GCW Zero - Open Source Gaming Handheld

[erico]

I guess it will really depend on your main target as far as consumers go as well as final price.


Touch screen is nice, can be friendly on a productivity application port, can be excellent for adventures (ye sierra stuff and so on), can do good for homebrews, specially the puzzle ones.


As a personal opinion, I´d have it in if it won´t price up the operation. I see you have a wireless connection as standard so browsing would benefit, draw-guess-online kind of games would benefit and the soo myriad on potential apps that can come when you simply draw instead of type/move cursor.

 

[quartercast]

Ok I need precise decision to touchscreen or not to touchscreen for me resolution of the screen seems more important

Touchscreen is more important, adding that extra input method is a major change in terms of the types of emulators & games that get ported / developed.


Screen res can be upgraded later for GCW Zero++


erico is right, a lot of retro systems did use a mouse input, e.g. for point-and-click adventures. Beneath a steel blue sky anyone? And how about SNES/genesis light gun games? Mega mouse?


http://segaretro.org/Sega_Mouse

 

[cruelcynic]

Ok I need precise decision to touchscreen or not to touchscreen for me resolution of the screen seems more important

To me the touch screen is not useful. Touch screens in this price range usually have less visual quality than the standard counterparts. I would rather see for the money the best picture you can find in a 640x480 or 320x240 screen.


I vote normal screen.

 

[quartercast]

^ But you said:

I don't see the need for higher rez on such a small screen.

Maybe we need a poll

 

[cruelcynic]

^ But you said:

I don't see the need for higher rez on such a small screen.

Maybe we need a poll

Well if the choice was touch screen or higher rez I would take the resolution. I am not a fan of cheap touch screens.

 

[jutleys]

I would stick with what we got already aswell the screen on the proto looked just fine to me why change it.

 

[quartercast]

Made a poll for screen choice, insert vote here!


http://poll.pollcode.com/hecm

 

[cruelcynic]

It would be nice to know if a 640x480 3.5" screen is even readily available to be sourced for the manufacturer. May be a moot point.

I would stick with what we got already aswell the screen on the proto looked just fine to me why change it.

True. The current screen looks nice. I like it.

 

[quartercast]

Well you can vote "no change" if u like


Is the prototype 320x240 screen the same that we'd get in the final model?

 

[erico]

To me the touch screen is not useful. Touch screens in this price range usually have less visual quality than the standard counterparts...

I agree, but for example, the caanoo is a piece of niche tech already what? couple years old? On the market, that is after design stage, so let´s say 3 yrs at least.


It has a single point touch screen. The precision is great, a dot, and I mean a single dot appears right under the stylus at the exact moment and place you touch it.


Main stream devices don´t quite have that precision neither the response time. Not everyone will see a deal into this I understand.


But the kind of tech you can source nowadays must be at least better then that considering the resolution. Even multitouch is possible.

 

[cruelcynic]

^The caanoo had an oled screen though didn't it? I think a touch screen that nice would be too expensive in small production numbers.

 

[Orion4874]

So, there's a choice of 320x240 with touchscreen and 640x480 without touchscreen? If it's 320x240 with or without touch then I say definitely with.


Cruelcynic, the Wiz had an oled, the Caanoo had an LCD.

 

[erico]

About the caanoo, I wouldn´t know :wacko: although I have one .


wiki states: 3.5 inch LCD 320×240 pixel (resistive touchscreen)


thinkgeek states: OLED touchscreen

 

[hi-ban]

the caanoo has a cheap LCD touchscreen. many people complained because the view angle was very bad.


i think the touchscreen was only ever used by scummvm.


the dingoo , in the other side, had a very cheap LCD screen which, along with view angle problems, had the "diagonal lines" problem.


for playing scummvm, you had a virtual mouse, which you moved with the dpad. it worked very well.


the wiz had a LED screen (i think it was touchscreen) but it was cheap, and many consoles suffered from black pixels and "screen rotting" issues (a black thing which starts as a little dot and propagates across the entire screen), so they had to purchase a screen replacement.


all handhelds had a cheap screen, and that was the main complaint about them.

 

[EvilDragon]

Screen can add a lot to the costs.


The Pandora display costs about 42 EUR to buy, and you have shipping costs for the units on top.


If the device is aimed at 110 USD retail price, such high-res display would most probably not be possible, though it would surely expand the range of games and programs you can run on it.


Price would have to be inreased though.


About ports from the Caanoo:


Keep in mind that this is a MIPS, no ARM CPU. So anything which uses ARM assembly cores can't easily be ported.

 

[zear_]

@GCW


Please DO NOT change the screen resolution from 320x240 and/or add the touchscreen if it is going to significantly raise the production costs.


We don't need a greater resolution screen, it will be useless. 99% of the emulated platforms, including most psx and n64 titles, run at 320x240. And for the tiny fraction that requires a higher res, we can just hardware scale them down.


People are saying they want 640x480, but they don't understand they don't need it. Same about the touchscreen, how many games for the GPH consoles use touchscreen? Next to none, because it's useless


Not to mention the prototype units have just 320x240, so it will be probably harder for the developers to prepare the system/applications for the release date.

 

[iprice]

Same about the touchscreen, how many games for the GPH consoles use touchscreen? Next to none, because it's useless

That's because most of the games for the GPH consoles are emulated/ports or remakes of games that never had the option of touchscreen in the first place. Having a touchscreen opens up the possibilities of other games and apps that may need it or perform better with it for functionality or just to speed up input.

 

[EvilDragon]

The machine is powerful enough to run a small X-Server, so any applications running on a standard X-desktop could be ported.


This would add quite a few more games that could easily be ported over.


However, running anything with windows and GUIs on 320x240 is not really possible. Battle for Wesnoth would also be a game that could only be played with higher resolution and touchscreen, as is FreeCiv and similar games.


If you only plan to play classic emulated games, then 320x240 is enough.


For any desktop-based stuff, the higher the resolution the better. But it adds costs (and an X server needs to be ported to the system as well).


So both have advantages and disadvantages.

 

[zear_]

From what I know, the default system won't be using X11, so this point is kinda invalid. Naturally every hardware feature could be used in some way, but if there are no plans to utilize it in the default firmware - why adding it, if it only raises the production cost.


Don't get me wrong people, I'm just trying to prevent from turning this into Homer Simpson's car.

 

[hi-ban]

99% of the software which will be used by this console wont benefit from a touchscreen.


I personally prefer a good normal LCD screen, better than a cheap touchscreen which will have bad image quality and will give problems (and remember that any change require a PCB redesign).


And i agree with Zear. This should not be turned into Homer Simpson's car. There are laptops (or even pandora) if you want a multi-purpose gadget.


BTW, another video would be nice.