Emulation? Gp2x Vs Psp

[Typhoon22]

Ok, ok, chill out, down in front! Down I say!

Regardless of what I have read and seen on youtube etc.. I thought I'd bite the bullet and actually crack my PSP so I could compare emulation on the pair of them. This is not just a comparison of which emulator is better but this includes ease of use, and no I am not an ubergeek, but I'm not a yokel either.

Right, where to start.

Well as I've just done my PSP to 3.90 M33-2 or whatever the smeg the firmware is now (but thanks Dark-Alex!) I'll start there.

There is still a lot of work to be done, unfortunately. I know people are going to start flaming me for being a 'tard and not reading through all messageboards and wiki's and guides available through the tubes but this is my take.

I did think that Sony had done a fairly decent job of making sure that they had the hardest possible method of getting a video onto their unit, but it seems the coders and writers of homebrew are having a go themselves. It is considerably more difficult to get an emulator to run on a PSP than it is a GP2X. This is not the dev's fault, although I do place some blame in their court. It is all to do with the dispersal of information and the lackadasicle (sp?) documentation. From what I can tell I can run just about any firmware from 3.57-3.90 and still play commercial games from all firmwares, but you need to crack and patch homebrew software just to make it work on firmware that has already been hacked so you can run homebrew on it.

Now all you hacked/cracked PSP owners are probably going to go against me on this one, and thats fine, or you will say that the PSP was not designed to do what it is doing, and thats fine too. But this is a comparison remember? (By the way if anyone knows how to run ISO,CSO files over USBhost from irshell 3.9 on 3.9 m33-2 firmware please pm me)

My early GP2x days were also frought with difficulty - yes it is only drag and drop, but how many posters have said "Heeelp I can't get DrMD to run"? Here, I think is the difference - With my GP2x I came here, without a moments hesitation knowing that my new found colleagues would help me out. And they did and when I can I help others, I return the favour - and you get a real sense of community here. I had my problems fixed within hours of my original post.
I suppose the comparison I'd like to draw is if you have a PSP you are in essence going to a shell/exxonmobile garage to get fuel "Do it yourself, pay at the station", if you get a GP2x you have a situation where you visit a filling station/garage and there are any number of people all out with a single aim to get you the best deal out of your car as possible. With a PSP "community" there is always 1 more person who needs help.

I'll draw this to a close by saying this:
If the PSP geeks/hackers/crackers got a handle on their community properly, spoke to dev's, provided clear, concise and easy to follow instructions, and worked on emulation according to the users needs then there would be no place for the GP2x. But it's because they don't that the GP2x is such a successful gadget. Purely because it is community led, with the dev's and users talking together and sharing ideas in an open forum, and getting information from a central point, and more importantly everyone knows where it is.

 

[DaveC]

There would be no place for the GP2x if the PSP didn't have such a terrible screen for running emulators too. 480 x 272 is just piss poor for running emulators if you want them to look sharp and not all blurry. That stretching and filtering just ruins detail and contrast as it blends everything together in a fuzzy mess. Then you have the ghosting problem. It is also not very good at doing vertical oriented arcade titles due to control layout. The PSP is the most powerful hardware hands down. It is other things that keep it from being the best for emulators to me, but then again it was designed for playing cutting edge 3D games, not old Genesis games.

 

[Typhoon22]

...480 x 272 is just piss poor for running emulators if you want them to look sharp and not all blurry. That stretching and filtering just ruins detail and contrast as it blends everything together in a fuzzy mess. Then you have the ghosting problem....

I think that the problem is that the console's that we are emulating primarily dealt with 4:3 resolutions whereas most of the screens now are wierd, 16:9 16:10 etc...the psp does do a good job of re-scaling them but I think if the dev's got together they could do a better job. The emulators themselves are slow and various bugs occur even with emulators that have been stable for ages on the gp2x.

 

[slaanesh]

I think one reason that GP2X homebrew is of such a high quality is that it's easier to do the dev->test->fix->test again cycle for the developer on the GP2X. Well, on the F-100 anyway.

 

[DaveC]

I think that the problem is that the console's that we are emulating primarily dealt with 4:3 resolutions whereas most of the screens now are wierd, 16:9 16:10 etc...the psp does do a good job of re-scaling them but I think if the dev's got together they could do a better job. The emulators themselves are slow and various bugs occur even with emulators that have been stable for ages on the gp2x.

I don't think there is a way to scale that looks good. It always looks bad to me as it makes everything look blurry with that bi-linear filtering. It has to because the scaling is fractional. There is no good way to get 320 x 240 to look very good with 480 x 272. It doesn't go evenly. There really is nothing magical that can be done if "dev's got together " unless they replaced the screen with an emu friendly resolution. The whole advantage of the PSP is just the more powerful hardware that can handle a few higher spec emus better like PSX and GBA.

 

[gruso]

How well does scaling work when the screen resolution is doubled, for example a 320x240 game scaled to 640x480? I assume the result would be as crisp as the original, albeit a little blocky? (Excuse my layman speak!)

I'm kind of asking this with Pandora in mind.

 

[DaveC]

How well does scaling work when the screen resolution is doubled, for example a 320x240 game scaled to 640x480? I assume the result would be as crisp as the original, albeit a little blocky? (Excuse my layman speak!)

I'm kind of asking this with Pandora in mind.

In that case it is much better, as it is an even double. In the case of the Pandora the pixels are about 1/4 of the size of the pixels on the GP2X. When you double the pixels both ways on the Pandora you will basically get the same size pixel as the Gp2X. It won't really even look blocky. 240 goes into 480 evenly so it won't look as odd. 320 goes into 640 even too so it will also look ok. Of course you would have a bar on each side as the Pandora screen is 800 wide, not 640 but that would not be a big deal.

This is in contrast to the PSP. How would you display a 240 high game on a 272 high screen? Well you would have to double some pixels, but leave some at 1:1. This gives an un-even weird look. The way they get around that on the PSP is to add a filter over this to blend these un-even pixels. It does help that, but adds an unwanted effect in that details and some colors also get averaged out, making it slightly fuzzy.

 

[gruso]

That's what I thought, cheers.

As for the topic, the GP2X wins hands down for me too. The community is indeed a big part of that, but of course the (relative) openness of the hardware and lovely screen seal the deal. The way some of these old games look on the '2X consistently astounds me. I only put GnGeo2x + Metal Slug on this week... and gosh.

 

[Jarska333]

Here I was hoping for a handson comparioson between various emulators. Screen and controls mean squat, if the emulators are half-finished, and vice versa.

 

[Creature XL]

There would be no place for the GP2x if the PSP didn't have such a terrible screen for running emulators too. 480 x 272 is just piss poor for running emulators if you want them to look sharp and not all blurry. That stretching and filtering just ruins detail and contrast as it blends everything together in a fuzzy mess. Then you have the ghosting problem. It is also not very good at doing vertical oriented arcade titles due to control layout. The PSP is the most powerful hardware hands down. It is other things that keep it from being the best for emulators to me, but then again it was designed for playing cutting edge 3D games, not old Genesis games.

OMG, I thught this topic was over.... since 2 years.

however, I am bored and I dare to ask, if someone pointed you to the fact, where the SNES for example is coming from? All the graphics were mad to GET BLURRED on the TV screen. I have played some SNES games on a modern LCD TV (via an emulator for PC) and it looks like shit. It is way to sharp and in case you don't know, the graphics people took into account the blurring of the screen and gained colors that way. But I am pretty sure some1 else has pointed you to this fact in the last 2 years.

cheers,
creature

 

[Typhoon22]

OMG, I thught this topic was over.... since 2 years.

Well, I thought I'd have another crack at it. It's been 2 years!

As for the screen resolutions and formats- I can't see how the emulators for the GP2x are so good graphically when compared to the PSP, when the PSP has a much highter hardware spec. Just because the screen on the PSP is wider - they don't have to use it all, and they don't. But still the quality is absolutely shockingly shite, when you think of the length of time homebrew has been going on the PSP.
The emulators I have used on the PSP still have basic graphical glitches - sprites disappear etc... these should have been cleared up ages ago!

 

[yodaofborg]

There is a big difference between the blurring of a CRT, and Bilinear filtering. Also most half decent CRT's didn't ghost the image, nor did it double some pixels, giving an uneven look.

 

[Creature XL]

Well, I thought I'd have another crack at it. It's been 2 years!

As for the screen resolutions and formats- I can't see how the emulators for the GP2x are so good graphically when compared to the PSP, when the PSP has a much highter hardware spec. Just because the screen on the PSP is wider - they don't have to use it all, and they don't. But still the quality is absolutely shockingly shite, when you think of the length of time homebrew has been going on the PSP.
The emulators I have used on the PSP still have basic graphical glitches - sprites disappear etc... these should have been cleared up ages ago!

Sorry Typhoon22, the "two years" werent about you. You maybe can't know cause you have registerd some month ago. DaveC is ALWAYS since 100 years talking about screen. I must say he is right in SOME aspects )) but the topic "screen of teh gp2x" should be buried. We all new

To the rest of your post, maybe the lacking of community is the reason. I think some devs pepp up their emu when they get the "fame" by the people here. Or, like in the gpsp case, after the hard work is donesome other devs, like me, could get their hands on the code and polish it a bit, a task which you can't expect by a leet coder

 

[Typhoon22]

Sorry Typhoon22, the "two years" werent about you. You maybe can't know cause you have registerd some month ago. DaveC is ALWAYS since 100 years talking about screen. I must say he is right in SOME aspects )) but the topic "screen of teh gp2x" should be buried. We all new

Heh heh heh!

To the rest of your post, maybe the lacking of community is the reason. I think some devs pepp up their emu when they get the "fame" by the people here. Or, like in the gpsp case, after the hard work is donesome other devs, like me, could get their hands on the code and polish it a bit, a task which you can't expect by a leet coder

I agree with that - I've written some hefty backend code for apps at work before now(admittedly in VB6) and I always handed over to a front end guy to do the graphics/position the buttons and tidy up message box code/ list boxes and the like.

I was just surprised at how different the people behind the consoles worked, and the results. There are some projects - like psx4all and mame4all that have managed to cross the boudaries between the two consoles - but they are projects where one of the dev's writes for both consoles. Maybe we should offer the PSP dev's some assistance - they obviously need some help to get to the standards we enjoy!

 

[Typhoon22]

Here I was hoping for a handson comparioson between various emulators. Screen and controls mean squat, if the emulators are half-finished, and vice versa.

That will come later, I think when I have had more experience with the PSP and how the Em's work then I'll start the real comparisons. I want it to be a real post that can provide details of versions and graphics, stability and whatnot on both consoles (and try not to be bias). I just wanted to provide my view on the emulators as I saw them "out of the box" and what I thought was the overriding reason for this. Truth be told I have tried probably 4 emulators so far on the PSP and there are far more for various platforms. I am trying to get the best emulators for MAME Genesis/megadrive Snes Atari etc... for both consoles and find games that challenge them, but also games that people know so thay can relate to it.

If anyone can name a good mame game that you think will challenge the gp2x (but runs full speed) with audio then pm me (to keep this thread on point). And if anyone says pacman I will personally advise them to stop running around darkened rooms, eating pills, listening to repetitive music.

 

[paulobecker]

Forgive me if I'm missing something very obvious, but why don't PSP devs simply NOT SCALE the viewport to 100% of the screen on their emus? A nifty little unscaled screen among a couple of horizontal and vertical black bars would look much better than a blurry mess of stretched pixels, wouldn't it?

 

[slaanesh]

I would say most PSP emus DO have the option not to scale. It's just that most have set it to scale be default.
It's just a matter of selecting a different scaling option.

The visual quality of the PSP scaling is subjective. There are most likely lots of people who don't mind the scaling and may even prefer it.

I prefer perfect integer pixel scaling but I don't mind some forms of scaling. Indeed, if you were to play the original device on a CRT you would get some visual imperfection or even some "black bars. CRTs can scale horizontally but not vertically which is why PAL version of NTSC conversion would often leave you with "black bars" and a slightly squashed display.

Screen scaling mentality is prevalent with some owners of wide screen TVs especially with older people who want to use the "full width". Something that drives me nuts is seeing regular 4:3 images stretched to 16:9 because the person wants to use their "wide screen" tv even if it means distorting the image. They don't seem to understand that some images are not meant to be viewed in widescreen! Anyway, rant over but it's related to this discussion.

 

[DaveC]

I have played some SNES games on a modern LCD TV (via an emulator for PC) and it looks like shit. It is way to sharp and in case you don't know, the graphics people took into account the blurring of the screen and gained colors that way. But I am pretty sure some1 else has pointed you to this fact in the last 2 years.

cheers,
creature

I would imagine the SNES games would look like shit on a modern LCD TV. That is because the modern LCD TV is BIG. It takes those low res SNES pixels and blows them up so big it ends up a blocky mess. Your arguement kind of falls apart in the case that I am talking about though. The GP2X screen is *only 3.5"*. Playing SNES on it looks very sharp, and not blocky like a bit TV.

Yes many of these old systems used dithering to fake more colors. But the bilinear filtering over does the blurr effect. It does not look the same as a CRT as it does it completely different. Also if you were one of those that had a custom RGB/SCART cable connected to these systems they looked very sharp.

Forgive me if I'm missing something very obvious, but why don't PSP devs simply NOT SCALE the viewport to 100% of the screen on their emus? A nifty little unscaled screen among a couple of horizontal and vertical black bars would look much better than a blurry mess of stretched pixels, wouldn't it?

There is an option for that but due to the odd PSP resolution you end up with a small image, much smaller than a GP2X image at 1:1 even though the PSP screen is bigger. So it is a trade off between a small sharp image or a big fuzzy one.

Scaling looks better the more resolution you have over the original image. For example a scaled image on the Pandora at 800x480 will look far better than a scaled image on a PSP at 480 x 272. Scaling a 240 image to 272 will look rougher as there are less steps to do this and the pixels are larger making it more obvious. On the Pandora you have a much finer dot pitch and have many more pixels to work with to do things so it will look nicer.

There is some scaling that doesn't look bad on the Gp2X. Look at Picodrive or the NES emu and horizontal Software scaling (the hardware scaling looks like crap). It only does what it needs to and actually looks decent. It is not like Bi-linear that just throws a filter over everything. They could do this on the PSP too but since the bi-linear is there in hardware for free people don't bother doing anything else.

 

[Typhoon22]

I would imagine the SNES games would look like shit on a modern LCD TV. That is because the modern LCD TV is BIG. It takes those low res SNES pixels and blows them up so big it ends up a blocky mess. Your arguement kind of falls apart in the case that I am talking about though. The GP2X screen is *only 3.5"*. Playing SNES on it looks very sharp, and not blocky like a bit TV.

I once had an argument with a friend of mine over something similar when the psx first came out - I said that it looked better on my old telly because the polygons were physically smaller and therefore less noticable, whereas on his absolutely massive (for the time) telly you could see an individual polygon from 10 feet away (exageration for effect).

Its always easier to scale when you deal with multiples of the original res. And it does make sense when you think about it, and this is both ways down and up. You can see this with modern games too. Half life 2 for example when I first got my widescreen monitor I ran a 4:3 res @ full screen on it and it looked really odd. the higher the res in 4:3 the worse it looked. However, whack it on 16:9 it was fine. Same the other way around. a 16:9 on a 4:3 monitor looks *really odd*

 

[renejr902]

psp strecthing is not great. but all emu runs great. or are very playable. 16 bit and lower

but im very surprised that Jenesis v.0.6 on Nintendo DS RUN FULL SPEED with any games and rarely have slowdown. NO frameskip and run full speed.

how can be this impossible in the psp.

But the jenesis emu on Nintendo is unscaled so you have to play with up and down option.