Can The Wiz Use The Gp2x Emulators At Release?


DrPibb

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Can the Wiz use the old emulatiors from the GP2X at launch ? So I can just put in my current SD cards and be able to use them without having to wait for a new emulator specialy made for just the Wiz. Will that be possible ? Thanks!
 
No, it will not be possible. The Wiz and GP2X are hardware different. GP2X uses MMSP2, Wiz using Pollux.
 
Squidge said:
No, it will not be possible. The Wiz and GP2X are hardware different. GP2X uses MMSP2, Wiz using Pollux.
However, it's worth noting that porting open source GP2X emulators (most are open) should be trivial. Since the GP2X and Wiz have the same display resolution and control schemes, many probably don't need anything more than to be recompiled, and the rest likely don't need much actual programming work. There are probably a few that require libraries which may not be available from the start, but if those libs were ported to the GP2X, there is nothing preventing them being ported to the Wiz as well.
 
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A lot of the emulators on the gp2x however hit the hardware directly, or use libraries that do (eg. minilib).
Also, the frame buffer on the Wiz is different than on the gp2x, so any emus accessing the frame buffer directly (most, for speed reasons) will display garbage on the screen of the Wiz.
So these will have to have parts rewritten to work on the Wiz.

The only ones that will port easily are those that use SDL, but these may still need changes as they may depend on the directory structure of the gp2x's file system for there data files and such, attempt to overclock the processor, use the arm940, etc.
 
I preordered the Wiz a few months back, and this was something I was wondering about from the start. So, since you guys seem pretty knowledgeable about this, I thought I'd ask--how soon after the launch would you expect typical GP2X software to be available for the Wiz? Like, standard things like emulators, when could one expect to be able to get these things? I just want to know how long I'd have to wait before being able to have these kinds of programs for it (regardless, I can't wait to get mine!).
 
I'd expect them on the day of release or shortly afterwards, as several of the 'top' developers already have prototype units.
 
That's just the kind of answer I wanted :) I have two trips coming up in my near future, and I definitely would like to have my Wiz up and running with emulators to make the travel a little more pleasant. Thank you for your answer.
 
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