Just Bought A Zodiac

[J201605]

I just bought a zodiac 1... I have seen a bunch of emulators and homebrew but i havent found a resource that says what is the best. Basically what i want to know is...

What sdio wifi cards can i use with this that have drivers/is there aweb browser/ which is cheapest

What is the best genesis emulator and how fast is it?

What is the fast master system or gamegear emulator and are they considerably faster than the best genesis emulator?

What is the best snes emulator and how fast is it?

What is the best nes emulator and how fast is it/how much faster then snes?

What is best gameboy emulator and how fast is it?

What are the coolest apps that work with it (palm apps)?

What is the coolest original homebrew?

How well do games like doom or duke 3d work?

Where is the best place to buy commercial games (besides ebay)?

Is there a good neogeocd emulator?

Is there a large percentage of palm applications that will work for this and are they just drag and drop or are they harder to install because of the zodiacs palmos not being standard or something?

Will my zodiac being a zodiac 1 hurt its ability to run a lot of apps? Does it come with less stuff? Does it have all the same abilities? Does it have any differences besides ram and do any applications run only on the zodiac 2 because of the zodiac 1's lack of ram? Does its lack of ram stop it from playing some emulators as well? And most importantely are there commercial games that only run on the zodiac 2?

 

[Draken]

LJP (little john palm) is the best emulator for snes, genesis, nes, gbc, etc emulation. Little John also made the doom, hexen and quake ports for palm.

I don't like emulation on my zodiac though because of the resolution. It's too high to play 1:1, but stretched/smoothed does look awful. (especially now I got my gp2x and saw the md emus in action)
And the analog controller is terrible to move with too.

It's been a while so I can't recall everything, but Bike or Die is definately one of the best palm games (physics bike game) I played, especially with it's level editor. It's shareware however. I also recommend Edge, a rpg similar to such rpg's as ultima 7.

There isn't that much homebrew around, check out Vilmos' noiz2sa port, or the classic "space trader"...

You might want to register on www.emuboards.com, where the original zodiacgamer boards are now. (very inactive however, there were several forum dramas, and now tapwave's gone everything has worsened)

www.palmgear.com is probably your way to go for buying general palm software. www.astraware.com has a lot of cool palm games too.
www.pdamill.com has a lot of cool games, their worms clone (snails) is awesome, and the rpg is worth the money too.

The zodiac only games are all cracked and available if you really want them, just search (even the unreleased ones like tomb raider).

Also, I recommend TCPMP (the core pocket media player) for zodiac, awesome videoplayer. I only use my zodiac for watching videos lately anyway. (big, crisp, high resolution screen...)

It doesn't matter if you own a zodiac 1 or 2. It won't improve emulation..

Just be careful your zodiac doesn't develop the famed analog controller bug, in which it randomly moves to the right (almost all first editions, like mine, had this problem, rendering it useless to do any gaming on.)

Sorry for the confusing and long post, I'm tired as hell.

 

[J201605]

thanks for all the info. Theres a few more unanswered questions if anyone else has some more info on neogeocd for example but most importantly i need to know if the commercial games will run on zodiac 1 and 2. I'm sad though cuz i just found out i got ripped off... payed 80 buks for just the zodiac and charger and headphones... i guess i don't really need anything else though if i can find the games by "other means".

Edit: BTW when u say that first editions had an analog stick bug do u mean first edition zodiac 2's or zodiac 1's. I am worried about this but i have seen a few people that say there are ways to fix it.

 

[Draken]

80USD is a good deal for a zodiac, I payed 300 for mine back in the days.

I don't think there's a neogeo cd emulator out there, zodiac isn't really good for emulation all together anyway. The commercial games run on both zodiacs obviously, like I said, the only difference is the amount of ram.
The palm software warez community is pretty large so you wouldn't need to pay a buck for software if you don't mind doing illigal stuff.

Both zodiacs had that bug. If the back of your zodiac doesn't say "First Edition", you'll probably be safe. There are no real ways to fix it, really.

 

[zodttd]

The Zodiac was where I got started in homebrew. I love it. LJP is great. If you like OpenTTD (Transport Tycoon Deluxe), I made PalmTTD on eSoft. I plan on updating PalmTTD to the latest and greatest version of OpenTTD with my new enhancements. Also, for emulators you might need a program called UDMH. This app in effect "unlocks" more memory available to applications on Palm. This is because Palm limits something called the dynamic heap where applications allocate memory for things.

For commercial games on the Palm I recommend:
http://www.handango.com
http://www.palmgear.com
Oh and don't forget http://www.esoftinteractive.com

 

[J201605]

Thanks for the info ill check whether its first edition when i get it.

ZodTTD: I read about the enhancements you have done for OpenTTD for handhelds lately and they sound awesome. Though it will be great on the gp2x i would enjoy it even more on my zodiac due to its touchscreen. If you updated for palm it would be great. Also thank you for the links.

 

[chaos engineer]

I don't think there's a neogeo cd emulator out there,

at least there is a neo geo mvs emu based on mame 0.36 called Zod Neo

it's not too bad, not as fast as the emus on gp2x or psp though

I have received my Zodiac2 some days ago and I really enjoy this device. Try bike or die!

 

[J201605]

Hmmm ill have to check out the mvs emulator, though i have a zodiac 1 so i dont think it can get the games into ram. Like the issues with the gp32. I now think i wont do much emulation except a little nes because of the analog stick. Too bad a newer handheld capable of emulating psx doesn't have the same stick. Ill make sure to try bike or die.

 

[DaveC]

Hmmm ill have to check out the mvs emulator, though i have a zodiac 1 so i dont think it can get the games into ram. Like the issues with the gp32. I now think i wont do much emulation except a little nes because of the analog stick. Too bad a newer handheld capable of emulating psx doesn't have the same stick. Ill make sure to try bike or die.

If you have a GP2X you may as well just use GnGeo it is actually more playable because of the controls and the screen resolution matches better.

You also have to be careful these days with zodiacs. They have this built in propriatary battery that is not easy to replace. You need to find someone that still has them which is getting harder now that it is discontinued. Then you need to take the unit apart and replace the pack. Since these are getting old some sellers on ebay are selling with weak batteries that need replacing. I would say test that first before leaving feedback if you got it on ebay.

Try Warefare inc. I liked that game when I had the zodiac.

 

[Fishbong]

You can get dirt cheap batteries that are better than the original ones. Just search for "tapwave battery" on ebay.

 

[J201605]

yep sorry dave but times have changed. 2000 mah battery for 20 buks and i read an easy guide on how to put it in. Essentially you just open the case... move a little tab over... pull out the battery... put in the new battery... put tab back over new battery... close case... throw away old battery.

 

[Alex.]

It's such a shame that Tapwave went under, their next generation of products could have been a GP/H killer. Too bad running unsigned code on them isn't as easy as out-of-the-box, otherwise I probably would've went for a Zodiac 2 instead of a GP2X.

Life is weird :huh:

- Alex

 

[J201605]

ya slap a dpad onto a zodiac (in addition to the analog stick) , get it to run linux but still maintain palm features, double its proccesing power and graphics chip power and change the screen to 320x240 at 3.5" and youve got your gp3x right there. Even if running code and stuff doesn't work that good... my gp2x is for that, i can use this to fiddle around with useful little palm apps as well as use the basic palm functions and access the internet and i can run some of the leaked or dead commercial games.