Gamescom, sensor upgrade and other nice news

[Xcl4m4t10n]

@EvilDragon:

 

[EvilDragon]

I like the rounded corners of the GPD WIN. for me, the PYRA is too bricky , plus I can imagine those corners digging into your hand.

Actually, right now, it's the other way round.
The Pyra has smoothed corners at the bottom and top (unlike the Pandora), you don't feel any corners digging into your hands.

The GPD Win has sharp corners at the top which can dig into your hands. This only seems to happen when using the keyboard, not the gaming controls though.
And it's a prototype, so it might be different in the final unit.

 

[vcoleiro1]

I'm talking about those corners, not the edges. The corners on the WIN are more rounded compared to the Pyra's corners.
Also, any plans to fix the reflection you get off those clear plastic key tops on the Pyra?. Maybe a non reflective clear plastic (if that exists) or something

 

[matzesu]

This new 9 axis (of evil) sensor sounds great, this means i could use the Pyra also as a Compass or a Fitness Device because its could count my stepps.. whit the right software, this thing shall be pretty usefull..

And yes, most of the time, i used my Pandora for Gaming, but whit the Pyra i think, i can make much more thinks..

The rest of the News also sounds great, im looking forward for the videos as i dotnt goo to Gamescom and i would be happy if whe get rid of the screen rotation ship if this means the top whill be lighter and whe need less batterie power..

And thanks for your thought on the GPD, these heat issues dosnt seems that good, but its still a usefull device..

I still whant the clear case, but mybe the blue would also be cool..
Im not the fan of this gray, even if its looks lot better than my Pandora, but if its will be the only choice for us "first batch", then i think i will also be happy..

So hope you enjoy the gamescom, and the booth will get lots of potenzial customers..

 

[Caine]

The keyboard... oh yes. The keyboard. Actually, it's worse than I expected, sadly. The feel of it is okay, I'm not a fan of clicky keys, but they work fine. However, the left-aligned keyboard causes more issues than I expected.

That was the impression I got from the pictures as well. While the familiarity of the keyboard layout looks great, it's actual use... probably not so much.

My brain expects a centered keyboard (as every keyboard in a mobile system I've seen yet is centered).

They should move that block with L3/R3 to the left instead of the right. That would almost center the keyboard. I still prefer the Pyra placement in the center and top for most of those keys (less risk of accidentally hitting them).

The GPD certainly has a "looks better at a first glance" effect going for it, even though I suspect the Pyra to be the superior device (unless x86 is a feature for you).

 

[EvilDragon]

I'm talking about those corners, not the edges. The corners on the WIN are more rounded compared to the Pyra's corners.

Yes, but only sharp corners really dig into your hands. Which the Pyra doesn't have, they're more rounded than the ones from the Pandora, so a lot more comfortable.

Also, any plans to fix the reflection you get off those clear plastic key tops on the Pyra?. Maybe a non reflective clear plastic (if that exists) or something

This is something that doesn't exist. But I've never seen that this causes a problem for anymore.
The highly reflective screens of capacitive touchpanels are more of a concern than a few reflections on a keyboard though

Some more updates, as I played a bit more with the WIN. I mainly tried older games and free remakes like the Ghostbusters Remake or Zelda Classic or Bruce Lee II.
Those caused a bit more problems. Most of those games only let you reconfigure the buttons, not the joystick itself. Which leads to the issue that they only work with the analog stick.
Playing Zelda Classic with the analogue stick is anything but optimal...
Bruce Lee II doesn't react to any keypress at all.

Joy2Key should be the solution to this (haven't tried it yet, but I see no reason why it shouldn't work), but it's a bit more work to setup. Nothing serious, but a bit annoying.

One interesting sidenote:
I tried Hamsterball (as I thought it might be nice to play it with the stick) and it ran rotated... so it seems some games ignore the rotation settings from Windows.
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even though I suspect the Pyra to be the superior device (unless x86 is a feature for you).

I think an x86 board also becomes more unlikely for the Pyra. I have no idea how to use it in an environment without a fan. It really heats up a lot.

 

[vcoleiro1]

Yes, but only sharp corners really dig into your hands. Which the Pyra doesn't have, they're more rounded than the ones from the Pandora, so a lot more comfortable.

This is something that doesn't exist. But I've never seen that this causes a problem for anymore.
The highly reflective screens of capacitive touchpanels are more of a concern than a few reflections on a keyboard though
.

Hmm, I hope the reflection off the clear key tops is not as bad as the photo below, I'd hate to have to move the keyboard around to see the key labels.

Plus , the Photo below shows a lot more reflection coming off the Pyra screen than the WINs, is that an issue that's being fixed , or just a bad photo?

 

[Abaddon666]

Hi ED,

I'm going for both the Pyra and the GPD Win. Currently I'm very excited about the latter since the Pyra seems a little further away and I'm quite sure about what I can expect from it. I watched some Videos running games on the GPD Win which really made hope for the following games to run without issues in quality settings which are acceptable to great regarding the screen size compared to a full sized monitor:

- TES4 - Oblivion
- TES3 - Morrowind
- Resident Evil 0/1/4 (the (HD-)Remakes)
- Two Worlds I/II
- Fable
- Sudeki
- F.E.A.R
- Gears of War
- Far Cry
- Half Life 2 up to Episode 2
- Doom 3 + Ressurection of Evil
- Silent Hill 2 to 4
- Dolphin
- Reicast
- Project Tempest (Jaguar Emulator for Windows)
- Ultra 64 (Killer Instinct I/II Emu for Windows)
- DosBox running some mid-to-late 90s titles
- PCSX 2 (running Dragon Quest VIII for example)
- Dreamcast Ports that made it to Windows like
. House of the Dead 2
. Sega Rally 2
. Sonic Adventure
. Get Bass
. Crazy Taxi

I don't know if you plan (since your selling it) to make any videos showing the capabilities of the prototype, but if you do I'd really love to see one or more of the above mentioned games/emus.

Kind regards

 

[matzesu]

Reicast runs also on Pandora (1ghz) and for TES3 Morrowind, whe only need a Port of OpenMorrowind..
Thats no big reason for a GPD Win..

Dit you truyd some Emulators on the Win yet??
I would like to know how good these less demanding task work whit it and how long the batterie lasts if you play Tetris on it compare to the Pandora..

 

[EvilDragon]

Hmm, I hope the reflection off the clear key tops is not as bad as the photo below, I'd hate to have to move the keyboard around to see the key labels.

Plus , the Photo below shows a lot more reflection coming off the Pyra screen than the WINs, is that an issue that's being fixed , or just a bad photo?

As you can see on the photo, the Pyra receives a LOT more light than the GPD Win.
I had to use a flash, and the screen of the GPD Win looked horrible with the reflections due to the flash, which is why I put my hand in the way to have the Win receive a smoother light.

Just take a look at the close up of the keys I posted here, that looks a lot better.

 

[fusion_power]

The processor power is incredible for such a small device. it's neat being able to play games like Civilization 4, etc. The downside is though: It also heats up quite a bit and eats the battery. Even doing nothing but running Windows, the CPU reaches over 60°C, just with webbrowsing, you reach over 75 - 80°C... gaming increases the heat even more. It's a nice hand heater. Haven't made extensive tests of the battery, but it seems to last for a few hours only. Charging while using it is nigh impossible (it charged 4% within 3 hours), but that might be same with the Pyra (we'll find out soon!). It doesn't really help that Windows isn't exactly optimized to use as little ressources as possible. Maybe with Linux this'll get better. I haven't done extensive heating tests with the Pyra, but the Intel CPU surely gets a lot hotter than the the OMAP5 when doing simple things like webbrowsing or idling. So yes: Incredible power in exchange of heat and battery life. I can fully understand why GPD chose to add a fan though.

Ouch, that's hot indeed, no wonder nobody made such an small device with that Atom CPU so far (afaik). Well, OK, the Shield Handheld had a powerful Chip inside but also an active fan I think, and it was compared huge.
Win10 may be the most optimized Windows for mobile devices so far but I guess it is still not enough to compare to "real" mobile OS solutions.

Also, any plans to fix the reflection you get off those clear plastic key tops on the Pyra?. Maybe a non reflective clear plastic (if that exists) or something

I can imagine to get rid of those annoying keycap reflections if the surface is a little bit more "rough", which should give a slightly frosted effect without loosing the clear view to the labeling. ED could ask the company that does these Keymats if they can tweak the surface of the caps a little bit...just an idea.

 

[Askarus]

While preparing the presentation for the Gamescom I did look for some good GPD WIN pictures.

Here's an older one with a much better keyboard position.

 

[vcoleiro1]

@Askarus


That was actually one of my old recommendations that I made in photoshop. I tuned it a bit better than that in the end. But no go unfortunately.

On a different note. We will have to see about the temp of the WIN, a lot of game test videos have been done on the Z8700 fanless GPD WIN. Even games that really push it like Crysis 3 , in fact the tester for Crysis 3 mentioned that after a long game session, it got to around 80-83 degrees, that was after a long time on a game that pushed the CPUs and GPUs to the max. Other lesser games reported no issue with temp. So I don't know, we will have to see.

Anyway, I'm still waiting on the final WIN prototype which will have yet another different SOC -> Z8750 , a much better copper heatsink and of course the fan.

 

[ssokolow]

I have preferred it since I saw the curvy plans for the Win. For the average consumer or those that like the way modern devices look it makes sense for the Win to "look better". To me the Win, and many other modern electronics, look ugly, but that comes down to personal preference, and has little impact on performance and use (more rounded corners might help those that are injured by the corners on the Pandora).

Yeah. To me, the Pyra looks like a proper unified design while the GPD Win looks like one of the innumerable Chinese knock-off electronics companies patched together CAD/CAM files for a couple of android phones, the controls from a knock-off X-Box One controller, and the keys from some "trying to not seem cheap by using laptop-inspired keycaps" variant of a handheld bluetooth keyboard, then pad-printed GPD on it in the first font they had access to.

Of course, if I were to ever get a GPD Win, it would be in addition to a Pyra for the purpose of playing my GOG and Humble Linux ports and only if someone confirmed that I could get x86 Linux working on it without missing drivers or hiccups.

(Or maybe Win7 if I didn't get so much satisfaction from being able to say that I never pirate any software... even if that means that, to thumb my nose at Steam and the Wii/3DS Stores, I have to track down oddball CD-ROM re-releases of floppy games and build a library of cartridges just for use with my Retrode.)

 

[WizardStan]

80 degrees isn't /bad/; it's not good, but it's certainly not going to force you to drop it like pizza pocket fresh out of the microwave.
Rest in peace, delicious pizza pocket.

 

[Abaddon666]

Reicast runs also on Pandora (1ghz) and for TES3 Morrowind, whe only need a Port of OpenMorrowind..
Thats no big reason for a GPD Win..

Dit you truyd some Emulators on the Win yet??
I would like to know how good these less demanding task work whit it and how long the batterie lasts if you play Tetris on it compare to the Pandora..

No big reason? But you read my list above didn't you? Btw. Oblivion would be the most important game for me.
I'll repeat I'm going for both, Pyra and GPD Win. I'm not bashing the Pyra in any way, but for the last two centuries there have been plenty of great games for windows or at least closed-source x86 games. Being able to playing those on the go would mean very much to me and that is why I'm quite excited about it. I hope there'll a solution or at least a mod later on to solve that heat problem to some degree.

 

[matzesu]

The only game i want to play would be Morrowind and the Dreamcast, ditnt have Skyrim as my PC isnt fast enought, also because my Thinkpad is Multi Core, it ditnt play Oblivion..

I will stay whit the Pyra even if it dosnt plays Skyrim..

 

[Kev2442]

for the last two centuries there have been plenty of great games for windows or at least closed-source x86 games

Remember that the Pyra's Linux system is not quite the bother. I'm a Windows guy myself (Linux still isn't acceptable for my activities despite multiple attempts) and I'm not even considering the WIN.

Closed-source programs just aren't optimized for such a device. Running them looks fine, but it won't be nearly as good as it gets on PC. Same goes for Windows 10.
It's much harder to find closed-source software for Linux, but that means almost everything which runs on it can be ported over and optimized for the Pyra.
Emulators and open-source games will run much better this way. I bet that OpenMorrowind on the Pyra will play much nicer than TES III on the WIN.

As for emulators, you should be covered with a Pyra. PCSX2 most probably won't run well on the WIN. Especially 3D games, they require either great GPUs or high-end CPUs for software rendering - which is much more accurate.
Up to and including the Dreamcast, everything will run fast and flawless.
DOSBox is included in the list. It may need a bit of tweaking to adjust it to the Pyra, but when 3D acceleration is fully implemented, this should run at least as good as any PC.

As for the FPSs and other more recent x86 games, the WIN will probably do better... for now.
The Pyra will be capable of running them - x86 emulation and WINE is an option and allows for games like Dungeon Keeper 2 or Unreal Tournament to run nicely (as long as 3D acceleration works - for now it's just lagging as hell).
I'm interested in this period too, but I think it will be better to wait for a CPU upgrade to have a try at it. A good ol' NFSU2 on-the-go would be fantastic, but it won't come anytime soon.
For now, expect 2000 games running perfectly fine, and maybe a few more with some trade-offs (30 fps, lower settings etc).
You can also count on Android ports - they're more and more common and a much better choice for the system : think of Max Payne and GTA III running on the Pandora as an example.

 

[Magic Sam]

Hi all

I understand better now why the GPD Win never registered the slightest blip on my radar

@EvilDragon : will you visit Michael from Amigatec at the Gamescom ?

Cheers, Magic Sam

 

[EvilDragon]

@EvilDragon : will you visit Michael from Amigatec at the Gamescom ?

Yes, we're already in good contact for a while and he's currently porting the game to the Pandora.
He also plans something similar to the RetroPi, so we might collaborate a bit.
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I don't know if you plan (since your selling it) to make any videos showing the capabilities of the prototype, but if you do I'd really love to see one or more of the above mentioned games/emus.

Yes, maybe, at some time. I never really played Windows games (always was a console player), so I don't have many to show, but I'm sure many will run, as the system really is a power horse.
Probably not powerful enough for all PS2 games, but maybe for simpler ones.

However, as mentioned, powerful also means more heat and more battery consumption. So while it's nice to be able to plays PS2 games fullspeed, how usable would that be if the battery only lasts for 2 - 3 hours then?
That purely depends on the user, I guess.

It certainly is a nice device, but I'm not sure it's meant for a wide audience, as most games need some tweaking in the settings or setting up Joy2Key. No problem for power users, but for a broad audience?

I will probably use it for mobile video editing, as my favourite editing system (EDIUS) runs really well.
I'll test that at Gamescom editing videos I take
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@EvilDragon:

Sure would. Where can I find that and whom should I contact?