The Gp2x Is Dead!

[craigix]

They almost certainly are working on something new, as i've said a few times lately.

I'd be looking at the pollux soc if you are interested in seeing what it will probably be using.

Since I'd be selling the 'new' gp2x i've got nothing to lose either way, but TBH I am really sick of GPH and I doubt I'll take the risk of doing preorders again with them on the new one.

 

[chad78]

I'd be looking at the pollux soc if you are interested in seeing what it will probably be using.
Disclaimer - I'm not British - I even had to look up how to spell the word I'm thinking of...

But still, every time I see the word "Pollux" - I think "bullox".

 

[juanvvc]

Well, they seem to enforce some rumours. This is an announcement from Anarchy, the Spanish Gp2x vendor: http://www.gp32spain.com/foros/showpost.ph...mp;postcount=92

Quick translation:

- GPH ceased production of Gp2x
- There is a new console from GPH coming, but he cannot give more details.

If you visit the Spanish forums, please be aware that the Pandora is not very popular there.

 

[quasist]

I'd be looking at the pollux soc if you are interested in seeing what it will probably be using.

I'm not a british too. Stop looking at pollux soc and say what they going to use.

 

[jmetal88]

I'd be looking at the pollux soc if you are interested in seeing what it will probably be using.
Disclaimer - I'm not British - I even had to look up how to spell the word I'm thinking of...

But still, every time I see the word "Pollux" - I think "bullox".


I'm not British either, but it's actually "bollocks." :lol:

 

[craigix]

Bollux.

I hope for GPH sake they have not chosen the Pollux. They would be (much) better off with the imx31.

 

[Exophase]

Bollux.

I hope for GPH sake they have not chosen the Pollux. They would be (much) better off with the imx31.

What would GPH going to pick, the SoC with all the usual onboard video codec acceleration so they can easily push it as a PMP as usual, made by the manufacturer they already have a relationship with, probably for less money, or the one that actually makes sense.

Hmmm.

 

[craigix]

What is your take on the Pollux Exophase?

 

[DaveC]

The PSP screen is by no means blurry.

The PSP screen's aspect ratio was not designed for emulation - that is true. But it has a ton more pixels than it needs to show full res graphics of classic systems. I've never understood why people would want to warp their graphics to fill the whole screen rather than just letterbox it. When you do that, you have awesome graphics, on a screen area that's bigger than the GP2X (in inches and pixels) with no distortion.

No, when you "letterbox" the screen and use native resolution of a game the image is *tiny*. Take a Genesis/Megadrive title 320 x 220 displayed natively on a 480 x 272 screen gives you a postage stamp sized image, much smaller in size than that same image on a GP2X at 1:1. So much for your "bigger screen" comment. If you stretch and bi-linear filter it and maintain aspect on a PSP it is a blurry, fuzzy, muddy mess compared to the same sharp image on the GP2X. Then there is the ghosting, so yes the PSP screen sucks for emulation, even though hardware is much more powerful.

If the new GPH handheld uses the same resolution screen (but probably smaller at 4"), it will be total rubbish for emulators too.

The Pandora with it's 800x 480 screen can display images with even integer pixel doubling and will look far sharper than a PSP or GPH "Bollocks" handheld.

 

[chad78]

No, when you "letterbox" the screen and use native resolution of a game the image is *tiny*.
Um - no.

1. You don't letterbox it to native resolution - you letterbox only the sides - the image is expanded to be as big as possible without changing the aspect ratio.
2. I've never had any muddy blurry mess on my emulators on my PSP Slim - I don't know what you people are talking about
3. Even at native resolution - the Sega image would be 2.494" x 1.715" or just over 3 inches diagonal. Not small. Not even a half inch smaller than the whole GP2X screen.

 

[DaveC]

No, when you "letterbox" the screen and use native resolution of a game the image is *tiny*.
Um - no.

1. You don't letterbox it to native resolution - you letterbox only the sides - the image is expanded to be as big as possible without changing the aspect ratio.
2. I've never had any muddy blurry mess on my emulators on my PSP Slim - I don't know what you people are talking about
3. Even at native resolution - the Sega image would be 2.494" x 1.715" or just over 3 inches diagonal. Not small. Not even a half inch smaller than the whole GP2X screen.

Yes and when you letterbox the sides you have to scale fractionally both directions by doubling some pixels, and not others as 220 doesn't go into 272 evenly. Then you put a *filter* over that to blend it together. When you do that you lose sharpness and contrast, that is a fact. If you can't see that then you are blind, or see what you want to.

As I said at native resolution the PSP image is smaller than it is on the GP2X, why would you want a *smaller* image? I see no advantage there.

 

[chad78]

As I said at native resolution the PSP image is smaller than it is on the GP2X, why would you want a *smaller* image? I see no advantage there.
But it's not much smaller. I believe you said something about a postage stamp. I don't know where you are from, but postage stamps in my part of the world are much smaller than 3 inches diagonally. A 3 inch screen is not small. - it's the size of one DS screen, (with much higher resolution, of course!) Bigger than the GBA screen... A three inch screen on a portable is not a tiny screen. The most popular series of systems (GameBoy/DS) have all had screens that size or smaller.

That said, having a smaller screen is not an advantage, I agree with you there. (Unless you follow the GameBoy Micro logic, that it is crisper.) But it's not that big of a disadvantage. What makes the PSP a better emulation system than the GP2X is that it can do more systems than the GP2X, it's cheaper than the GP2X, it's still in production, better controls...

What makes it a better all around system than the GP2X are those things and, it's commercial support, new games that take full advantage of its hardware, it's WiFi, it's video out, and the screen itself is bigger and higher resolution.

The only thing the GP2X had going for it was a touchscreen - and that was only in the last model. When it first came out, it was cheaper than the PSP - but that didn't last long.

 

[Sphinxter]

The GP2X was open, that alone trumped over all other platforms.. Having a few valid points doesn't make you any less of an asshole, sig that.

 

[Rico]

Yes and when you letterbox the sides you have to scale fractionally both directions by doubling some pixels, and not others as 220 doesn't go into 272 evenly. Then you put a *filter* over that to blend it together. When you do that you lose sharpness and contrast, that is a fact.

No, you don't "double some pixels", you completely redraw the image, with each pixel created from a combination of nearby pixels in the source image. The "filter" is what determines which source pixels are selected, e.g. Gaussian blur. This process, if done correctly, will not result in a significant drop in visual quality, as I'm sure people who watch movies and upscaled games on their PSP/DSs can attest.

 

[Firefox]

The Pollux looks okay. 1x 533MHz ARM926EJ core is probably a little bit more useful than 2x 260MHz ARM 920T/940T cores. Easier to exploit under Linux, anyway.

The 3D accelerator would be nice to have (providing it works properly and is easy to program) but from what little information is given it looks less advanced than the OMAP3's shader-based 3D accelerator.

The Pollux definitely isn't an OMAP3 slayer. I think it looks about right for GPH to build a GP2X replacement which will sell for about the same money.

 

[quote]

I'm gonna wait and see. If there is a new console from GPH, I would definately consider buying it (only if it had backwards - compatability, of course) - - It must do, GPH arn't that wierd, are they?

 

[gaterooze]

I'm gonna wait and see. If there is a new console from GPH, I would definately consider buying it (only if it had backwards - compatability, of course) - - It must do, GPH arn't that wierd, are they?

Well, they didn't care about GP32 compatability for the GP2X, so who knows? They never make it easy for devs...

What makes the PSP a better emulation system than the GP2X is that it can do more systems than the GP2X, it's cheaper than the GP2X, it's still in production, better controls...

Hm... I always preferred the GP2X's (F100 Mk2) controls, personally. A lot. But it's an individual thing.

I'm curious, how is the c64 and Amiga emulation on PSP these days? Last I tried, they were pretty awful. Also how advanced is it's MAME and how does it compare to Franxis's version? I was always under the impression that apart from PS1, the GP2X's emulators were usually better (SNES even caught up?). I could be wrong.

It's fairly moot since the GP2X is no longer being produced, but picking up one cheap on eBay might not be such a bad move.

 

[efegea]

Well, they didn't care about GP32 compatability for the GP2X, so who knows? They never make it easy for devs...

That's because GP2X were not being made by the same as the GP32, and the os were not the same (GP32's firmware vs linux) and the hardware was not compatible.

The Pollux probably is backward compatible with the MMSP2, because both are being made by the same company: magic eyes

 

[gaterooze]

The Pollux probably is backward compatible with the MMSP2, because both are being made by the same company: magic eyes

Absolutely, but GPH have proven to do the most ridiculous things even when doing the right thing was so easy, so I wouldn't guarantee it.

 

[vampire8bit]

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