State Of The Gp2x?

[geniv]

I first heard about the GP2X around november of 2005 and after seeing the launrch and reading the problems I decided to stay away from it for a while and see if it will improve over time.

and of course waiting for the emulators to come out for it and improve.


I stayed out for a few months and now it's about half a year after release.

Are the issues with the unit gone? my main concerns are.
- how is the battery life now?
- are the issue with the scanlines in the screen gone?
- how is stable is the unit now? I hear alot about crashing problems and it being picky with SD card brands.
- fast bootup time


What about the emulators? (that's what I really care to use the unit for)
Are there near perfect emulator for these systems now?
- Gameboy/color
- NES
- Genesis
- TG16
- SNES?

and dare I say GameBoy Advance?

 

[iignotus]

- how is the battery life now?
- are the issue with the scanlines in the screen gone?
- how is stable is the unit now? I hear alot about crashing problems and it being picky with SD card brands.
- fast bootup time

- Slightly better, most report around 6 hours instead of 5 with very good batteries.
- On some units they are.
- It's still a little picky with some kinds of cards, but it is better and will get better; the stability is way better, it never crashes on bootup with fw 1.4_tob or 2.0 (not for me at least).
- Yes. Less than 14 seconds.

- Gameboy/color
- NES
- Genesis
- TG16
- SNES?

- Yes, fullspeed, full compatibility (GnuBoy2x).
- Yes, near full speed, near full compatibiliy (fishyNES).
- Yes, near fullspeed, full compatibility (DrMDx).
- Yes, more than half speed, full compatibility (GP2XEngine).
- Close, almost half speed when overclocked, good compatibility (Reesy/SquidgeSNES).

And GBA is, currently, almost nonexistant on the gp2x. The VBA port runs at about 4fps with sound.

As always, more information is at the wiki: http://wiki.gp2x.org/

 

[geniv]

from reading some post it seems like a newer updated gp2x with slightly better screen just came out.

and what about the the D pad? still the same issues?

ohh well I'll wait longer till all those emus I wanted gets full speed without the need for OCing. and an impoved dpad.

 

[Azure]

- Close, almost half speed when overclocked, good compatibility (Reesy/SquidgeSNES).

SNES is the main reason why I'd get a GP2X (The main reason why I got a GP32), but what's keeping me back is that it isn't full speed (Though everybody seems to boast a lot about it and make it sound better than it actually is). I'm not sure how an emulator running at almost half speed, while overclocked, can be considered near perfect. So, based on this, I'd think that SNES emulation would be abysmal. However, I saw a video of SMW running at full speed with sound in Craig's review of the MKII. I've also read that the compatibility is not so great, yet some say that it is "good." So, could somebody please make some videos showing key games running with sound and OC'd only to the base 240mhz? I'd really wish that the exact speed of SquidgeSNES could be sorted out with objective videos, possibly of the following games:

Super Mario World
Zelda III: Link to the Past
MegaMan X
Super Mario RPG
Chrono Trigger
Final Fantasy VI
Super Metroid
Secret of Mana

I'd imagine that it wouldn't be too difficult to make videos of a few of the above games running on the GP2X, and then upload them to one of the numerous free storage websites (Yousendit, rapidshare, putfile, etx.).

 

[iignotus]

SNES is the main reason why I'd get a GP2X (The main reason why I got a GP32), but what's keeping me back is that it isn't full speed (Though everybody seems to boast a lot about it and make it sound better than it actually is). I'm not sure how an emulator running at almost half speed, while overclocked, can be considered near perfect. So, based on this, I'd think that SNES emulation would be abysmal.

It depends on the rom. And no matter what the case, it's not abysmal.

However, I saw a video of SMW running at full speed with sound in Craig's review of the MKII. I've also read that the compatibility is not so great, yet some say that it is "good." So, could somebody please make some videos showing key games running with sound and OC'd only to the base 240mhz? I'd really wish that the exact speed of SquidgeSNES could be sorted out with objective videos, possibly of the following games:

No need for videos; they're never any good anyways. I'll just give you the framerate average I get (240mhz, with sound. I also stretch the screen, thought it doesn't make a difference really.):

Super Mario World

Didn't load??? :blink: oops EDIT: Bad rom, I guess (works on my computer). However, I tried a rom called "Super Mario Wold (New Levels)" and it ran an average of 19fps. Very playable.

Zelda III: Link to the Past

20fps

MegaMan X

17fps

Super Mario RPG

Doesn't load (Mode7?)

Chrono Trigger

16fps

Final Fantasy VI

12fps

Super Metroid

20fps

Secret of Mana

15fps

 

[Drak]

why are your fps so low? Mine are like 30fps.. Squidgesnes runs too fast at 266mhz with fs1 on [40ish frames]. I have to put it at around 230 to get it to run smoothly[35ish frames].

Thats with mario all stars.

 

[craigix]

There is a video of mario running on my review.

Mario runs really fast, like 45fps with sound.

 

[geniv]

umm... I don't consider 19fps "very playable"

but I gues that's a subjective view.

to me 30fps is bare minimum to be consider playable

 

[iignotus]

why are your fps so low? Mine are like 30fps.. Squidgesnes runs too fast at 266mhz with fs1 on [40ish frames]. I have to put it at around 230 to get it to run smoothly[35ish frames].

Thats with mario all stars.

Hmm, I'm glad you mentioned that. Generally in emulators, the frameskip option is an "up to this many" kind of option, and I take that for granted. I had it on frameskip 2, which I thought would allow it to decimate down by two if needed. Guess not... :lol:

Thanks for (indirectly) pointing that out, now I get an average of 58fps :lol: But how in any way is 40fps too fast?

umm... I don't consider 19fps "very playable"

but I gues that's a subjective view.

to me 30fps is bare minimum to be consider playable

Very playable means I can play the game with nearly the same outcome as if it ran fullspeed. And I can.

 

[Drak]

why are your fps so low? Mine are like 30fps.. Squidgesnes runs too fast at 266mhz with fs1 on [40ish frames]. I have to put it at around 230 to get it to run smoothly[35ish frames].

Thats with mario all stars.

Hmm, I'm glad you mentioned that. Generally in emulators, the frameskip option is an "up to this many" kind of option, and I take that for granted. I had it on frameskip 2, which I thought would allow it to decimate down by two if needed. Guess not... :lol:

Thanks for (indirectly) pointing that out, now I get an average of 58fps :lol: But how in any way is 40fps too fast?

umm... I don't consider 19fps "very playable"

but I gues that's a subjective view.

to me 30fps is bare minimum to be consider playable

Very playable means I can play the game with nearly the same outcome as if it ran fullspeed. And I can.

Why would you ever use frameskip 2 anyway? It makes the game all choppy. Fs1 doesnt do much at alll

Try it with frameskip 0 on. Youll get like 50something frames. But its too 'slow' to enjoy playing.

Oh... and I find almost every game I tried to be fully enjoyable.. Howeversome games have slowdowns, like when text appears on terranigma it slws down immensly

 

[Azure]

So, what are the FPS's for the games when you lower the FS to 1? So, how many games are running at actual full speed with those FPSs listed (If a game runs at 30fps at FS1, then that'd mean it's running at full speed, right? So, FS2 full speed should be 20 fps and the games that ran at full speed were SMW, Super Metroid, and LTTP?)?

I suggested videos because they are good and give an accurate portrayal of how fast games will run (Numbers and FPS rates can only help so much). Craig's video was excellent and provided a very good sample of the speed of the emulators available (If you are unable to get a shot as good as Craig's, then you could always use TV-Out).

 

[iignotus]

Why would you ever use frameskip 2 anyway? It makes the game all choppy.

I chalked the choppiness up to the inherent slowness of the emulator (which, apparently, isn't nearly as bad as I thought ). It was choppy, but the timing was fullspeed. With fs0, is extremely fluid, but slow. Ya dig? I think I'm going with fs1.

 

[Drak]

Yes.. any emu with fs1 and 30fps is very playable. It seems fullspeed. Unless, of course you run into a large number of sprites on the screen, then it usually drops under 30 and you will notice a drop in speed

Luckily in mario there isnt that many parts where 5 or more monsters are in the screen ^^

I wonder if someone will ever work with the snes like Zodttd and his group are working with on the PSX emu. I mean all this talk about Dynamic Recomiler and stuff. Soon enough the psx emu will prob be faster than the snes eh? Sounds exciting!


But seriously.. you should get a gp2x for the hell of it, if you dont like it then just sell it back for a slightly cheaper price than you bought it for.

 

[Azure]

What about the MAME emu? I was under the impression that it was only fullspeed w/sound on the older titles and less graphically intense titles like 1942/1943. However, I saw MegaMan: The Power Battle running perfectly and that's a pretty graphically intense game. Does this mean that more "modern" arcade titles like Super Puzzle Fighter II, Cotton 2/Boomerang, Simpsons, NBA JAM, Raiden II, and Strikers 1945/Part II also run full speed with sound?

Also, did you use any OC'ing in your video, Craig?

 

[jdwrrzmm]

Quick Review

(Perfect means nearly all games are playable at a good frame rate)

Gameboy- Perfect
Genesis- Perfect
Nes- Perfect (I heard there are some speed issues with fishynes i didn't notice any though)

Snes- At default and without sound many games are more then playable.

I haven't done any overclocking or extensive testing with the Snes but I'm sure most games will run fine. Megaman X and Metal Warriors run fine for me at a decent frame rate.

 

[craigix]

Azure - Mame is now awesome, you need to try it man. Where have you been? All hell has been optimised out of it.

 

[Azure]

Wow, I didn't realize that it was that good. I was without a computer for over the last month or so and I didn't really pay too much attention to the MAME emu anyways since I didn't think it had that much of a future outside of old, classic and "primitive" titles (I began to ignore MAME updates and what not because I wasn't interested in playing those older kinds of games when I could just play ports/re-makes on NES, PCE, etc.). Boy was I wrong!

 

[slypie]

Just one question, is the GP2X capable of getting a full speed SNES emulator with sound or is that just a pipedream?

 

[Minkoff]

It depends on your idea of fullspeed. With many games, I can clock to 260MHz and get Mario at 30FPS with FS1 and sound (with frame limiting - without it's too fast). That's good enough for me.

 

[sand_man]

Just one question, is the GP2X capable of getting a full speed SNES emulator with sound or is that just a pipedream?

I think Reesy has made some progress with the emulator but he jsut hasn't released anything new yet.