Tapwave Zodiac Versus Gp32

[wild_eyed]

i imagine this has been asked before.

in terms of emulators is the tapwave zodiac the main competitor?

is it better?

i have 200 euros to spend and im undecided whether to buy now or wait a few months and maybe something better will come on the market.

im interested in snes emulationa and amiga 500 emulation, anyelse such as gba would be a bonus.

 

[Magellan]

I have both, and to be honest, the GP32 collects dust. The Z has Palm OS so you can do more with it. Both units basically can emulate the same systems, the Z is better for movies and music, and has more games available. The controller on the GP32 is slightly better, but it doesn't have enough buttons for some emu's. The biggest hindrance on the GP32 is the use of SMC's instead of SD cards.

 

[TinKerER]

Each system has its +s & -s. From an emulation standpoint the GP32 is _much_ more developed than the zodiac and more than likely this trend will continue.

The zodiac has the benefit of running the Palm OS, making it compatible with all Palm software. ...But getting down to the basics...its analogue control stick makes gameplay tedious for many (even when properly calibrated).

Since you are interested in snes emulation, I'll give you the hard truth that currently it isn't so hot on the GP32. The GP community is very aware, and one day this setback will be remedied. GBA is slow with no sound.

Anyway, why don't you look into getting yourself a 1.0 firmware psp? Emulation development is progressing very nicely. You'll have the added benefit of quality new commercial releases as well.

 

[Blah]

The enemy is among us <_<

Here is a topic link

 

[ralp99]

last time i checked, genesis emulation on GP32 was better.
from what i can tell, SNES emu on the Z is much better. I honestly doubt we'll ever see Snes emulation ever get any further than it has, at this point (never say never but, ya know)

i know both have mame in active development, but I am not at all sure which version is more advanced/playable (I suspect zodiac.. but who knows? anyone here seen 'em both?)

PCengine, NES, SMS etc are all very very well-represented on the Z. plus you've got great fun stuff like coleco, atari 800, etc. I wish 2600 would go further (is it on Z, again I don't know)

um.. worth noting that the Z is officially being no longer supported by it's company, or so I have heard. so maybe GP32 will eb around longer.

if i werr you I'd hang out a few months and see where the PSP scene goes.. that thing's got some power and the dev's have been wrapping themselves around it fairly quickly, I'd say a year from now it might be something of a powerhouse emulation/HB scene-wise. We will see!!

for my tastes, however, GP32 is pretty damn close enough to perfect. Unless the PSP really turns out to be an absolutely do-everything machine, I might have to kick in and upgrade from FLU to BLU on of these days. Nothing for another year, I am sure, as far as I am concerned anyway.

 

[shinneri]

You have to pay for a lot of the games and apps for the Z (including some of the emulators, I hear). The GP32 on the other hand, is entirely free (except the couple dozen commecial games that exist for it).

Don't know anything about quality of the Z's emulators, so I can't help you there, but f-Day is coming, which will see the release of 12 finished emulators. But as for the SNES, GP might be the wrong place to look.

 

[Blah]

SNES emulation works allright at 166mhz with the simpler games in Osnes 0.2 (sound crackles - bad coding I guess). We have no Amiga emulation at all. But people have been wanting it for so long that maybe, just maybe, someone is working on it. But I would think of emulating Amiga on here as a pointless endevour, most likely it will just be far too slow.

gp32_console Still rules though! B)

 

[DaveC]

i imagine this has been asked before.

in terms of emulators is the tapwave zodiac the main competitor?

is it better?

i have 200 euros to spend and im undecided whether to buy now or wait a few months and maybe something better will come on the market.

im interested in snes emulationa and amiga 500 emulation, anyelse such as gba would be a bonus.

​

None of these are good for the emus that you want (SNES,GBA Amiga) The PSP will be able to do these someday when the FW gets cracked. I wouldn't buy a Zodiac for emulation at this point. The analog controller sucks for emulators and the battery is non-removable so when it dies you will have an expensive paperweight.

This topic has been done ad nauseum, shouldn't it be in "other consoles" ?

 

[GP32BLU166]

PSP 1.50 Firmware Hacked

Update: Straight from ps2nfo.com - its been confirmed that the exploit only works on 1.50 firmware versions. If you’ve upgraded to 1.51 or 1.52 you’re out of luck, for now.

source: psp-dev

Well the time we’ve all been waiting for has finally arrived; well not quite yet - but its been confirmed by various groups that it is indeed real and the “release date” is scheduled for 6/15/2005 (15:00 GTM+1) .

Download the video

From ps2nfo.com:

“We at Team PS2NFO congratulate our Spanish affiliates, and look forward to LOTS of nice “homebrew” releases to follow along with even more UMD dumps! Please post all related feedback on this VERY COOL news in THIS on-going Forum thread. Finally, we’d like to make it known that the legitimacy of this news has already been 100% confirmed by myself via high-ranking scene elders… so no, this is NOT another “fake video” nor publicity stunt- it’s REAL!”

Let’s wait and see what June 15th brings! Stay tuned for updates on this story.
Comments (63)

 

[GP32BLU166]

Buy a US PSP it has the same emulators as GP32 or Zodiac But Better, them those 2
PSP has GBC,NES,SNES,GENESIS,ECT,NEOGEO POCKET, and a bunch of APPS

 

[Blah]

Buy a US PSP it has the same emulators as GP32 or Zodiac But Better, them those 2
PSP has GBC,NES,SNES,GENESIS,ECT,NEOGEO POCKET, and a bunch of APPS

​

GP32Xtreme Board > General > General talk > Tapwave Zodiac Versus Gp32

I'm afraid you're in the wrong territory, bub.
<_<

 

[DaveC]

Buy a US PSP it has the same emulators as GP32 or Zodiac But Better, them those 2
PSP has GBC,NES,SNES,GENESIS,ECT,NEOGEO POCKET, and a bunch of APPS

​

I heard they weren't that good yet on the PSP. They may be in the future but now many don't even have sound yet. I know this will change someday though.

 

[TinKerER]

It's true that this topic is going off focus..this is the GP32 site ya know! But.......

Yea, I was shocked to discover that the psp is already emulating the NEO*GEO CD!

Would be nice to see some smaller cart games emulated in the future. (32MB psp ram limit).

As for the 1.5 firmware hack, that was fast. My 1.0 Jap hasn't even arrived at my door step yet. ...Got a great deal on it anyway.

 

[Vimacs]

snes is bette ron Z, dont know if it haves amiga emu - gp32 dont, forget gba on any of them.


ps: yeah also readed the psp rumur on various sites(ps2nfo wasnt the first btw) and ps2nfo are the biggest idiots on the planet just to make that clear. http://ps2banz.pxn-os.com/

 

[Talyz]

I'd say Zodiac; I have them both. The analog isn't that bad, IMO. It's got a lot coming up.

 

[Fishbong]

um.. worth noting that the Z is officially being no longer supported by it's company, or so I have heard. so maybe GP32 will eb around longer.

​

Bullshit.

Tapwave still supports the Zodiac, they still sign new apps, there are still new (commercial and homebrew) games coming out/in development by developers like Extreme AI.

The signing system is cracked, so developers could still release their apps even IF Tapwave would stop supporting it.

SNES is better (faster, perfect sound even at 11khz, supports transparencies)
Amiga is quite nice (not all apps are supported, since some chips aren´t emulated)
GBA is playable but not really enjoyable
MAME is better and includes emulation of a bunch of small NeoGeo games

 

[Jarska333]

PSP 1.50 Firmware Hacked

Update: Straight from ps2nfo.com - its been confirmed that the exploit only works on 1.50 firmware versions. If you’ve upgraded to 1.51 or 1.52 you’re out of luck, for now.

source: psp-dev

Well the time we’ve all been waiting for has finally arrived; well not quite yet - but its been confirmed by various groups that it is indeed real and the “release date” is scheduled for 6/15/2005 (15:00 GTM+1) .

Download the video

From ps2nfo.com:

“We at Team PS2NFO congratulate our Spanish affiliates, and look forward to LOTS of nice “homebrew” releases to follow along with even more UMD dumps! Please post all related feedback on this VERY COOL news in THIS on-going Forum thread. Finally, we’d like to make it known that the legitimacy of this news has already been 100% confirmed by myself via high-ranking scene elders… so no, this is NOT another “fake video” nor publicity stunt- it’s REAL!”

Let’s wait and see what June 15th brings! Stay tuned for updates on this story.
Comments (63)

​

UMD dumps, eh? Sony will close this "hole" ASAP... As is their right, looking from that angle.

 

[DaveC]

um.. worth noting that the Z is officially being no longer supported by it's company, or so I have heard. so maybe GP32 will eb around longer.

​

Bullshit.

Tapwave still supports the Zodiac, they still sign new apps, there are still new (commercial and homebrew) games coming out/in development by developers like Extreme AI.

The signing system is cracked, so developers could still release their apps even IF Tapwave would stop supporting it.

SNES is better (faster, perfect sound even at 11khz, supports transparencies)
Amiga is quite nice (not all apps are supported, since some chips aren´t emulated)
GBA is playable but not really enjoyable
MAME is better and includes emulation of a bunch of small NeoGeo games

​

SNES is still slow with most games, some work well with sound, most still don't.

Amiga has no sound and runs almost no games at a playable speed.

GBA is useless on both, slightly less useless on the Z but still worthless and you have to pay for it.

Megadrive is much better on the GP32.

No matter what the fanbois say the analog is less responsive on the Z for emus.

Once the hard wired in battery stops working the Z is useless.

No way would I waste my money on a Z, I would just get a PSP now.

 

[skeezix]

Lets not do the flames folks. They're both good but different systems, so keep the extreme bias out and don't turn it into a playground..

Course, I cannot add anything useful; I have both and other systems. Zodiac is a great great machine in general, but GP32 feels better for controls and has a couple chouce emus since its so easy to develop for (DrMD anyone? . Zodiac has more polish in a lot respects, and (hoping not to be flamed) GP32 is all over the place for quality since its all homebrew all the time. So if you want a fun homebrew scene on a end of life machine, GP32 is the way to go -- end of life means its got most any emu it'll ever get though they're getting better as long as the homebrewers stick around, but being easy to dev for means theres piles of homebrew (Fenix, C, etc). Zodiac is also nearing end of Tapwave's life likely, but its at least Palm OS and so gets the enormous wealth of available applications and games for it automatically and will thus be developed for for ages to come. So GP32 DrMD is superior to Genesis on Zodiac, but UAE is on Zodiac and not anywhere else. A lot of the emus are the same on both (same codebase, maybe different UI) like CaSTaway. The Zodiac also has some commercial/shareware options which is a *feature* -- the free ones are there too, but you have the option to get supported versions of the emus as well.

Theres also Pocket PC and NGage and Gizmondo; I won't discuss NGage or Gizmondo further than mentioning them

So I can't recommend either Zodiac or GP32 over the other .. they're both nearing end of their supported life, but have very active communities behind them (though I worry the GP32 community may start to dry up a little since the devices seem to be harder to get now .. at least outside of the UK and GBAX. Course, the Zod isn't really for sale anywhere except Tapwave

Hmm, just delete this post

jeff

I carry a Treo 650 smartphone (Palm OS) as my main device; I also carry a Axim X50v most of the time for media playing and gaming and such on the go. I fire up the GP32 once in awhile since its battery based so I needn't worry about charge running out over time, and I play games on a dedicated console very rarely. My Zodiac is not in use right now since I'm a Palm OS dev and thus have a half dozen machines around, and no time to play games so recharging it all the time is too much work. But you can see I'm atypical and not likel yin the same boat as you..

 

[Fishbong]

SNES is still slow with most games, some work well with sound, most still don't.

True. That´s also the case on the GP32, which has inferior sound and no transparency emulation.

Amiga has no sound and runs almost no games at a playable speed.

Both myUAE and PalmUAE have sound, and the speed is actually fairly playable (not fullspeed, but well) at fs3 withot sound. But i wouldn´t recommend it. it is good for some games though...

GBA is useless on both, slightly less useless on the Z but still worthless and you have to pay for it.

Worthless yes, paying no. There isn´t a signed full version of Firestorm, so there´s only a free demo.

Megadrive is much better on the GP32.

Indeed.

No matter what the fanbois say the analog is less responsive on the Z for emus.

The problem is not the responsibility. It is the fact that if you push the stick in a direction (say, up.) and you don´t hit the direction more or less precisely, the Emulator will recognize it as a diagonal. Can be annoying at times, but you learn to avoid it...

Once the hard wired in battery stops working the Z is useless.

But it doesn´t stop . And you can still RMA it.
Besides, all current PDA´s and mobile gaming devices have hard wired Batteries.
Does that mean that you´ll never buy modern portable devices anymore?

No way would I waste my money on a Z, I would just get a PSP now.

Noone forces you. But beware of the PSP, it has a hard wired battery :blink: !!!! Very evil !!!

No, really: if i had to decide between GP32 and Zod, i´d take a GP32. But i still love my Zod.