Dont Fear Tapwave

[Loridan]

I know that there has been a lot of anger towards the zodiac, and I just wanted to put in my 2c on why you dont need to be worried. First off, the fact that the zodiac is 2x as fast with a lit screen is a double edged sword. These are nice features, however, I just read that this thing wont operate for more than four hours! faster clock speeds mean more juice. And appearantly at the end of that time you must recharge it, which would indicate to me that it has a proprietary power source. Another fact, is that it is palm os based. In the world of gaming, little or no operating system is a good thing, look at the genesis. The more feature rich, aka bloated, an operating system the less stable the emulation. Developers are running to the zodiac right now because they expect that a bloated emulator will run better with more speed, and to an extent this may be true. But this is still a bloated emulator on a bloated operating system that will result in definate instability. In my humble opinion I think that the zodiac is a good thing. There will be many applications for it that can easily be ported to the gp32, and we will be able to run them for 10 hours, and then whip out some AAs and keep trucking.

Now for a glimpse into the ARM future.
The gp32 and zodiac will die together as far as the market goes. They have no future. They are stepping stones to future systems. It could be that someone develops a hander that has a 300Mhz clock and a greatly reflective screen that needs no light, large amount of ram, highly optimized and minimal os, and a COMPLETE no cost development suite. And it could have a site that is not in Korean with dead links to english development pages. Granted, tapwave will probably develop such a thing, but it has not happened yet.

At the end of the day, developers will pick up the lowly gp32 and admire it for its simplicity and clean code. And one thing will go through their head, 'what can I make this thing do.' Remember folks, to this day, people still develop for the commodore64.

 

[Ernest]

I think we've had too many topics bout the zodiac and we do know now that gp is clearly better, but i myself couldn't care nemore, ive never bn one of the ones that moans bout their console being better, i currently have a gp32(obviously),GBA,PS2,Gamecube and N64 i like them equally as much (ok maybe i don't like the playstaion as much)adn i think that are consoles are good on their own merits!

 

[DaveC]

I know that there has been a lot of anger towards the zodiac, and I just wanted to put in my 2c on why you dont need to be worried. First off, the fact that the zodiac is 2x as fast with a lit screen is a double edged sword. These are nice features, however, I just read that this thing wont operate for more than four hours! faster clock speeds mean more juice. And appearantly at the end of that time you must recharge it, which would indicate to me that it has a proprietary power source. Another fact, is that it is palm os based. In the world of gaming, little or no operating system is a good thing, look at the genesis. The more feature rich, aka bloated, an operating system the less stable the emulation. Developers are running to the zodiac right now because they expect that a bloated emulator will run better with more speed, and to an extent this may be true. But this is still a bloated emulator on a bloated operating system that will result in definate instability. In my humble opinion I think that the zodiac is a good thing. There will be many applications for it that can easily be ported to the gp32, and we will be able to run them for 10 hours, and then whip out some AAs and keep trucking.

Now for a glimpse into the ARM future.
The gp32 and zodiac will die together as far as the market goes. They have no future. They are stepping stones to future systems. It could be that someone develops a hander that has a 300Mhz clock and a greatly reflective screen that needs no light, large amount of ram, highly optimized and minimal os, and a COMPLETE no cost development suite. And it could have a site that is not in Korean with dead links to english development pages. Granted, tapwave will probably develop such a thing, but it has not happened yet.

At the end of the day, developers will pick up the lowly gp32 and admire it for its simplicity and clean code. And one thing will go through their head, 'what can I make this thing do.' Remember folks, to this day, people still develop for the commodore64.

It does seem that All of the former GP32 emu developers are flocking to the Zodiac in droves.

I own both and I really don't see what is the big deal with the Zodiac. It is nice and I like it but I can't see why they would abandon the GP32 for it.

Some of the emus actually look crummy on the Zodiac screen because of the resolution differences when running it scaled to full screen. They look all distorted blocky and ripply.

 

[rcx21000]

I think that really they have the same power as GP32 (except for RAM): the bigger screen would cancel out the gfx card, and the PalmOS overhead cancels out the extra CPU. Whats left is more RAM (except the 32MB mod GP32 is RAMMier than Zodiac1, since theres PalmOS overhead), and mabye 10-20MhZ of power. That can be made up by the fact that once Zodiac runs out, you have to get to an outlet (bah, why not use a long life laptop, it's just as good w/ battrey power, and better with CPU/RAM power) Oh, and Tapwave has to "sign" all games before they will work While the programs are being signed, the GP32 can process some more, and get a huge lead over the Zodiac on how many calculations it does total

 

[Magellan]

Another fact, is that it is palm os based. In the world of gaming, little or no operating system is a good thing, look at the genesis. The more feature rich, aka bloated, an operating system the less stable the emulation.

The Zodiac is a PDA that plays games, not just a game system. I am not sure why people keep comparing them. And the Palm OS is hardly bloated, especially compared to PPC. I like both actually, and use them for different things. I see no reason why they can't co-exist.

Edit: I am not sure where you got your battery info from, but the Z and GP32 run about the same. 8 to 10 hours.

 

[Alpha2]

I think he's saying that running it at high mhz for a long period of time with emulators weakens the batteries faster form the sound of it.

I dont thing the Palm OS is bloated (I'm not a coder so I can only go by experience in using it) But I do know playing games on a PDA sucks up juice a lot faster than writing notes and checking your daily schedual.

 

[Magellan]

I meant playing games, although I do turn off the rumble feature sometimes. Playing Stuntcar extreme with all of the effects turned on I get about 7 hours. Also, I have a FLU so I am only getting 8 or 9 hours on the GP32 playing Duke or Doom. I do like both of them for different reasons though. I read in another thread that someone is trying to make an OS for the GP32, that would be interesting.

 

[Pirotic]

i suspect a developer feels a faster machine will mean they can afford to be a little lazier with the coding.. after all, freetime is a rare thing for most of us

but if you ask me, the two consoles shouldn't be at 'war' - it's fairly painless to port from one to another (with most software you could get a basic port working within an hour or so) - so hopefully once all the zodiac projects are completed they'll get ported to the GP32 and visa versa, especially the open source projects.

 

[Efompor]

Hey, Loridan... sorry to go off topic, but, are you still trying to make a z80 core in ASM for genesis? I just want to know whether we should expect it or not

 

[craigix]

And we get even deeper into the WAR OF THE OBSCURE HANDHELDS!

I'd judge them by the software not the hardware.

-Craig

www.gbax.com

 

[Loridan]

"high capacity" and a "long battery life," and in our test drive today we were able to milk more than four hours of straight gameplay before needing to plug it into the HotSync/AC adapter.

see
http://gameboy.ign.com/articles/455/455702p2.html

 

[Loridan]

Hey, Loridan... sorry to go off topic, but, are you still trying to make a z80 core in ASM for genesis? I just want to know whether we should expect it or not

Actually, I have been researching it heavily. Im not one of those people that dives blindly into a project. Im afraid that if I just make the core, nothing will ever come of it. There is a highly portable emulator called generator, and while it is not coded in assember, it does not emulate in a traditional fashion either. The games are sort of half compiled and half translated at the core, the result is a fast C++ emulator. Now this emulator has already been ported to various other low power equipment which makes me think that there is a good chance it will work. I would of course be working on the console version and having to rewrite all the graphic routines as well as change the input etc... Sound would be the major set back. But I do believe that porting generator will lead to a fully functional emulator in much less time, and provide acceptable speed. So Im going to start emailing the author, who states that he is happy to help with a port. After a port is done, optimal assembly can be inserted throughout.


Another problem that I had is obtaining a halfway acceptable assembly core that I can translate to arm. You would be amazed how long ago these things were abandoned, its almost sad. And no one sent me anything in my mail either

 

[Efompor]

Hey, Loridan... sorry to go off topic, but, are you still trying to make a z80 core in ASM for genesis? I just want to know whether we should expect it or not

Actually, I have been researching it heavily. Im not one of those people that dives blindly into a project. Im afraid that if I just make the core, nothing will ever come of it. There is a highly portable emulator called generator, and while it is not coded in assember, it does not emulate in a traditional fashion either. The games are sort of half compiled and half translated at the core, the result is a fast C++ emulator. Now this emulator has already been ported to various other low power equipment which makes me think that there is a good chance it will work. I would of course be working on the console version and having to rewrite all the graphic routines as well as change the input etc... Sound would be the major set back. But I do believe that porting generator will lead to a fully functional emulator in much less time, and provide acceptable speed. So Im going to start emailing the author, who states that he is happy to help with a port. After a port is done, optimal assembly can be inserted throughout.


Another problem that I had is obtaining a halfway acceptable assembly core that I can translate to arm. You would be amazed how long ago these things were abandoned, its almost sad. And no one sent me anything in my mail either

Sorry about nobody sending you any mail, there are hardly any actual hardware gurus around here... most of us just assumed something was already sent :mellow:

So you plan on porting generator to the GP32? That would be fantastic, genesis is the only thing that the GP32 is really lacking, and the fact that A, B and Select are right next to eachother would make some good button emulation for A B and C on the genesis... Maybe you should look into the GBAX 2004 competition... that is unless May 1st (the closing deadline) is wayy too short of a timeframe, I have no idea how long it would take you to port an emu in C++

So what's this about the sound being the major setback, you say?

 

[Loridan]

I shouldnt say sound is a setback, I should say side note. I believe, firmly, that porting generator to gp32 will be fairly easy and fast. Sound however, would come along slowly. With generator, sound was an item entered in the newer versions, with the original console version it was not there at all.

The only alternative to generator is gens. It uses an assembly core and is open source. But it could take a very, very, very long time to see an actual emulator come of that route. And Im skeptical that it would run any better. I truly believe that with some effort, generator will win out.

 

[kotd]

Loridan it would be great if you could port the Genesis emulator. It was my favourite system of all time and I would crap my pants to be playing sonic 3 & knuckles at full speed with sound :rolleyes: Let us know of any further developments. Like I said if you make a really good z80 core you might want to contact rlyeh (making Fgen emu) who needs a fast core. B)

 

[Efompor]

a weird thing I noticed about genesis emulators is that they all seem to have _very_ low gamma... my nomad has colors at least 2 times brighter than those on the fGEN christmas beta, and I noticed that GENS on windows seems to have low gamma too.... does that have somthing to do with the genesis itself?

I don't know is Rlyeh is even coding for GP32 anymore, I think it would be a better bet to do what you plan to do, Loridan. It's a hell of a lot of work to make an ASM core... I would never get it done, even if I had the skills to code it

And I agree with kotd, Genesis is one of my favorite systems of all time... Shining Force I and II are some of my favorite games ever

 

[Daz_Genetic]

I really hate when people start stating their opinions or the opinions of others as fact. The Zodiac is better than the GP32. That is just plain fact. But all signs point towards the performance gains being only slight. This, however, does not mean that the Zodiac is only slightly better. This could also mean that the Zodiac's hardware is yet to be used optimumly.

I'm sure there are ways of using the Zodiacs hardware graphics chip to perform some tasks that take pressure off the CPU, but it's unlikely with ports of emulators. And I'm sure there are ways to use the sound processor to enable sound in emulators with insignificant slowdown.

 

[Loridan]

I really hate when people start stating their opinions or the opinions of others as fact. The Zodiac is better than the GP32. That is just plain fact. But all signs point towards the performance gains being only slight. This, however, does not mean that the Zodiac is only slightly better. This could also mean that the Zodiac's hardware is yet to be used optimumly.

I dont know what your deal is, and I dont really care. I never said that anything to the effect of 'one was better than the other.' I stated that gp32 will always have its appeal, and why. Im sure that zodiac is a superior organizer, just like Im sure that gp32 is a superior game platform for the reasons I stated. But what I really think is that you are simply wanting to argue with someone.

optimumly??? are you ##iting me? I must be talking to a nine year old.

 

[DaveC]

I really hate when people start stating their opinions or the opinions of others as fact. The Zodiac is better than the GP32. That is just plain fact. But all signs point towards the performance gains being only slight. This, however, does not mean that the Zodiac is only slightly better. This could also mean that the Zodiac's hardware is yet to be used optimumly.

I'm sure there are ways of using the Zodiacs hardware graphics chip to perform some tasks that take pressure off the CPU, but it's unlikely with ports of emulators. And I'm sure there are ways to use the sound processor to enable sound in emulators with insignificant slowdown.

Access to the custom chips is not a sure thing with emus. It depends on how the RAM is accessed. It would help if possible as long as you don't use the APIs to do it, otherwise it would have to be signed, which means a big delay at the moment.

As to which is "better" that is mostly subjective. Yes, the specs themselves on the Zodiac are a bit better. There are however other considerations other than just clock speed and memory as which is "better" for each person. I like the GP32 better for me right now than my Zodiac 2. The Zodiac for me has some issues like the annoying DRM, fragile joystick, screen distortion in emus when running full screen, and the non user replaceable battery has me concerned.

The truth is neither one is the hands down winner at the moment, it is more of whatever you like.

 

[Daz_Genetic]

But what I really think is that you are simply wanting to argue with someone.

I'm not the person who started a thread putting the Zodiac down, when there is already 3 or so on the go already.

optimumly??? are you ##iting me? I must be talking to a nine year old.

What makes you come out with a personal attack like that. Exactly what problem did you have with what I said?