Gp2x user here...need feedback

[dochuge]

Hey guys,


I really love hand held emulation and have bought many variations of the gp2x in the past, the last being the wiz. I've wanted a pandora for the longest time but had a few questions. The emulation I'm interested in is N64, psx, dos, and Amiga. I'm sure many of you know the gp2x isn't going to run these well. I like the design of the pandora, especially the dual analog. How is the emulation of those games? Also, there is a huge difference in price between the 600 MHz 256 and 512 ram models. Almost 200 dollars. If I'm just interested in emulation is the price increase justified?


Thanks everyone

 

[2bit]

Hello Dochuge , though I have not been a owner of the Pandora for long I can tell you this : though the 1ghz is extremely pricey ( for me anyhow ) if you want premium emulation ( the most you could POSSIBLY squeeze from your Pandora ) then the 1 ghz would probably be worth it , however I believe n64 is a bit rough on anything , Psx is pretty good on most of them ( if you overclock ) , and unfortunately I know nothing about how Amiga emulation but I'm pretty sure someone does .


Please note I'm still working on setting up emulators on my Pandora so I'm not speaking out of personal experience .

 

[FaeMinx]

In my eyes, the only reasons you would go for a rebirth over a cc, is a better Android experience as well ram heavy apps such as firefox.


If you are fine using swap, and Android isn't a priority... Then the original cc unit should suit you fine. N64 will be noticeably better on the 1ghz, but not enough to justify paying almost double (in my opinion).


Sent from my HTC Sensation Z710e using Tapatalk 2

 

[thatgui]

Hey guys,


I really love hand held emulation and have bought many variations of the gp2x in the past, the last being the wiz. I've wanted a pandora for the longest time but had a few questions. The emulation I'm interested in is N64, psx, dos, and Amiga. I'm sure many of you know the gp2x isn't going to run these well. I like the design of the pandora, especially the dual analog. How is the emulation of those games? Also, there is a huge difference in price between the 600 MHz 256 and 512 ram models. Almost 200 dollars. If I'm just interested in emulation is the price increase justified?


Thanks everyone

I would recommend the 512MB (rebirth) Edition of the Pandora, as its SoC has some bugfixes in it. The 1 GHz Edition gives you more fluid N64 emulation, Amiga Emulation with titels for systems above the A500 and maybe will squeeze out some extra fps on some dos games, but its up to you to decide wether its worth the extra money.


The 256MB Pandora is the budget model, but the differences to the rebirth edition only come into play if you want to do some desktop work or use Android on the Pandora

 

[PokeParadox]

Honest answer is mainly as above - Rebirth is a good compromise - 1GHz will give you a bit more grunt and help the preorder situation. All Pandoras are very capable though, so your purchase is mianly factored on your budget.


For example, I would get a 1GHz unit (I already have a CC256MB) but just don't have the spare cash to do so yet...

 

[ZXDunny]

I have a CC 256MB Pandora. Amiga 500 is fullspeed, no problems at all. N64 depends on what game you want to play. Some are excellent, some are not. PSX is fullspeed on pretty much everything without any overclocking at all. DOS... I've not bothered with DOS, as there were no games worth playing that hadn't been done better on other systems.


The 1GHz is pretty much pointless, and is less compatible than the RB or CC models.


D.

 

[klapse]

Specifying "dos games" alone doesn't indicate much about the amount of speed you will require.


Many newer DOS games (386, 486) will benefit from all the speed you can throw at them. Older DOS games (8088, 80286) will be fine on the classic pandora.

 

[dochuge]

Thanks for the prompt responses. So it sounds like ram has very little to do with emulation speed. Is that correct? How much can a 600 mhz pandora be over clocked to? I really don't think I can afford a 1 ghz model since they are more than twice the price. Also, I much prefer 486 to 386 DOS gaming. The N64 emulation doesn't look that great but the vids I watched are more than a year old. Has emulation improved with better emulator updates?

 

[ZXDunny]

Thanks for the prompt responses. So it sounds like ram has very little to do with emulation speed. Is that correct?

Yes.

How much can a 600 mhz pandora be over clocked to? I really don't think I can afford a 1 ghz model since they are more than twice the price.

Most appear to go to at least 850MHz (comparable to the 1GHz at 800MHz) and many go a lot higher. It depends on what you're doing with it really.

The N64 emulation doesn't look that great but the vids I watched are more than a year old. Has emulation improved with better emulator updates?

There have been no more updates other than config file tweaks.


D.

 

[PokeParadox]

I can get you a more recent N64 video though:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/09iY6Co8KQY?feature=oembed
And this is using an overclocked CC256MB model.

 

[FaeMinx]

I am able to overclock my CC Pandora to 1020Mhz OPP 5 ... however, so far this has only been tested stable when using Qemu. About a year ago I was trying to determine my maximum stable clock when using Dos, and there it appeared to be 1017Mhz.


In PCSXReARMed of course it's a different story because of Neon. These are my stable clock speeds:


821Mhz @ OPP3


897Mhz @ OPP4


968Mhz @ OPP5


But overclocking in PCSXReARMed is hardly even nescessary anyway - only with the new 2x Resoultion rendering I set my clock speed to 820Mhz... Otherwise 600Mhz appears to be fine in most instances.


To give an example of my upper limit in Dos - WarCraft 2 requires my maximum overclock and is still a tad sluggish, but very playable (except that mouse emulation in Dos is broken for many games, so I still deem it unplayable - solutions anyone?).


I have yet to try installing dos via qemu - which I'm sure will make WC2 perfect.


StarCraft 1 via Win95 in Qemu seems to be only acceptably playable with sound dissabled on a CC unit.


A Rebirth unit *may* make a small difference here... but I'm not convinced it would even be noticeable.

 

[dochuge]

Did some more research. Very close to getting the classic version. Disappointed that there is only one N64 emu and that only some games are truly compatible with it. Love the fact that psx emulation is so spot on, especially nice having dual analogs. Looks like Amiga 500 emulation is good too. So DOS emulation is hit and miss? Would so love to play old RPGs from the early 90s on there. So many classic adventure games back then too. Looks like its a good 300 dollar investment. Any other tidbits of emulation info I should know?

 

[thatgui]

So DOS emulation is hit and miss? Would so love to play old RPGs from the early 90s on there. So many classic adventure games back then too. Looks like its a good 300 dollar investment. Any other tidbits of emulation info I should know?

Running Dos games is it's own sience, there are titles that should work well but are slow (both in dosbox and qemu), so we can only advice on a per game basis. If you are into old adventure games, there is also a SCUMMVm port for the Pandora.

 

[klapse]

So DOS emulation is hit and miss? Would so love to play old RPGs from the early 90s on there. So many classic adventure games back then too.

Windows 3.0 was released in 1990 and the Pentium came out in 1993. "Early 90s" was the END of the DOS era, meaning these are the most demanding games for dosbox and not playable (as a rule) on the Pandora.


Games written in the heyday of DOS (mid-80s) for 8088-80286 will run well. Some 80386 games are also playable.


Later DOS games made heavy use of the mouse, usually using relative addressing, so they are often not playable with touchscreen. See for some discussion on this.


Lets not forget that PCs were a horrible kludge of poorly designed hardware (CGA, EGA, Floppy controller, IDE system, insane segmentffset memory addressing, polled joystick port on SoundBlaster etc etc)and emulating all that is a hellish task. Amiga and Atari ST games of the same date are easier to emulate, as a rule.

 

[F_Slim]

The 256MB RAM version is no longer in production, so you can only try to get a used one (private sale) or be on the lookout for a refurbished one from ED's store (not sure if Link also sells refurbished units in his store).

 

[dochuge]

I believe they are in stock. It's about as much as Ill pay. More questions, is it easy to run the psx and Amiga emulators? Owning a gp2x I was good but not great getting emulators up and running. But some emulators seemed more obtuse than others.

 

[2bit]

Not sure 'bout Amiga , but I personally am still setting up PCSX ReARMed myself because I can't figure out if my Rom is corrupt or it requires custom settings .