Our New Machine, Pandora

[PokeParadox]

I remember someone made a site with these dev guidelines for the gp2x and as far as I know no developer used it.

That's why I talked about official guidelines, ones we'd know about as soon as the console would start shipping

I just mentioned that very site on the previous page of the thread: GP2XStandards


Do you know what the fuck the word official means? That means whoever's making that console, that means Craig, not an independent committee no one cares about.

And that's the essential difference, if the maker says from the start "here's how you should do things", you'll get a lot more following that if one year later a couple of fools start saying "maybe we should do this and this and that"


No need to be rude... >_> With regards to GP2X no one else took it upon themselves to put some guidelines
together... *sigh*
The point is that there should be some order in they way things are done with the Craiginator, not so much that a dev is limited, but enough so it's easy to pickup and play. This should be done as soon as we know the control layout etc, so we can decide what's most intuitive.

PS: Twat.

 

[sam fisher]

Imagine if the Craiginator becomes truly main streamed? Craig would be come filthy rich and the Craiginator would be in high street stores

*dreams*

 

[coldfish]

Given that it seems to appeal to only a sub-set of the GP2X owning niche community, we can assume that initially at least, sales will be modest.

Is there an untapped market of non-GP2X/hacked PSP owners just waiting for a more powerful handheld machine to play with?

Wait and see, I guess.

 

[zaffercharles]

perhaps it could get some support from one or two of the big names- Capcom ,Namco, Sega? I'm not fussed if not but anything from anyone would be great . It obviously will have the power to go there.. Imagine getting a version of Powerstone multiplayer 8) or Tekken, Outrun coast to coast etc.
Even if the deal was that we got old version ports it would be cool to me. Getting versions of newer games that can't be emulated or at least well is what I'm thinking.. but they probably won't want anything to do with it if it's open source- there's got to be a way they could protect their games though right?
I know it's more a dream than reality probably you got me dreaming too sam

 

[Javacat]

Support from Rockstar would pwn soo much. But would never happen

 

[zaffercharles]

Support from Rockstar would pwn soo much. But would never happen

lol right on, nice to see the first reply not 5**tting on me for daring to mentioning it
it would have to sell a fair few units for anyone to take notice and I'm guessing it won't really happen. But we can dream and stay positive

 

[Orkie]

It's simply my opinion, but I truly believe that if people like Craig weren't so busy brandishing their fantasy concept of a platform as the next system that people need to own, than developers would be far more interested in continuing to improve upon their projects and increasing the performance, ease of use, and compatibility of the emus whose development has curtailed. Squidge has rather unabashedly abandoned the GP2X platform, and that's a terrible shame because of how instrumental he was in advancing the dev scene. He seems rather convinced that putting any further effort into improving his applications is a waste of time, and that's ridiculous because even if the Craiginator is made, his work would still be enjoyed by far more of the existing GP2X users than the smaller user base that the Craiginator has the potential to gain.

Developers were getting bored of the GP2X before this thing was publicly announced.

 

[hlidegp2x]

As no one has coded one for PC even (as far as I know). I highly doubt that notion.

Actually, I think there is one coded for PC, I heard something about it a couple of months ago. But I don't think it can really do anything atm.

EDIT: Here you are: http://www.emulator-zone.com/doc.php/psp/ The Potemkin description claims that it can even play commercial games. I didn't think they had gotten that far.

-God Ginrai

there are both psp emulators :

- potemkin from Ector in C/C++
- pspplayer from Noxa in C#

in fact, since game code is running in userland, they don't use directly hardware but use some APIs to address them in a higher level. So both emulators only need to dynarec the user code and provide a HLE for user/kernel modules used by the game code. In fact, you don't need to emulate hardware at all. Just provide the equivalent functionalities through APIs.

In a certain way, it would be much easier to port PSP than Saturn on a platform which has OpenGL and a vectorial FPU. The real question is how much the frequency ratio must be for a platform to be able to run a PSP game confortably, supposedly we have a decent dynarec and hle.

EDIT: GE (Graphics Enginge, PSP GPU) commands list can be built directly even in userland and so by PSP games, but that is something emulator can handle very well, so not a big problem since you only need to turn a commands list into OpenGL operations list, sorta.

 

[don]

This entire thread is not about people who want the Craiginator vs. people who don't want it. It's about people who would like the GP2X to have more community support and are tired of hearing about a non-GP2X platform that is convincing devs to ignore a platform that they have invested in vs. people who are using the popularity of the platform to advertise an entirely different product to a selected and targeted audience (who for the most part don't want to be advertised to.)

It's entirely weak to use this message board as a method to detract from and divide the community that this board is supposed to be based around. GPH didn't go to some competitor's website and bash their product to make themselves look more desirable. They built a customer base on their own merit.

It's simply my opinion, but I truly believe that if people like Craig weren't so busy brandishing their fantasy concept of a platform as the next system that people need to own, than developers would be far more interested in continuing to improve upon their projects and increasing the performance, ease of use, and compatibility of the emus whose development has curtailed. Squidge has rather unabashedly abandoned the GP2X platform, and that's a terrible shame because of how instrumental he was in advancing the dev scene. He seems rather convinced that putting any further effort into improving his applications is a waste of time, and that's ridiculous because even if the Craiginator is made, his work would still be enjoyed by far more of the existing GP2X users than the smaller user base that the Craiginator has the potential to gain.

Right, people invested in the platform. But they barely invest in the dev community. If you buy a console without commercial game support you can never be sure that there'll be support for it as long as you wish or as long as it's financially interesting for the developers. The only thing that keeps the dev going is fun with the machine, and if a different machine yields more fun, they're gone. If you want the devs to stay, try to be a great community towards the developers. Easy as that.

 

[sam fisher]

Support from Rockstar would pwn soo much. But would never happen

GTR - Grand Theft Roms

 

[Squidge]

QUOTE
Squidge has rather unabashedly abandoned the GP2X platform


I've still got something up my sleeve though

 

[Vince2501]

Now if the machine could play PSP and DS, then we have something really interesting. The DS with it's consistently great titles, and the PSP's 2-3 great games plus the Dracula X remake.

 

[denton_riley]

Hi guys

Just a few thoughts i got.

Is this device still going to have a keyboard?

Am wondering if it will have an rs232 port built into it, to enable connection to scientific lab instruments, telescopes or surveying instruments?. Enabling engineers to control and data log in the field. If it wont will it be possible you think to use usb to rs232 adapter?. Currently only option on the market at present is the hp 50g for my needs. I know a lot of modern equipment is now bluetooth but in mining and oil field equipment is still made as rs232. I know a pc or laptop can do this but they not robust enough for my uses

Either way whatever it has ill still buy for the gaming

 

[Vimacs]

Is this device still going to have a keyboard?

yes! Craigix confirmed that a few times.

Am wondering if it will have an rs232 port built into it,

Unknown, but it could be possible that it does have a UART on some port, usb should be there for sure thou.

 

[denton_riley]

"but it could be possible that it does have a UART on some port, usb should be there for sure thou"

Excellent just had a look if it has UART should be usable at worst ill need to get one of these http://sodoityourself.com/max232-serial-level-converter/

Otherwise work out something with usb

Many thanks

 

[Squidge]

It should have a usable serial port (but no guarantee at the moment), but if it does it'll probably be a standard UART rather than RS232 (meaning 0V to 3.3V rather than -12V to +12V), and will most likely require a special connector like the gp2x.

You should be able to use a USB->Serial convertor quite easily however.

 

[OMars]

Then, it automatically makes directories for programs and a separate rom folder. Something like this:

1) What if someone wants to use the device for something not to do with games or emulation? Say they want to use it as a simple PDA (Web brower, calendar, notes, etc). I think it should leave the card blank so it's upto the user how they wish to partition it. Remember that this isn't just an upgraded gp2x.

For example: SNES9X and SquidgeSNES would recognize and use the same roms and save files.

Now, thats what I agree with.

2) For stuff like photos, movies, etc, it should be left upto the user. However, maybe the built in player can save the last directory to the sd card or something, and other players such as OldPlay can pickup this directory.

1) They don't have to format it if they don't want to. But if they did want other programs, they could just drag and drop their desired program into "PROGRAMS", or download their desired program directly from the internet and the system asks you where to put the downloaded file. It would also be helpful if the system has a built-in unzipper. Then, they can just start playing everything from your system without the need for a computer. The only thing they would need is a wireless connection.

You could also take a look at the "SETTINGS" folder layout in my example. Browsers can share history and network configurations, which can be changed on the system itself: LINK to my other post

2) Why can't it just be that easy? I mean, what if you have a program for viewing photos and a program for editing photos? Would you really like to make separate photo directories for it? If the user finds the card setup strange, they could set up their own layout of folders and indicate what directories have what files. You could go to a settings tab and select a "directories" option and choose from there. Then the programs could use the system's settings to recognize where the corresponding files are located.

 

[Squidge]

We are both typing on the same page, more or less. Just as you are recommending strict, specific directories burned into th os, and I'm thinking about something a bit more relaxed.

Maybe if I explain it a bit more. A photo viewer starts at the room directory. The user navigates to "my photos" and browses some. They then exit the application, but behind the scenes "my photos" is registered as the default directory for photos.

Same person then decides to open an image editing app, they goto open an image and find out that the directory is already "my photos". They open the file and edit as expected.

So instead of a settings tab and select a "directories" option, it all happens in the background and is easily changed without changing any settings as such.

The same would happen for emulators - there could be a registered "snes" directory, or perhaps a "text files" directory, etc, etc. There could be a lot of these directories instead of just having a few because you have to list them all on the settings screen.

 

[atomicthumbs]

We are both typing on the same page, more or less. Just as you are recommending strict, specific directories burned into th os, and I'm thinking about something a bit more relaxed.

Maybe if I explain it a bit more. A photo viewer starts at the room directory. The user navigates to "my photos" and browses some. They then exit the application, but behind the scenes "my photos" is registered as the default directory for photos.

Same person then decides to open an image editing app, they goto open an image and find out that the directory is already "my photos". They open the file and edit as expected.

So instead of a settings tab and select a "directories" option, it all happens in the background and is easily changed without changing any settings as such.

The same would happen for emulators - there could be a registered "snes" directory, or perhaps a "text files" directory, etc, etc. There could be a lot of these directories instead of just having a few because you have to list them all on the settings screen.

Before I upgraded Gmenu2X from 0.8 to 0.9, it would always open my "music" folder when I chose to play music.

 

[trooper]

We are both typing on the same page, more or less. Just as you are recommending strict, specific directories burned into th os, and I'm thinking about something a bit more relaxed.

Maybe if I explain it a bit more. A photo viewer starts at the room directory. The user navigates to "my photos" and browses some. They then exit the application, but behind the scenes "my photos" is registered as the default directory for photos.

Same person then decides to open an image editing app, they goto open an image and find out that the directory is already "my photos". They open the file and edit as expected.

So instead of a settings tab and select a "directories" option, it all happens in the background and is easily changed without changing any settings as such.

The same would happen for emulators - there could be a registered "snes" directory, or perhaps a "text files" directory, etc, etc. There could be a lot of these directories instead of just having a few because you have to list them all on the settings screen.

Just out of curiosity, If a way of organising files and folder was done like you say above (in the background), Let take the picture senario for instance, Say you have a "My Pictures" folder and you want to perform some basic editing on a particular picture, But you want to save it (after the edit) to another folder "Edited Pictures" for example. Would the "Edit Pictures" folder now become the default pictures folder ?, Possibly causing the user to jump back and forwards from folders. Or would there generally be two default folders for each program (One for loading and one for saving) ?.

Or have i missed something completely ?.

Btw, I`m all for the freedom of how i`d like my files and folders organised, But there should be some standard placement for stuff like config files, Libraries etc.

Trooper