GP32 Creating A New Game-console. Homebrew Project


SD is probably fine. The chipset to deal with it is cheap (and might already be on your SBC of choice). Not entirely sure why we need a host USB adaptor; that would mean we'd have to hack together some kind of USB stack and shove it in with every game that uses it (or on a flashable BIOS somehow). Personally I'd just go with something super easy like a DB9 RS232 port.

Have you managed to track down a source for your RAM problems yet, Mirko?
 
EvilDragon is now the chief coordination manager, he offers some web space for the project. And will set up a web-site soon. :)

There you can check the status of this project, couse the Forum is a bit to messy with 130+ messages and growing.

Iam now designing the Hardware, and dont have the time to read all stuff here. So if you have questions, or demands, or just want to offer something, ask EvilDragon.

If you are a Hardware devver, please contact me directly.

Thanx for all the support here, i think we can build something wonderful here, the first Homebrew Hardware, from Users to Users.
 
Personally I dont need 16/9 screen type, if it's THE futur open-handheld I prefere the possibility to use the console horizontally AND vertically. For that, 2 buttons on the left will be good (example Start & Select), or put a scare LCD same as palm 320*320.

And finally warning more pixel you have more dead pixel you have too :(

Hum TV out will be nice too ;)
 
Great, I can post!

I think we have to trust the guys who are building this, while sticking our oars in too!

So far, all this talk about psx is great, but I don't think it will happen. However the idea of what will it be able to do, and if nothing new then why build it is a valid. But who would have believed what the GP32 could be capable of now at the beginning!

So I will dream on about wifi golden eye with the usb adapter giving me wifi to play you guys! And playing full speed gauntlet and outrun on mame.

And descovering NEOgeo,

:D
 
If you are a Hardware devver, please contact me directly.

Okay. :) Looking forward to the website, I have some very very limited hardware experience so I'd be less than useful on the hardware aspect of this project. I've written operating systems before, so it's possible that I might be able to work on any kind of BIOS or fastloader that would be required in the later stages.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I don't know where Viperman got his information from, but I don't find SD cards to be slow at all. In fact, I find the slow things to normally be harddrives - simply because SD cards have no moving parts. Also, because portable harddrives have to run at slow spindle speeds to keep current consumption down, this increases the seek time by huge amounts, which means even more slow downs.

For example, a 1GB SD card get can easily get 5Mb/sec reading and 3.8Mb/sec writing, and use a very small amount of current whilst doing so. A typical portable harddrive can use 100ma constantly whilst spinning, and only output a fraction of that speed. To reduce power consumption you would have to spin down the drive when not in use, and this also means a 2 - 3 second delay when you need to access the drive again, to wait for it to spin up.

Couple this with the fact that 2gb (increasible to 4gb if you use dual slots) can hold a huge amount of roms, and I think we can pretty much confirm that a harddrive is easily something we can do without, in favour of more battery life, and faster i/o performance.

---

As for dropping USB host and going instead for rs232, why? USB host is built into the processor, so why not use it? It's much more advanced and faster than rs232.
 
The SD cards I have have a normal transfer rate at 6MB/s, so I consider them very fast. There are cards with a rate near 20MB/s too, but that's not nessesary.
 
Sorry to throw a spanner in the works, But what about CompactFlash cards (Not microdrives) ?.

Currently supports 8 gig, With a maximum capacity of 137 gig, Supports everything SD card does and is generally cheaper. On the plus side, CF is the larger form factor of the two, Thus reassurering there is less chance of the shape or size changing as capacities increase.

Plus, I already have a collection of CF cards too. :p

Trooper
 
Current information about homebrew handheld
Some specs that will definately be in the system:

Samsung s3c2440 400Mhz arm9 CPU
64MB SD-RAM 133Mhz
128kb Flash boot-Rom.
Soundchip DAC
SD-Card slot
usb port (charging via batteries may be possible)
extension port, like the gp32-one (e.g. for chatboard)


Some things we're still discussing:
TFT type (3,5" orginal BLU screen (very cheap)
or a 4" 16:9 tft screen
We also don't know yet if it will have wlan,bluetooth,irda,...

It will DEFINATELY not have a harddisk or compact flash slot, and it won't have a touch screen.
 
Compact flash cards are not exactly easy to talk to, they have loads of data connections which would routing the board could become a nightmare, and since we are not going to be placing a pcmcia controller on the board, it would all have to be done in software. Yeuck.

SD card support is built into the cpu :)
 
why use 133mhz RAM rather than 100Mhz? is there a power saving to be had by using 100Mhz?
whats the cpu clocked with? direct 400mhz? or is it multiplied 100/133?? wonder what the chip will overclock to :)

mmm off to look at specs of the chip, same chip as used in the gizmondo
 
As for dropping USB host and going instead for rs232, why? USB host is built into the processor, so why not use it? It's much more advanced and faster than rs232.

I didn't know the USB host stack was on the SBC. Okay, that would tend to make most of my arguments irrelevant. It's still somewhat of a pain in the ass to write drivers for USB, but I can deal with that.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
@Intruder:
Are you referring to this?
Mr. Mirko

Here goes another link for TFT-LCD let me know if this kind of models would be ok (I think it is a bit thick)

http://szsjd.en.alibaba.com/product/500520...ule__3_5__.html

Btw you can take a look around Alibaba website they are alot of interesting supplier, also if it is located in Shenzhen like this company well I could help you out.  My wife come from there ;-) (yes shes chinese) my parents in laws still live there and several of my wife friends.  I went in the electronic district and have alot of cool stuff... as in components ;-).
This is no screen for Handheld applications.
It´s designed for stationary/Vehicle usage. It has a voltage input of 12V and with a rated power of 2Watt it´s going to be rather hard to supply it with power ;)

No, really. What we need is something like this Samsung screen. I just wasn´t able to find a supplier for those...
Well, actually the image on that site shows it with some kind of circuit board, which contains (afaik) some video decoding ekectronics... also the weird resolution is suspicious...
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Back
Top