Please Please Help Me! :)

[JusSumDude]

Hi guys...um...for a long time, there have been a wide vareity of games made for older consoles that i have missed...and would have given anything to see them make their way to a potable console...such as the DS or PSP...but it never happened...Then my attention shifted to "Emulators"...the idea interested me...i saw that indeed...those games i love did in fact run on the portable consoles...but with some issues...some being that...i am not a technological genuis (but i would be willing to learn how to use them if someone would teach me), and there are other issues such as pathetic amounts of lag..."i dont know how the process works, but i want to"...browsing the web for alternatives, i saw the Pandora portable gaming console...and read all i could on it...but i still do not understand...i would really really really appreaciate it if someone could help me out with these following questions, or other related tid-bits.
1. How does the Pandora play its games? (through actual cartridges you program, or Emulators?)
2. If the Pandora uses Emulators, could someone (via private message) teach me how to use/install/and make them work?
3. How efficiently will the Pandora be able to play its games? (The two games that i want the ABSOLUTE most...are Zelda:Ocarina of Time, and Zelda:Majora's Mask...both from the N64...both im assuming to be graphicaly demanding)...will it play these two games smoothly? with no trouble, no lag? Sort of thing...

So yeah...pretty much...how does this thing work and play its games?...Please help me? My money is pretty much 99% ready to be sent to the pre-orders...but im not sure if it will be able to do what i hope it can, nor do i know how to make it do that...PLEASE help me

 

[Squidge]

If you want it purely for N64 games, then I'd wait a bit. The Pandora will not ship with N64 support. Keep an eye on the forums however.

Secondly, the Pandora uses SD cards for storage. You put your games and emulators onto these and insert into the Pandora (or leave the card in the Pandora and copy via Wifi or USB)

 

[bigtruck]

I suggest you have a look at the Pandora FAQ. To answer your questions:

1. The Pandora uses emulators. All apps are stored on SD cards.
2. The Pandora isn't done yet, so no one knows how exactly to install emulators on the Pandora. If you meant in using emulators in general, you download an emulator program that acts as the system you're emulating, and ROM files that act as the games. Note that downloading ROMs is a legal grey area.
3. N64 emulation may or may not be ready at launch. It is currently being worked on by zodttd, a very capable developer. It's not an easy task, though.

 

[cb88]

The pandora probably will ship with playstation 1 support if that interests you.

The SD cards are the same kind used in mp3 players and digital cameras so they are pretty easy to use just like a flash drive if you have an adaptor for your PC

There is a list of emulators that the pandora might have on it read the first post:
http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?showtopic=41897

also the pandora will play videos and music... and also a few desktop like tasks like wordprocessor email chat etc ... after people start packaging the programs for it

BTW we don't know how pandora will install its programs entirely yet either but it should be pretty simple

you probably won't have any trouble using the simple launcher interface but the pandora will also have an advanced interface you can start up it will be more like a regular computer runing the linux operating system

 

[plopperz]

...
but the pandora will also have an advanced interface you can start up it will be more like a regular computer runing the linux operating system

Sez who? :huh:

 

[TaG]

The pandora probably will ship with playstation 1 support

Sez who? :huh:

Seriously, I don't think it has been confirmed exactly what it will ship with. I think I am right in saying that it is likely that you will download any available emulators (to SD) rather than it shiping with any.

It is best to watch the forums and blog to see exactly what is announced to ship.

 

[Svartalf]

The pandora probably will ship with playstation 1 support

Sez who? :huh:

Seriously, I don't think it has been confirmed exactly what it will ship with. I think I am right in saying that it is likely that you will download any available emulators (to SD) rather than it shiping with any.

It is best to watch the forums and blog to see exactly what is announced to ship.

Heh... Well, we DO know that it's likely to ship with Jaguar support of some form- one of the firmware dev team has already demoed a rough-cut on his MK0 dev unit. Hopefully, we will see cleaner ES drivers shortly and find out if we have only 2.0 or if 1.1 support is going to be there. If 1.1 support is going to be there, we should see Soul Ride or Ballistics running on it shortly afterwards...

...
but the pandora will also have an advanced interface you can start up it will be more like a regular computer runing the linux operating system

Sez who? :huh:

Heh.. Why won't it? It's going to be running Linux in the first place. If it's not going to be running a more advanced interface, I may be making one myself...

 

[TaG]

@Svartalf.
Agreed there are many things that will be ready, but I'm not sure it will be 'shipped' with the Pandora and given how the OP had asked the question I think 'will ship with' implies 'open box, charge, run PS1/Jaguar etc emulators'. If any body does know that some of these things will 'ship with' then I'm all ears....

Now we need details of your advanced interface

 

[plopperz]

He was stating it in such a way that somebody had already gone and started a desktop interface (and for all we know someone could've).
That's deceiving, new users are going to take what we say as fact. Just because you want something, doesn't mean you should be going around saying that it's going to be there.

QUOTE

If it's not going to be running a more advanced interface, I may be making one myself...


I'll hold you to it

 

[cb88]

craigx said there will be a simple and an advance interface (it has been the general consensus that this will be X11 therefore running some kind of desktop handheldlike or otherwise)...maybe he mean later on and I misunderstood but that is not the way i took it

PSX support is a given in the repo in the worst case...its pretty obvious that zodttd's raw port is pretty far along if not optimised

by ship with i mean that it will probably be preinstalled or easily available... sheesh guys chill

i watch these forums as much as anybody... and i don't think i was drawing unreasonable conclusions and also i use appropriate qualifiers like "probably" although i concede that you are right about some only being available via download due to legal concerns

and as far as a desktop interface.... we could just snag debian packages of whatever...

 

[plopperz]

craigx said there will be a simple and an advance interface (it has been the general consensus that this will be X11 therefore running some kind of desktop handheldlike or otherwise)...maybe he mean later on and I misunderstood but that is not the way i took it

Link?

by ship with i mean that it will probably be preinstalled or easily available... sheesh guys chill

If they're not going to ship it with Mplayer due to legal concerns, what makes you think they'd ship a PSX emulator? You are right though, I'm sure it will be easily available.
We're not angry. I just wanted to point out your mistake so newcomers don't get the wrong idea.

i watch these forums as much as anybody... and i don't think i was drawing unreasonable conclusions and also i use appropriate qualifiers like "probably"

Fair enough, but you did say "the Pandora will", not "the Pandora possibly will" or "there's a good chance the Pandora will" or something along those lines. You did say "probably" to the PSX emulator, which is why I didn't include that.

and as far as a desktop interface.... we could just snag debian packages of whatever...

Not that I know anything, but I have a feeling that's not the way it works.


After reading everything I just wrote, I realize that all it looks like all I'm doing is criticizing you, which is not my intention at all. I just don't want a bunch more people running around on other forums spreading false information (that they think is true).

EDITunctuation

 

[jmetal88]

craigx said there will be a simple and an advance interface (it has been the general consensus that this will be X11 therefore running some kind of desktop handheldlike or otherwise)...maybe he mean later on and I misunderstood but that is not the way i took it

Link?

I do still plan to port across my previous simple launcher which was written with the older SOC in mind, I guess we will have a simple and advanced mode like the EEE.

We would like to have all the functionality (or better) of the EEE by Christmas, but of course all the games etc. will come first.

 

[Tom`]

If they're not going to ship it with Mplayer due to legal concerns, what makes you think they'd ship a PSX emulator?

I think the problems with mplayer are the patented formats it plays - there are (as far as I know) no patent issues here. On the other hand, Sony has shown itself to be ready to sue small companies out of existence even when they don't have a legal leg to stand on - Lik-Sang, for example - so it may be unwise anyway...on the other hand, there are emulators which should be fully legal - and ScummVM has some freely available games, so it probably wouldn't be a problem to ship with those.

Of course, that would take up unnecessary space on the NAND, so it would probably be best to have the system free of everything but the most essential software, the OS and menu-program, and perhaps include a CD with any extra software to install to the SD card...

 

[Tinnus]

Shipping stuff with non-system-basic software nowadays is kind of bad since things are always having new versions released and stuff, IMO at least. better to just have a link to the file archive/wiki/etc.

 

[Tensuke]

Yeah. I'd just want the basic os on it, and I could add things like emulators/mplayer/other apps later from some one-click repo or something.

 

[God Ginrai]

I think the problems with mplayer are the patented formats it plays - there are (as far as I know) no patent issues here.

Whereas a PSX emu plays copyrighted games. It's the same problem, you're just not looking at it at the right angle.

-God Ginrai

 

[Tom`]

I think the problems with mplayer are the patented formats it plays - there are (as far as I know) no patent issues here.

Whereas a PSX emu plays copyrighted games. It's the same problem, you're just not looking at it at the right angle.

-God Ginrai

Ah, but mplayer actually contains code that violates the patents (possibly, depending on the legal status of your government). An emulator is just a tool, you can run code written for the PSX, but the emulator doesn't care who owns the copyright...they aren't not shipping mplayer because you could use it to watch illegally torrented movies, which would be an equivalent situation.

 

[God Ginrai]

I think the problems with mplayer are the patented formats it plays - there are (as far as I know) no patent issues here.

Whereas a PSX emu plays copyrighted games. It's the same problem, you're just not looking at it at the right angle.

-God Ginrai

Ah, but mplayer actually contains code that violates the patents (possibly, depending on the legal status of your government). An emulator is just a tool, you can run code written for the PSX, but the emulator doesn't care who owns the copyright...they aren't not shipping mplayer because you could use it to watch illegally torrented movies, which would be an equivalent situation.


Sorry, I made a mistake by mentioning games. The system's BIOS, however (which yes I know that most emus don't give you the BIOS) would be a violation. And if Craigix and Co. were to ship a PSX emu without a BIOS (to be safe) they would be flooded with topics saying "Why won't XX PSX game run?"

-God Ginrai

 

[Tinnus]

Of course no one would ship an emulator with the BIOS, "not even" the authors, let alone a company.

 

[Tom`]

Sorry, I made a mistake by mentioning games. The system's BIOS, however (which yes I know that most emus don't give you the BIOS) would be a violation. And if Craigix and Co. were to ship a PSX emu without a BIOS (to be safe) they would be flooded with topics saying "Why won't XX PSX game run?"

-God Ginrai


Ah, that makes sense...I never owned any playstation system, though I have a couple games I got at a discount when I bought some other stuff at a gamestop or something. I've never actually used a PSX emulator...seems funny now when I see all the psx hype, but I'll mostly be using the Pandora for emulating, NES, SNES, N64 (hopefully), SMS and Genesis, and GB/GBA...I don't think there are any other emulatable consoles I've even owned. (not including non-game stuff like Dosbox, or non-emulated stuff).