New To The Gp2x, A Few Concerns...

[Mattroid]

Hello all, I recently picked up a GP2X, something I've been debating for a long while to purchase. I had held off so long because my PSP was fine for emulation, but that thing pretty much just collects dust now. The final selling point for me was the TV-out option, which will make it easier to play DivX/XviD videos on my TV since some of the newer ones won't work in my Philips DVD/DivX player

Anyway, after doing some searching both here and on other forums/wikis/etc, I still have a few questions that I can't seem to find concrete answers for.

First off, I obviously have the Value Pack with FW 3.0. I'm using a standard blue SanDisk 2GB SD card (I'll admit I didn't check a compatibility list for this yet, sorry).

Well, A few of the built in games either won't run for me at all or crash at some point shortly after starting - the Payback demo in particular, but a couple others wouldn't boot either. Payback let's me get to the first mission and then just freezes. I have fresh batteries and/or am using the power adapter, so I don't think that's the issue.

Also, in regards to these games, I notice that they take up the remaining room of the built in memory. Could this be part of the problem? seems like it shouldn't be since others' seem to work fine, but I wasn't sure if maybe some files are extracted during these games or whatever and there's no room for them to do that? I forget the exact amount of room left, but I know it only around 1MB or so, if that since I can only install one skin in addition to all those games.

I tried copying those games to the SD card to free up some memory and see if that helped, but they don't show up on the SD card which I assume is some sort of copy protection thing, which is understandable.

I've found the answers to most of my other questions (thanks!), and the few remaining ones are directed to specific emulators/homebrew which I'll try to resolve myself first.

Thanks for any help!

 

[zacaj]

try downloading thw regular payback demo. ITs not some copyright thing, I copied the payback folder from my nand to my SD, works fine. You havethe same memory card as me, too.

 

[Blah]

There are no games that write to the NAND (builtin memory), when stored on a SD, as far as I know. An old version of Duke3d used to.

Almost all SD cards (less than 4gb) work perfectly. This used to be an issue.

On the Payback demo, I would check what CPU speed it is set to (you can set this in Payback's options). Your unit might have trouble playing some games at the full 240mhz. It is supposed to be able to handle 240mhz, but of course defects happen. Also try what Zacaj above just said.

If that doesn't help you might want to back up everything off your SD card, and reformat it. Sometimes the filesystem can get corrupted. It doesn't sound like this is the case though.

Take a look at gpnewbie.com, it tell you how to get a few things going.

As a final word, I recommend you try Gmenu2X. I find it much more functional than the default menu. It makes tweaking programs to your liking much easier.

 

[Ripster]

The only thing I find with Gmenu2x is that it is extremely slow to load or is that something to do with me? My unit usually takes a good 15 - 20 seconds to load up but with Gmenu2x it seems to take even longer. As much as I don't mind the interface... I would rather not have to wait the extra time and have since removed it.

 

[Orkie]

It's down to poor design by GPH. The normal menu always loads whatever happens, it will then launch Gmenu2x if the autorun script is set up so you effectively get two menu loading times.

 

[b._.o._.b]

The only thing I find with Gmenu2x is that it is extremely slow to load or is that something to do with me? My unit usually takes a good 15 - 20 seconds to load up but with Gmenu2x it seems to take even longer. As much as I don't mind the interface... I would rather not have to wait the extra time and have since removed it.

Maybe it costs 1 or 2 extra seconds, but not more.

 

[Mattroid]

Thanks for all the replies

I went back and tried copying the builtin games one by one over the SD card and it worked fine. Not sure why. Before I had basically created a separate folder on the SD for the built in games and then copied them all over into that folder at once. Then, when I tried to navigate to that folder on the GP2X, it didn't show up at all. NO idea why. Probably just a fluke thing, I guess

Vektar wouldn't run from the NAND, either, but once I copied it to the SD card, it worked fine. Go figure :huh:

I've read up on Gmenu2x previously, but haven't actually tried it yet. If it does why I hope it does, then I'm game for sure.

Thanks again to all.

EDIT: Yeah, that menu is sweet. Exactly what I wanted. Need to figure out this whole script thing, but that shouldn't take too long. Is there a way to create "Sections" inside of sections?

 

[Mattroid]

Also, since it seems to be an issue on my end, is there a common reason why many games/emus/apps crash when you exit them? This happens to me pretty frequently and I'd think that it must not be an issue with the specific programs since it happens with so many of them.

Again, fw 3 using the power adapter and gmenu2x. I can list specific titles, but I'm just wondering if it could be something more than that.

 

[Akuma no Houkon]

Crashes how? If it just locks up when you exit, then the game/app is not exiting the proper way for the GP2x.

Have you tried any of my games? (See signature) They should all exit properly, if they dont then you might have a problem.

Normally it should exit back to the main screen on the GP2x menu. (I dont know how it does it with any other menu system)

 

[Mattroid]

The ones that crash generally just go to a black screen and then freeze. A big example I can think of is GNGeo2x 0.7. It exits properly from the menu, but crashes at other points like when creating a gfx dump. It just freezes at the "press any button" screen.

There have been several games that came with my system on the included CD, several I've downloaded, and even one or two that were loaded on the NAND which wouldn't close right. I'll need to go in and test some of them again to recall which titles exactly (most I didn't care about anyway, but it still bothers me).

I do have one of your games, PerfectFit (awesome work, btw), and it runs and exits fine. I'll check out your others and test them on mine and let you know if anything is wrong.

It's just that a few of the emus that it happened with were ones that it seems everyone uses and I hadn't read anything about them freezing like that.

some have seemed to sort of "worked themselves out," though. Like Quake2x. It used to lock up on me all the time, but it seems to run fine now.

No clue what's up.

 

[Akuma no Houkon]

If you can find a specific example, that does it everytime, let me know and I will personally try it also to see if its something wrong with your setup.

 

[Mattroid]

I appreciate it. I went through everything on my card right now and all seems well. I must have taken off everything that didn't work. Or perhaps a handful of them were just flukes? I'll go about putting all that stuff back on and test them all one by one. As it stands, the neo geo one seems to be the only emu giving me issues. Well, that and RACE, but from what I gather, no one knows how to exit that one anyway

edit: actually, now scummvm won't even start up for me. Just "loads" then goes back to the menu. Hmm.

 

[Ripster]

I appreciate it. I went through everything on my card right now and all seems well. I must have taken off everything that didn't work. Or perhaps a handful of them were just flukes? I'll go about putting all that stuff back on and test them all one by one. As it stands, the neo geo one seems to be the only emu giving me issues. Well, that and RACE, but from what I gather, no one knows how to exit that one anyway

edit: actually, now scummvm won't even start up for me. Just "loads" then goes back to the menu. Hmm.

There is only one emu that I use that I have troubles exiting and that is Final Burn Alpha but Squidge solved that for me by explaining how to use the button that exists on the left side of the Gp2x... "just slide it up and then back down" exits all emu's.

My only other major problem I have right now (and I am sure I will run into others) is with Capex... the frontend for CPS2. It loads up... however when I scroll down to DDSOM it locks up, I am not even trying to enter the game... it just scrolls down to that game and locks the Gp2x. I saw reference to the same problem somewhere but no one supplied an answer.

I had some problems with GNGeo v0.7 b5, SquidgeSNES, and the Rage v0.9... but I worked it out... it seems that the latest betas I used do not like each other or in the case of SquidgeSNES I might have gotten a bad download.

Oh... and I still have not got the frontend for Mame to work yet but that is a minor problem. All in all this has been a nice purchase... for someone that loves all these retro games from my past as a child and a teen. Brings back a lot of good memories... and also the chance to catch up on games I never got the chance to play... mid 90's to today.