How Well Emulators Work + Newbie Presentation

[osn19]

Hello everybody,

I am 28 years old and I live in Paris France.
I've been a GP32 gp32_console user for nearly 2 years now and think is the greatest portable device. I mean PCEngine Hu Card, SMS, NES, Genesis on GP32 are pure pleasure !

Now I wonder if I should buy the GP2x to play the emulators that don't work very well on GP32 (Mame and snes). Or wait a little bit more ?

Here are my questions :

- How well does Mame Games and NeoGeo MVS (especially Metal Slug and shmups) games run on GP2X? (this is the most important to me if I buy a GP2X)

- How well does Snes emulator run on GP2x ?

- How well does PCEngine (Supergraphx and Super CD) run on GP2X ?

- Is it worth buying a TV out Cable to play emulators on TV ?

- What is the best place to buy in Europe (or France) ?

I've been through the forums quite a bit, but everything is changing so fast. So here could be a good way for newbies like me to have all their questions answered in one thread !

Thanks a lot

 

[NeoStuey]

Hello everybody,

I am 28 years old and I live in Paris France.
I've been a GP32  gp32_console  user for nearly 2 years now and think is the greatest portable device. I mean PCEngine Hu Card, SMS, NES, Genesis on GP32 are pure pleasure !

Now I wonder if I should buy the GP2x to play the emulators that don't work very well on GP32 (Mame and snes). Or wait a little bit more ?

Here are my questions :

- How well does Mame Games and NeoGeo MVS (especially Metal Slug and shmups) games run on GP2X? (this is the most important to me if I buy a GP2X)

- How well does Snes emulator run on GP2x ?

- How well does PCEngine (Supergraphx and Super CD) run on GP2X ?

- Is it worth buying a TV out Cable to play emulators on TV ?

- What is the best place to buy in Europe (or France) ?

I've been through the forums quite a bit, but everything is changing so fast. So here could be a good way for newbies like me to have all their questions answered in one thread ! 

Thanks a lot

​

Mame currently supports version 0.34 romsets and some 0.35b roms, total supported games now is 1061!

I haven't really used this emulator much, so I've listed a couple of useful links for you.

MameGP2X 1.4 release thread

MameGP2X support forum. Troubleshooting, guides to converting roms etc.

MameGP2X wiki page

MameGP2X Homepage

For NeoGeo MVS you can't beat GnGeo2X, it's fantastic and has a high level of compatibility.

Pepone, the author of this emulator provided a graphics dumping utility to allow support for games that previously wouldn't load due to ram restrictions.

The huge GnGeo2X thread, well worth the time taken to read it.

GnGeo2X wiki page very useful resource and compatibilty guide.

GnGeo homepage

Squidgesnes is only 3 weeks old and is already really very good. It has a full GUI, sound (no volume control yet), high compatibility. He's still working on transparencies, needed for some games.

Most games at frameskip 1 @ 266mhz with sound run at fullspeed.

Squidge's Homepage

Squidgesnes transparency topic, contains the latest unstable/hack version of Squidgenes

Squidgesnes wiki page

Again, I haven't used the PC Engine emulator, but I have read that it does offer support of Super CD's.

It seems that it has been compared to the GP32 PC emulator and come up short in terms of perfomance. This is mainly because the GP32 emulator was written entirely in ARM (the source code was lost by the author long ago), and that the GP2X version is currently written in C. Interestingly enough Squidge has also hinted that he has only a little work to do to get his PC Engine emulator, SquidgeEngine running. Things are looking very good indeed.

Recent GP2Xengine discussion

GP2XEngine wiki page.

TV Out cable, I have one of those, remember it is just an adaptor so you will need to have a 2 phono to 2 phono cable, a female to female s-video interconnect and an s-video male to male cable to link it to your TV. Alternatively you could use an s-video to composite interconnect and then use a 3 phono to 3 phono cable. Support for TV Out is PAL or NTSC, so you need a TV capable of supporting either of those systems.

Some emulators currently don't display correctly, but they just need a line or two of code written into them to function correctly. So at the moment it might not be such a high priority requirement, but if like me you want things now and are prepared for a few early issues then get one.

I'm in the UK and got my console from here, GBAX.COM.

They ship worldwide and I have had nothing but good service from them.

I hope this quick reply is of help to you.

P.S. Genesis/Megadrive emulation under DrMD on GP2X @ 266mhz with frameskip 0 and sound is near perfect.

Edit: Added 2 more links.

 

[darokin]

If you want a store list that sell gp2x :

www.play-asia.com (International)
www.lik-sang.com (International)
www.shibuyagame.fr (France)
www.gp32z.com (USA)
www.gp2x.de (Allemagne)
www.flashlinker-shop.de (Allemagne)
www.hardcore-gamer.net (Espagne)
www.allack.co.uk (Grande Bretagne)
www.gbax.com (Grande Bretagne)
www.neoayato.com (France)

I bought mine from gp2x-shop.de even if I'm french
But on the french gp2x forum, those who ordered at shibuya store seems very satisfied...

Just check the stock list, you can also have one from play asia...
Shibuya answers mail in less than one hour !

C U SOON !!

 

[osn19]

Thanks a lot !

So "Strikers 45 plus" plays flawlessly with sound for example ?

Are GnGeo, Mame and snes full screen on the gp2x ?

 

[yaustar]

Only ROMs from the mame 0.34 are supported. Strikers 45 plus unfortunately is not in the 0.34 romset.

 

[NeoStuey]

Only ROMs from the mame 0.34 are supported. Strikers 45 plus unfortunately is not in the 0.34 romset.

​

Maybe not on Mame2X, but it has been listed on the GnGeo2X wiki page as playable, albeit without sound . (but then I don't know if they tried it with sound enabled as they don't say). If there is not enough RAM left, then sounds won't get loaded by the emulator.

So "Strikers 45 plus" plays flawlessly with sound for example ?

​

See above.

Are GnGeo, Mame and snes full screen on the gp2x ?

​

GnGeo2X - the resolution of the NeoGeo is so close to the native GP2X resolution that no scaling is required.

Mame - you can have the screen fit to GP2X, 1:1 scaling or tate mode for vertical shooters, the volume buttons become buttons A & B.

Squidgesnes - can be scaled to fit the screen, but to be honest the games look much better in their native size and the skin that comes with squidgesnes looks great as a frame

 

[yaustar]

Whoops, I thought Strikers was by Capcom, my bad. Ignore my post.