the NGP is coming this fall. A year for handhelds. Hell, they are coming out with the supaboy snes handheld this year and talks about the Wii HD for next year (although they keep saying that all the time). Expensive year for gaming, but this sucker looks cool. They really need to advertise the caanoo more.

 

[SolarLune]

1. I don't know - I haven't tried it.
2. Pretty good - most games work well, and if they're slow, you can easily overclock it. Zelda, Mario, etc. work fine.
3. I don't quite know.
4. I'm not sure.
5. I think that the games work well - Sky Kid and Simpsons worked (I think). I know that Lode Runner worked. As for the steering wheel, etc. question, it should support auxillary controls, as long as they plug in via USB.
6. I get around 4-5 hours, I think. Mostly, I never play it down to the battery nub - as long as you keep it charged, it should be fine.
7. 8GB is probably all you really will need; I have a 4GB card, and I have a few PS1 games that I fit on (that I copied myself).
8. Overclocking is enabled usually on a per-game or application basis. MAME, PocketSNES, and GBA emulators support it. Also, GMenu2X supports overclocking, though I don't know if that works for any application.
9. You can run Cave Story using Ginge (which allows you to play GP2X and Wiz(?) games and applications). It runs very well - no bugs, I think, or at least, very, very minor ones.
10. No, no real issues on my end. It's pretty well supported - it's only been out for around 9 months now, so to have working and pretty fast PS1 emulation on it is pretty impressive, to me. The screen issue is pretty minor - most console games are made for TVs, which may cut a bit around the edge of the screen as well, so they're made not to obscure important pieces of GUI, and games ported to the Caanoo may fix the GUI to not be obscured.
11. I haven't tried buying it from them - I think I bought mine for gp2xstore? I might not recommend them, though. If you choose EBay, note that the particular seller you chose is based in Korea - there are other places, much closer to where you are (maybe - perhaps you live in Korea).

 

[kadrik0]

1. I don't know - I haven't tried it.
2. Pretty good - most games work well, and if they're slow, you can easily overclock it. Zelda, Mario, etc. work fine.
3. I don't quite know.
4. I'm not sure.
5. I think that the games work well - Sky Kid and Simpsons worked (I think). I know that Lode Runner worked. As for the steering wheel, etc. question, it should support auxillary controls, as long as they plug in via USB.
6. I get around 4-5 hours, I think. Mostly, I never play it down to the battery nub - as long as you keep it charged, it should be fine.
7. 8GB is probably all you really will need; I have a 4GB card, and I have a few PS1 games that I fit on (that I copied myself).
8. Overclocking is enabled usually on a per-game or application basis. MAME, PocketSNES, and GBA emulators support it. Also, GMenu2X supports overclocking, though I don't know if that works for any application.
9. You can run Cave Story using Ginge (which allows you to play GP2X and Wiz(?) games and applications). It runs very well - no bugs, I think, or at least, very, very minor ones.
10. No, no real issues on my end. It's pretty well supported - it's only been out for around 9 months now, so to have working and pretty fast PS1 emulation on it is pretty impressive, to me. The screen issue is pretty minor - most console games are made for TVs, which may cut a bit around the edge of the screen as well, so they're made not to obscure important pieces of GUI, and games ported to the Caanoo may fix the GUI to not be obscured.
11. I haven't tried buying it from them - I think I bought mine for gp2xstore? I might not recommend them, though. If you choose EBay, note that the particular seller you chose is based in Korea - there are other places, much closer to where you are (maybe - perhaps you live in Korea).

Hi,

Thanks for the quick response. Sounds pretty good. I ended up taking the plunge this morning. I did buy from the seller in korea. I live in MO USA. I've bought from overseas before. It takes 1 to 2 weeks, but the added discount is worth it. I actually was able to get a 16 gb card purchased as well for the same price most sellers want for their caanoo. I've been burned by going cheap on storage. The nintendo, snes, and genesis games would be fine. However, when it comes to MAME and NeoGeo that can fill up your memory card fast if you try to include a huge library. Plus the free 4 gb card they are including I can throw into my 3ds. Excited about the 3d remakes of classic games and in case they are huge the added 2 gigs will give me more room. I hope to hear from other members about their thoughts on the emulators and system. Everyone uses it a little bit different.

 

[Amon_Re]

3. Genesis Emulation
Is it close to perfect for most games? Just want to make sure games like Mortal Kombat, the Sonics, and games like Ecco all work ok. From the youtube videos I watched the sega emulation seems to be almost perfect.

Genesis emulation is near-perfect, Picodrive is awesome

 

[alyinsanfran]

The thing with all of GamePark's consoles, going right back to my GP32, is that there's always, always some glaring hardware issue. With the Caanoo it's the bezel - it's annoying the way it cuts off a few pixels. With the Wiz it's screen tearing, with the original GP2X it was the stick, with my GP32blu+ it was wrapped scanlines. You just have to accept it's a small company that's apparently run by committee! Having said that, they make (in my opinion) the best open handheld devices bar none.

With software you have to accept that some devs are more devoted to certain emulators. So it takes time for all emulators to mature. Some are great quickly - usually Genesis is very good very quickly, Mame is not far behind, GameBoy is great straight away. But the thing to remember is that the community is very active, so development will come along, it just may not be 100% straight away. All these guys do it for the love of it, and thank god they do, I know I've sent a good many donations over the years as appreciation for their late nights.

In short, you'll love the thing. Welcome, and enjoy!

 

[redlemon]

Hi,

Thanks for the quick response. Sounds pretty good. I ended up taking the plunge this morning. I did buy from the seller in korea. I live in MO USA. I've bought from overseas before. It takes 1 to 2 weeks, but the added discount is worth it. I actually was able to get a 16 gb card purchased as well for the same price most sellers want for their caanoo. I've been burned by going cheap on storage. The nintendo, snes, and genesis games would be fine. However, when it comes to MAME and NeoGeo that can fill up your memory card fast if you try to include a huge library. Plus the free 4 gb card they are including I can throw into my 3ds. Excited about the 3d remakes of classic games and in case they are huge the added 2 gigs will give me more room. I hope to hear from other members about their thoughts on the emulators and system. Everyone uses it a little bit different.

I bought my caanoo from the same seller and it arrived fine.

 

[dnlgreenwood]

About the pixels that are covered on the screen... it's not that big of a problem; one gets used to it. LGPT, for example, has some information covered up, but I can just tilt the screen a bit to see it.