Our New Machine, Pandora

[Firefox]

Actually you can do that.
From the 920 you would need to mmap the upper memory, apply Squidge's mmu hack on it to make it cached, and then flush data using usermode call (swi #0x9f0002) when needed.

Ah, how interesting. I had read about Squidge's MMU hack but I'd thought it was purely to give Linux more room.

From the 940 you have full control of PU (protection unit) where you can set up regions, and do whatever cache ops you need.

I really liked the PU on the 940! Very simple and intuitive to use, but you can create some pretty complicated memory maps using its overlapping regions feature.

True, you can't boot direct from the SD card, but you can boot your application in Linux and then ask for Linux to go sleep whilst you take over the entire hardware. This is how Spot was created - it would have never have been fast enough otherwise.

Wow, hadn't heard of that one at all!

Thanks chaps! Seems like I've got some catching up to do.

 

[PokeParadox]

I sense improvements to your lovely Jag emulator? :lol:

 

[StealthBagel]

Ah-- I wish people would knock it off with those as well, but I can't really support arbitrarily removing posts from a thread; it's oppressive and breaks up the the flow of the conversation to someone reading it as well...

 

[DisgruntleElf]

Right now everyone's paying the same for the "Craiginator", NOTHING. It's still unclear as to what power the "Craiginator" will have, look like, how far in developement it is, and when it will it be released. It wouldn't surprise me if the estimated price dropped $50.00 - $100.00 sometime next year to stay competitive. Why not wait for a finished product before upsetting yourself over the price. Now what would be amusing is if GPH releases their new gaming machine before the "Craiginator".

 

[hlidegp2x]

I found some versions of it where the CDROM subsystem is on its own card..... if you remove it, the system behaves very strangely. Audio pitch changes, boot time is extended, some very odd results.... Some Saturn software out there doesn't run from the CDROM, it runs from the cartridge slot, and that theoretically would give it free reign of the system, SH-1 included....

again, you need to prove it : show us that SH-1 is really used for something else on cartridge slot.

Right; I said X2 because it indicates the architecture of my processor.... there are 2.1 GHz K7 and K8 CPUs with different performance attributes. Needless to say though, if a game runs at 30 FPS on a 2.1 GHz X2, it won't run properly on even a 1 GHz Cortex-A8, and actual clockrate of the chipset in the new handheld may vary from 550 to 1000 MHz or higher depending on yield.... so major work will need to be done to speed things up. That might be tricky when the PC version of the emulator is still under heavy development. But it would be interesting to see it work.

Yabause is a PC program. It is not heavily optimized. It is programmed as a desktop application, not as an embedded application, so it would use much more cpu resources than needed because of the lazy way of PC application programming. Besides, yabause is just an interpreter. If you could use a dynarec instead and split a SH2 code into basic blocs (which tend to be small) with a dispatcher acting as a scheduler to allow two SH2 cores running their basic blocs, it would probably be better.

in PSP land, there were two psx emulators "based" on PCSX using an interpreter which were very slow and so unplayable. And then Sony's POPS was released, which is quite fast enough to play PSX games.

I'm not saying a playable saturn emulator is feasable, but to take yabause as a perfect example to determine if saturn emulation is feasable on OMAP3430 is an idioty.

Sure the perfect open source saturn emulator is still to be found... or done :/

 

[efegea]

I think DaveC will like my "bashboarb" :lol: because it's 100% customizable, so he doesn't want any internet-related thing but he wants a big full screen icon grid? Just delete all the widgets and add only the icon grid.

So someone wants as home screen a webbrowser with google as homepage? just set the webbrowser as default startup screen.

So a developer wants something that the menu doesn't have out-the-box? Just code a plugin, in python or c++: not finger-scrolled menus because of apple patents? just code a homebrew one. Homebrew coders doesn't get sued, generally

 

[Squidge]

Amusing, yes, but probably not for the same reason your thinking. Even if they released it by this time next year, it would be underpowered due to stupid design decisions, flawed in critical areas, and probably still not take on board anything thats been said on this board.

Probably

Hmmm, you could say I have little faith in there "next generation" gaming machine It seems "gaming" to them is second to "media player", and they can't even get that right. Remember the promised WMV support?

 

[Alex.]

GPH better keep improving and refining the GP2X design, and drop it's price to ~$120 by this time next year. Then they'll still have something nice to offer, regardless of the more powerful competition

 

[craigix]

I'd quite welcome a mini-GP2X next year, they could make it for around $80, it would be nicer than the JXD and have some very mature software ready to roll.

 

[Squidge]

I'd quite welcome a mini-GP2X next year, they could make it for around $80, it would be nicer than the JXD and have some very mature software ready to roll.

That bit is true, I'd like a mini2x.

 

[javaJake]

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.

...not if I have anything to say about it. If I love it, you can bet I'll be talking about it to the people who'd be interested. The fact that it outshines (or will, whatever) the PSP is a fact that'll get some attention by itself, never-mind the fact that it has near-PC capabilities.



As for the EEE vs. Craiginator, I think the Craiginator is better for those of us who don't want to lug a laptop around under our shoulder, no matter whether it's 8" or 17", and still want to have fun (whether fun involves e-mail or games). I've almost started counting the times I could've whipped out the Craiginator for some task or other. Really, IMO the Craiginator is about power intermingled with pocket-like mobility.

i really don't see how eee pc would be good for games, since it's a laptop. and a crappy one, at that.

Exactly my thoughts. Either you have a really terribly low-end super-mobile laptop, or you have a super-clunky handheld device. I think the only reason the EEE PC can sell is because it's being presented by a rather major company.


Edit: Woo, I came in real late. You guys have already finished this debate. My apologies.

 

[craigix]

I'm liking the EEE PC mainly because we can nick its software and if we want to its interface

 

[Tobriand]

I'd quite welcome a mini-GP2X next year, they could make it for around $80, it would be nicer than the JXD and have some very mature software ready to roll.

Well, I've got friends who I know would buy it if it did come out...

Somehow I don't see GPH doing that though...

 

[efegea]

I'm liking the EEE PC mainly because we can nick its software and if we want to its interface

Did you receive my email at your hotmail account? When I sent it to you by KMail I got back an email saying that hotmail rejected my mail because it was considered spam :blink: Then I sent you the same email but using the webmail interface and got it sent two times by error and haven't got any email returned by hotmail, but don't know if you have received it or not :huh:

 

[Alex.]

I'd quite welcome a mini-GP2X next year, they could make it for around $80, it would be nicer than the JXD and have some very mature software ready to roll.

Well, I've got friends who I know would buy it if it did come out...

Somehow I don't see GPH doing that though...

Well that 'supposed' F800 with its tiny screen would fit the description quite well wouldn't it?

(unless of course they keep the current case and add thick plastic borders around the tiny screen, like on the EEE PC

 

[Tobriand]

It's the $80 price point plus current 2x software that they'd go for, not the extra speed. Something tells me that the F800 when it turns up (if it turns up) is going to be a touch up on the 2x price point, not down!

 

[OMars]

I think it doesn't allow for enough icons to be displayed and has alot of wasted space. Why do people insist on having most of the screen taken up by a huge screenshot of a game? That is redundant and dumb. It is best to be able to get to apps as quickly as possible without having to waste time with scrolling one by one in some small sequential strip. Some sort of icon matrix like any windows or Gmenu would be much quicker to navigate.

Now...

...are you happy?

All you would have to do is click on the explorer menu at the beginning screen, and depending on how you have your files set up in your SD card, you then click on the "NES ROMS" folder.

 

[Firefox]

I sense improvements to your lovely Jag emulator? :lol:

Ah, well, since the last release I've moved all the emulation code from the second ARM core back into the main one, and it actually went a smidgeon faster without any other changes due to being able to apply the data cache to the emulated Jag's state.

*But* I still need to find some extra processor power to emulate the Jag's RISC processor that does the sound, so I'm thinking that based on what notaz and Squidge have said I could probably put that in the second ARM now. Nice little project for over Christmas.

 

[Firefox]

I'd really like a GP2X shrunk down to JXD-301 size! I really love my GBA Micro (similar size but smaller display) because it's really nice to use but doesn't take up much pocket space, so it's not a big decision to take it with you.

I can't see Gamepark being together enough to produce one, though...

 

[DaveC]

I think it doesn't allow for enough icons to be displayed and has alot of wasted space. Why do people insist on having most of the screen taken up by a huge screenshot of a game? That is redundant and dumb. It is best to be able to get to apps as quickly as possible without having to waste time with scrolling one by one in some small sequential strip. Some sort of icon matrix like any windows or Gmenu would be much quicker to navigate.

Now...

...are you happy?

All you would have to do is click on the explorer menu at the beginning screen, and depending on how you have your files set up in your SD card, you then click on the "NES ROMS" folder.


No that would be very cumbersome. If you have a few hundred NES ROMs and you have to scroll 6 at a time it would take forever to find what you want. I don't see why the icons need to be so huge. Only 3 shortcuts? It would be better if it was completely customisable and simple. The interface should allow you to get to what you want to load as quick and easy as possible without alot of clicking, dragging, and browsing through directories. Like in Gmenu where you just select the app you want and go, no browsing through 5 levels of folders or scrolling through some single file shortcut strip.