Back From The Front: Gp2x Vs Psp

[sam fisher]

I'd also like to know an answer to Dave's question.

 

[imhotep]

Questions about PSP
Does it have a Sega/Mega CD emu?
Can you recharge a spare battery without connecting it to the unit?
Is MAME emulation any good?
How do you best play a game that requires diagonals? Is nub any good for this as d-pad doesn't appear to be.

 

[ste_167]

"I'd also like to know an answer to Dave's question."

I resorted to Ebay, and eventually got one after many emails to sellers, and various lost auctions (I wasn't going to pay over the odds). Ironically, I don't often push it past 250Mhz now, even with gpsp.

 

[SiDCrAzY]

Questions about PSP
Does it have a Sega/Mega CD emu?

No.

Is MAME emulation any good?

No, the GP2X's is better.


Those are the only two I know the answer to, sold my PSP awhile ago. Plan on buying another one to play God Of War on it, when it comes out

 

[DaveC]

Questions about PSP
Does it have a Sega/Mega CD emu?
Can you recharge a spare battery without connecting it to the unit?
Is MAME emulation any good?
How do you best play a game that requires diagonals? Is nub any good for this as d-pad doesn't appear to be.

Emus can be made/updated so that won't be an issue after awhile. The PSP hardware is more than capable. I still say even then the GP2X screen matches those better than PSP though.

I didn't check but knowing the huge amount of accessories I would imagine they have remote chargers.

The PSP pad can be modded.

 

[Exophase]

Questions about PSP
Does it have a Sega/Mega CD emu?
Can you recharge a spare battery without connecting it to the unit?
Is MAME emulation any good?
How do you best play a game that requires diagonals? Is nub any good for this as d-pad doesn't appear to be.

I like using the nub for diagonals sometimes. It's helpful to have a grip attachment:

http://cache.gizmodo.com/images/85020%2520...0Grip-thumb.jpg

This makes the nub much easier to use because you can rest the base of your thumb on the lower part of the grip instead of nowhere. Also gives you a few extra hours of battery life and only costs a few dollars on eBay.

For the emulated games I've played (mainly GBA) the d-pad is 100% fine most of the time. Occasionally I'll use the nub too, for instance, when flying around as a bat in Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow or when I have the missile power in Kirby & The Amazing Mirror. In these cases it's much more effective than using the d-pad on a real GBA.

Like DaveC said there's a PSP d-pad mod, which I'd like to try sometime.. I've heard from a friend that it actually does improve things noticeably and it's easy/cheap to do, I don't know for myself though.

About those emus, maybe someone can port the GP2X versions to PSP. (in fairness it happened to the CPS2 emulator for PSP so yeah)

 

[nubie]

However, I'm standing by my statement about battery life

Try my 3-cell battery mod, I tested it with battery test to 5 hours 40 minutes on a 250mhz overclock . 6:17 on the stock 200mhz.

I didn't know that PSX ISO's would play already, I want a PSP now too. I can't stand Pro Duo pricing and no TV-Out/USB PSX pads though .

 

[Exophase]

However, I'm standing by my statement about battery life

Try my 3-cell battery mod, I tested it with battery test to 5 hours 40 minutes on a 250mhz overclock . 6:17 on the stock 200mhz.

I didn't know that PSX ISO's would play already, I want a PSP now too. I can't stand Pro Duo pricing and no TV-Out/USB PSX pads though .

Memory stick pro duo has gone down in price tremendously, and still is I think.

2GB:
http://shop.vendio.com/hkd/item/927019193/?s=1174989602

4GB:
http://shop.vendio.com/hkd/item/927019815/?s=1174989602

Look out for "fake" ones though (they're knockoffs labeled as Sony's that have not so good performance, but you probably won't get them from USA located venders)

TV-out is a loss. Using a USB PS1 pad with a handheld would be very awkward in most cases. PSP has most of buttons the original PS1 had. There's no L2/R2 - you use the analog nub for that (most games don't use L2/R2 extensively). There's no dualshock setup obviously but all PS1 games except Ape Escape can use a normal PS1 controller, so I don't really understand why everyone considers this a huge loss.

 

[imhotep]

I have some questions re PSP. Is it true that the PSP is:

1. Harder to port to?
2. Harder to develop for?
3. Movies need to be re-encoded to PSP's native resolution to play properly (or at all)?

 

[Exophase]

I have some questions re PSP. Is it true that the PSP is:

1. Harder to port to?

No. It has GCC for it just like everything else, and a toolchain update script is maintained. It's 32bit, little endian, and has enough memory.

QUOTE
2. Harder to develop for?


No. It has a powerful SDK inside its firmware, 3D acceleration that can be utilized with bare OpenGL, 2D screen filtering that's almost for free and easy to do, full port of SDL, VFPU, an actual FPU, a divide instruction...

QUOTE
3. Movies need to be re-encoded to PSP's native resolution to play properly (or at all)?


No, but the firmware was locked at 320x240 maximum. Custom firmware (and Sony's latest, which is irrelevant to this discussion) uncap this. If that doesn't work for you, there are good homebrew movie players.

 

[imhotep]

Didn't notice you answered my questions till now. Thanks, Exophase.

Some other questions that have bugged my while I'm at it...

1. Does having less RAM than the GP2X have any serious disadvantage?
2. Does the filtering features of the PSP compensate for it's resolution being a little non friendly to most retro systems?
3. Does the widescreen aspect ratio mean that some emulators are stretched in an ugly way?
4. Does the 'ghosting' of the PSP screen ever seriously affect retro gaming?
5. Is the screen as bright and clear as the GP2X MK2?
6. Is MAME emulation likely to ever be as good on PSP as GP2X, if not, why?
7. How does the community of the PSP compare to the GP2X one? Are the forums as friendly as this one?

 

[Exophase]

Didn't notice you answered my questions till now. Thanks, Exophase.

You're welcome



QUOTE

Some other questions that have bugged my while I'm at it...
1. Does having less RAM than the GP2X have any serious disadvantage?


Somewhat. You don't need an awful lot of RAM for the things you can do at the level of CPU power that these machines have, but there are some applications where the RAM limit crunches down on you. Web browsing is one of these things; with more RAM you could probably play more flash games for one thing. The kernel also takes a large amount of this (8MB). The rest is accessible without any strangeness ala the upper 32MB for GP2X.

There's 2MB on the ME, but I never hear of anyone using it for anything (I think both CPUs can see it).

QUOTE
2. Does the filtering features of the PSP compensate for it's resolution being a little non friendly to most retro systems?


In my opinion yes, but it's a tradeoff. Some people won't like the filtering at all. You lose clarity and contrast, but you gain screen real estate. In the long run it might be easier to get used to smaller size than filtering.

QUOTE
3. Does the widescreen aspect ratio mean that some emulators are stretched in an ugly way?


Most emulators give you options on how you want to stretch it, and include aspect ratio correct versions (even Sony's PS1 emulator).

QUOTE
4. Does the 'ghosting' of the PSP screen ever seriously affect retro gaming?


Yes. However, it varies between emulators. I don't have proof, but very hard evidence that waiting for vsync aleviates the problem. Unfortunately, this is a luxury only afforded for emulators which do not frameskip.

The problem is most severe on games with thick black backgrounds and outlines (try Bonk's Revenge for PCE), but even then you get used to it.

QUOTE
5. Is the screen as bright and clear as the GP2X MK2?


I think that besides the ghosting the screen quality and overall brightness is superior.

QUOTE
6. Is MAME emulation likely to ever be as good on PSP as GP2X, if not, why?


I haven't used MAME for either, but I don't see a good reason why it can't be. Whether or not it ever will be is anyone's guess.

QUOTE
7. How does the community of the PSP compare to the GP2X one? Are the forums as friendly as this one?


If you ask me, the PSP community is much, much worse. On a whole the forums are probably less friendly, but overall just much more grating. A large percentage of people there come off as young and completely clueless. I personally like these boards a lot more than the main two PSP ones (on DCEmu and QJ.net), hence why I'm here all the time instead of there (well, aside from that I'm focusing on GP2X dev instead of PSP)...

Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of good people in the PSP community too. I've even got beta testers to stay up all night with me while I fix games, and they've been very supportive. I think there are just so many more new users that flood the place, and a lot more people who want to develop for it but don't have the first idea how to. I guess that's the consequence of being more mainstream.

 

[imhotep]

Thanks very much again for your answers, Exophase. I really get the feeling that you are unbiased which I like.

Last question (I think): For controlling 2D games, is an unmodded MK2 GP2X better or an unmodded PSP better?

I can't tell, because I don't have a PSP to test and they both have trade offs with their controllers. GP2X has the advantage of achieving diagonals easily, but PSP has no excessive dead zone issues meaning quick reaction times. Which is the better trade off?

 

[Exophase]

Thanks very much again for your answers, Exophase. I really get the feeling that you are unbiased which I like.

Last question (I think): For controlling 2D games, is an unmodded MK2 GP2X better or an unmodded PSP better?

I can't tell, because I don't have a PSP to test and they both have trade offs with their controllers. GP2X has the advantage of achieving diagonals easily, but PSP has no excessive dead zone issues meaning quick reaction times. Which is the better trade off?

Yeah, that's a really hard question... I think the GP2X stick beats out either of the PSP control methods (d-pad and nub) on their own, but together the PSP's win. Depending on what kind of 2D games you play, of course, whether or not they benefit from sharp 4-dir movement sometimes and heavy diagonal other times. I also find buying a grip (they're cheap and extend your battery life noticeably) makes the nub a lot more useable.

I know you said no mods, but there's a PSP d-pad mod which is extremely cheap/easy to perform which is supposed to improve the d-pad quality dramatically. I haven't tried it yet but I'd like to. DaveC said he would so maybe he could report on that if he does.

 

[chaos engineer]

why comparing them, just buy both; gp2x for megadrive, sega cd, neo geo and general mame emulation; psp for gba, cps and psx emulation. this technique allows me btw to optimize the storage capacity of my gp2x sd card and my psp memory stick.

...and my favourite device for pc engine, nes and gameboy emulation is still the gp32

however, if I had to chose between gp2x and psp I think I would opt for my psp (with 3.10 OEA plus 4GB memory stick and exphase's wonderful gpsp and NJ's cps-1, cps-2 and mvs emus); although it is close as my sympathies are for gph and against sony.

 

[epitaph]

Thanks very much again for your answers, Exophase. I really get the feeling that you are unbiased which I like.

... likes PSP more than GP2X ...

Yeah...

 

[imhotep]

Yeah, that's a really hard question... I think the GP2X stick beats out either of the PSP control methods (d-pad and nub) on their own, but together the PSP's win.

Once again a well thought out answer!

Yes it makes sense. Sony's d-pad is better in many instances over GP2X and nub does give some useable diagonal support if the game really needs it (not to mention analog support albeit poor).

why comparing them, just buy both; gp2x for megadrive, sega cd, neo geo and general mame emulation; psp for gba, cps and psx emulation.

Thanks, chaos engineer. I'm interested re your opinion on which emus above came close to being equally good on both systems and which did you find way better on one system than on the other.

 

[Exophase]

Thanks very much again for your answers, Exophase. I really get the feeling that you are unbiased which I like.

... likes PSP more than GP2X ...

Yeah...


Having a preference doesn't make you biased. Letting your preferences influence your analysis and public judgement of something does.

 

[DaveC]

however, if I had to chose between gp2x and psp I think I would opt for my psp (with 3.10 OEA plus 4GB memory stick and exphase's wonderful gpsp and NJ's cps-1, cps-2 and mvs emus); although it is close as my sympathies are for gph and against sony.

It is too bad CPS1 never made it to the GP2X. CPS2 does run great on the GP2X , CPS1 would run even better due to the fact that is slightly less powerful than CPS2. NeoGeo MVS could also be better than it is now on the GP2X. GP2X has a better suited screen for NeoGeo as the resolution matches near perfect, no blurry filtering needed, and it doesn't ghost. Too bad it appears abandoned on the GP2X. This is where the PSP truly wins, There are alot more coders doing alot more ports for it. The small (but good) scene on the GP2X is a big knock against it. Many more emus go un-finished, or are even missing, on the GP2X than on the PSP.

 

[pepone]

It is too bad CPS1 never made it to the GP2X. CPS2 does run great on the GP2X , CPS1 would run even better due to the fact that is slightly less powerful than CPS2. NeoGeo MVS could also be better than it is now on the GP2X. GP2X has a better suited screen for NeoGeo as the resolution matches near perfect, no blurry filtering needed, and it doesn't ghost. Too bad it appears abandoned on the GP2X.

Actually, it is not.