Im Back

[aQwaBlaz3]

I had the f-100, I was a early adopter and was pissed off at the machine becuase it was a pain in the ass to use and it didnt recognize SD cards and all that normal crap. I saw the new(?) f-200 and nearly crapped my pants. I would now seriously like to buy a f-200 and learn it, learn firmware upgrades, putting games in, etc, etc. A couple questions though:

1. Any problems with the handheld I should be notified of?
2. What emulators work?
3. will this community still be as patient as they were if I get a tad pissed?
4. What SD card should I get?
5. Is the touchscreen good?
6. most importantly, where can I import the 200?

Thank you!

 

[StealthBagel]

1. The d-pad is pretty crappy, none of the buttons are connected, sink too far into the machine and can hurt your fingers, they're also very loud and making rolling 360-degree movements etc requires you add a new d-pad on top of the original one with a center pivot.... so yeah they really still didn't get it right. It is better than the f100 stick though.

2. AFAIK all of them except a couple.. there are occasional things reported not working with the dpad..

3. This community is touchy as hell and farting at the wrong time will cause a flamewar so probably not the best idea

4. It doesn't really matter that much, the 2x doesn't access it at lightning speed anyway. Some can't be read for god knows what reason so get a name brand. Sandisk or patriot always worked fine for me. Dane-Elec worked too. In fact nothing I tried didn't work....

5. as far as I can tell, but almost nothing uses it yet.

6. I think gp2xstore or whatever it's called sells to the US and canada.

 

[imhotep]

1. Any problems with the handheld I should be notified of?
2. What emulators work?
3. will this community still be as patient as they were if I get a tad pissed?
4. What SD card should I get?
5. Is the touchscreen good?
6. most importantly, where can I import the 200?

1. Very loud sound. No holder for stylus. D-pad ok but not what everyone wanted.
2. Ones that didn't have been fixed by authors for the most part. Not sure if any emus still don't work.
3. -
4. Get an 8GB SDHC if you can afford it. F100 can't do SDHC so is limited to 4GB.
5. Not much has been written yet. Only SCUMM interpreter, Boomshine2x and a paint program AFAIK. SCUMM support has made many people happy though.
5. -

 

[karmaKid]

Hmmm, I'd like to ask a couple of noob questions based on what I've read above (I've ordered an F200).

Simple questions, really!

1. Doesn't the thing have a volume control??

2. Is the D-pad problem really relevant for people who wanna play beat'em'ups? As someone who wants to emulate 8-bit games like atic attack, I'm more worried about the d-pad being able to cope with diagonal movement, rather than 360 degree twists. Obviously, I realise that it is a downside for some games, but I'm hoping it's an improvement for the sort of games I want to play.

 

[quietbloke]

Im quite happy with the new d-pad. Its a vast improvement over the joystick of the Mk1. I can now finally play games without getting annoyed with the lack of control.
I dont really play games that requires rapid rolling movements so I cant tell you if it really is an issue.. I guess it also depends on how you play. The buttons have sharp edges so if you slide your thumb around on the buttons it can be painful and the sides of the buttons are not rounded so you end up sliding over the right angled edges. Personally I have not had a problem with placing my thumb in the middle of the buttons and rolling around to press the buttons.. diagonals are now a lot easier... at least for me they are.

Yes.. the machine does have a volume control. Unfortunately it starts up at full volume. The volume seems to be quite a bit louder. Also some apps seem to start up at full volume which if your wearing earplugs is not very pleasant ( I ended up buying a new pair with a volume control ) . The other drawback is I sometimes like to turn the volume right down low and in some games this is no longer possible. It seems in some games the volume even at the lowest level is still quite loud.

The touchscreen seems to be pretty good from what useage Ive had with it. It is a bit of a pain that the machine comes with the stylus but nowhere to dock it into the machine itself. It does come with a string attachment so you can have it hanging from the machine and then you can unscrew it to use it.. but I dont like having the thing hanging there and it looks a bit tacky so the stylus is back in the box never to be used again. I just use a spare DS stylus which I have in my coat pocket for the few occasions Ive felt like making use of it.

Some emulators still do not work on the new machine but Im sure that will be fixed soon enough... and enough of them are working or have been fixed to keep me happy

Oh yeah.. the default music player seems unable to play any of my podcasts properly ( probably related to the sound bug ).. they end up playing at half speed.

Im sure this will be fixed eventually.

All in all.. even despite my new machine only overclocking to 265 safely I prefer it to my old Mk1.

 

[imhotep]

Oh yeah.. the default music player seems unable to play any of my podcasts properly ( probably related to the sound bug ).. they end up playing at half speed.

F100 has the same problem. Podcasts use lower frequencies than normal music MP3's. I find OldPlay a good alternative. It only stuffed up one podcast and has good fast forward and rewind (no bookmarks though).