I Have Some Questions

[Razor-X]

Well after catching a wiff of GP32 for a LOOONG time now, I finally decided to take a look at it. And oh my god, it looks great. I myself am a big open-source advocate so that is a major plus for me, but I have a couple questions which will decide whether I will buy a GP32 or not.

1. The GP32 site is down atm, so how can I play homebrew games and emulators

2. I can't find anything on GPCinema so I dont know how I can play DivX stuff etc.

3. Does GP32 support any compressed media?

4. My main concern is that I have a low budget. So, if I can scrounge up the money needed for a GP32, I want to buy the smallest possible SMC card I can, even if that means just having the emulator and one game, or 1 or 2 homebrew games at a time. What SMC card do you think I should buy then?

5. After seeing my old 100 mhz die to disaster, i've developed a fear of overclocking. And I DEFINITELY won't overclock a new product I get. How will that affect my SNES/NES/GBC emulation?

 

[Akuma no Houkon]

1. Initally you hook your GP32 up to your PC, and follow the instructions at gamepark.com, after you have freelauncher installed and your GP32 registered, you simply put your downloaded games in the gpmm folder and follow any read me instructions for the app/game you are using.

I would install the beta firmware because it makes everything much nicer...

2. Cant help you there, I dont, and will never, waste an SMC for a low quality move...divx movies are bad enough at 800 MB, let alone at 120...(just my opinion)

3. It supports Divx, Mp3, there are apps that support OGG, WMA, etc... it all depends on the programs you download or buy. Out of the box it supports MP3. And most emulators support zipped roms.

4. I got the largest size (128 MB) new, on ebay for $26 USD. I suggest looking there.

5. The GP32 is DESIGNED to be overclocked. It wont hurt it to over clock your GP32.

If you choose not to, you might as well not ever run any emulator because all of them "overclock" minimum to 133mhz (the GP's normal speed is 40mhz) And many games clock to over 40.

Its a software based clocking, its a API in the official SDK, it wont hurt your GP32. Worst case your GP32 will just reboot. (each program/game you run chooses a clock speed and some let you choose, so overclocking isnt permanent)

 

[Razor-X]

Ohhh, its software done? That changes a lot. If the overclocking wont hurt the GP32 then ya, i'll do that. ANd i'm not gonna run a full-fledged movie, nohow, noway. Just anime episodes, Star Wars parodies, etc.

 

[Akuma no Houkon]

Ohhh, its software done? That changes a lot. If the overclocking wont hurt the GP32 then ya, i'll do that. ANd i'm not gonna run a full-fledged movie, nohow, noway. Just anime episodes, Star Wars parodies, etc.

Well animation seems to like Divx format alot better than shows/movies with real people, the action scenes and frame rate seem to be alot more forgiving.

There are guides arround that show you how to convert them, and GPCineama will be free for download in june (its like $5 USD right now).

 

[Razor-X]

Of course. I just hope I can afford this badass machine. God, i've been waiting for this kinda thing for ages. Why did I waste my money on a GBA? (Especially because soon a GBA will be emulated on the GP32 :lol: )

 

[TandeM]

1. The GP32 site is down atm, so how can I play homebrew games and emulators
Looks like it's up to me - http://english.gamepark.com/, right?

2. I can't find anything on GPCinema so I dont know how I can play DivX stuff etc.
What you need to know. Use VirtualDub to compress video. Compressing to 128k/s makes for acceptable quality, but you have to double or triple that figure for best results

3. Does GP32 support any compressed media?
DivX/XviD, MP3s, Ogg Vorbis; some emulators taked zipped ROMs.

4. My main concern is that I have a low budget. So, if I can scrounge up the money needed for a GP32, I want to buy the smallest possible SMC card I can, even if that means just having the emulator and one game, or 1 or 2 homebrew games at a time. What SMC card do you think I should buy then?

Get a 128MB card - it's worth it. They can be had for $20~25 if you know where to look.

5. After seeing my old 100 mhz die to disaster, i've developed a fear of overclocking. And I DEFINITELY won't overclock a new product I get. How will that affect my SNES/NES/GBC emulation?

NES and GBC will be A-OK. SNES...don't bank on having the speed to run games with sound, and expect using 2~5 frameskip for acceptable speed. But, that may change soon, as the emulator should be updated with an optimized processor core in the near future.

(I should note that there has not been a single known casualty due to overclocking - if it wasn't safe, none of us would be doing it. If you're that worried, buy a certified "turbo-charged" GP32 from www.gbax.com, which is guaranteed to overclock safely. )

 

[Akuma no Houkon]

Of course. I just hope I can afford this badass machine. God, i've been waiting for this kinda thing for ages. Why did I waste my money on a GBA? (Especially because soon a GBA will be emulated on the GP32 :lol: )

Make sure you buy the FLU version, even if you have to save up for a little longer. (The FLU is the version with the light), I tried playing a couple times with the light off...and I can say that unless you are outside on a sunny day, its damn near unplayable (like the GBA)

Also, because of the hardware used to design the GameParks, not all of them can overclock to 166 (they dont give the CPU enough juice), ALL can goto 133mhz, but unless you buy a modded one for $30 extra (from gbax) then you will have to take a chance. If you take a chance you could end up with one that only goes to 133 or one that goes to 166. (you can easily mod them yourself however, if you like this kinda thing, its a risk though if your not good at it)

 

[claus]

wasn't it only the 4 mb roms

 

[klay51]

Akuma no Houkon-- Divx on GP32 looks alot better than you might think. Especially animation. The gp32 is a much smaller screeen and the impurities in the video show up much less than on your PC monitor. Don't bad motuh it if you havent tried it.

You can probably get a 128 megabyte SMC card for what like, $35 USA or less? Seems like a waste to not go ahead and get the big one for that price. But a 64mb will allow for some nice emulators on there as well.

 

[Vimacs]

2. Cant help you there, I dont, and will never, waste an SMC for a low quality move...divx movies are bad enough at 800 MB, let alone at 120...

bullshit, a good encodet 120mb movie @GP32 can reach dvd quallity,

1. The GP32 site is down atm

Its not down

4. My main concern is that I have a low budget. So, if I can scrounge up the money needed for a GP32, I want to buy the smallest possible SMC card I can, even if that means just having the emulator and one game, or 1 or 2 homebrew games at a time. What SMC card do you think I should buy then?

you realy should buy at least a 64mb card for ~14??, the cheapest i an find is 32mb for ~8??

5. After seeing my old 100 mhz die to disaster, i've developed a fear of overclocking. And I DEFINITELY won't overclock a new product I get. How will that affect my SNES/NES/GBC emulation?

if you play snes only at 133mhz its playable but much slower than 166mhz, BUT overclocking the gp32 is completly no risk, if it cant handle the spead it would simple reset.

 

[Razor-X]

Any place you can find really cheap SMC's?

 

[Aaaaaaaa]

US or UK?

 

[Razor-X]

US. Funny, how the overclocked GP32 is more powerful than my old computer. And anyone know the URL to GPCinema's site?

 

[Aaaaaaaa]

duno.

UK = 7dayshop.com

GPcinema = http://joygp.entware.com

 

[Razor-X]

Can the UK Shop ship to US?

 

[claus]

Try to find one within US, then you won't have to pay customs twice

 

[Akuma no Houkon]

bullshit, a good encodet 120mb movie @gp32 can reach dvd quallity,

If anythings bullshit, its that statement.

DVD Quality is saying alot, among these, is audio. In most DVD movies, you have Dolby 5.1 / THX / Etc... now to convert this to DivX, (especially that small) you are going to have to drop that to Stereo or most likely, mono to get a decent bitrate. That simple fact alone nullifies any possiblity that the video can reach "DVD Quality". Next is the video bitrate, to get a decent frame rate on the GP32 since it has to decompress on the fly with a 133mhz CPU (or 166). You have lower the video bitrate alot, causing many movies action scenes to get pixelated, and choppy. Anyone who has watched a DivX movie that had any action scenes can tell you this. And thats at 600-800 MB. And the rest of the movie (although not that bad, is still a lower quality than DVD. Take a screenshot of a DVD and of the same movie in DivX (120 MB) and you will see a serious quality difference.)

Animation doesnt suffer from this effect as bad, but it still does. DivX itself with the best encoders isnt DVD quality, so Divx super squished can never hope to be.

Your comment is an over exageration.

Now I have never watched a movie on the GP32 (although I have encoded many many divx movies with many encoders), so maybe all of these issues are not as noticeable on the small, lcd screen, like they are on the PC or DVD player. But just because you might not be able to notice them, does not mean they even come close to DVD quality.

 

[yaustar]

hmm, I tend to encode movies to 60mb so I dont waste an entire smc on a film, even then I only put one on if I have a 3hr train jounrey.....

The quality is surprising good, not DVD quality but definitely watchable...

 

[Akuma no Houkon]

The quality is surprising good, not DVD quality but definitely watchable...

Well as I said, I have never actually watched a 120 MB movie on the GP so maybe these frame rate problems are not really noticeable like they would be on the TV or PC, but even if I wanted to, I dont have enough SMC space to even try it.

Doom wads take up alot of my SMC space...

 

[yaustar]

Yeah, I know what you mean ... currently my smc has about 10 meg left...need to buy another one or two , I just have a 5 min clip just to show friends as it is only a meg and a half...