I got my self a PSP today well its fun and the games you have to buy are amazing but as for emulation its not even close to the gp2x... the snes emulator is like alittle ahead of the gp2x's emulator psp's emulator like 75% done and the gp2x is like 70% its just the PSP has been out longer.
You are correct, emulation is not close to the gp2x, it is way ahead of it. The Snes emulator on the Psp is no where near 75% done it is more like 96%++ done. Assuming you are talking about the best Snes emulator avaliable which would be Snes TYL 0.2C with the correct settings.
I have noticed lately that many statements regarding sub standard Psp emulation are due to misinformation, incorrect settings or simply not knowing what is the best availiable or how to use it. If you use for example Snes9x, even set to 333mhz, you will notice many slow downs in alot of games but if you use Snes TYL 0.2C, many games run at full speed.
In my opinion, one of the main reasons for Snes TYL's better performance is that the programmer uses some of the Psp 3D GPU to take some of the load away from the main CPU.
after testing emulation out at frist hand and seeing how much trouble it is to hack the damn thing
To install emulators under a Psp that has 1.5 firmware you do the following:
For example Snes TYL, unzip Snes TYL.zip file onto your hard drive, you will see a SnesTYL% and a SnesTYL folder, put your Psp into USB Mode, copy both Snes folders to your Game directory, place all Snes roms inside of the folder that does not have the '%' sign after it. After this, disable USB Mode in the Psp, navigate to Games and then select the Snes Icon. That is it, Snes is now installed. Lots of trouble? I dont think so. There are also tools that automate the installation for you as well.
To install emulators under firmware 2.0 is slightly more involved but an easy way is to download either the Fanjita or Choice eboot loader zip file, place your Psp into USB Mode, if the loader you want to use is Fanjitas standard one, simply extract its contents directly to the root of your Psp memory stick, after this place the folder for any emulator that does not have the '%' after it into the Psp game directory including the roms you want to use, restart your Psp, go to the photo menu and then preview the image, the eboot loader will run and you simply select the emulator from the list.
If you are using the Choice eboot loader you simply extract the contents of it and put its entire folder into the Psp Photo directory, then you put the emulator folder in game. Sound very difficult? I dont think so.
and how little space it is unless you want to spend mad money on one of those psp memory cards or try to keep your hand steady to solder to make a SD converter if you have the spare parts....
The Memory cards are expensive but if you are only going to use emulators like Snes, GBC, Sega, C64, Nes etc then simply ensure all of your roms are compressed using Winzip at maximum compression since all of these emulators support zip. Even if you wish to use NeoCD emulation, it now supports fast zip compression so that is no longer a problem either. There are also card convertors that have been created, I do not know of any SD but I have heard of CF convertors.
now i truely see how great the gp2x is frist hand keep up the great work devs you'll take hand held emulation to a new extreme! I will say i had doubt for awail but i am real glad i got a gp2x another happy customer here.
I too think the GP2X has a great future, huge potential and a long life, however I will not deny that the Psp is a truly excellent emulation device and will continue to be so. Even with all of the restrictions Sony imposes, it still manages to play full speed Snes, full speed NeoCD, full speed GBC, full speed Genesis and the list goes on. The more that is understood about the Psp GPU in the future I think the more emulation will improve, particularly Playstation 1 emulation. This is part of why the NeoCD emulator on the Psp is one of the best I have ever used, it has hardware acceleration. The Psp also gives you the option between analogue and control pad for control in these emulators, for example Scumm uses the analogue control amd GBC can use either / both.