Gph: The Wiz - Official Announcement

[Game_over]

Oh no!!! Not the 2-pad shooter!!!!

OLED will make the screen truly "pop" with vibrant colors that shouldn't make the screen size that much of an issue if designed well.

There seriously needs to be a game designer centric distro of linux available.

Battery life will be better than using AA's all the time. I see lots of flashy 2D/shooters in my future with my unit when I get one.

 

[sam fisher]

I've seen a real Wiz so so tbh I hadn't looked at the photos. I didn't mean for my benefit but for the doubters.

 

[morrissey2k7]

Well, it's good to see that in my absence nothing's changed around here -- good ol' GP32X is still full of complainers. With the exception of ABXY being made into a pad instead of 4 separate buttons (and quit calling it a D-Pad! -- Dear god, is it REALLY too hard to understand that it's used for button input not direction?? Not saying that it CAN'T be mapped for directional input, but it's pretty obvious that it's MAIN purpose is not a D-Pad!), I'm highly impressed with GPH's newest offering. Considering it costs just as much as the F-200 did, and with the large number of upgraded features, I figured at least SOMEONE around here would be a little happy or excited about this.

Look, so it's not the Pandora, but it's almost HALF THE PRICE of the Pandora, and it has some real potential. I remember how crazy everyone got when they heard about the JXD and how they just had to have it to test out it's homebrew capabilities. Well, history has shown us that the JXD was pretty crappy, yet here we have a brand new handheld that's pretty damn powerful in all respects for a decent price, and all I hear is a collective "meh". Of course, when compared to the mythical Pandora, I can easily see why you wouldn't want anything to do with the Wiz *rolls eyes* -- If I might make a prediction: The hype level of the Pandora is at such an intensity at this point that I guarantee that when it's finally released that this board will be full of people nitpicking it to death. Not because it's bad in any way, mind you, but merely because some fanatics on here have built it up in their mind as the second coming of Jesus, and the first time they find any stupid little flaw in it, they're going to complain to high heavens. But, hey, what's new?

All THAT aside, here's what I'm excited about the Wiz:

1. The price. It's pretty much on par with both the F-200 and the F-100 Value Pack, but it's a huge improvement in power. Nice of ol' GPH not to charge some crazy amount.
2. The battery pack. I can't tell you how frustrated I used to get swapping out rechargeable AA's every few hours on my old GP2X's. Since there was no official US compatible charger for the old units, and it couldn't charge on the USB cord, the battery swapping was my only option. I'm thrilled about not just the battery pack for the Wiz, but USB charging, as well.
3. The power. A massive improvement in processor speed over the old GP2X's. XD
4. OLED touch screen. Here's hoping that it's more responsive than the F-200's touch screen.

The other little updates (Flash 7.0, etc) are nice icing on the cake.

OK, that's about it. I'm going back into lurker mode now -- had to get that off my chest. It's like a weight has been lifted. :lol:

 

[Amon_Re]

two shoulder buttons

FOR CHRIST'S SAKE! IT HAS SHOULDER BUTTONS! Why don't you want to believe this?

I wonder if it has shoulder buttons, without shoulder buttons it would suck! :lol:
On a more serious note and not specificly asking you, will we get a Wiz subforum?

 

[vampire8bit]

Like a lot of other members I don't like the 2nd d-pad. The overall unit looks nice but it is too small, a 2.8 inch screen is too small for games (in my opinion). They should have kept it same size as gp2x which is ideal. However the processor is powerful which is the really good thing about it.

They should have just made it same size as gp2x with this new processor, 3.5in OLED screen, good quality and regular d-pad and buttons and Li-on battery. That would have been the true successor to gp2x

Nice box though.

My (bad) impressions about the GP2X Wiz:
- I really don't understand the second d-pad :blink: :blink: :blink:
- Only 64 Mb of RAM? The same memory limitations in MAME :blink: :blink: :blink:

I also don't like the Pandora design at all, and maybe a bit expensive.

About the MAME ports for Wiz and Pandora it will be really easy to port latest MAME4ALL for both consoles with minimum changes because the console specific code is really small, nothing to be worried about...

But the point would be to port the latest MAME version, and maybe in the Wiz it will be more difficult due to memory limitations. I suppose the power of both consoles are enough for that (aprox. GP2X x2).

Franxis since you don't like either the Pandora or Wiz, will you still be optimising and updating mame for gp2x?

 

[streak]

One thing needs to be remembered by GPH -> we are the no.1 selling target [ the community of gp32x.de ]. If we had expectations for wiz, then they should follow them, because history likes to repeat, and wiz will share the fate of gp2x f200.

 

[sam fisher]

One thing needs to be remembered by GPH -> we are the no.1 selling target [ the community of gp32x.de ]. If we had expectations for wiz, then they should follow them, because history likes to repeat, and wiz will share the fate of gp2x f200.

There are many communities other than gp32x.de.

 

[Cervante]

The wiz should have atleast a 1.5 Megapixel cam like those cheap chinese pmp players . Maybe then I can see this thing in my pocket as a pandora partner.

 

[streak]

One thing needs to be remembered by GPH -> we are the no.1 selling target [ the community of gp32x.de ]. If we had expectations for wiz, then they should follow them, because history likes to repeat, and wiz will share the fate of gp2x f200.

There are many communities other than gp32x.de.


yeah, i know, but the gp2x was a specific item for SPECIFIC target, and WIZ is the specific item for SPECIFIC target. This is no "handheld for all" like nds / psp. Respecting these communities like gp32x / gpspain / and any other gp2x bigger message boards is a MUST. If Theres no reply from community = theres no "Wiz". We are the the final target for wiz, the community of dev / gamers and hardcore linux and gpl fanatics. This is the place where gph money lays.

 

[Amon_Re]

Well, all moaning & bitching aside, i'll be getting one (and a Pandora), i'll use this little puppy for on the road (train transit to & from work) and the Pandora i'll use as a more general purpose emulation beast at home.

I want to see more linux hendhelds (or open systems in general) out there, and i'll support both systems because they bloody well deserve it.

 

[sam fisher]

GPH are certainly being nice to the developers this time. For evidence of this just see all the games they are including!

 

[quadomatic]

This talk about the Wiz not being about emulation scares me...will SNES not really get to fullspeed? And is PSX really not too likely?

Comments?

BTW: I made a wikipedia article for the Wiz. If you want to add to it, that would probably be good:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GP2X_Wiz

 

[sam fisher]

Shouldnt snes in theory be fullspeed straight away if you port that emulator that everyone loves on the GP2x?

 

[Amon_Re]

This talk about the Wiz not being about emulation scares me...will SNES not really get to fullspeed? And is PSX really not too likely?

Comments?

BTW: I made a wikipedia article for the Wiz. If you want to add to it, that would probably be good:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GP2X_Wiz



I'm pretty sure the device can handle those things, what's obvious is that GPH is pretending that it's nose is bleeding when it comes to emulation, probably not a stupid idea, since emulation tends to be a grey area legally in some places, better safe then sorry, Sony did go after Bleem for their PSX emulator eg.

Since the system itself is open, it's up to the individual devs to decide wether or not they write emu's.

 

[quadomatic]

Shouldnt snes in theory be fullspeed straight away if you port that emulator that everyone loves on the GP2x?

That emulator still isn't quite fullspeed. It's gotten pretty darn close, but in a lot of games its still not quite there...even Super Mario World wasn't quite fullspeed...but that version I had used was from back in, I think, November.

 

[JSW]

This thing looks pretty neat. I won't be buying one because the Pandora better suits my needs but for a smaller device at a lower pricepoint this looks like it could be pretty cool.

I'm not too worried about the D-pad thing. Even if it is just a d-pad rather than just looking like one it'll still be easy to push two "buttons" at a time by using diagonals. Pushing three at a time or pushing two on opposite sides would be a problem but that's pretty much impossible to do with a regular thumb position anyway so it's not too big a deal.

The screen is a bit low-res for my tastes but it's still better than a GBA or either one of the DS's screens and I've been a PC gamer long enough to know that you can make some pretty great games in 320x240. This is still one of the main reasons I'm going to be getting a Pandora instead, though.

The other main issue is the lack of any kind of wireless, which is a pretty major oversight these days. It still might be fine for just playing games, but a system this powerful and open would be capable of quite a bit more than that with some decent network connectivity.

Still, I'm glad they're making it, since hopefully it'll expand the market for open portables beyond what we'd have with just the GP2X and Pandora. Hopefully any original games released for this will also get a Pandora port; it shouldn't be too hard considering how similar the architectures are.

 

[rokdcasbah]

Wifi would kill the battery life and be no practical use on a screen that small.

As far as battery life, they could add a switch to shut off the radio. And wifi would be great for networked storage, playing homebrew against other people (on a good day i guess), installing games right from the internet, reading email, and plenty of other things that don't involve a web browser.

But even regarding the web, people browse it on screens like that all the time.

Obviously they're not going to shoehorn wireless in at the last second, and you're right about the screen but if I was in the market for one, I could see myself paying a little extra if it meant having wifi. I had plenty of fun just using the RNDIS drivers with the f100.

 

[quasist]

Respecting these communities like gp32x / gpspain / and any other gp2x bigger message boards is a MUST. If Theres no reply from community = theres no "Wiz". We are the the final target for wiz, the community of dev / gamers and hardcore linux and gpl fanatics. This is the place where gph money lays.

btw you are more final target for pandora.

True WIZard does not needs any advises. He owe you nothing and can burn your house in one rendered frame of graphics.

 

[quadomatic]

Still, I'm glad they're making it, since hopefully it'll expand the market for open portables beyond what we'd have with just the GP2X and Pandora. Hopefully any original games released for this will also get a Pandora port; it shouldn't be too hard considering how similar the architectures are.

Yeah, despite the price point and such, I'm still glad GPH is making a new platform also. Franxis had said that MAME4ALL wouldn't be too difficult to release on both platforms, since they wouldn't be too hardware specific.

The release on Wiz just means that dev's for whom Pandora wouldn't fill the void left by GP2X will have a good platform for them, AND the things those devs release for Wiz will work on Pandora since the architectures are similar enough.

Still, I'll be going with Pandora. I'm very enticed by the idea of an OLED Upgraded GP2X, but not so much that I'd give up a handheld that fits in my pocket and does everything an eeePC can do, with good gaming...even if it is $150 more.

 

[quasist]

Still, I'll be going with Pandora. I'm very enticed by the idea of an OLED Upgraded GP2X, but not so much that I'd give up a handheld that fits in my pocket and does everything an eeePC can do

See you teaching your pandora to play Diablo 2