Hello,
perhaps this reply will make sad/angry lot of people, but I can't resist.
I must say I don't like this device.
Since I'm a coder I usually watch the internal properties of a device.
The device has 32 MB of RAM and 64 MB of Flash.
Yep, this amount of Flash memory is normal if you want to put an OS on a device.
I doubt they used uClinux, so if they have installed a true Linux, they must surely store it somewhere.
But why using an OS?
GP32 community demonstrates everyone that GamePark did the right choice with their opensource device.
If you are a coder, or you love playing games, or you love watching videos, you want precise thing.
If I would be just a gamer, I'm not interested to his internal software.
Because when I see fluid graphics I'm happy.
If I just want to see videos or listen musics, again, I'm not interested to other things.
So, who cares about the OS?
Perhaps some coders may found it useful, but let's think one moment.
GP32 has his SDK with many functions you need, even without an OS.
If you have those functions, you shouldn't need anything else.
Somebody could say that an OS is useful for updating your software without recompiling it.
For example, you update the device with a new version of the OS and your application will be able to use new features immediately.
With my experience on embedded systems I can tell you that mixed solutions are the best.
I mean, the firmware also stores lots of (or all) library functions.
With this method you can save a lot and at the same price you may have a 2 or 4 MB of flash for the firmware and 64 or 128 MB of RAM.
What's the best in your opinion?
About the CPU, I can't really understand: why did they do such choice?
They used a very weak core: no SIMD, no W-MMX, even the common DSP instructions available on all low/medium class ARM devices are missing.
Bah! This CPU is a real mystery...
Dual CPU: perhaps they wanted to do a PSP like console.
The first CPU works as main CPU.
The second CPU (usually with less features) has his special firmware so it can work as a DSP coprocessor: for example it may draw shaded of textured polygons on a shared RAM region while the main CPU is doing something else.
This is a cheap solution for simulating a GPU.
So be careful: they are saying that there are 2 CPU that runs *up* to 250 MHz, but I believe you can't sum the two processing powers.
Technically, you have just one CPU, and it runs only to 250 MHz.
Sometimes the coprocessor and internal peripherals save some work to the main CPU.
However, they wrote that there is only 2D graphics acceleration, which is absolutely unuseful for modern gaming.
I hope they will update this properties with something more interesting.
But the thing that leave me without words is the sentence:
"PLAY GAMES: MAME, SNES, etc".
Well, if this is the future, you should go away from this device.
I think that if a guy just wants emulation, the GP32 is enought.
Are SNES and GBA emulation too slow?
The solution is simple: let's improve the emulators.
Afterall, these emu are slow on my Pentium 200MHz too, perhaps a dynarec or other things may show you the true power of your console...
Sincerely,
LDChen