Software And Gp2x

[jcdick1]

Hello!

I recently received the GP2X as a gift, and I am really excited to get going on it. Having read through various forums and such, I realize that this is going to be quite useful to me.

The problem I am having is that I am not finding much in the way of documentation for various applications and such. I am coming to understand that many of the emu's and such require specific directory structures on the SD card to work, but not much is said about it. Do the applications require specific directory structures? Do they go on the NAND instead of sitting on SD? Also, is there specific directory structure required for the MP2X media player? Or does it get stuck on the NAND somewhere, too? I extracted the MP2X directory straight from the ZIP onto the SD card. It seems to run, but if I run a video file from the root of the SD card, the GP2X seems to lock up on the "Loading..." screen.

There just doesn't seem to be much out there for inexperienced dummies like me...

Any help is appreciated...

Thanks!

 

[yodaofborg]

Hi!

Although I'm not as experienced as some others on the forum, I thought I would still try to answer some of your questions.

The different emulators have different options when it comes to roms. I use both Megadrive emulators, and keep all my roms in /Roms/MD, both applications are happy running them from this location. Some emulators require that roms either be in the same directory or in a sub folder in the emulators directory called roms, this is usually stated in the Readme files that come with most emu's. If a program you are trying to use does not include any info at all (All the emulators I tried so far have come with instructions) then try the GP2X Wiki @ http://wiki.gp2x.org/wiki/ or use the search feature of the forums, theres usually an answer somewhere

As for movies, no, they do not need to go onto your NAND, nothing does, infact, some say it is better to not use the NAND at all. I play my videos from a folder called Vids, but AFAIK, they can be placed anywhere, from the sound of things the movie you are trying to play is not compatible, or is encoded badly. DIVX 5 and XVID are yor best bet for compatibility, if you have no idea how to convert video for your GP2X, there are a few guides avalabe, like this one --> http://wiki.gp2x.org/wiki/Video_Encoding

Hope this helps

 

[jcdick1]

Hi!

Although I'm not as experienced as some others on the forum, I thought I would still try to answer some of your questions.

The different emulators have different options when it comes to roms. I use both Megadrive emulators, and keep all my roms in /Roms/MD, both applications are happy running them from this location. Some emulators require that roms either be in the same directory or in a sub folder in the emulators directory called roms, this is usually stated in the Readme files that come with most emu's. If a program you are trying to use does not include any info at all (All the emulators I tried so far have come with instructions) then try the GP2X Wiki @ http://wiki.gp2x.org/wiki/ or use the search feature of the forums, theres usually an answer somewhere

As for movies, no, they do not need to go onto your NAND, nothing does, infact, some say it is better to not use the NAND at all. I play my videos from a folder called Vids, but AFAIK, they can be placed anywhere, from the sound of things the movie you are trying to play is not compatible, or is encoded badly. DIVX 5 and XVID are yor best bet for compatibility, if you have no idea how to convert video for your GP2X, there are a few guides avalabe, like this one --> http://wiki.gp2x.org/wiki/Video_Encoding

Hope this helps

I managed to get my nes and snes emulators working. I still have issues with the video, though. From everything that I had read previously, there shouldn't be an issue with my current encodings. I use Xvid for my transcoding already. But I was told that resolution shouldn't be an issue, because the GP2X is able to adjust resolution on the fly.

Here is what I am doing:

I activated the USB networking and copied the MP2X folder to the SD card in the GP2X. I created a directory in the root of the SD called 'Video.' I then copied a fairly small - 90MB - video to that directory.

I navigate to the MP2X folder in the 'Utilities' icon. I move down to MP2X and open it. Then I choose the MP2X file and run it. This turns the screen blue and offers the SD card, NAND, External storage. I select 'SD card' and navigate through to the 'Video' folder and select the name of the video. I then get a "Loading..." screen with the little movie reel graphic.

It stops there. It just sits...

If I need to completely re-encode all my videos - I also watch them via my XBMC - this is going to be an real bummer...

Any help is apprecaited. Thanks!

 

[Megagun]

For most emulators and games, putting them "anywhere you want" should do the trick. The GP2x isn't like the PSP where you have to put everything in a specific folder (thank god!). However, SOME applications *do* require you to put specific data (be it the program itself, or programs it uses) into specific folders. Most applications should speficy that in their readmes though, so if nothing is said inside the readmes, you're safe to assume that you can place anything you want, anywhere onto your SD, while still keeping the applications' own directory structure (Don't take the DATA/MUSIC folder out of a game's main folder, ofcourse. )

Also, why are you using MP2x? I found myself that the standard videoplayer works nicely for DivX and XviD encoded videos. It's faster and seems to be more stable, too! If you're running Firmware version 2.0.0, I recommend updating to 2.1.1, because that one has a way more stable videoplayer that doesn't crash.

 

[jcdick1]

For most emulators and games, putting them "anywhere you want" should do the trick. The GP2x isn't like the PSP where you have to put everything in a specific folder (thank god!). However, SOME applications *do* require you to put specific data (be it the program itself, or programs it uses) into specific folders. Most applications should speficy that in their readmes though, so if nothing is said inside the readmes, you're safe to assume that you can place anything you want, anywhere onto your SD, while still keeping the applications' own directory structure (Don't take the DATA/MUSIC folder out of a game's main folder, ofcourse. )

Also, why are you using MP2x? I found myself that the standard videoplayer works nicely for DivX and XviD encoded videos. It's faster and seems to be more stable, too! If you're running Firmware version 2.0.0, I recommend updating to 2.1.1, because that one has a way more stable videoplayer that doesn't crash.

I am using MP2X because it is supposed to support AAC/AC3 audio, which many of my DVD rips are. However, some of my rips were converted to MP3 audio. Neither format works apparently.

Perhaps I am just being too impatient? Should it take longer than a couple minutes to buffer the video?

[edit]
I read through some more on the Wiki, and battery quality was mentioned. Could it be locking up because I am using basic alkaline batteries at this point? It specifically mentions that loading games or videos might lock it up if NiMH batteries or a AC adapter aren't used...
[/edit]

 

[Vimacs]

Yes, alkaline is a no-go, get decent nimh's

 

[jcdick1]

Yes, alkaline is a no-go, get decent nimh's

I went and purchased an AC/DC adapter for it, and at least now it is finally erroring out saying it is an unsupported file format. But that is really strange. When I look at the file info on the video, it say is it Xvid with MPEG Layer 3 audio. This should play just fine, as I understand it.

 

[yodaofborg]

Have you tried the standard movie player to play the file? I also use AC3 in my DVD rips (for the initial AVI) but after converting to Xvi, they should have MPEG-3 audio. I have no idea as to why your movie will not play, out of interest, what bitrate/resolution are you using?

 

[SeX1eStAsaBa]

For most emulators and games, putting them "anywhere you want" should do the trick. The GP2x isn't like the PSP where you have to put everything in a specific folder (thank god!). However, SOME applications *do* require you to put specific data (be it the program itself, or programs it uses) into specific folders. Most applications should speficy that in their readmes though, so if nothing is said inside the readmes, you're safe to assume that you can place anything you want, anywhere onto your SD, while still keeping the applications' own directory structure (Don't take the DATA/MUSIC folder out of a game's main folder, ofcourse. )

Also, why are you using MP2x? I found myself that the standard videoplayer works nicely for DivX and XviD encoded videos. It's faster and seems to be more stable, too! If you're running Firmware version 2.0.0, I recommend updating to 2.1.1, because that one has a way more stable videoplayer that doesn't crash.

I honestly liked the 2.0.0 videoplayer better than the 2.1.1 cause 2.1.1 crashed a lot of times on me. Is it me or does 2.1.1 doesn't like to fast forward? With 2.0.0 I could fast forward with any movies without any kind of problems.