Complete GPH 4.1 Firmware Source Code Released

[senquack]

Good news they've released this - downloading now..
Is it F100 & F200 compatible??

F200-only, it appears.

 

[Squidge]

2 - New device will be 100% open source

(apart from the bits that will be closed source due to NDA agreements )

4 - New device will be 100% compatible with GP2X F-100 and F-200. (I don't know how they will maintain this as they can't keep the backwards compatibility between firmware versions.)

I'm puzzled by this also. I bet it isn't 100% compatible at the hardware layer, they probably just mean apps that use there version of SDL (<1%). Also, will there menu system detect "old" apps and downclock the processor accordingly? (as running some apps at 500+Mhz will no doubt break them).

 

[icurafu]

I don't know if they intended for that, they've always been pretty anti releasing it before, but now we have it regardless.

Well they dropped the GP2X completely as we know and theres no value lost if they release all the source to it.
Probally means either the company is going belly up and some decent folks there put it out before it was lost, or the new product is completely new and not backwards compatible going back to the no value lost.

Either way a good move on their part, soemthing good finally.


According to latest news from GPH;
1 - They are using MES Pollux chipset.
2 - New device will be 100% open source too.
3 - They are not working with DignSys anymore.
4 - New device will be 100% compatible with GP2X F-100 and F-200. (I don't know how they will maintain this as they can't keep the backwards compatibility between firmware versions.)

That's all I got for now. Back to Pandora works...


Good for them. they must have gotten 800MHz from 533MHz CPU plus 2x133MHz for the memory. (Wonder where the last MHz went.)

Hopefully it will be small/cheap enough to make it worth replacing my GP2X.

 

[fishybawb]

If they went for 640x480, I'd be very happy. And shocked.

 

[craigix]

It's unlikely since the Pollux comes with a crappy 480x272 LCD.

Also the hardware is pretty poor, we rejected that SOC for the Pandora quite some time ago as it is really old and inefficient tech.

 

[Squidge]

Wasn't the Pollux originally designed for in-car Sat Nav systems? GPH will be the first people to use it in a console.

 

[fishybawb]

It's unlikely since the Pollux comes with a crappy 480x272 LCD.

Also the hardware is pretty poor, we rejected that SOC for the Pandora quite some time ago as it is really old and inefficient tech.

Yeah, I saw that LCD on the dev kit. Actually, I'm not even sure you can buy 640x480 LCDs these days, everything's gone anything-but-4:3 these days. And no arguments on the poor hardware front. Still, it'd be a step up from the GP2X at least. I was half expecting the new system to be a downgrade Good ol' GPH.

Wasn't the Pollux originally designed for in-car Sat Nav systems? GPH will be the first people to use it in a console.

Haha, they'll probably go a step further and actually *market* the thing as a sat nav, steadfastly refusing to acknowledge people play games on it, then release a (slightly) upgraded version featuring unauthorised homebrew games on the NAND. Hmm, strangely familiar

 

[DaveC]

Yeah, I saw that LCD on the dev kit. Actually, I'm not even sure you can buy 640x480 LCDs these days, everything's gone anything-but-4:3 these days. And no arguments on the poor hardware front. Still, it'd be a step up from the GP2X at least. I was half expecting the new system to be a downgrade Good ol' GPH.

It will be a step up from the Gp2X in speed. Emulators will all look like pure shit stretched and scaled to 480x272 though, Blech!

Pass... wait for Pandora I say.

 

[IcantDeleteThisAccount]

Yeah, I saw that LCD on the dev kit. Actually, I'm not even sure you can buy 640x480 LCDs these days, everything's gone anything-but-4:3 these days. And no arguments on the poor hardware front. Still, it'd be a step up from the GP2X at least. I was half expecting the new system to be a downgrade Good ol' GPH.

It will be a step up from the Gp2X in speed. Emulators will all look like pure shit stretched and scaled to 480x272 though, Blech!

Pass... wait for Pandora I say.


I personally feel GPH decided to develop a new system to compete with the pandora because they're seeing the community shift towards it. Sorry GPH, you guys are way to late and going a half assed route is not going to get many followers.. The king is dead, long live the king!

 

[sbock]

I personally feel GPH decided to develop a new system to compete with the pandora because they're seeing the community shift towards it. Sorry GPH, you guys are way to late and going a half assed route is not going to get many followers.. The king is dead, long live the king!

No, you can read this argument quite often here but it is plain wrong.
Look at this post from EvilDragon.

QUOTE
Wasn't the Pollux originally designed for in-car Sat Nav systems? GPH will be the first people to use it in a console.


Wasn't the OMAP originally designed for cell phones? Sorry but I can't see your point in this post.
Today many multimedia devices have more or less the same ARM architecture. Some are powerful and expensive and some are cheap and less powerful. But if they are initially intended to use as DVD player, cell phone, settop box, GPS or gaming system is in my opinion not really important.

QUOTE
Also the hardware is pretty poor, we rejected that SOC for the Pandora quite some time ago as it is really old and inefficient tech.


Yes, of course it'a only junk. The pandora will be better in every way. The Pollux can't mess with the great Pandora. Really some great news and a very unbiased comment...

But please be fair and wait what GPH is building. And than everybody can make jokes about them and tell everybody who wants to hear it that the Pandora is way the better console...
But perhaps there are some people here, who will buy GPH's new unit and will write some great hombrew stuff for it, even if it's only "old and inefficient"...

Regards,
Stephan

 

[Parkydr]

I'll reserve judgement until I see it, and more importantly the price.

 

[ledow]

That code contains the best word I've ever encountered (although the overall code quality doesn't seem too bad at all) in a program: Exitialize()

But most importantly:

"Copyright &copy; 2008 GP2X OSS Project. <dev.gp2x.com>"

and


"This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version."

Having said that, it's commented throughout (we just need a Korean -> English translation for some parts), it still contains an awful lot of commented out code from the F100 -> F200 conversion (e.g. look in the app menu's cpp file for the settings menu), and it all looks fairly minimal and basic.

 

[senquack]

I've already got a preliminary port to the F200 of the Open2X 2.4.26 kernel, even had it boot successfully one time, then my F200 got bricked. Unfortunately, on the first compile I believe I left out an important define.

Fortunately, I have a DB25 cable on the way, hopefully I can get it working again.. If anyone has any of those cool utilities or F200 unbricking tips noone ever wanted to pass around to newbs, well my email is dansilsby <at> gmail <dot> com

 

[rokdcasbah]

That code contains the best word I've ever encountered (although the overall code quality doesn't seem too bad at all) in a program: Exitialize()

But most importantly:

"Copyright © 2008 GP2X OSS Project. <dev.gp2x.com>"

I think that's normal. I don't do much looking at code but my understanding is that you can't GPL something unless you have the copyright to begin with. It's a license, it grants you certain rights, but those rights have to come from the original copyright holder. It may not be considered normal to insert the copyright notice, though, I dunno.

* Can probably fix sound volume on F200s, increase resolution of steps between silence and max volume, perhaps even allow this to be customizable.

God I hope so. I'm very close to just putting resistors in front of the speakers. The fairly loud minimum volume is my biggest day-to-day gripe with the F200.

 

[Squidge]

QUOTE
Wasn't the Pollux originally designed for in-car Sat Nav systems? GPH will be the first people to use it in a console.

Wasn't the OMAP originally designed for cell phones? Sorry but I can't see your point in this post.


My point is that if you went to a chip maker and said "I want a processor for in-car Sat Nav", you'll get the processing power for handling the maps, etc, but the 3D component is most likely going to be let down simply due to the fact that you don't need to be throwing millions of polygons on the screen for a processor meant for in-car Sat Nav. People want to see where they are going, not look at animated lifelike images of aliens. Considering this, your unlikely to spend millions of pounds in R&D to get the best algorithms, techniques, etc into the 3D processor.

Now, a multimedia 3D capable processor for a mobile phone gets totally different thoughts: High resolution LCD, Video playback, games, etc.

 

[IcantDeleteThisAccount]

I personally feel GPH decided to develop a new system to compete with the pandora because they're seeing the community shift towards it. Sorry GPH, you guys are way to late and going a half assed route is not going to get many followers.. The king is dead, long live the king!

No, you can read this argument quite often here but it is plain wrong.
Look at this post from EvilDragon.


Touche

 

[sbock]

QUOTE
Wasn't the Pollux originally designed for in-car Sat Nav systems? GPH will be the first people to use it in a console.

Wasn't the OMAP originally designed for cell phones? Sorry but I can't see your point in this post.


My point is that if you went to a chip maker and said "I want a processor for in-car Sat Nav", you'll get the processing power for handling the maps, etc, but the 3D component is most likely going to be let down simply due to the fact that you don't need to be throwing millions of polygons on the screen for a processor meant for in-car Sat Nav. People want to see where they are going, not look at animated lifelike images of aliens. Considering this, your unlikely to spend millions of pounds in R&D to get the best algorithms, techniques, etc into the 3D processor.

Now, a multimedia 3D capable processor for a mobile phone gets totally different thoughts: High resolution LCD, Video playback, games, etc.


In fact both SoCs are multi purpose chipsets.
Here's what TI claims the OMAP 3530 is build for:
QUOTE
Portable Navigation Devices
Portable Media Player
Advanced Portable consumer Electronics
Digital TV
Digital Video Camera
Portable Data Collection
Point-of-Sale Devices
Gaming
Web Tablet
Smart White Goods
Ultra Mobile Devices

Source.

Now here comes MES and the Pollux:
QUOTE
2D/3D Car Navigation System, dual display POS System, High resolution & various visual effective Display System and convergence Handheld products such as Multimedia Toy, MP4 Player, low-end PMP,

Source.

Interesting: TI's first point is also "Portable Navigation Devices". Despite the fact that OMAP initially was developed for cell phones:
Source 1.
Source 2.

If you are a big game company and want to introduce a new console than your build your own unique, specialised chipsets, but lots of PMP, navigation and cell phone (even Nokia) manufactures use chips out of the box just like GPH and the Pandora guys.

And do I understand you right:

QUOTE
Now, a multimedia 3D capable processor for a mobile phone gets totally different thoughts: High resolution LCD


You mean a cell phone needs a higher resolution LCD than a GPS?

BTW, the OMAP datasheet says it can output XGA 1024x768 resolution. MES claims the Pollux can do 1280x 1024. So the Pollux is the better SoC for cell phones? I guess not.

I think it's only save to say that the OMAP 3530 is the more powerful, advanced and expensive chip design. But that's all...

Regards,
Stephan

 

[Series-8]

BACK PORT! :gp2x :gp2x :gp2x

Also for FFS fix the TV out finally, someone.
ALSO don't forget, the Automount (menu?) should support EXT2 file systems on SD cards.

Don't make me get out the cross compiler.

 

[DaveC]

Unfortunately, I thought it might help with my interlacing on my F200, but no timings I set seem to make it better, only worse. Mine doesn't suffer from the white line problem, but I can see it start to appear when I change the settings too far in one direction.. Does the LCD timing feature of the CPU/LCD Tweaker utility help fix yours, at least until you reboot again?

I never bothered with that tweaker. For one you need to do it everytime you restart, another it was weird and confusing with all kinds of numeric values that you could just end up making things worse if you don't know what they do. I would just like to set it and forget it like the old built in one allowed.

 

[DynaMight]

If GPH make a faster console, better screen and somehow manage to keep it backwards compatible plus keep the price down to roughly half of the Pandora I think there's a market for it. Just look at the GP2X, people still want to buy them. Bugs aside I love my GP2X but I love the devs more then GPH, they make the GP2X what it is.

If its expensive and not backwards compatible it could be dead since GPH rely so heavily on the devs making the software/emus etc.