Need To Aska Few Q's About The Gp32

[layer-01]

ok i just found out about the GP32, ans i must say it looks cool, at first i was 100% sure i needed one, as playing Roms on PC just doesnt cut it, but the more i have read the more i am wondering if i should wait...here is my dilema:

ok i would be basicly be using the GP32 for Roms..and maybe some of the ported game (ie doom etc..) but i have read lots of things saying that lots of games dont really work (i am refering to the OpenSnesX9 VS SnesX9 or whatever) i hear lots of scary words like...frame drop! and no SOUND (i live for midi lol)!! dun dun dun!
i guess all i want to know is what will my impressions be of the GP32's emulating abilities, i am coming from a zsnes baground here (oh and why has no one ported zsnes??) will my Crono cross/trigger/ FF's/secret of mana/yes i love rpg's work? (add to that all cool side scrollers ) and what are the chances i'll find some obscure cool game only to find it wont work on the GP32?
also another thing that puzzles me is can you costomize the buttns in the snes emulators?
*gasp* and yet more

i also saw you can run stuff like monkey island etc.. on it (that rocks) but how well and..HOW? do you have to buy the game and copy the files to the SMC?
also i assume you run the emulators and roms of the SMC right? not some crazy load stuff into the sys mem every time you want to run it?

any info you can offer will be of great help (i just cant decide if i should get one atm...arrg its killing me) oh and also should i go (if i do get one) BLU, FLU, NLU...and what are the pro's con's of each?

oh and i dont suppose there are any australian's here..who are in canberra..maybe going to the ANU who have a GP32 that i could acctualy see and feel ? (that would be good but not really necesary)


boy i ask a lot dont i lol..anyway thats it i sware

 

[sam fisher]

All the emu's are pretty good and near full speed with sound.
Fgen does not have full sound but full speed.
All the snes games I run run at full speed with sound at 166mhz.
Ask any other questions here rr007c6396@gmail.com

It plays movies too.
Oh and get a 166mhz blu from gbax. or 180 as the there is a definate speed improvement. I wish I had a 180.

 

[layer-01]

holy cow that was fast
sorry but what is Fgen?

as for the 180mhz i assume gmax mod's the GP32's? is i just possible to send them a GP32 for them to mod? seeing as they only sell in British pounds and well the Australian Dollar being weaker than a small japanese school girl with no arms, makes them incredibly expensive..i was just thinking of getting one form lik-sang but if you think the 180 mhz offers a noticable speed increase?

when you say near full speed..what does that mean, a jitter hear and there or click..wait...wait...response?

 

[Dalto]

All the emu's are pretty good and near full speed with sound.

This seems a little optimistic to me. Perhaps it would be better to say SOME of the emu's run at near full speed with sound.

All the snes games I run run at full speed with sound at 166mhz.

Absolutely, with frameskip 4 or so.(This means they will move at full speed but might seem a little choppy because they are skipping frames.)

To sum up:
NES and PC Engine(tuboGrafx 16) games run damn near perfect.
Genesis(megadrive) games are damn near perfect but do not have z80 sound.
SNES games run well but with high frameskip at 166. Probably not an issue with RPG's.

 

[sam fisher]

My snes games are on frameskip 0?
They are mainly beat em up's.

 

[layer-01]

hmm well now to throw a wrench in the works, i have just been reading about some mod to overclock a snes emu to 200mhz, i assume this is some software hack? but also most people say thet with their BLU that cant get past 160ishmhz but those with FLU can get up to 220mhz? so if i were to get a FLU what exactly does that entail? i assume it has little LED's outside the screen lighting it up? can these be turned on and off? and how well do they work, as in how well do they light up the screen?

this frame drop thing is it really noticable, be it RPG action whatever? i mean i just checked the settings on zsnes and it is set to max frame drop 9! and i have no problems with the games i have played on it but then i dont know if it is dropping frames, being on a fast PC and all...

 

[mattmagoo]

frame rate will make little difference on an RPG< but may hurt ure eyes if u have it way too high on a platformer or action game

FLUs and BLUs have exactly the same chance of being to overclock so a BLU is recommended, because the FLU washes out colour and u mite get dust under the screen easily

 

[khephren]

My GP clocks to 166 which I use for SNES emulation. On frame skip 1 everything is fine (for RPG's anyway)... have to hit skip3 to get sound as well though, And there are a few transparency bugs. There's an older snes emu that does not have transparency problems- but is slower.

Most coders are aiming to get stuff nice and playable at 133 to 166 speeds. 180+ would be nice, but not compulsory. SNES, GENESIS, ST, C64, SPECTRUM, MSX, DOOM, SCUMM, NES, MASTERSYSTEM and GAMEBOY are all very playable as is... And don't forget there is actually an RPG creation package doing the rounds too.

 

[cozmic]

And QUAKE is already playable @ 10fps (without sound though)

very good considering it's still in an early BETA stage.

 

[Charge]

I can't believe that people haven't mentioned castaway. it is an Atari ST emu and runs perfectly with sound at 133 with a frameskip of 1.

 

[wolly wotsit]

Oh and get a 166mhz blu from gbax. or 180 as the there is a definate speed improvement. I wish I had a 180.

be glad ur goes to 166 i wish mine could go up to 150

 

[DaveC]

ok i just found out about the GP32, ans i must say it looks cool, at first i was 100% sure i needed one, as playing Roms on PC just doesnt cut it, but the more i have read the more i am wondering if i should wait...here is my dilema:

ok i would be basicly be using the GP32 for Roms..and maybe some of the ported game (ie doom etc..) but i have read lots of things saying that lots of games dont really work (i am refering to the OpenSnesX9 VS SnesX9 or whatever) i hear lots of scary words like...frame drop! and no SOUND (i live for midi lol)!! dun dun dun!
i guess all i want to know is what will my impressions be of the GP32's emulating abilities, i am coming from a zsnes baground here (oh and why has no one ported zsnes??) will my Crono cross/trigger/ FF's/secret of mana/yes i love rpg's work? (add to that all cool side scrollers ) and what are the chances i'll find some obscure cool game only to find it wont work on the GP32?
also another thing that puzzles me is can you costomize the buttns in the snes emulators?
*gasp* and yet more

i also saw you can run stuff like monkey island etc.. on it (that rocks) but how well and..HOW? do you have to buy the game and copy the files to the SMC?
also i assume you run the emulators and roms of the SMC right? not some crazy load stuff into the sys mem every time you want to run it?

any info you can offer will be of great help (i just cant decide if i should get one atm...arrg its killing me) oh and also should i go (if i do get one) BLU, FLU, NLU...and what are the pro's con's of each?

oh and i dont suppose there are any australian's here..who are in canberra..maybe going to the ANU who have a GP32 that i could acctualy see and feel ? (that would be good but not really necesary)


boy i ask a lot dont i lol..anyway thats it i sware 

I don't want to sound negative here but I think you should know a few facts about SNES emulation. As it is you would be dissapointed by SNES emulation on the GP32 if you are used to, and expect the same quality of emulation as, the PC. Alot of games are very slow or choppy with sound turned on, and many don't work at all. Also transparencies don't work causing a problem with games that make extensive use of them.

I would still reccommend getting one (get the BLU, FLU is too washed out like a GBA SP) but just don't expect perfect emulation for SNES. It may get better in the future but I doubt it will ever be "perfect". There are many other emus that are perfect or close enough though to make it worthwhile to get one.

 

[Esn]

Well, AFAIK systems that're perfectly emulated are:

NES
SMS/Game Gear
PC Engine/TurboGrafx
Atari ST
Commodore 64

Systems which are NOT perfectly emulated but are still playable are:

GBC (emulator runs too fast, so you need to put it to fullscreen to slow it down so it'll run at about the right speed)

SNES (lots of games work well w/sound at 150+ Mhz at FS 2 or 3, just keep in mind that transparencies don't work & games that use the FX chip are unplayable, also some games are very slow, like Secret of Mana; on some games, the menu is slow but the rest of the game works fine...)

Sega Genesis (errr... I haven't actually tried this, so I can't really say)

As for Lucasarts games, you need to download ScummVM (there's a whole thread about it in the beta testing forum). You do need to own the actual game.

What you do basically is copy the necessary game files into the SMC (the official Scumm homepage tells you what they are; google it), and then RIP the music from the game cd (I did this with dBPowerAmp Music Converter), convert it into OGG files (you can do this with a free program called OGGVorbis, use OGGenc.exe; keep in mind you need to use DOS prompt to use it), and put it into the same folder on your SMC as the game files. Now you'll be able to play that game with music.

Not only Lucasarts games work on this; it's any adventure game that uses the SCUMM engine. Again, check the SCUMM project homepage.

 

[DaveC]

Well at AFAIK systems that're perfectly emulated are:

NES
SMS/Game Gear
PC Engine/TurboGrafx
Atari ST
Commodore 64

...

To be correct:

Atari ST is a bit slow still. Good but not "perfect" as you said

Commodore 64 has some sound bugs and the compatibility is not perfect.

I don't think ANY are "perfect" yet but they are close enough.

 

[Charge]

Sega Genesis (errr... I haven't actually tried this, so I can't really say)

The GP32 currently has 2 emus for the Genesis/Megadrive they are Castaway and Fgen. Both run at perfectly playable speeds at 133 although Fgen is probably a little faster and has better sound, but I have found Gigadrive to be more compatable. The best thing is that these emus are still in development so things can only get better!

 

[kotd]

Sega Genesis (errr... I haven't actually tried this, so I can't really say)

The GP32 currently has 2 emus for the Genesis/Megadrive they are Castaway and Fgen. Both run at perfectly playable speeds at 133 although Fgen is probably a little faster and has better sound, but I have found Gigadrive to be more compatable. The best thing is that these emus are still in development so things can only get better!

You mean gigadrive and fgen.
Cheers