Early Adopters Beware!

[Eternalodyssey]

I encountered the "early adopter" effect when I bought an HD-DVD player and then found out about 6 months later that HD-DVD was going defunct. No one would have been able to predict the whole outcome of that struggle but I am still with an excellent upscaling DVD player which is good because most of my movies are DVD format. I still have my PS3 for movies but I took a chance on HD-DVD player. Thats the price we pay to have cutting edge and new technology. It doesn't always work out perfect. However, since I do not see a format war or any other significant factor which might affect sales of the Pandora, I will be throwing elbows to get in line and fork over some hard earned American dollars for the Pandora. I have been following this project for some time and I have seen nothing but impressive performance from that little beast!

 

[closetwam]

Something this sweet hasn't come around before. I don't want it left on the wayside. I hope the first batch sells out before they ship and I'm ordering mine ASAP to show my support. I'm more excited to do my part to see the Pandora become a great success story than I am worried about the early adopter hiccups. My part = Ordering one right away so that I can make everyone around me jealous so they will buy the second batch.

 

[sold]

@Christo: The thread about GPH changing the wiz was made like an hour before what I wrote in the Gp2x part of the forum which I hadn't read so I was unaware. It's good to hear they have fixed those issues.

It was hilarious to see the first shots of the wiz with 2 d-pads. I mean, a company who couldn't get a d-pad right in 3 hardware revisions of the same device release a new one with 2 :lol: If the changes work out well, I'll probably get a wiz as well as a pandora.

And in response to "what exactly is an overclocking problem?" The problem was that the hardware obviously differed in terms of CPUs. My unit would safely get to 288mhz. Others to 240 as you say. I believe there were some people who couldn't overclock at all. The "problem" was that the hardware varied so much, it was almost like a lucky dip to see if you got a good one when purchasing. I believe that the chip in the gp2x was originally rated at 266mhz underclocked to 200 and that may have changed at a later date to cut costs. I'm not 100% sure, correct me if I'm wrong.

Also, the gp2x is not dual core.

 

[AireTamStorm]

I have a habit of buying devices as soon as they are released, and I have always been burned.
I was nearly burnt to death by the GP2X. However, my PS3 has given me newfound faith in early adoption, and I'll definitely own a Pandora the second I can get my hands on it.

QUOTE
Also, the gp2x is not dual core.
It had two ARM CPUs, but they were as you said NOT dual core, and they weren't SMP. (One ARM did not have an MMU from what I recall)

 

[christo930]

@Christo: The thread about GPH changing the wiz was made like an hour before what I wrote in the Gp2x part of the forum which I hadn't read so I was unaware. It's good to hear they have fixed those issues.

It was hilarious to see the first shots of the wiz with 2 d-pads. I mean, a company who couldn't get a d-pad right in 3 hardware revisions of the same device release a new one with 2 :lol: If the changes work out well, I'll probably get a wiz as well as a pandora.

And in response to "what exactly is an overclocking problem?" The problem was that the hardware obviously differed in terms of CPUs. My unit would safely get to 288mhz. Others to 240 as you say. I believe there were some people who couldn't overclock at all. The "problem" was that the hardware varied so much, it was almost like a lucky dip to see if you got a good one when purchasing. I believe that the chip in the gp2x was originally rated at 266mhz underclocked to 200 and that may have changed at a later date to cut costs. I'm not 100% sure, correct me if I'm wrong.

Also, the gp2x is not dual core.

IF you buy 100 intel core 2 processors of the same speed, there will be wild variation in overclocking ability, from none to very overclockable. EVERY gp2x can run at 200mhz which is the advertised speed. Almost all can reach 240 which is the rated speed of the chips. What most likely happened is that they were going to do was market it as a dual 240mhz machine and some of their chipsets didn't make the full 240, so they cut it to 200 which would extend the battery life anyway. Complaining that your machine doesn't "overclock" isn't fair to Game Park. You wouldn't call dell and complain that your 2ghz system doesn't overclock to 2.2ghz would you? Gamepark didn't even manufacture the chipset in the first place. I just don't see how you can fault Game Park because some systems don't perform reliably when run out of spec. My GP2X won't go past 240, but I consider the 40 extra mhz a gift. I didn't pay for a 250mhz machine. It's not anybody's fault the joe's can reach 280 and mine only reaches 240. Now if I paid for a 280mzh system, I'd demand an exchange or refund. Make sense?

I don't know if you're getting technical because the 2 cores aren't exactly the same (940 and 940T?), but it is largely considered a dual core chip. There is even some software, like pico-drive that can use both cores.

Chris

 

[Mr Wendal]

Even my four 360 failures did not bother me too much as long as MS is footing the bill.

Yeah, but MS has the cash to do that, I doubt that the pandora team do.

 

[velocity37]

Even my four 360 failures did not bother me too much as long as MS is footing the bill.

Yeah, but MS has the cash to do that, I doubt that the pandora team do.


Assuming there was an issue with a certain piece of hardware failing repeatedly, wouldn't the manufacturer of the part foot the bill in the end?

 

[DrDerekDoctors]

I waited on the GP2X, too, but I'll be pre-ordering a Pandora for sure. I'm also tempted to see about porting my engine to SDL and OpenGL ES 2.0 (it's Allegro and OpenGL 1.4 at the moment but doesn't use any fancy features) so that I can see about porting Exolon DX and Wizball to it. The latter being more likely as I've changed a lot under the hood since EDX.

 

[P-J]

QUOTE
Assuming there was an issue with a certain piece of hardware failing repeatedly, wouldn't the manufacturer of the part foot the bill in the end?


It's possible, but not worth the risk (for me at least).

There is the 'Sale Of Goods Act' which means it has to be replaced if it's not up to the job. But that's no good if everyone needs a replacement and the business goes under because they can't finance the replacements.

 

[velocity37]

But that's no good if everyone needs a replacement and the business goes under because they can't finance the replacements.

I think you misread my quote. I meant that, for instance, if the screens were to fail a lot, wouldn't the manufacturer of the screens have to reimburse Open Pandora, just like Open Pandora would reimburse the consumer?

I could see how Open Pandora could have a financial issue should it come to that, but I don't see TI going under if something ends up wrong with their hardware in the Pandora.

 

[ashdjones]

I'm wondering how well the case will be built - will dust end up getting behind the screen?

 

[Thunder]

I didn't throw it out of the window...
I for one will wait if the Pandora gets good (non-Hyped) reviews.
If the Pandora is good, there will be a second batch, then I'll order it.

 

[Pleng]

EVERY gp2x can run at 200mhz which is the advertised speed. Almost all can reach 240 which is the rated speed of the chips. What most likely happened is that they were going to do was market it as a dual 240mhz machine and some of their chipsets didn't make the full 240, so they cut it to 200 which would extend the battery life anyway. Complaining that your machine doesn't "overclock" isn't fair to Game Park.

Mine was advertised as 240Mhz on GP2x.co.uk but could never clock above 210. That wasn't GPHs fault, as it wasn't them who advertised it as 240. It was gp2x.co.uk. To be fair, Craig did say that I could return it for replacement but at the time I didn't want to be without it and couldn't be bothered with all the hassle of sending it back as I didn't really use anything that really needed a higher clock speed (although that was before Picodrive supported Virtua Racing!)

QUOTE


I don't know if you're getting technical because the 2 cores aren't exactly the same (940 and 940T?), but it is largely considered a dual core chip. There is even some software, like pico-drive that can use both cores.

Chris



Using two CPUs is not the same as having 2 cores. Two cores mean two IDENTICAL cores that run in parallel, generally with threads being scheduled accross the cores by the OS. The second CPU in the GP2X has a different instruction set, is poorly documented (I believe) and does not have instructions scheduled to it by the host OS. As you said, picodrive can use both processors but the program has been specifically coded to make use of that processor, whereas a dual-core system would benefit ANY application that was programmed in a multi-threaded manner.

 

[smanky]

For me it depends on the product. I pretty much buy every Nintendo console and handheld the first week and I've never been screwed. I bought the PSP in the first week on a whim, and while I probably should have waited, I had fun playing it when I got it. I think most important thing is whether or not you're gonna be happy with it when you buy it. If you won't be happy until x games/software are available and the hardware has been retooled 10 times and the price comes down by y dollars, then don't be an early adopter.

Besides game consoles, I always try to wait a while on new technologies to let things get settled first.

But budget permitting I intend to pre-order the Pandora. It seems a lot of time and effort is being put into this thing, so I'm banking it'll be good.

 

[Kyo]

fuck precaution, I'm getting one from the first batch. There might be problems with it, but damn it, I want this device and I'm sure it will be nothing serious

 

[christo930]

EVERY gp2x can run at 200mhz which is the advertised speed. Almost all can reach 240 which is the rated speed of the chips. What most likely happened is that they were going to do was market it as a dual 240mhz machine and some of their chipsets didn't make the full 240, so they cut it to 200 which would extend the battery life anyway. Complaining that your machine doesn't "overclock" isn't fair to Game Park.

Mine was advertised as 240Mhz on GP2x.co.uk but could never clock above 210. That wasn't GPHs fault, as it wasn't them who advertised it as 240. It was gp2x.co.uk. To be fair, Craig did say that I could return it for replacement but at the time I didn't want to be without it and couldn't be bothered with all the hassle of sending it back as I didn't really use anything that really needed a higher clock speed (although that was before Picodrive supported Virtua Racing!)

QUOTE


I don't know if you're getting technical because the 2 cores aren't exactly the same (940 and 940T?), but it is largely considered a dual core chip. There is even some software, like pico-drive that can use both cores.

Chris



Using two CPUs is not the same as having 2 cores. Two cores mean two IDENTICAL cores that run in parallel, generally with threads being scheduled accross the cores by the OS. The second CPU in the GP2X has a different instruction set, is poorly documented (I believe) and does not have instructions scheduled to it by the host OS. As you said, picodrive can use both processors but the program has been specifically coded to make use of that processor, whereas a dual-core system would benefit ANY application that was programmed in a multi-threaded manner.


I didn't know they were that different. I thought the biggest problem was the way the cache is setup, that the second processor doesn't have a cache and that it lacked an mmu (or something like that). I didn't realize they had totally different instruction sets and registers and what not. I guess they never really expected it to be used by anything but their media player. Kind of dumb to do it that way.

Chris

 

[adsharma23]

i've finally decided to wait for the second batch or later
i want the bugs of the first batch to be fixed but most importantly i want software to be developed so i won't have to wait to do something
but if all the right software is available for me (not exactly sure which software would be right but n64 would make me preorder) and i have the money to preorder (have 220, almost there cause i made 180 off a website i designed for a friends dad's company thanks to suggestions on this forum ) i have enough faith in craig and others to early adopt as long as the promised videos of the pandora would show everything is in order

 

[nubie]

I didn't know they were that different. I thought the biggest problem was the way the cache is setup, that the second processor doesn't have a cache and that it lacked an mmu (or something like that). I didn't realize they had totally different instruction sets and registers and what not. I guess they never really expected it to be used by anything but their media player. Kind of dumb to do it that way.

Chris

Yeah, I had never heard of MagicEyes (before late 2005), and their products are kinda funny, I wonder what the bulk cost is on these processors, surely less than $30 apiece. It isn't the hardware so much as the lack of quality software and documentation.

 

[Karel Jansens]

i've finally decided to wait for the second batch or later

Good decision! Please make sure many more follow your lead, so as to increase my odds for getting my Pandora from the first batch. :rolleyes:

 

[Orkie]

I didn't realize they had totally different instruction sets and registers and what not.

That's because it didn't have totally different instruction sets and registers, that is a complete fabrication...