Gp2x Or Nintendo Ds?

[CFBLIVESHERE]

I am looking to invest in a handheld video game system in the next few weeks but can not make up my mind of which to buy. I have been on here alot reading about what the GP2x can do and I also know what the Nintendo DS can do when it comes to emulation.

Of course the GP2X totally blows away the DS when it comes to that stuff. I probably would just buy the DS more for the commercial games and ability to play NES games and Game Boy titles. But I really want to get a handheld that can emulate Genesis, SNES, and Arcade games.

So I guess the question I am throwing out to the comunity is how well do SNES, Genesis, and Arcade games run on the GP2X. And also how well can the DS emulate games?

Also I am a total novie when it comes to emulation so how easy will it be for me to get my system hooked up with the emulators and be able to troubleshoot anything that goes wrong with the emualtion?

Is the GP2X worth the money at this time when the Pandora which is supposed to be 10 times more powerful than the GP2X is right around the corner in terms of being released?

 

[Dunny]

I own both - GP2X F100 and a DS with R4 + 2gb uSD card.

In terms of homebrew, both systems are pretty much equally served in that most of the "big" DOS games have been ported (Doom, Quake, Descent, Duke3D etc). Original homebrew is probably better on the 2x, but DS has a large amount of new stuff coming along now.

As for your main question, I'd say that the 2x barely scrapes a win for SNES and Genesis due to the screen size - no scaling. DS has to scale or crop for both formats. DS emulates SNES better imo, and Genesis is good but not up to Picodrive on the 2x for compatibility. As for arcade, you can pretty much forget it on the DS - the NeoGeo emulator isn't bad, but compatibility is low due to memory constraints.

GBA and GB is of course far better on the DS - 2x GB/GBC emulation is a painful joke, as is GBA. DS can run GBA roms natively (Assuming a Slot 2 solution which will set you back about 10 GBP).

I also like to play a lot of old Spectrum games, for which the DS wins hands-down - a touchscreen keyboard on the second screen without having to pause the emulation? Sheer heaven.

I very rarely pick up the 2x these days unless I'm in a Genesis mood - but the DS gets played daily.

I'd not recommend the 2x to anyone now, having had one for the best part of 18 months. It's woefully inadequate when it should never have been. If you decide not to get a DS, then wait for Pandora. That thing will rock.

D.

 

[tezcatlipoca111]

I had your same doubt regarding pandora. I fear that when it will come out the gp2x scene will die; everyone who owns a gp2x seems to be waiting for a pandora and since it is so superior it's easy to imagine that many people will lose interest in developing for the 'older' console.

As for commercial games, I don't understand you. I had a DS in mind too before, but when I did a tour to see the games I didn't find anything worth the price. I would have only bought tetris and chessmaster, and maybe shiren, but this kind of games can be found for gp2x too and they don't cost 30-40$. What titles have you in mind?

 

[CFBLIVESHERE]

I had your same doubt regarding pandora. I fear that when it will come out the gp2x scene will die; everyone who owns a gp2x seems to be waiting for a pandora and since it is so superior it's easy to imagine that many people will lose interest in developing for the 'older' console.

As for commercial games, I don't understand you. I had a DS in mind too before, but when I did a tour to see the games I didn't find anything worth the price. I would have only bought tetris and chessmaster, and maybe shiren, but this kind of games can be found for gp2x too and they don't cost 30-40$. What titles have you in mind?

For commerical games I'm more into the innovative type games DS has. Plus the fact they have all my favorite Nintendo games is a big plus for me. Not to mention the return of Tecmo Bowl on the DS this Fall. I'm a big fan of Nintendo but miss playing all my favorite Neo Geo, SNES, and Genesis games. Not to mention the arcade fighters (Street Fighter, King of the Monsters, World Heros..etc).

I have read reviews that say GP2X can emulate all those systems to perfection. But the guy above says GP2x sucks pretty much. So what's the truth? I have also heard DS was no where near as powerful as GP2X or PSP so how can it run SNES games better?

Frankly I'm either looking for a good handheld to emulate SNES/Sega/Arcade games

or

A Nintendo DS

Unless the PSP can play emulators as easily as a GP2X can?

 

[tezcatlipoca111]

I have read reviews that say GP2X can emulate all those systems to perfection. But the guy above says GP2x sucks pretty much. So what's the truth? I have also heard DS was no where near as powerful as GP2X or PSP so how can it run SNES games better?

I was wondering the same. From what Dunny says it seems that there is no real reason to get a gp2x apart from genesis emulation and mame. I must say it renovated my doubts about what to get, but I guess someone else will join the thread and take the other side (after all we are on a gp2x forum) so I wait to see both the arguments.

In the while, would you mind to tell me some of the innovative games you are thinking of? Also, how do you put homebrew software (or pirate roms) to work on a ds? Do you need a sd reader?

 

[CFBLIVESHERE]

I have read reviews that say GP2X can emulate all those systems to perfection. But the guy above says GP2x sucks pretty much. So what's the truth? I have also heard DS was no where near as powerful as GP2X or PSP so how can it run SNES games better?

I was wondering the same. From what Dunny says it seems that there is no real reason to get a gp2x apart from genesis emulation and mame. I must say it renovated my doubts about what to get, but I guess someone else will join the thread and take the other side (after all we are on a gp2x forum) so I wait to see both the arguments.

In the while, would you mind to tell me some of the innovative games you are thinking of? Also, how do you put homebrew software (or pirate roms) to work on a ds? Do you need a sd reader?


Some of the games I think are innovative are
-Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney
-Nintendogs
-Elite Beat Agents
-Legend of Zelda Phantom Hour Glass
-Trauma Center

Truthfully anything that utilizes the touch screen to play the game is what I'm really talking about.

I'm not completely sure on how the DS can play roms. I know it has the slot cart 1 & 2 features to plug in flash carts to play the roms on the DS. I have also gone on youtube and seen people playing tons of games from various consoles. I don't know amped up or hacked or what type of cart they are using but the DS can play Roms. Although some say it plays them horribly and others say it plays them well depending on many things.

The one thing about the GP2X that seems universal is the Genesis plays flawlessly on it. And all other consoles above 8 bit are either average or have some minor to major flaws. But then again alot of the reviews out there are from back in 2006....and I know developing has come a long way since then on the GP2X. I'll probably wind up buying both of these hand helds anyways.

The only fear i have about the Pandora is waiting for the programs to be perfected to run these emulators. Because as the GP2X showed it took some time for it to be able to run different emulators better then when it first showed up.

 

[Exophase]

I have read reviews that say GP2X can emulate all those systems to perfection. But the guy above says GP2x sucks pretty much. So what's the truth? I have also heard DS was no where near as powerful as GP2X or PSP so how can it run SNES games better?

The truth is somewhere inbetween (what Dunny said and what the reviews say). Dunny is kind of a perfectionist, and he probably doesn't keep up to date with the emulators coming out. I really doubt GB emulation is a "painful joke", and if it were I'd port that GB emulator I wrote in one day for a contest (GB is seriously not hard to emulate), but it sounds like the latest emulator out is doing fine. GBA emulation varies a lot depending on the game and how much you are/can overclock your GP2X.

DS can keep up with SNES and Genesis emulation because it has 2D hardware that's close enough to those platforms that it can be used to accelerate the video, which is the biggest portion of the work in emulating these platforms (especially SNES). This is a double edged sword, because where DS can't match the feature set of the original there will be permanent graphical errors that will never be fixed. It also means that you lose resolution, and in the case of Genesis where most games are 320 wide you lose big chunks of it on the side (it cannot be scaled horizontally, only vertically).

One little known fact is that a lot of the time SNES games on DS don't really run fullspeed, it just seems that way because the audio is running full speed and it's allowed to desynchronize from the main emulation (thanks to running on a different CPU). NeoGeo emulation on DS is the same way, only the games almost never run even close to fullspeed there (but everyone thinks they do anyway).

Frankly I'm either looking for a good handheld to emulate SNES/Sega/Arcade games

or

A Nintendo DS

Unless the PSP can play emulators as easily as a GP2X can?

No, not as easy, but probably better than a DS where you need a flash card or something like that. That is, unless you get one with a custom firmware already installed off of eBay or something. Otherwise you'll need to get a Pandora's Battery, and you can't turn new PSP Slim batteries into them. You can buy third party batteries that have been hacked into them though (by Datel, I don't think they're expensive at all). You also need to get the proper boot contents on a Memory Stick Pro Duo, but you can do that with one of those USB multi-card readers (that you can get for a few dollars off of eBay).

I don't know exactly where PSP emulators stand right now, except that it's a faster platform so GBA plays better and it has a good PS1 emulator too (also an N64 emulator that hits pretty impressive speeds but for the most part falls short of fullspeed). Other emulators for GP2X are more optimized than their PSP counterparts, like Picodrive and Temper (PC-Engine emulator), and the same at least was true of the SNES emulator but I hear it has been getting a lot faster lately.

 

[Dunny]

The truth is somewhere inbetween (what Dunny said and what the reviews say). Dunny is kind of a perfectionist, and he probably doesn't keep up to date with the emulators coming out. I really doubt GB emulation is a "painful joke", and if it were I'd port that GB emulator I wrote in one day for a contest (GB is seriously not hard to emulate), but it sounds like the latest emulator out is doing fine. GBA emulation varies a lot depending on the game and how much you are/can overclock your GP2X.

Guilty as charged - the only emulators I've kept up with recently have been Picodrive and Temper. GB emulation was bloody awful on the 2x - not the emulation itself, but the UI shell around it made it pretty much unusable with large ROM collections. I've not tried the recent update to GnuBoy, as I've moved all my GB/GBC ROMs to the DS. I've also found that the DS, with the touchscreen, beats the 2x F100 for FPS control simply due to the touchscreen, when used as mouselook... Quake and Descent are just brilliant.

Having only owned a few Genesis games myself, I find that the DS is more than capable for a quick blast on the go, but the 2x really does have the best Genesis emulator of all the handhelds. Shame I have to power-down to recharge the batteries...

For GBA, I found that the two games I really wanted to play either wouldn't play at all, or ran so slow it was no fun at all. GBA on the DS is much better, but I'm hoping to ditch the DS altogether soon. I was given the DS for free, and was considering an F200 but now with Pandora so close I'll be heading that way instead. The prospects of coding for the Pandora are also something of a great temptation - I've done a couple of small bits and pieces on the 2x, but found it more of a chore than enjoyable.

D.

 

[CFBLIVESHERE]

Do you know or does anyone for that matter know when the Pandora is supposed to be coming out? I rather hold off on buying a GP2X if it is just going to go the way of the GP32. From what I hear Pandora will be the most powerful handheld ever. And for that I would gladly wait to get my hands on something of that caliber.

Also I have seen Youtube videos of people running tons of games on there DS...how is this possible if the DS is the least powerful of the handhelds to emulation? I know you say the DS runs SNES better than GP2X. Would you say that about Super Famicon games as well?

 

[zacaj]

The DS runs SNES faster than the GP2X, but it has lots of graphical glitches, and the DS can run Genesis ok without sound, but the GP2X has one of the best genesis emulators in existance, it can emulate a game gens cant!

 

[Exophase]

The DS runs SNES faster than the GP2X, but it has lots of graphical glitches, and the DS can run Genesis ok without sound, but the GP2X has one of the best genesis emulators in existance, it can emulate a game gens cant!

DS can run Genesis games with sound very well most of the time, and it'll only get better (there are still glitches in some games, but it's not as bad as it is with SNES emulation, if you ignore the horizontal clipping). The emulator is just going to keep getting better too.

 

[Dunny]

The DS runs SNES faster than the GP2X, but it has lots of graphical glitches, and the DS can run Genesis ok without sound, but the GP2X has one of the best genesis emulators in existance, it can emulate a game gens cant!

Don't want to sound like a DS fanboy here, but you do know that the DS can emulate quite a lot of genesis games at full speed with reasonable sound now? In fact, the DS emulates Sonic 1 faster than the GBA version ran

QUOTE

I know you say the DS runs SNES better than GP2X. Would you say that about Super Famicon games as well?



I always thought that the Super Famicom was the SNES?

D.

 

[CFBLIVESHERE]

Super Famicon is the SNES. I guess what I'm asking is can it emulate all the JAP games as well? I probqably know the answer is yes, but you have to see which ones work and which ones do not.

Truthfully when I think about it now I think getting a DS makes a bunch more sense for me to get. It has full commercial support along with the ability to emulate certain roms. And since the community is alive and well it should only get better.

While GP2X is slowly losing all the people who can program for it to the soon to be released Pandora. I may just pick up a DS and wait for the Pandora to come out to get my full Neo Geo/Arcade portable fix. Even though I am aching to play King of the Monsters, Art of Fighting, Street Fighter, and 3 Count Bout on the go. Especially since I played all those games in my local pizza place on the coin-op machines what feels like ages ago now.

 

[slaanesh]

Remember to use emulators/homebrew on a Nintendo DS, you will need a slot-1 flash card (like R4DS) and some compatible media (mini-SD card). In terms of cash this will be another US$50 or so.

Of course, if you buy a GP2X you will also need an SD card but you can get 8GBs or so for like US$30.

I admit I play a lot of games on my NDS - it's a great machine. Some of the emulators have very nice user interface and work really well. NES on the NDS is amazingly good and I love the "rewind" feature (which I assume is a series of save-states being continuously saved).

The GP2X does have the best emulators all round though - no doubt.

Though the Pandora is coming, I'm going to be sad in some ways to see it arrive as the GP2X will be dropped like a stone - much like what happened with the GP32 I suspect.

It's a pity because I think the GP2X still has a lot of potential for both new developments and improvements to existing games.

 

[DaveC]

While GP2X is slowly losing all the people who can program for it to the soon to be released Pandora. I may just pick up a DS and wait for the Pandora to come out to get my full Neo Geo/Arcade portable fix. Even though I am aching to play King of the Monsters, Art of Fighting, Street Fighter, and 3 Count Bout on the go. Especially since I played all those games in my local pizza place on the coin-op machines what feels like ages ago now.

I would stay far away from a DS for emulation. The screen is only 256 x 192. NeoGeo and Genesis is 320 x 220. The GP2X is 320 x 240 so it can run these games without all of the crappy scaling and cropping on the DS. The GP2X also runs NeoGeo at full speed WITH sound. The GP2X has Sega CD at fullspeed, don't expect much on the DS for that. No matter how good the code gets on the DS the screen resolution will always be a problem. Arcade emulation is also much better through MAME on the GP2X.

 

[Dunny]

I would stay far away from a DS for emulation. The screen is only 256 x 192. NeoGeo and Genesis is 320 x 220. The GP2X is 320 x 240 so it can run these games without all of the crappy scaling and cropping on the DS. The GP2X also runs NeoGeo at full speed WITH sound. The GP2X has Sega CD at fullspeed, don't expect much on the DS for that. No matter how good the code gets on the DS the screen resolution will always be a problem. Arcade emulation is also much better through MAME on the GP2X.

Dave is spot-on here, with the only obvious exception of Sinclair Spectrum emulation. On the DS, that blows the 2x away without even breaking a sweat

256x192 is perfect for Speccy gaming.

D.

 

[grahf]

I have a DS with flashcard, and I honestly never use it for emulation. I always try all the new emulator releases, but everything I want to play almost always works better on the gp2x.

Not to mention fumbling around with microsd cards. My laptop has a normal size SD slot built in, and its convenient to just pop the card in to put new games and apps on it.

The DS community is also terrible compared to the GP2x one.

 

[tezcatlipoca111]

The DS community is also terrible compared to the GP2x one.

But will a gp2x community still exist after pandora comes out? I find difficult to imagine that people will still be interested in making things for gp2x when they will have the console they have been dreaming for so long in their hands.

 

[Yrx]

The DS community is also terrible compared to the GP2x one.

But will a gp2x community still exist after pandora comes out? I find difficult to imagine that people will still be interested in making things for gp2x when they will have the console they have been dreaming for so long in their hands.

The GP2X community won't go away unless someone gets rid of these forums. People are still asking things and getting answers in the GP32 section, and that's been "dead" for quite some time. Plus, you have to remember that Pandora's cost is probably going to be an initial hindrance to everyone dropping the GP2X.

On the software side, I have no clue. I get the feeling that there will still be updates to things like MAME, but after a certain point you start running out of places to make code more efficient. Personally, if there were never another update, I would be fairly happy with what's already out.

Then again, this is coming from the guy who has no objections about buying half of his consoles a generation or two late.

 

[slaanesh]

Aside from the lack of resolution - I don't think there is much wrong with NDS emulation. Many of the emus are fun to use and in some ways better than those found on other handhelds.

Sure the GP2X and PSP can provide you with graphically accurate emulators but the NDS has far superior input. The controller and touch screen are usually well supported!

Ever tried playing a game on a standard Mk1 GP2X with it's sub-standard controller? It can be frustrating as hell!
One example that comes to mind is the MAME shooter 1942. Play on a GP2X then play it with a real controller - say a PS2 with a Namco Arcade joystick. I can easily get 600,000+ like this versus barely 100,000 on the GP2X.
The point being that the lack of a decent controller/input ruins the experience!

Check out portabledev, lots of good emus are highlighted here and gives you an idea on how they work.

Some of the screenshots are compressed so they do look better on actual hardware.

Spectrum, MSX, Dragon/Coco, SMS, Coleco are all fantastic as their native resolution matches the NDS perfectly.
Given the touch screen is used for the keyboard and I think you get some emulators which are in some ways better than anything that a GP2X or PSP or any other one-screen handheld can do.

Also check out on the same website, the author's own developments which are significant. Highlights include Atari 800, Apple ][ and Amstrad emulation.

Anyway, I wouldn't write off the NDS. It may not be perfect for emulation but if it's all you have then I think it's worth having a look at these.

Last thing: DaveC saved the Mk1 GP2X with his controller mod. I don't think I would still be using it if this hadn't come along. Thanks DaveC!