Just Ordered It

[dvp1964]

I just ordered the GP2X Caanoo MAME/Console Emulator from Thinkgeek and it should be here in a few days. Merry Christmas me!

I've never had any experience with these or any other handheld gaming device so I'm here looking for a getting started guide - I'm sure there must be an excellent guide out there and if you point me to it, I'll start there.

I am a computer tech for a living; know my way around Windows very well and have been running Linux since 1994 - I just have no experience with these but Im looking forward to it!

I imagine I will need some SDHC cards; maybe load one up with a mame emulator and those roms, another with my old commodore 64 roms and try to find an emulator for that, another for Atari, etc. (or do you just load everything onto the Caanoo and run it from there?)

Anyway, if there is a beginner's guide which assumes nothing on behalf of the user, to getting the Caanoo up and running with an emulator and games, I'll start there. I imagine if you can get one emulator and its roms running, you can get any of the others going too.

I dont know what I dont know to ask....

~david

 

[LTStone]

You may want to start here, its a starter pack with most of the emus, apps and stuff, just extract it to an sd card and add some roms and away you go


http://dl.openhandhelds.org/cgi-bin/caanoo.cgi?0,0,0,0,23,694

 

[Akabei]

I don't know, if there is a 'all-in-one, explaining everything' guide, but you can use the starter pack LTStone posted, or a similar one by yoshi.
http://dl.openhandhelds.org/cgi-bin/caanoo.cgi?0,0,0,0,5,696
As you are no total computer noob, you will not have any difficulties to get the programs running.
btw. You aren't able to use the internal memory for programs, so you have to buy sd cards. I use a 16gb card for consoles, another 16gb card for computers, an 8gb card for arcades and a 4gb card for homebrew and there is still some place left on the cards for music, video, etc. Maybe you don't need that much space, but maybe even more, if you want to use a lot of psx isos.

 

[BAFelton]

This version here is updated : http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?/topic/57727-caanoo-starter-kit/

 

[tibbo]

It might be worth keeping in mind that the version of Mame (mame4all) which works upon the Caanoo is only capable of running a very old Mame romset from upto early 2000 I believe, so if you are beginning to accquire roms many of the newer games are not compatible.

 

[dvp1964]

The SD cards can be the SDHC, right?

What is meant by 'Homebrew', 'consoles', 'computers'

Arcades I am guessing you mean arcade games on the SD card...? Wouldnt the game roms and the emulator both have to be on the SD card since I cant really copy files to the Caanoo? If that were the case, then I thought to put an Atari Emulator on a SD with all Atari games, MAME on another with its roms, etc

Unless I can get a large SDHC card and do that in folders on the SD card.....Atari folder (with emulator and games), C64 folder (with emulator and games) then I guess you use the Caanoo to navigate, open, then run an emulator and through that choose a game....is that it? (still sorting through the websites in a wanderingly lost way)

~d

I don't know, if there is a 'all-in-one, explaining everything' guide, but you can use the starter pack LTStone posted, or a similar one by yoshi.
http://dl.openhandhelds.org/cgi-bin/caanoo.cgi?0,0,0,0,5,696
As you are no total computer noob, you will not have any difficulties to get the programs running.
btw. You aren't able to use the internal memory for programs, so you have to buy sd cards. I use a 16gb card for consoles, another 16gb card for computers, an 8gb card for arcades and a 4gb card for homebrew and there is still some place left on the cards for music, video, etc. Maybe you don't need that much space, but maybe even more, if you want to use a lot of psx isos.

 

[Akabei]

Unless I can get a large SDHC card and do that in folders on the SD card.....Atari folder (with emulator and games), C64 folder (with emulator and games) then I guess you use the Caanoo to navigate, open, then run an emulator and through that choose a game....is that it? (still sorting through the websites in a wanderingly lost way)

more or less, that's it.
Homebrew are games written for the caanoo. On my consoles SDHC are all emulators like SNES, Genesis, NES, Colecovision, etc.. and their roms. Same for computer, just Amiga, C64, Atari ST, etc... and their roms. And for arcade machines, there is also more than one emulator (mame, NeoGeo and CPS2).
PS: There are quite some videos on youtube about emulation and homebrew games on caanoo.