Some Questions!

[kuehnau]

Hi, I am totally new here, and I have some questions. See, by the end of March I will be moving down to Texas, to live with my girlfriend. The ride on the bus is going to be almost 3 days log! Anyways, I needed to get something to entertain me while I was on the bus.

I thought about buying another Nintendo DS or Sony PSP. But they are expensive and then I have to buy a game them too. I already had both and was unimpressed. I remembered that the PSP had some really rocking home brew going for it, but after looking around online, it is a real pain in the butt to even get it started!

Then I remembered the GP2X, from a while back, I always wanted to try, but never got around to it, at the time it was like $300 and I refused to pay that much money for one. I started looking around today and found out, not only has the price dropped, but they have a new model of the system that looks much better!

After a little bit of searching around online, I decided to go for it, I bought a GP2X F-200 from the GP2XStore. I bought one with a 512MB SD card. And I have a few questions to ask about it, please, if you can answer them, do so!

1. I read that the GP2X likes to eat batteries like no one's business! But apparently some people have reported about 3-4 hours of up time with some kinds of batteries. Does anyone have any suggestions on the kinds of batteries to buy? Ones I could buy from Walmart would be awesome.

2. I read that there is some slight incompatibility with some of the home brew for the new F-200 series. How incompatible is it and what software is effected by it the most?

3. I don't have a media card reader! Will I be able to access, format or alter the SD card from the GP2X plugged into a USB port of my PC? If not, that is a badly needed addition to the GP2X series!

4. This isn't a question, but if you have some suggestions for games to play on the road, I'd really like to hear them. Emulation was the biggest seller for me, for the GP2X. How well does EarthBound work on the Snes Emulators?

5. I know this is a silly question, but is the GP2XStore reliable? Or are they going to take several months just to mail my package? I have had bad experiences from ordering online before. It says it is in stock, so I expect to get it by next week.

 

[dabridge]

Answered only what I could.

Hi, I am totally new here, and I have some questions. See, by the end of March I will be moving down to Texas, to live with my girlfriend. The ride on the bus is going to be almost 3 days log! Anyways, I needed to get something to entertain me while I was on the bus.

I thought about buying another Nintendo DS or Sony PSP. But they are expensive and then I have to buy a game them too. I already had both and was unimpressed. I remembered that the PSP had some really rocking home brew going for it, but after looking around online, it is a real pain in the butt to even get it started!

Then I remembered the GP2X, from a while back, I always wanted to try, but never got around to it, at the time it was like $300 and I refused to pay that much money for one. I started looking around today and found out, not only has the price dropped, but they have a new model of the system that looks much better!

After a little bit of searching around online, I decided to go for it, I bought a GP2X F-200 from the GP2XStore. I bought one with a 512MB SD card. And I have a few questions to ask about it, please, if you can answer them, do so!

1. I read that the GP2X likes to eat batteries like no one's business! But apparently some people have reported about 3-4 hours of up time with some kinds of batteries. Does anyone have any suggestions on the kinds of batteries to buy? Ones I could buy from Walmart would be awesome.

2. I read that there is some slight incompatibility with some of the home brew for the new F-200 series. How incompatible is it and what software is effected by it the most?

So far, I haven't ran into a program that doesn't start with the F-200, but I'm not really trying all of the games in the archive.

3. I don't have a media card reader! Will I be able to access, format or alter the SD card from the GP2X plugged into a USB port of my PC? If not, that is a badly needed addition to the GP2X series!

Yes, also, GP2XStore gave me one for free, don't know if they still do that(got mine in Christmas)

4. This isn't a question, but if you have some suggestions for games to play on the road, I'd really like to hear them. Emulation was the biggest seller for me, for the GP2X. How well does EarthBound work on the Snes Emulators?

Mario World hacks are the things that I'm into most atm, but it's really up to you to try them. I'd say the Pokemon series from the Game Boy, Metal Slug from Neo Geo, ect. There are various topics around the forum listing good games to play.

5. I know this is a silly question, but is the GP2XStore reliable? Or are they going to take several months just to mail my package? I have had bad experiences from ordering online before. It says it is in stock, so I expect to get it by next week.

I pre-ordered mine, but as soon as they got the F-200, they mailed it 4 days later. My TV-Out cable took some time though, but it got here. I'd say, sure, they're reliable

 

[yodaofborg]

As far as batteries go, you just need decent Ni-Mh ones, and a decent charger for them. I get 4-5 hours out of a pair of these http://www.7dayshop.com/catalog/product_in...ducts_id=101842 when charged with a fast charger that supports maintenance mode.

 

[imhotep]

Using Battery Test app, my latest result is 4 hours 15 mins out of my 2700 mAh rechargeables and 3 hours 25 mins out of 2100 mAh ones. This is constant intense use. Pretty ok!

The best thing about being on the road with a GP2X is you can quickly swap out to a charged pair when they get flat.

 

[Squidge]

3. I don't have a media card reader! Will I be able to access, format or alter the SD card from the GP2X plugged into a USB port of my PC? If not, that is a badly needed addition to the GP2X series!

The F200 has a card reader built in. How reliable it is however, I don't know. Probably best buy a cheapo card reader from ebay or the likes.

 

[zacaj]

1. Just get some 2800MaH Ni-Mh from WalMart, I did, and mine are still working great

4. Leaving your GP2X at 200MHz in DrPocketSNES with the auto frameskip will work fine for most games(no Mode-7(Mario Kart), etc. Id recomend downloading all the Sonic games and hacks for Picodrive, and themost popular Games for DrPocketSNES and gpSP2X.

 

[Sphinxter]

I ordered payback on an sd card from them and got an empty envelope weeks later, good luck. Any incompatibilities I saw have been fixed, definitely need 2800MaH Ni-Mh's and a charger, 3 days, probably need at least a dozen topped off if there's no place to plug it in on a bus. Got to have an sd card reader since they're rather slow.

 

[kuehnau]

I'd like to thank you guys for your input. I will most likely just buy a pack of throw away batteries for when I am on the road. With GreyHound, we do make stops from times to time, or I have to have a lay over at another station, but I'd rather not have to deal with rechargeables right now.

I just got a e-mail from the online store today though, and they say it has been shipped. I hope to get it by next weekend at the latest. So they seem to work pretty fast when they are in stock.

I found a few places online that sell the classic GP2X (which is what I wanted!), but they are selling them for like $180-$200! So outrageous, so I decided to just buy the newer model. I like the way the D-Pad looks anyways. On a side note, does anyone know if Princess Maker works on DOSBox, and if so, how well?

 

[Yrx]

Just a warning, although everyone else is going to say the thing almost immediately. But standard alkaline batteries don't last long AT ALL. If you charge all your rechargables before you leave, you shouldn't have a problem.

 

[trooper]

And some standard batteries don`t even work at all, Plus, Think of the enviroment. You could go through a pack of 10 cheap standard batteries in the space of using 2-4 good quality high capacity rechargeables, That is if the standard ones have enough nuts to power-on the GP2x.

Trooper

 

[kuehnau]

And some standard batteries don`t even work at all, Plus, Think of the enviroment. You could go through a pack of 10 cheap standard batteries in the space of using 2-4 good quality high capacity rechargeables, That is if the standard ones have enough nuts to power-on the GP2x.

Trooper

First off, I'd like to say, I love Rainbow Island, best game ever! OK now back on topic. I don't really care about the environment. I don't recycle, I throw everything away, even stuff I am not supposed to, and I leave all the lights on in my house all the time. So that is a pretty crappy reason for me. But the time usesage thing, that is a better reason for me, so I might end up buying them to extend game time. :rolleyes:

 

[quadomatic]

Hi, I am totally new here, and I have some questions. See, by the end of March I will be moving down to Texas, to live with my girlfriend. The ride on the bus is going to be almost 3 days log! Anyways, I needed to get something to entertain me while I was on the bus.

I thought about buying another Nintendo DS or Sony PSP. But they are expensive and then I have to buy a game them too. I already had both and was unimpressed. I remembered that the PSP had some really rocking home brew going for it, but after looking around online, it is a real pain in the butt to even get it started!

Then I remembered the GP2X, from a while back, I always wanted to try, but never got around to it, at the time it was like $300 and I refused to pay that much money for one. I started looking around today and found out, not only has the price dropped, but they have a new model of the system that looks much better!

After a little bit of searching around online, I decided to go for it, I bought a GP2X F-200 from the GP2XStore. I bought one with a 512MB SD card. And I have a few questions to ask about it, please, if you can answer them, do so!

1. I read that the GP2X likes to eat batteries like no one's business! But apparently some people have reported about 3-4 hours of up time with some kinds of batteries. Does anyone have any suggestions on the kinds of batteries to buy? Ones I could buy from Walmart would be awesome.

2. I read that there is some slight incompatibility with some of the home brew for the new F-200 series. How incompatible is it and what software is effected by it the most?

3. I don't have a media card reader! Will I be able to access, format or alter the SD card from the GP2X plugged into a USB port of my PC? If not, that is a badly needed addition to the GP2X series!

4. This isn't a question, but if you have some suggestions for games to play on the road, I'd really like to hear them. Emulation was the biggest seller for me, for the GP2X. How well does EarthBound work on the Snes Emulators?

5. I know this is a silly question, but is the GP2XStore reliable? Or are they going to take several months just to mail my package? I have had bad experiences from ordering online before. It says it is in stock, so I expect to get it by next week.

1. Go buy a pack of Duracell NiMH 2650mAh Rechargeable batteries and a charger. You can get pretty good battery life (over 4 hours) with those. Also, there's 4 in a pack, so you have 2 sets of batteries for your GP2X.

3. From my experience with my GP2X F-100, you will need a card reader. The SD port on the GP2X doesn't work for transferring files over USB on the GP2X; if it does work, its very unreliable. Card readers are pretty cheap, and they're a good investment for general use with so many devices.

4. I suggest the following emulators: CPS2emu, MAME, GnGeo, Temper, PocketSnes, PSX4GP2X, GPFCE. Some good homebrew games are Cave Story, Duke2x, Quake2x, Doom, and Ruckman. Earthbound runs fullspeed on PocketSnes with cpu at 260.

5. I'm not sure of GP2X Store. I would've suggested Play-Asia.com. Shipping from them takes a while, but you'll get your stuff. Also, the F-200 is cheaper at Play-Asia than at GP2X Store.