1. Does the snes emulator works oke? I heard things about a maximum rom size of 4 mb and problemns with the frame rate?
>SNESemu runs at a very playable 15~25 fps, but it has no sound. 4MB is actually 32 megabits by the SNES standard; very few games exceeded that mark. SNESemu also lacks a save-game function, but for games like Street Fighter II, NBA Jam and Super Punch-Out!! it's not a problem.
SNES9xGP is a bit slower, but has save-games - essential for RPGs and adventure games. Fluid animation wasn't exactly the hallmark older turn-based RPG's anyway, so less speed won't impair gameplay. The author (Intellecto) is working on some speed tweaks/optimizations, but the next update may not come anytime soon.
Another problem with SNES emulation: the in-cartridge chips added to some games (SDP, SuperFX, SuperFX2, C-4, etc.) range from troublesome to impossible for the GP32 to emulate, rendering many of the best SNES games (Rock/Megaman X series, Street Fighter Alpha 2 and others) unplayable. Super Mario RPG moves along at around 4 frames per second on the current emulators.
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2. Does the simple (the non-fake-3d-games) works proper like golden sun or advance wars?
>No GBA emulator is publically available at the moment, and even if one was, Golden Sun's transparency and scrolling effects would bring the GP32 to it's knees and then some (GP32 has no dedicated graphics hardware). Further, 8MB (64 megabit) or larger GBA roms won't fit in the GP32's system memory. Some hex editing could chop their size down, or perhaps the SMC itself could be used as a sort of virtual memory, but it would be terribly slow.
Instead of Advance Wars, you could take at look at it's predecessors, Famicom Wars and Super Famicom Wars (for NES and SNES)
There's also the awesome Super Robot Wars 3 (has an English translation patch), 4, and EX, another turn-based strategic warfare series featuring various mecha from several different animes (Gundam, etc.....). The series is still continuing on PS2 and GBA to this day, with 3 new titles in the last 9 months - and 3 more planned by the end of the year!
*Highly recommends the importing of Super Robot Wars D for GBA*
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3. Does anyone know a list to check if there are any problems with roms and emulators?
>Most issues are documented in readmes (or these boards) already; though all the emulators I've seen so far (SNES, SMS, NES, PCE, NGPC, GBC) have had around 95~99% compatibility from my experience.
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4. How's the sound quality good enough to listen to some music with a bit-rate of 128 kb/s? Good enough to understand the speech in a movie?
>Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think 128k
is the equivalent of CD-quality audio. Above 192k, I'd say you're hitting a point of diminishing returns between quality and file size. For reference:
(all values approximate)
320k = 2.40MB/min
256k = 1.92MB/min
192k = 1.44MB/min
160k = 1.20MB/min
128k = 0.96MB/min
112k = 0.84MB/min
96k = 0.72MB/min
64k = 0.48MB/min
32k = 0.24MB/min
GPCinema (GP32 movie player) reads both DivX 4.12 and XviD (Koepi's codec) files; depending on the nature of the file being encoded; video could take anywhere from 160~320k to reach an acceptable level of quality. Audio should be locked at 32k, even though the quality won't be the best.
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5. Any other probs? , do's don'ts?
>Overclocking beyond 133MHz is harmful until proven otherwise. A few programs (GPCinema, GPEngine, NeoGP32, certain SCUMMVM builds) can optionally exceed this limit, but not by default. The extra kick of speed 150 or 166MHz can bring isn't necessary for those programs to operate at an acceptable level.
Running at 133MHz (for most emulators and movies) takes a toll on battery life, so consider a cheap $10 power supply (DC 3v, negative polarity). A decent ($20~30) pair of headphones would also be worthwhile if you'll be using the MP3 feature regularly as well.
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edit // 6. is one 128 mb card enough to play games? Or are there any local shops that sell 128 mb cards with the right volt (3.3 volt???)
Here are the approximate size ranges for various console's cartridges:
NES: 768k max (Kirby's Adventure - double the size of SMB3!)
SNES: 6MB max (only <4MB ROMs supported by current emulators)
PCE: 2.5MB max (Street Fighter 2 Turbo, which GPEngine doesn't emulate properly)
GBC: 2MB max (Pokemon Gold/Silver/Crystal, among others)
NGPC: 4MB max (SNK vs. Capcom: MotM and others)
GBA: 32MB max (only 4 and certain 8MB games would work - not that there's actually an publically-released emulator to play them on or anything. If you did find one, it was probably released against the author's wishes).
In general, ROMs will be between 512k and 4MB. 128MB is more than enough room for games, but space might get tight when they have to share with movies, music, and freeware games.
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Oh, and yoyofr is the author of
Little John, not Little Jack - that's the airship for Skies of Arcadia with the Harpoon Cannon
Furthermore, that "Full-speed GBA emulation w/sound in a few months" statement was partially retracted, IIRC.
