The Future Of Gp32


Akuma no Houkon

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Hello, I want to purchase the GP32, I have looked arround and saw some great software starting to come out for it, some great emulators already out, and some still being developed.

I will state first that I want one _only_ for the emulators, 3rd party software is nice too, I realize that some of these emulators will take awhile to be finished or even to a decent useable level and I am a patient person (Genesis, SNES, and GBA/GBC/GB and NES (LittleJohn is already great from what I read)) are the systems I wish to emulate.

My question is simple, everywhere I look for information reguarding these emulators, and GP32 in general, are all dated in from 2000 - 2002 not much is very recent.

My fear is that I will spend $200+ on this system, only to "buy-in" to a dead system. Are the developers of the primary emulators going to keep at it? Or are they going to jump ship to something like the zodiac? Is GamePark still planing to "release" it to the US and port the games? I see a "Coming in 1st Quarter 2002" stamped by Rockman X5 and Streetfighter Zero 3, yet I havent seen or heard anything about it other then that. I cant read Korean and they dont have much info on their english site.

Every page I goto to see GP32 projects, most are inactive or havent had a site update in two years.

Also a semi offtopic question, since this system uses solidstate storage devices (SMC), I would assume that when you "save" a game (as in emulators), that it writes to the SMC? So if you play alot of games and save often, your card wont last more than a couple years...? SMC manufaturers promise about 10,000 writes. If you save and/or write to your card 9 to 10 times a day (I assume it only writes when you switch roms so if you play multiple roms a day or turn in on and off a few times ((short gaming sessions)) you would get about 4 years of life on your card? Or?
 
If you plan on buying the gp32 for its emulators, why should you care if you are buying into a dead system. The emulators are good enough to play, OpenSnes, fgen, fgb, ljgp and so on. I'm pretty sure that the gp32 will not be gone anytime soon, there are still programmers, yeah some developers are going to the zodiac, but there are new developers coming for the gp32. There are still coders such as squidge, i hope i spelled it right, emuman, yoyofr, im pretty sure thunderz is still coding, nggp. the point is that these great coders, and many more not listed are still coding and most of them said they getting zodiacs but still plan to code for the gp32. I'm pretty sure that gp32 never planned on marketing in Usa, i think you mean in Europe, which i'm pretty sure that they are still planning on marketing there. The gp32 is great system with a great community, no doubt about it. We will go through harsh times and great times but we will still b here for a long time to come.


LONG LIVE GP32!!!


btw: i cant answer your last question and i hate pepsi and Apple comps

I hope my comment has been a bit helpful, i know some parts may not make sense. Just notice that the gp32 have outstanding emulators, homebrew games, and a community that is here to help.
 
link

The above thread is very recent and if you read it all there should be lots of answers to lots of your questions.
 
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actually loading roms doesn't write to your SMC, it uses ram to load and recall the games, and then dumps the ram when not used *unless memory leak, then rame slowly depleates with more use of the pipe the leakes *like swithcing roms, a bug i heard that happens sometimes in OSNES9x, this will be fixed in .3

The SMC will last you enough time, that if it canno write, the 128MB cards would be cheap enough to replace, just copy your data and sell it someplace with gp32s and tell them it cannot be written on. *ebay*
 
-Apparently the Zodiac is simular enough that some code for it can be converted easily to the GP so some codered are working for both.
-As long as there is a Homebrew scene a system is never truely dead, and as you can tell by the news on the front page there still is one for the GP32.
-Best emulation on the GP from my own experience is Littlejohn(NES) and fsms(gamegear/master system).
-Because the emulators are made for free by people with day jobs the development of some emulators will take some time, patience is the key.
 
ThndrShk2k posted on Mar 4 2004 at 03:41 AM said:
actually loading roms doesn't write to your SMC, it uses ram to load and recall the games, and then dumps the ram when not used *unless memory leak, then rame slowly depleates with more use of the pipe the leakes *like swithcing roms, a bug i heard that happens sometimes in OSNES9x, this will be fixed in .3

The SMC will last you enough time, that if it canno write, the 128MB cards would be cheap enough to replace, just copy your data and sell it someplace with gp32s and tell them it cannot be written on. *ebay*
But it does write when you save a game, either by savestating or SRAM.

However, I've always assumed that every block on the smc could be written to 10000 times or whatever it is, not the SMC itself, so whilst it might last 4 years, all I suspect will happen is that the size would decrease little by little as the SMC got older.
Either that or it would throw up write errors until it had been scandisked/fixed from pacrom to block the bad sectors...
 
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Akuma no Houkon posted on Mar 3 2004 at 09:27 PM said:
SMC manufaturers promise about 10,000 writes. If you save and/or write to your card 9 to 10 times a day (I assume it only writes when you switch roms so if you play multiple roms a day or turn in on and off a few times ((short gaming sessions)) you would get about 4 years of life on your card? Or?
The same was said about the flash format of PSone memory cards. 4 years would seem to me to be quite long enough for ANYONE's needs.
 
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Toshiba state 100,000 erase/write cycles for there latest SMCs. Both my Jessops own-brand and Kingston cards were produced by Toshiba, so hopefully will last quite a while yet.

You can find the manufacturer of an SMC by running gpDrive. It'll be either Toshiba or Samsung.
 
moz posted on Mar 4 2004 at 02:04 PM said:
cards are as cheap as chips anyway
Cheap as chips!!! w00t!
 
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btw: i cant answer your last question and i hate pepsi and Apple comps

Works for me. I like you already.

Well my main priority is the SNES, NES Emus. I hear that the NES emus are pretty damn close to being perfect, certainly playable. But I hear the SNES emus are very far off as far as speed and compatibility go (I play RPGs and action games) and one was canceled. Its hard to look up information on these because most of these people dont even have websites, it makes it difficult to gather intel.

GBA isnt a big deal, I can live without that, I have a GBA w/Afterburner and a Flash cartridge, so im good on that front although I would love to have everything in one self contained system. GBC and GC do matter for a few of my favorites, Megaman, Castlvaina, FF's, and Zeldas. How goes the GB/GBC emus?

Genesis had a gew games that I really cant live without, it would be nice to get a few of these running. I saw a compatiblity list that had Snes9x and a couple other emus, not LittleJohn or any GB emus, but it doesnt tell what speed these are being reviewed at...

As I said, I have patience, as long as I know that I am not waiting for nothing.

I think I shall purchase a GP32 tomarrow, I am still looking up info on it. I tried to use GeePee to atleast take a look at things, but for some reason it wont run any programs in the FreeLauncher, it runs the freelauncher and lists the programs but wont run any of them (just doesnt do anything)

I was reading a bunch of GP32 reviews and there were a few like "Top 10 handhelds that failed" and GP32 was on the list. I wondered how they could have it on the list of failed handhelds, when a. its still selling, b. its not intended to sell out side of korea (yet), and c. its sold way more than n-gage (which wasnt on their list of failed handhelds).

Anyway, thanks for the info, if there is anything else you would like to mention feel free too.
 
I think the sentiment that it "failed" is simply due to the fact that it hasnt attained the level of market penetration tat the GBA has. Gamepark is a smal company in comparison to Nintendo so it was facing an up hill battle and the previous attempts at a Euro launch that failed helped fuel the idea that it was going no where, but lately evidence is showing it will very likely see the euro launch happen in summer time.

It still probably wont be as popular as a GBA for obvious reasons but it's doubtful that the community is going to just start ignoring it anytime soon.
 
Well you have to TRY to FAIL. GP couldnt have failed getting that market because they havent tried yet.

If I can play my NES, SNES, GB/GBC and Genesis games (without too much problems with the "lack of" keys) At full speed and sound (sound doesnt have to be quality, beeps and blips work for me but there must BE sound) Then its more than worth the price. Im sure if the community lives for long enough that a decent GBA emulator will pop up (they already have a SNES emu on the GBA that plays pretty good considering, I played Castlvaiana X on it for about an hour, 100% speed, just no sound) If they can make a SNES emu on the GBA, the GP32 should be able to handle a GBA emu eventually. As long as the emu developers keep at it.

I myself have over ten years of game programing experiance (multiple programing languages) but I am lost when it comes to emulators and all that goes on, so I wont be a help on that front, although I would like to learn someday.

I saw two good looking RPGs, Princess Maker 2 (sequel to the SNES game I assume) and Astonisha Story, but these were in Korean obviously, does anyone know of any plans for translation, either offical or unoffical?
 
Someone claimed to be transliterating ASR but he sounded like he ws new to korean so I wouldnt hold my breath Asian languages seem designed to confuse and frustrate. :p
 
Alpha2 posted on Mar 4 2004 at 06:55 PM said:
Someone claimed to be transliterating ASR but he sounded like he ws new to korean so I wouldnt hold my breath Asian languages seem designed to confuse and frustrate. :p
That they do, that they do.

I am sure that since GP's software comes on SMC that GamePark can easily write a translation and distribute it as a patch to their existing game, making the system catch the eye of a few more of the unoffical NA and Europeian fans.

Back on topic, this is the thing that scares me away from buying a GP32

"I had big plans for this program but unfortunately lack of time and me moving over to coding on the Zodiac I have stopped working on it."

Now thats from the WinGP readme, WinGP isnt really a nessisary part of Gp32's (although it looks cool), so this isnt that bad (heck its something I could make without much problem), but I fear that others will follow suit. I dont care/mind if they develop for the zodiac, but I dont want them to abandon the emus they are currently working on (SNES mainly)...oh well, I still plan on buying one tomarrow, I just hope its a good decision.

Also, another question, I hear alot of talk about battery life, I even read a little info in a FAQ, but its not very descriptive, it doesnt tell you really what speeds the CPU is set at during these FLU or no FLU tests, etc..

Specs for battery life for the following would be nice:
  • 1. CPU Speed (factory) (no FLU)
    2. CPU Speed (166) (no FLU)
    3. CPU Speed (factory) (with FLU)
    4. CPU Speed (166) (with FLU)
Even if its just a rough guess based on your experiance.
 
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My own experience from this weekend useing two 2050mAh MiNH rechargables with FLU and sporatic play:

2-3 hours of GPengine at 166mhz
2 hours of opensnes at 166mhz
2 hours of KOF91 at 166mhz
1-2 hours Little john at 133mhz(locked standard)
.75 hour(45 min) of GPcinema at 166mhz

so I'd say a minimum of 9 hours before I needed to recharge.
 
Is that "all the time FLU" or just turning the FLU on occasionally? (my house is fairly dark during the day, I cant even see my GBA screen without the afterburner on, so I am thinking I would need FLU on all the time while playing)

I have some fairly new Sony Ni-MH 1750mAh but are rechargeables a good idea? Some portables warn against it (i.e. my old Turbo Graphic 16 portable specifically said NO RECHARGABLES in big bold letters)

Also, sorry for all the questions, although I find answers about why or how sometimes, I havent seen the answers I look for like, how many of you flash your firmware with multiboot, etc.., whats the chance of failure? Besides the battery going dead or the cables coming undone or something, what other ways could it fail? Maybe I ask too many questions...

I am looking forward to owning this system, I first heard about it from someone mentioning it in the GBA snes emu forum saying "Finally a SNES emu for GBA, now I dont have to buy a GP32 to play snes games" or something like that, so I looked up GP32 and here I am. What I see excites me, an open source system with the primary emulators working or almost working, etc... it seems too good to be true...
 
As long as your questions arent ones that have been asked a hundred times before I dont think anyone will mind!

I'd have to say the FLU was on about 95% of the time. There's nothing to indicate you shouldn't use rechargeable batteries, and half the people here seem to use them, I think technology has advanced enough since the TurboExpress that you can use them now without fear.

As for other questions:

Personally I've never flashed my firmware and still have the original version that comes with Lik Sang purchased GP32s. I haven't done it because I haven't seen a need to outside of the goofy opening grapahic... that and the possibility of killing your GP if the flash goes wrong (it can be fixed but requires special serviceing that coould be difficult for overseas users to obtain), but people say as long as your batteries are new when you do it and read all the FAQs you shouldnt have a problem.
 
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