Honest Opinions Needed About Emulation

[dochuge]

Hey all,

I am VERY intrigued by this little handheld. I like emulation and this seems right up my alley. Yeah, having a JPEG and MPEG viewer is cool but if I bought one of these it would be mainly for emulation.

I actually have a pretty decent emulator. I have an Asus PDA but the bloody thing runs out of juice in ONE HOUR. ONE! Now I hear the GP2X isn't great either but I'd rather have five hours than one. If someone could help me out I'd really appreciate it. I need candidness here about how the GP2X's emulation compares to my Asus. Overclocking is OK for me, I do it with the Asus, from 400 to 472 mhz. Here goes:

NES- perfect, GB and GBC- perfect, Genesis- really well although many titles simply won't load

SNES- pretty good, gotta overclock the Asus and put a couple of frameskips in there

MAME- pretty lousy but couldn't find a MAME emulator made past 2002

GBA- S...L...O...W, and the music and sound is severely messed up

Could any kind person comment on the emulators for these consoles for the GP2X? Its a $200 investment and if the emulation is still "in the works" then I may just keep on using my PDA. Thanks very much.


Dochuge

 

[saehn]

NES- perfect, GB and GBC- perfect, Genesis- really well although many titles simply won't load

SNES- pretty good, gotta overclock the Asus and put a couple of frameskips in there

MAME- pretty lousy but couldn't find a MAME emulator made past 2002

GBA- S...L...O...W, and the music and sound is severely messed up

GP2X is better on all fronts except maybe GBA.

NES: Pretty much perfect, I'd say. No overclocking.
SNES: SquidgeSNES is good, the only flaw is the transparency on some games (rain in Zelda, for instance).
MAME: Great. Love Snow Bros., 1943, Altered Beast, etc.
GBA: The programmer is still working on this one. We've got a few commercial games running.

Check out this link:

http://wiki.gp2x.org/wiki/Emulation_Speculation

Edit: Oops, forgot to mention that GB, GBC, and Sega Genesis are all great. The Genesis emulator is one of the showcase jewels of the GP2X.

 

[shinneri]

GBA: The programmer is still working on this one. We've got a few commercial games running.

What? Lots more than "a few" games run. Most games run; many at playable speed (though sound is usually stuttery). But as you say, it's WIP so it'll improve pretty quickly.

Genesis is amazing on GP2X. I underclock my system to like 140mhz when I play it.

Neo-Geo, Gameboy, SMS/Game Gear, Turbo Grafx/PC-Engine, VCS, many old computers, and others run very nicely, too.

 

[saehn]

What? Lots more than "a few" games run. Most games run; many at playable speed (though sound is usually stuttery). But as you say, it's WIP so it'll improve pretty quickly.

Genesis is amazing on GP2X. I underclock my system to like 140mhz when I play it.

Neo-Geo, Gameboy, SMS/Game Gear, Turbo Grafx/PC-Engine, VCS, many old computers, and others run very nicely, too.

By "running", I guess I should have specified "running at speeds at which I'd enjoy playing them". Personally, I think that graphics are more important than sound, so noticeable frame skip just isn't acceptable for me. I have a GBA with a flash cart, so GBA/GP2X would just be a bonus for me.

Good of you to point out Neo Geo, TG16, SMS/GG, and VCS 2600. Those are also great systems on the GP2X. Further, I love C64 emulation through Frodo.

 

[dochuge]

Wow,

Thanks guys, I really am intrigued by this handheld. And it looks like there is an amazing community for this thing. Like I said, I really just want to emulate older systems and not have the batteries run down in an hour. And better performance with what I have with my Asus wouldn't hurt either. So the SNES emulation is really good? Sounds good.

 

[gaterooze]

So the SNES emulation is really good?

Apart from transparencies, which you either need to use a messy hack, workaround, or slower emulator for, it is really very good. And it will probably get much better this year...

It sounds like the GP2X will be right up your alley, in fact. MAME and Genesis in particular are absolutely superb on it.

 

[dochuge]

OK,

I'm really close to getting one but it seems a bit too obtuse and technical for me to use. I have read the wiki board on emulation with the GP2X and it seems like some have many things you need to do to get them to work properly, like the Amiga emulator. Are most emulators easy to set up? This was not a problem with Morphgear and the PDA. I'm just afraid I will get the thing and not be able to use it since I know nothing about Linux and code.

 

[Shikaku]

It's like any Windows emulator, you just put files in the correct folders in the SD card. Read the readme of any emulator in the archive to see the procedure yourself.

Also you are going to need an SD card and a reader. Link right under this text for a good SD card reader.

 

[shinneri]

OK,

I'm really close to getting one but it seems a bit too obtuse and technical for me to use. I have read the wiki board on emulation with the GP2X and it seems like some have many things you need to do to get them to work properly, like the Amiga emulator. Are most emulators easy to set up? This was not a problem with Morphgear and the PDA. I'm just afraid I will get the thing and not be able to use it since I know nothing about Linux and code.

You seem fairly knowledgeable. I think you can handle the GP2X. Really, it comes down to reading the readmes and doing as they say. If you need help or have questions, check out my website (if you haven't already)--Gameparknewbie.

 

[imhotep]

Don't forget that Amiga emulation is difficult on any machine including PC. Atari ST is almost perfect from what I've heard and many games from the Amiga generation were ported from or to the ST. I know the ST isn't as good as the Amiga, but at least it's easy to emulate.

 

[rokdcasbah]

it's a tiny bit trickier if the emulator needs a rom image, since you have to search the web for them. it gets trickier with disk-based systems since you have to swap disks or whatever. but for stuff like 2600, nes, megadrive, sms/gg, game boy, turbo-grafx, lynx -- you just need to download the emulator and find some roms to run. snes is full speed with squidgesnes but it doesn't support transparency so if there's a rain effect or something similar you need to disable whatever the top layer is (quick key press).

there's lots of interpreters for and ports of dos/vga classics, with a great descent port being the most recent. check the file archive for a more complete listing.

***don't be surprised if you find yourself enjoying some of the homebrew more than the emulators, as good as they are

ps: there is a site which we are not allowed to talk about that includes the name of the handheld and the name of a popular web-tracked p2p system...for the programs that are complicated to set up, you can always get a nice neat package from there...but don't tell anyone i told you...

 

[dochuge]

Thanks guys,

No, finding roms are not a problem, I have been emulating on my Asus for several years now. I'll look at some more on the wiki page and get a sense of how difficult it will be. I actually VERY much want to run an Amiga emulator (I had an Amiga 500 eons ago and still have fond memories of a game called Damocles) but looks like
most emulators aren't hard to run but require more effort than I'm used to.

 

[TheOwly1]

Ive found that battery life underated on this device. I thought it would be terrible with what people said but I tryed 2 standard kodak aa batteries in when i got it (to test it out before i shelled out for rechargeables) and they managed to last 3 days on and off play o.o I completed 2 snes mario games, sonic 2 and played the first few levels of a few other roms i'd downloaded. Not sure if the batterys were anything special but i definatly got 5 or 6 hours from it for some reason (and everyone said i would only get 2!). Got 2650mah batterys charged and put in it yesterday and they havnt gone down to medium yet dispete me having watched 2 movies and again played lots of games.

The life might depend alot on what you play or something like that (as i wasnt really overclocking) but i was very supprised with it!

 

[purple_goat]

Hey all,

I am VERY intrigued by this little handheld. I like emulation and this seems right up my alley. Yeah, having a JPEG and MPEG viewer is cool but if I bought one of these it would be mainly for emulation.

I actually have a pretty decent emulator. I have an Asus PDA but the bloody thing runs out of juice in ONE HOUR. ONE! Now I hear the GP2X isn't great either but I'd rather have five hours than one. If someone could help me out I'd really appreciate it. I need candidness here about how the GP2X's emulation compares to my Asus. Overclocking is OK for me, I do it with the Asus, from 400 to 472 mhz. Here goes:

NES- perfect, GB and GBC- perfect, Genesis- really well although many titles simply won't load

SNES- pretty good, gotta overclock the Asus and put a couple of frameskips in there

MAME- pretty lousy but couldn't find a MAME emulator made past 2002

GBA- S...L...O...W, and the music and sound is severely messed up

Could any kind person comment on the emulators for these consoles for the GP2X? Its a $200 investment and if the emulation is still "in the works" then I may just keep on using my PDA. Thanks very much.


Dochuge

not sure about mame
gba ok
all others rock!

 

[deepmenace]

hey dochuge,

yep, i reckon the gp2x might be right for you by the sounds of it.

internet over to youtube and do a search for "gp2x", order the clips by date and have a look at some recent vids peeps have recorded of various emulators/homebrew and apps. It'll at least give you an idea.

 

[imhotep]

The above post re YouTube is a good idea. Nothing like seeing it in action. I find most web based reviews don't do the machine justice.

 

[yodaofborg]

I would agree with that. Seeing videos of the GP2X on YouTube was what finally swayed me to get one. Knowing that it could also play games such as Quake, Duke3D, Doom, and the Sierra/ScummVM classics nativley was a definate plus too.

I'd say buy it, you really do not have much to lose. You can always sell it on Ebay (they sell rather good too, keep an eye on this to get a better idea of sale prices http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/GP2X-F100-Handheld-V...tem190064074798 ) But I think like myself and many others, you are buying the GP2X for all the right reasons, anyone who bought one because of *possible* PSX emulation, or worse, excpecting tons of commercial games to become available is going to be disapointed.

 

[Redeeman]

one thing i can tell you, genesis is basically perfect, picodrive is probably the best emulator there is for gp2x

 

[reiboul]

and MAME is great too, runs about every game fullspeed without overclocking, except 'bigger' games
But if you wanted Metal Slug, you should use GnGeo (neogeo emulator), it runs most Neogeo games fullspeed, while mame is quite slow

Anyway, if what you want is Genesis and MAME (+NeoGeo arcade or home system) the GP2X is right for you!

You just need a little patience for GBA emultor (which is in active developement) and good Snes emulation. Actually, most snes games are playable but without transparencies, and you may need overclocking for some games (and no, FF6 isn't fullspeed)


Battery life is not as good as GBA or DS, but with 2 good battery set you can have many hours of fun (don't know how many, depends on your use, overclocking, scaler etc but I would say 3-4h for each battery set)

 

[RockOut]

I used a GBA GP2X emulator to run pokemon Gold at full speed w/ sound. However, there are no game saves!