Gp2x N00b, Generic Questions.

[kdanarch]

Hey folks, I just got myself a GP2X F-200 last week (with the vague intention of getting my friend to play some old school RPGs, but now I've found myself too attached to it to lend it off; I bought her a PS1) and I've been loading up on emulators, and lurking around, but I'm not sure if there's a lull in significant development or if I just hopped on the boat after the craze has faded (barely anything has touchscreen support, and it seems a lot of emulator development halted in 2007; Although, I'm hearing a lot of hype about Pandora, honestly I'm not too excited about it.)

Anyway, here are my queries:

~ How is the state of scene, from your perspective (those of you who have been fellow GP2Xers from pretty much the beginning)?

~ My GP2X can only overclock to 250mHz without crashing. I understand these capabilities differ on a unit-to-unit basis depending on the quality of the chip manufacture, correct? ie. There is no way I'll get it any higher?

~ I noticed that gpSP uses a lot of speedhacks to get games playable, but the list doesn't seem very fleshed out. Is there a place where people develop speedhacks, or will advances to the actual emulator be necessary for better compatibility?

~ PocketSNES has some serious problems with sounds (it seems, mostly with games that have their own custom sounds) but I've got everything cranked up and hacked. Is there a way to fix the sound in games like Chrono Trigger or other sound-intensive games? Or is this another waiting game for an enhanced SPC core? Right now custom samples sound like irritating white noise, forcing me to keep the sound off.

~ (Should be in Homebrew...) The stick-click. I've read everywhere about this, and I've even frustratingly pressed button after button trying to activate that middle light in the hardware test screen. Is there any way to tinker with the firmware/OS to make a screen tap function as a stick click for all programs not designed for the F200? I can't imagine such a design foobar from many companies :/

Thanks!
Jinx. h34r:

 

[avik]

Hello and welcome. Let me answer the two questions I can. They stem from my experience.

~ My GP2X can only overclock to 250mHz without crashing. I understand these capabilities differ on a unit-to-unit basis depending on the quality of the chip manufacture, correct? ie. There is no way I'll get it any higher?

You don't usually need to get it higher. Remember that higher speeds mean lower battery life, and besides, most software doesn't need massive overclocking.

~ I noticed that gpSP uses a lot of speedhacks to get games playable, but the list doesn't seem very fleshed out. Is there a place where people develop speedhacks, or will advances to the actual emulator be necessary for better compatibility?

Actually, gpSP has pretty good compatibility these days. Unless the game takes advantage of GBA-specific hardware (such as using too many affine transformations), I've seen that it actually runs pretty well.

 

[Tobriand]

Heya! And welcome to our wonderful community . As Avik's done, let me answer a few...

~ How is the state of scene, from your perspective (those of you who have been fellow GP2Xers from pretty much the beginning)?

The scene is pretty much healthy, but yeah, you're right, it is in a bit of a lull at the moment. That said, for this community, that is entirely normal - around this time of year there are almost always predictions of doom and gloom and the scene dying. It rarely does . In terms of emulators, the reason development has slowed is primarily because they're - for the most part - been done. The same thing happened after the GP32 had been out a couple of years. But don't fret. When emulation is exhausted, that's when the really really good homebrew games start to turn up .

That said, the GP32 scene was hit *hard* by the onset of the GP2x; the predictions are that the Pandora won't kill GP2x development quite as badly because it's so powerful that it removes some of the fun of squeezing every last frame from the system. It also helps a LOT that the GP2x uses Linux, and so will Pandora - it makes backporting, as I understand it, much much easier.

QUOTE

~ I noticed that gpSP uses a lot of speedhacks to get games playable, but the list doesn't seem very fleshed out. Is there a place where people develop speedhacks, or will advances to the actual emulator be necessary for better compatibility?



I believe there was discussion in the original release thread on this, and I've a suspicion that the conclusion was that the speedhacks included are those that make a big difference, but adding more to the list in the required format would be recognized (if you happen to know more that aren't on there). I'm afraid I'm not going to dig out the GPsp release thread though.


And of course, on the CPU-speed note, there are a few things that could do with more than 250MHz (GPsp being one, though for many games, not horribly so), but really it's only if you're planning on playing the things right at the edge of usability (say, Super Mario RPG, anything actually advanced in Dosbox, psx emulation) that it really matters - and then you usually need 300Mhz to get things to work well enough anyway. The vast majority of software runs fine at 200MHz, and a fair amount that could do with a few more MHz will be kept happy with 50 .

 

[kdanarch]

You guys have been friendly and informative.

Thanks a ton

Pandora, at least it seems to me, is starting to look more and more like a mini-laptop with a gamepad built in. Not complaining, but when I really wanna bust out PSX emulation, I use pSX on my Ubuntu lappy

So unless they can slap an Li-Ion battery in there that'd last as long as a DS's, it doesn't really seem... worth it. Just sayin

 

[rokdcasbah]

i don't know if i'd say there was a lull, really.

on the emulator front, we have tempest, which is a big deal & a long time coming, gp2x mame completely redone, picodrive with virtua racing & more sega cd improvement, and zx-81 returned not too long ago and continues to release improved versions of his projects.

as for homebrew, there was the glbasic compo, ledow is working on simon tatham's puzzle collection, and aside from those there have been a lot more projects. i don't mean to gloss over any, but i'll just pick out a couple...space varmints and a new version of sqdef.

i'll agree though, that things aren't as hot & heavy as they were. i don't know that the f200 was the second wind that people wanted it to be, but it's done some good, and i think these last couple of weeks have seen a fair number of releases.

certainly something can be said about the fact that, at least with emulation, as projects like gpfce and picodrive reach maturity, the updates are going to slow or stop. this is bittersweet. to take my mind off it i am trying to finish kid chameleon.

i wouldn't mind seeing some more scene demos, myself.

 

[Tobriand]

Well, it's certainly not as much of a lull at the moment as it has been in years past... but usually late April through to early June tends not to have *too* much happen in it.

It's certainly quieter now than it was in March and early April, though...

 

[Orkie]

A lot of people just have exams at the moment, I will be getting back to the GP2X at the end of June.

 

[Exophase]

Okay, GBA games either have idle loops or they don't. That config file is mostly to say where the idle loops are for games that have them. Most games that don't have idle loops call the BIOS routine to wait for interrupts, and thus don't need to have idle loops pointed out, but they're still kept from using all the CPU (and gpSP emulates potentially much more CPU than a real GBA would)

So just because a game isn't on that list doesn't mean that it needs to be.

 

[Prophet]

Pandora, at least it seems to me, is starting to look more and more like a mini-laptop with a gamepad built in.

Except it's only slightly bigger than a DS Lite, but has a screen the size of the PSP. A touch screen with 800x480 resolution.

People often think it's bigger than it is. In fact it's quite small.

And yes it has a gamepad... as well as dual analogs and a keyboard. Tons of input options.

QUOTE
So unless they can slap an Li-Ion battery in there that'd last as long as a DS's, it doesn't really seem... worth it. Just sayin


Pandora (according to the devs) will have a 10 hour battery life. Sound familiar? It should, since that was the original DS battery life spec. - 10 hours.

So it's as small as a DS, and has a similar battery life as a DS. Can your linux lappy make such a claim?

And oh yeah, Pandora also runs Linux. B)

 

[Sphinxter]

Well, it's certainly not as much of a lull at the moment as it has been in years past... but usually late April through to early June tends not to have *too* much happen in it.

It's certainly quieter now than it was in March and early April, though...

Keee-rist, you draw your ass off coding night and day and it's just never enough. What's the average for new titles on other platforms per year? Is anybody keeping track like some platform comparison score card or something? How many for a big co like say EA a year? Fiscal or calendar? Would it count as a hit for your platform if you emulate the other one?