Pandora Emulators Vs. Gp2X/wiz Emulators?

[Azure]

So, I never got into the GP2X/Wiz scene, and I never got around to checking out *all* the emulators for the Pandora. However, I do know that a lot of the emulators for the Pandora are still rough around the edges (compatibility, maybe lacking optimizations, not as many menu options, etc.) since it has not matured yet. The release of GINGE was really exciting, but it also opened up so many different options for emulators that I don't know where to begin (I wish I had all the free time in the world to try them all and find out what's best, but unfortunately I don't have that kind of time these days ).

So I was just wondering if somebody could save me (and hopefully others as well) lots of time by telling me which platforms I should emulate through GINGE (and specifically which GP2X or Wiz emulator to use) and which ones I should emulate using Pandora-native emulators? Platforms I'm interested in particular:

NES
GB/GBC/GBA
SNES
GENESIS/MEGADRIVE
Amiga
MAME

Much thanks in advance

 

[MiniSinisterMinister]

This is exactly the question my blog tries to answer.

 

[Chaser]

Nice blog list. Thats pretty handy for the relevant keys aswell, as the in built documentation is slow to access via Arora at present.

 

[Prometheus]

Just speaking of my own personal experience, here;

NES

The GP2X version of GPFCE via GINGE. No more needs to be said.

GB/GBC/GBA

I've had no luck with Gpsp via GINGE (there's a PND which wraps the two together), and didn't find the native VBA to work too well, so I can't comment on GBA. GB (and I'm guessing GBC, too, but off the top of my head I'm not sure) is supported by Gnuboy natively, but I had to stop using it because the controls don't seem to be remappable, and the defaults hurt my hands a lot.

SNES

I'm still using an older build of Snes9x4D4P, myself, which works excellently. So, native here. PocketSNES also runs well, but seems to have less accurate audio, so I don't tend to use that one.

GENESIS/MEGADRIVE

Native PicoDrive. It's superb.

Amiga

Native UAE4All, definitely.

MAME

Native again. I think it's worth having both MAME4All and MAME 0.106 here, because both run well (although MAME 0.106 needs a bit of overclocking for some games), and complement each other nicely. MAME4All deals with everything up to CPS1 titles for me, and MAME 0.106 deals with the CPS2 stuff that I own (which isn't much :lol: ).

I hope my views are in some way useful to you.

 

[pder]

The GP2X version of GPFCE via GINGE. No more needs to be said.

I have to ask why is this preferable to a native build of gpfce for Pandora?

 

[Prometheus]

I keep getting asked this. :lol:

The reason is because the native build of GPFCE forces a 2xSaI-style filter (I'm not a fan of blobby-looking filters, myself ), and, when I tried it, it seemed to output no audio except crackling sounds, and seemed to crawl at a really rather slow speed. Also, its menus didn't seem to be as nice as those of the GP2X version.

 

[MooTheKow]

​

I keep getting asked this. :lol:

The reason is because the native build of GPFCE forces a 2xSaI-style filter (I'm not a fan of blobby-looking filters, myself ), and, when I tried it, it seemed to output no audio except crackling sounds, and seemed to crawl at a really rather slow speed. Also, its menus didn't seem to be as nice as those of the GP2X version.

Doesn't it have horrible tearing issues too?

I agree --- the GP2X version is far superior -- not even close.

 

[DaveC]

I would use Ginge for NES (much better than the crap Pandora port) and even MAME4all in some cases. MAME4all Pandora can have annoying popping/crackling sound in some games and the MAME4All version for Wiz doesn't. Also I would use Ginge for PC-Engine as there is no native Pandora version that supports CDs. Also there is a reason to use PicoDrive through Ginge as Japanese games don't work on the native Pandora version.

The downside of using Ginge is that the blur filter can't be shut off and it makes everything look fuzzy. You can shut it of in scripts and other linuxy ways but it is not too straightforward for linux noobz like me.

 

[Prometheus]

The downside of using Ginge is that the blur filter can't be shut off and it makes everything look fuzzy. You can shut it of in scripts and other linuxy ways but it is not too straightforward for linux noobz like me.

It's very straightforward, Dave. Paste or type this into a terminal;

sudo /usr/pandora/scripts/op_videofir.sh none

And then press enter.

The next time you want to do it (since it isn't a setting that gets saved yet), open a terminal, press up on the d-pad as many times as is necessary to display it again (if it was the last thing you used a terminal for, which I'll guess will be the case here, you will only need to press it once), and hit enter.

Don't cripple your abilities by convincing yourself that pasting in a bit of text and hitting enter is "too hard" or "too Linuxy".

 

[Reyhn]

SNES

I'm still using an older build of Snes9x4D4P, myself, which works excellently. So, native here. PocketSNES also runs well, but seems to have less accurate audio, so I don't tend to use that one.

But Secret of Mana, fo example, doesn't run well at all on snes9x4d4p, although it's fine on pandora build of pocketsnes.

 

[Prometheus]

^ Well worth noting. I have no interest in RPGs, so I didn't know that.

What do you mean by "doesn't run well", though? I should probably mention that for a couple of games - for example, Kirby Super Deluxe, which used extra hardware on the cartridge - I need to overclock a bit, but other than that I don't.

 

[Reyhn]

Ah, i mean that the display is totally fucked up.
I'd have difficulties to explain it precisely so the best solution is to test it

 

[DaveC]

The downside of using Ginge is that the blur filter can't be shut off and it makes everything look fuzzy. You can shut it of in scripts and other linuxy ways but it is not too straightforward for linux noobz like me.

It's very straightforward, Dave. Paste or type this into a terminal;

sudo /usr/pandora/scripts/op_videofir.sh none

And then press enter.

The next time you want to do it (since it isn't a setting that gets saved yet), open a terminal, press up on the d-pad as many times as is necessary to display it again (if it was the last thing you used a terminal for, which I'll guess will be the case here, you will only need to press it once), and hit enter.

Don't cripple your abilities by convincing yourself that pasting in a bit of text and hitting enter is "too hard" or "too Linuxy".

That is a royal pain in the ass though.

So I want to play something through Ginge. So I need to exit minimenu, fumble with the stylus or struggle with the spastic nubs, load XFCE, poke around through the menus, load a terminal, type that crap or press up or whatever, then navigate the clumsy XFCE find the emu then load it, then load the ROM and after 10 minutes of screwing around I can finally play something. No thanks, not worth it, too many steps as compared to just tapping the d-pad a couple of times to the icon and running the emu. There needs to be a better way.

 

[Prometheus]

I'm sure there will be a better way - indeed, I seem to recall that ED has mentioned having this configurable in Hotfix 5, if I'm not mistaken.

That said, personally I think that opening a program, pasting a piece of text, and pressing enter is by no means too difficult for now (and it's certainly better than blur, for my eyes :lol: ). Is it really not possible to access a terminal from Minimenu?

 

[Exophase]

That is a royal pain in the ass though.

So I want to play something through Ginge. So I need to exit minimenu, fumble with the stylus or struggle with the spastic nubs, load XFCE, poke around through the menus, load a terminal, type that crap or press up or whatever, then navigate the clumsy XFCE find the emu then load it, then load the ROM and after 10 minutes of screwing around I can finally play something. No thanks, not worth it, too many steps as compared to just tapping the d-pad a couple of times to the icon and running the emu. There needs to be a better way.

See, even DaveC admits the nubs suck.

Of course there's a better way, wrap ginge in a script that does this. Could someone spend the 5 seconds necessary to do this for DaveC so he'll shut up about it? ;p I'd do it, except I.. um.. well..

Okay, I'll check back here tomorrow and if no one has done it for him I guess I'll do it.

 

[WizardStan]

So I want to play something through Ginge. So I need to exit minimenu, fumble with the stylus or struggle with the spastic nubs, load XFCE, poke around through the menus, load a terminal, type that crap or press up or whatever, then navigate the clumsy XFCE find the emu then load it, then load the ROM and after 10 minutes of screwing around I can finally play something. No thanks, not worth it, too many steps as compared to just tapping the d-pad a couple of times to the icon and running the emu. There needs to be a better way.

Press <select>, choose "Run a terminal/console", type that command.
You can also put that command into a shell script in the /usr/bin directory named something easy and short so you don't have to type out such a long command every time.

edit: here you go
Dump that in the /appdata/ginge directory. It'll replace the default execution script. This one removes the filter before starting the gp2x menu and then restores it to default when it's done. Can be called from XFCE or minimenu.

 

[Exophase]

Thanks WizardStan, you're a true friend ;D

 

[EvilDragon]

I'm sure there will be a better way - indeed, I seem to recall that ED has mentioned having this configurable in Hotfix 5, if I'm not mistaken.

Yeah, it's already in the GIT, just didn't have much time lately to work on more things for HF5 yet.

However, no need to start XFCE4 to open a terminal, since you can press SELECT and choose "Terminal" in Minimenu

 

[DaveC]

I'm sure there will be a better way - indeed, I seem to recall that ED has mentioned having this configurable in Hotfix 5, if I'm not mistaken.

Yeah but that will be a global setting. There may be some things that you want the filter turned on for such as something fractionally scaled like a SNES emu that corrects the 256 px horizontal aspect. Per app is the best option.

Of course there's a better way, wrap ginge in a script that does this. Could someone spend the 5 seconds necessary to do this for DaveC so he'll shut up about it? ;p I'd do it, except I.. um.. well..

Such sarcasm.. It may take 5 seconds if *you know what to do* but I don't. If I knew how to do it I would have done it.

 

[WizardStan]

Such sarcasm.. It may take 5 seconds if *you know what to do* but I don't. If I knew how to do it I would have done it.

Community support. If you don't know how to do something, ask and there will surely be someone willing to help