Fhm Mention Of Gp2x

[nawa]

I think they have a point somehow. I take much affort to download, install and set up games (emunlators) on GP2X. To make this easier we may make installers to help install these emulators. May be something like ITune. Is someone interested?

 

[Magnulus]

I like Dzz's example with the car. We all have our areas of interest. Whatever is outside our area of interest is several times more difficult and annoying to understand. I'm interested in computers, so I learn quickly. I'm NOT interested in cars on a technical level, so I find those hard to learn much about.

This being said, it's a well-known fact that the most read magazines in any country are populistic pseudo-journalism at best. People aren't interested in a "thorough" or "fair" review when a bunch of things are tested. They want to see a few lines saying how good or bad it is and what kind of a dice-throw it gets. They want to be able to read the WHOLE review in one minute flat. The magazines know this, and this is why they sell so damn well.

I get people in my photo store all the time who want "that camera that was best in test yesterday on TV", but never anyone who's seen the latest review on DPreview.com and wanted to check out that camera. And when you're doing a 30-second TV-review of a camera, you're not likely to spend a lot of time thoroughly checking out how everything works. I know of several cameras that have won prestigous awards which got last place in TV multi-reviews.

Just a fact of life, I suppose.

 

[oneandoneis2]

Nawa> IMHO, if you want to make emulated games easier for the average non-geek, you need to hide things from them: Instead of firing up an emulator & loading the ROM within it, you need to think up a way so that you can just select a game direct from the menu, and it automatically gets launched within the emulator.

So, e.g. if you want to play Dizzy via a Spectrum emulator, you wouldn't go to the Games menu and select a Speccy emulator and then load Dizzy from within it. You'd go to the Games menu, click on Dizzy, and it would be run via the emulator automatically, or give you a "You need to download a spectrum emulator" error message.

That would probably win a higher rating from the FHM gang, and it'd probably be reasonably popular with the rest of us who'd find it a convenient shortcut. But it'd probably be a PITA to code. . .

 

[Megagun]

1+1=2, what an awesome idea that is.

And actually, that shouldn't be too hard, pseudoprogramming-wise..
Here's how I should do it:

Make a program with a simple to navigate directory structure. You can either set the program in "Directory mode" (where it only looks for games in your current directory) or "SD mode" (where it looks for games throughout your whole SD or all subdirectories of your current directory (so if /mnt/sd is your current directory, the whole SD will be looked at. It'd be more practical to have this set to /mnt/sd/roms though). The program will check wether a game is supported (by fileextension) by looking at a .def file which is supplied by the emulators authors. The games browser should/could also include a little bit of information about the game, aswell as some screenshots of it.

The .def file should include all information needed for the Master Frontend to properly identify a game and launch the emulator with a proper commandline so it automatically opens up your desired game. The file should be a bit like this:

drmdx.def
name=DrMDx
extensions=.sms .bin..................
commandline1=<commandline here>
commandline2=<alternate commandline here>
commandline3=<yet another commandline here>
defaultcommandline=1

The alternate commandlines could be used for better finetuning of games (say, some emulators might support --soundoff, etc).

When a user opens a game through the Master Frontend for the first time which is being supported by multiple emulators, the user will be asked which emulator to use, which will then become default. When the user holds L while opening a game, he/she can change the emulator to be used with this game only or games with this fileextension in general. Holding R while opening a game will do the same, but for the commandline being used.

.zip files should get opened and checked for files within.
Complex files such as .iso and .bin should be checked on what kind of game they actually are (maybe using an external program).

The fun thing about a system like this is that it could aswell be used for movies. Add a little "type=GAME/MUSIC/VIDEO/TEXT/OTHER" line to the .def files and you can allow the user to easilly open up most things he's got dropped on his SD.

So, in other words, the general "viewing point" of this frontend is to automatically assume that the user is totally stupid, and leave the user with as few options as possible, unless he specifically claims he wants to have some control over things, by holding down the shoulder buttons.

...whoa offtopic..

 

[LHC]

"No mention of Linux".

Hahaha. FHM is a lads mag. It's target audience is not linux geeks and linux would mean nothing to the majority of its readership.

 

[craigix]

When they reviewed the gp32 they got it to work, and gave it a full page 5 star review, i guess tech standards have slipped since then...

 

[sand_man]

Let's be honest with ourselves. gp2x is for geeks

 

[Seraptin]

well FHM is not the kind of magazine i would read for getting any useful information.

But i think its positive to see the gp2x in that many magazines.

 

[Magnulus]

Indeed. To see that it's being recogniced at all by the bigger, mainstream magazines that don't normally handle things like this is a plus in itself.

 

[Ravnos]

B)-->

FHM is fine and dandy when you want to see almost naked women

And once you're old enough to buy real porn it's not even good for that.

 

[xinfernoofdantex]

I love porn... *sigh*

 

[NoidZ]

I bet if there was an Denise Richards Skin installed, it would score higher then the DS.

@ Mr. B - How old are you?

 

[g4m3r]

I don't get why people cry about how hard the GP2X is to set up. It's about the same process you go through on a PDA or Pocket PC. Just download, unzip, copy, turn on, click, play. I don't know how anyone with at least a High School education could think that is too geek for them. It doesn't matter though, we wouldn't want the typical FHM reader to buy a GP2X, or we would get the dreaded, "i wantz xbox 360!111!" or "ps3 anyone!!?" and dear God not," wat bout nintendo wii???"

 

[Magnulus]

It has nothing to do with your level of education, really. And you really shouldn't just assume that just because someone isn't interested in involving themselves in the GP2X to the degree you have to to make everything work, that they are then automatically stupid people. I know a bunch of highly intelligent people who know nothing about computers or how to use them. Those old professors farting about in various universities... I'd say they're pretty intelligent folks. They wouldn't know how to even turn on the GP2X, though... I also know a whole lot of intelligent people with very little education.

It's to do with level of interest, not intelligence or education.

There seems to be a very prominent population of people on this forum who look down their nose at all those who can't even write a fucking SCRIPT (Like me, for example) and who immediately assume very unkindly things about people who simply ask questions you might think are stupid. Also, Google search is NOT an obvious choice for searching the forums, no matter how elementary it is for you. Not everyone has the time and energy to research all the functionalities of Google. I'm not saying everyone here is a snobby prick. I'm just saying there seems to be a lot of pricks around. Maybe it's just that there are a few pricks who make a lot of noise.

 

[Mr. B]

@ Mr. B - How old are you?

22

 

[Titcher]

It has nothing to do with your level of education, really. And you really shouldn't just assume that just because someone isn't interested in involving themselves in the GP2X to the degree you have to to make everything work, that they are then automatically stupid people. I know a bunch of highly intelligent people who know nothing about computers or how to use them. Those old professors farting about in various universities... I'd say they're pretty intelligent folks. They wouldn't know how to even turn on the GP2X, though... I also know a whole lot of intelligent people with very little education.

It's to do with level of interest, not intelligence or education.

There seems to be a very prominent population of people on this forum who look down their nose at all those who can't even write a fucking SCRIPT (Like me, for example) and who immediately assume very unkindly things about people who simply ask questions you might think are stupid. Also, Google search is NOT an obvious choice for searching the forums, no matter how elementary it is for you. Not everyone has the time and energy to research all the functionalities of Google. I'm not saying everyone here is a snobby prick. I'm just saying there seems to be a lot of pricks around. Maybe it's just that there are a few pricks who make a lot of noise.

Ugh stop complaining, really there was no need to insult anyone there, even though you weren't specific, just no need there. People get frustrated when the same question gets answered several times and sometimes they act a bit rashly, they're human and all that raz-ma-taz. Anyway, calm down.

 

[Magnulus]

Ugh stop complaining, really there was no need to insult anyone there, even though you weren't specific, just no need there.

If you feel insulted, though I'm not saying you SHOULD, as I can't remember any of your posts specifically and so have no opinions on you personally... Uh... What I was trying to say is that if you feel insulted, maybe there's a reason you do. I think that if you pay attention, you'll notice what I'm talking about. It's not just a question of exarperation, as I've seen that before. It's a question of bloody snobbery. I've been on many forums through the past twelve years, most of them experiencing some degree of sudden surge in popularity, leading to a lot of new people with no clue, and I feel most of them reacted admirably as a whole. Just not this one. Maybe I'm percieving things wrongly, though.

Also, I'm perfectly calm, just a bit tired of seeing rampant elitism on the web first-hand.

 

[Godmil]

one additional point: Everyone is saying how easy it is to unzip an emu, copy it onto your sd card, copy the roms and start it up... sure that's easy. but then you also have to navigate the menu for each emu, which, with no form of standarisation, can be very frustrating for each new emu you try.

 

[jdwrrzmm]

one additional point: Everyone is saying how easy it is to unzip an emu, copy it onto your sd card, copy the roms and start it up... sure that's easy. but then you also have to navigate the menu for each emu, which, with no form of standarisation, can be very frustrating for each new emu you try.

Maybe they tried the neogeo emulator?

 

[AcidiC]

one additional point: Everyone is saying how easy it is to unzip an emu, copy it onto your sd card, copy the roms and start it up... sure that's easy. but then you also have to navigate the menu for each emu, which, with no form of standarisation, can be very frustrating for each new emu you try.

Maybe they tried the neogeo emulator?

I must have been lucky with the neogeo... Got it right first time