Just A Question On Psx Emulatoion

[Rasenganfan2]

I've recently discovered the Pandora. This scraps my idea of getting a Genmobile or Nomad, or one of those $500+ custom made handhelds(for now). I just have one question about PSX emulation: How are the L2 and R2 buttons handled? There's only 2 shoulder buttons, and the PSX uses 2 analog sticks, so using the right analog nub is out of the question. This is just really confusing me, and an answer would be greatly appreciated

 

[gruso]

Controls will be mappable, so you'll be able to come up with something that suits you. You can map them to the Function or QWERTY keys for instance.

There are actually nice big solder pads on the PCB for a second set of shoulder buttons too, so if you're the modding type you can add your own.

 

[praxis]

I've recently discovered the Pandora. This scraps my idea of getting a Genmobile or Nomad, or one of those $500+ custom made handhelds(for now). I just have one question about PSX emulation: How are the L2 and R2 buttons handled? There's only 2 shoulder buttons, and the PSX uses 2 analog sticks, so using the right analog nub is out of the question. This is just really confusing me, and an answer would be greatly appreciated

The L2 and R2 can be mapped to whatever buttons you are comfortable with on the qwerty keyboard.
The pandora has two analog nubs; it seems as though you might have missed that.

Ninja'd for the most part.

 

[Mr B]

Free choice. The solder pads for L2 & R2 are on the board, so you can hack them on if you want. Just a matter of placement. Thats why they aren't included to start with. The darn thing is to small to fit them properly.
So the second, and a lot easier choice is to assign the buttons to the keyboard...
B!

Ninjad. Twize. I hate you guys.
;- )

 

[Rasenganfan2]

Gruso: Oh, that's cool. This may be a noob question, but what's a PCB? Thanks

Praxis: Thanks, and I know that there are 2 nubs. I said that the second nub is out of the question because if a game uses both sticks, then the right nub is busy doing whatever it is it does in that game

Mr. B: Ah, I can understand that. Bringing the matter of size up, the power that this system contains is amazing. It's more powerful than the incredibly powerful PSP, and that says something. PSP is amazing, but it can't run Dreamcast, yet alone a fully featured low-end Linux desktop.

 

[gruso]

The PCB is the motherboard. Nice big pic here: http://pandorapress....ards-of-canada/

 

[Rasenganfan2]

Ah. Not much of a hardware man(aside from simple stuff, like RAM), so I didn't know. Maybe if somebody who has finesse offers a service to install the buttons, but as for me, I know I'd screw up the Pandora, and would have to wait another year for one :S

 

[Alpha2]

Ninja'd, man I didnt think I took THAT long to respond.

Frankly I'd just stick with the keyboard Hopefully the mapping can be game specific so that games that use the R2 L2 more than the R1 L2 can be moved for each instance. But of course you could also handle it the PSP way and use the Dpad L and R. Neither are perfect solutions for people like me that use pointer and middle fingers for shoulder buttons (I know there are a lot of people who dont) But beggers cant be too choosey.

 

[Rasenganfan2]

Ohhhh, I thought he meant that you could put actual shoulder buttons, so whoops.

Oh, 2 more questions on another emulator (probably should've just named this emulation questions), for N64. Are you going to be able to emulate the expanded memory, and what is the N64 emulator?

Also, believe me, I'm not very choosing. Everything with the Pandora = win.

 

[zombiesatemygoldfish]

how close to full speed are they forseeing ps emulation getting?

 

[bzar]

how close to full speed are they forseeing ps emulation getting?

Over

 

[lulzfish]

Ohhhh, I thought he meant that you could put actual shoulder buttons, so whoops.

Yeah, if you have patience and machinery to take apart the Pandora, there are indeed two extra pads on the motherboard so you can just wire in two more shoulder buttons.

Also, yeah, PS1 emulation has been 100% speed for a while now. I think they're just trying to reduce CPU usage.

 

[kingoddball]

PSX is looking great. I hope it doesn't eat so much CPU that I can't run MP3's in the background. I'm very excited about playing some old classics (like RE/MGS/GT) with some good tunes..

Disturbed
Seether
R.E.M

& PodCasts (Hamish and Andy [if you're in Aus you should/might know who they are] podcasts are piss funny)

 

[Kangal]

& PodCasts (Hamish and Andy [if you're in Aus you should/might know who they are] podcasts are piss funny)

Hamish & Andy are lol wtf rofl brb lmao :lol:

 

[Trey]

Although it's more to carry with you, you can always use a ps3 controller with the pandora over usb or bluetooth.

 

[Prometheus]

Since everyone's already answered everything else in your post, I just thought I'd mention that (as far as I've been able to tell from videos I've seen, as well as this) the Genmobile seems to be based on the same guts as the AtGames Mega Drive Twin Pad Player, which, whilst it seems to be a hardware clone, isn't.

It seems that it's emulation software running on a RISC device of some sort, and from experience I can say that it's very inaccurate, with completely incorrect audio on everything, and also graphical problems on many common and famous games. Gaping holes in Sonic's face in Sonic The Hedgehog 2? Check. Sparkster as a corrupted mess in Rocket Knight Adventures? Check. Strider Hiryu being a combination of those two in Strider? Check. (And let's not forget the bizarre issues in any game with different under and over water palettes being shown at the same time.)

The number of reviews and claims out there that praise the Twin Pad Player to the heavens make me suspicious, and I am cautiously holding the same view about the Genmobile. Just letting you know in case you think the Genmobile would be on-par with the real-hardware Nomad.

 

[Exophase]

Nice find Prometheus - I was talking to Charles MacDonald regarding one of these clones (may or may not have been the same one, or same internals) and he was very skeptical that they'd use software emulation instead of an FPGA implementation. But he looked into it and found evidence to the contrary, which he found quite striking. He was looking to do some tests to expose some typical accuracy traps, but it looks like he wouldn't have had to look very far. It's kind of surprising that it's this far off when a stolen Picodrive should have done better than that.

It's especially bad when they just have to meet a target of emulating a small set of games and can't even get those working right.

EDIT: Ehehe, Marat Fayzullin worked on the emulation and needed help with optimization ;D

 

[Prometheus]

I should note that even the built-in games have problems, including running too slowly on the PAL units (it's not slowdown - it's just outright ignoring the PAL optimisations some titles clearly had when you run them on the real thing; It's most obvious on Sonic & Knuckles, of course).

Also, the NTSC/PAL switch on it just doesn't work.

It's certainly interesting to hear the way it mangles the audio, though. Some of the results are quite listenable.