The Gp2x - Out Of Curiosity

[Russell88]

I hear a lot while lurking on these boards that the GP2X is badly designed, that it could of been so much more. That Gamepark has their heads up their asses and couldn't care less what the small consumer base of their hand held wants.

How much do you feel of that is legitimate?

I bought one in December after following the hand held since the days of the original GP32, and it's just kind of disheartening to pick up up and, with the coming of the Pandora, feel that maybe this whole thing could of been that much better.

What really is wrong with it, if you have a critical view of it?

For people on the other side of the fence, what makes the GP2X so great, or other positive things?

Just food for thought. For me, anyway.

Anyway... If I was to have any input here, I guess it would be this.

The outcry that Gamepark doesn't care rings true for me.

Through all the years they've had this dedicated fanbase, what real changes have they made for the better?

There's always been some glaring ommission... And the closest I can think of one ever being dealt with was the F200 and it's D-Pad... Which was such a problem that even well before that release people were literally cutting their control sticks apart because they were such a pain in the ass.

I guess an absolute refusal to embrace a lithium battery or something similar irks me as well.

Your thoughts?

 

[TrevorBradley]

I'm a newcomer to all this. I got my first GP2X, an F200 back in November. I'm very pleased with it.

Now that I'm doing some developing, I'm displeased that GPH removed some elements that made development easier, particularly the ability to access the device remotely. I *have* been plugging SD cards in and out over and over again and it's really annoying. The D-Pad has never been an issue for me, I quite like the fact I can treat and program the four directions as separate buttons.

That being said I don't think I could go to an F100. The touchscreen is new, and there is a thrill in developing apps that no-one has seen on the system before. I wish there was an F201, with the F100 features re-included, touchscreen, and the real d-pad people have been begging for.

 

[Duddyroar]

I think the F200 is a lovely machine, the d-pad isn't perfect but like Trevor says it's actually better for some games thanks to the fact that each direction is a different button. However, I'm considering modding mine per Gruso's mod because I want to play 2D fighters on it!

 

[Russell88]

I like the F200's d-pad fine, I'm talking more about other issues people have with it, some of which I argree with.

 

[coldfish]

Ive never had a problem with the GP2X. I knew it was a niche product focussed on homebrew & emulation with below average PMP ability and no tech support when I bought it.

Hardware wise, it's lived up to my expectations and is actually a bit better than I expected;
-the joystick is fine,
-battery life is low but manageble with a good set of AAs,
-screen is nice and clear,
-performance is good enough to emulate 8-16 bit stuff and even some 32bit which is a bonus (I never expected GBA or CPS2 stuff to work when I bought it).

Some people are frustrated that GP-h never did x and y, but so what? I'm just happy the GP2X exists, I dont require or want anything more from the manufacturer once I have the thing in my hands.

The homebrew developers have been great, without them, the 2X would be a low-end PMP and I wouldnt have bothered with it.

I think a lot of people bought this thing with unrealistic, mainstream expectations, they probably wouldve been better off with a PSP or DS?

 

[Tobriand]

Main problems?

- Unresponsive joystick (it's not too bad for most things, but fighting games are not easy to play to say the least).
- No hardware volume control; software volume control is managed on a game-by-game basis, and consequently doesn't work much of the time. (NB that software volume could have been ok - it would have just had to have been managed by a kernel daemon or some such which games could override to get extra buttons, rather than just supplying extra buttons that games could choose whether or not to assign to volume).
- Shoddy build quality. GP2xes do have a tendency for e.g. the headphone socket to pop inside the unit if you press anything harder than very gently indeed.
- Bad choice of SoC (no MMU on the second core means usage is complex), and not a great implementation of it; the second core would, as I understand it, have been a LOT more useful with dedicated memory because that's how it was designed to be used!
- No WiFi. Debatable, because of the inevitable drop in battery life that this would entail, but this is one of the features that should have been considered much more seriously than it was.
- No access to the extra features of the chipset. NB that this is unsurprising and not exactly GPH's fault, it's just annoying to have extra power that we can't make use of. I must admit though, I don't know how useful those features would be.
- Bad design decisions for the Cradle (i.e. separate power supply for it and the GP2x required, need to remove the connector cover to have the 2x sit nicely in it).

Now, that's not to say I don't love my GP2x. I do. It's an amazing piece of hardware. Almost anyone who's seen it loves it too, which further adds to the attraction. But there are most definitely areas they could have done better, and afaik I've got most of them.

Positive things of note are:
- Decent battery life on 2AAs (AAs are great )
- Good performance on most things (this is undisputed: it's the fact that performance could, with the same SoC and a slightly different set of components have been significantly better that annoys people)
- Awesome screen (DaveC has been quoted as saying the GP2x screen is the best he's seen on a handheld, I believe, which is basically all that need be said)
- Looks cool - and the external build quality really isn't as bad a people say (it's just things like shoddy soldering that get annoying).
- Fantastic dev tools (for the F100) via USB. F200 lacks this, but at least it works as an SD reader, and much of the functionality can be gained via the port at the bottom (UART?).

 

[Russell88]

Agreed with most things you said, Tobriand.

I just wish the damn thing felt a little more... sturdy.

I leave dead AA's in the back sometimes when I'm using the adapter just so it feels a little heavier and what not.

 

[Exophase]

Other flaws:

- Both USB and AC ports are on the side of the unit so if you keep either plugged in it'll be really hard to use it competently at the same time.
- Headphone port is on the top so it wraps behind the unit, although I don't really see this as being nearly as big a flaw as the first problem.
- Can't live transition from AC to battery or vice-versa (so if your batteries are dying you can't plug in and pop the batteries so they can recharge)
- USB transfer speed and the internal SD write speed are both astoundingly bad. We're talking minutes for a few MB. If you need to transfer large files then the SD card has to be popped out to a card reader then put back in which gets old fast. This might have been improved for F200.
- The F100 stick isn't just bad but it's fragile too. Pretty easy to accidentally break, but so are a lot of the components.
- Some batches had defects, especially earlier ones. One batch even had defective SD card reads (that's the one I got for my first GP2X)

 

[ledow]

Well, I think the GP2X is fantastic but this is my first Gamepark console so maybe I'm biased and not as demanding. I wanted an emulator / small games handheld that was "open" enough for the emulators to be free, open source, and constantly improved. That's what I got.

As a developer, removal of certain features from the F-200 made it an absolute no-no for me (and hence I went straight for a second-hand F-100), even before I had purchased anything. But I can understand that, from a cost point of view, certain compromises have to be made and developer-only features that ordinary users rarely if ever use are the first to go. So long as you *can* still develop for F-200, I don't see that as a problem. It's a bit more awkward without those ports, that's all.

Joystick - I think it's a very good joystick for the cost of it, and certainly worth using. I'm not sure I'd enjoy the F-200's D-pad as much. The only problem is that I'm likely to break it before long but at least you can source replacements. I can play everything from Street Fighter to Pacman, use it as a "mouse" or a joypad and it works very well. It's not perfect in them all but it's perfect for some, damn good for most and usable for all purposes.

"No hardware volume control" - I'm not sure I agree with this comment. Software volume control is already there, people just have to use it, so why pay more (even if it's just 50p more) to have another component that can fail, add to the complexity of the design, needs to be positioned properly, fit into the case etc. And by having games that can map Vol+/Vol- to whatever they want, you get much greater flexibility when you are coding a game that requires lots of input.

"Shoddy build quality." - I've not witnessed this but I don't think that the GP2X could be singled out for this even if it were true. I've seen any amount of expensive, mass-market computers and games consoles that have TRULY shoddy build quality. My GP2X fares very well in my pocket, I've dropped it, I'm constantly changing batteries, plugging things in and out. I take care with it (and I find that I often take more care than most people - all my SD cards are in their plastic covers, I insert them with the minimum of force, all my batteries have their charging managed etc.) and it's fine.

"Bad choice of SoC" - Just too many comments here. There are far too many factors - cost, code complexity, timing, availability, manufacturing expertise etc. The fact that the GP2X's second core does its job and can be hacked to do things it was never intended to is good enough for me. Even when we get full use of it, it can't perform magic and double the speed of things (I blame Intel for perpetuating that myth with their dual-core processors). It can help and remove some of the burden of some processing tasks, and that's the state we have it at now.

"No WiFi" - That's seen as a "must-have" with any modern console but I don't see it as anywhere near vital. Multiplayer gaming on a GP2X would be rare anyway - I don't know of anyone else in "real life" who has even heard of the GP2X, let alone has one and I work as an IT manager. Internet access etc. - there you're getting into a full handheld PC - keyboard, mouse, this, that, the other, hell - let's run Office on it too! No. It had a single purpose - to be a hackable, handheld games console and it does it fantastically without feature creep. Plus, it does it without radio-accesible security issues, which is even better from my point of view.

"Bad design decisions for the Cradle" - developers only, again. Although there are a lot of GP2X coders, there are more users who just want to play games (and that includes developers too), so stuff like that really doesn't matter. I'm a developer and I'd love to have a cradle and I don't particularly care that it needs a seperate power adaptor - whenever I use it, I'll be in a comfy place anyway.

"Decent battery life on 2AAs (AAs are great )" - I have to agree here - I WANT my GP2X to use standard batteries that I can buy and replace easily with standard batteries. I don't want no lithium, I don't want things that fit into the machine or are specific to the GP2X. I want as much as I can get out of standard-size items that I can buy in any shop. Although the lack of charging NiMH's over USB / power adaptor was really quite an oversight. The chips to do safely that are extremely common, cheap, small and simple.

I would also say that it's the silly things I love - mini-USB connectors are easily available. AA's are easily available. SD cards are easily available. Linux/SDL without tons of special hardware-specific libraries is damn near an industry standard for portable homebrew games. Software overclocking (oh, wow, +1 genius point to whoever decided to make that accesible to developers on the GP2X). JTAG for those times you REALLY bugger things up so a bricked GP2X doesn't mean a dead GP2X. Rubber flaps on all the ports. It's the little things that make it.

Personally, I'd be over the moon if someone made a GP3X: Same as the GP2X, core clock speeds doubled, battery charging built-in, touchscreen AND a D-pad with a threaded nut in the centre that you can screw a thumbstick into if you want to, TWO battery bays so that even on the move you can switch one set of dead batteries for a new one without losing your game and the restoration of USB host mode. That'd be a million times better, to me, than Pandora which is fast becoming a small laptop. That's not what I want - I just want a games console in my pocket that I can program myself.

 

[Orkie]

"Bad design decisions for the Cradle" - developers only, again. Although there are a lot of GP2X coders, there are more users who just want to play games (and that includes developers too), so stuff like that really doesn't matter. I'm a developer and I'd love to have a cradle and I don't particularly care that it needs a seperate power adaptor - whenever I use it, I'll be in a comfy place anyway.

I think people are actually more bothered about the fact that it covers up the USB port and some GP2Xs don't even fit in the damn thing.

 

[nubie]

Personally I have posted about this more times than I care too, but here goes again.

Stick, not rated for game usage, has 1cm throw, useless in most games that require a 180° direction change. Multiple people have had it completely break on them. "8-way" with different sized orthogonal and diagonal contact points, programmers must correctly calculate the diagonals, not all do.

USB, due to not including a few pennies worth of equipment the USB isn't included. Ditto the "TV-Out" cable, the USB plug could have been added for pennies. (I bought some USB termination chips for $0.47, why can' they be onboard?)

Second revision? Moved the stick 45°, still the same crap stick, still the same crap channel.

USB? Not yet.

Then what? "value pack", charged $30 US more for what amounted to $5 worth of trinkets. BAD.

Then the F200, STILL not a D-Pad (it is four separate buttons, they should be connected to a common pivot point)

The Bob?? Lets see, it cost $50 for a glorified USB 1.1 hub, and DIDN'T even include the power supply, that was $20 extra. AND still didn't come with a S-Video to Composite adapter built in (switch, capacitor and jack) or in the package (couple pennies for a bit of copper inside some plastic).

Manual, useless.

Manufacturer response? Non-existent.

Firmware? Pure drivel.

Video support? (touted as MPEG1, WMV, MPEG4, etc) NO!!

When we finally get the freaking $70 overpriced USB solution there is no software support (contrast this with the under $1 in parts it would have cost to add the USB support to the TV cable or unit itself).

Sterm? Cannot use shift key, impossible to navigate bash without a shift key.

Qtopia? 3 ascii garbage characters for every keypress.

D1X (Descent) port? No keyboard support at all (despite being ostensibly ported from a full PC environment, still running on SDL, and the kernel having USB support.)

I feel that they greatly let us down, and I refuse to pay more than $100 for a GP2X, speaking of which, does anybody want a mint condition MK2 with 1 Gig SD card? $100, PM me.

 

[JakeK]

My two main problems with the F200.

1 - Picky as hell when it comes to playing videos.

2- The screen is like looking at a mirror. In the day time it becomes impossible to watch videos or play games with lots of sunlight (I'd expect it when facing it towards the sun, but not when I am in a corner facing it away from the sun).

 

[Alex.]

1 - Picky as hell when it comes to playing videos.

Encode all your videos with PocketDivX, choose a PDA setting with compatible screen and you will get perfect playback

 

[scientist]

I am VERY happy with my gp2x (f100, mk2). One thing to note is that it's not a budget device. in fact, it would probably be much cheaper to go with almost any other device - ds, psp, etc. However, the gp2x is the only machine that allows you to customize and hack it to work just the way you want, without being treated like a criminal, and worrying about updates, etc. Some people complain about the lack of updates and everything. That's absolutely true, the community of gp2x users and homebrew developers are the main reason this unit is so great - not so much the company (especially 1/2 of the company went out of business, if I remember the sequence of events correctly).

on the downside, there are under 10 commercial games released per year (that's being generous as far as I know), however the homebrew community is outstanding.

I don't use my gp2x for movies or audio either, i have a meizu m6 for that, better suited for such a thing. I just use the gp2x for emulators and the various games out on it... and to just mess around with code. The biggest selling point for me was being able to run off AA batteries. As far as I know, it's the only device that has that option as well.

I'm not sure how much I would anticipate more development though, since the gp2x is a bit dated, but I'll hold on to mine for a while.. although once a similar device drops that can emulate PS1 / N64 / etc. I'll be set, and waiting for the ps2 emulator, and so on.

 

[JakeK]

1 - Picky as hell when it comes to playing videos.

Encode all your videos with PocketDivX, choose a PDA setting with compatible screen and you will get perfect playback


But can it convert dvd's?

 

[Russell88]

Does anyone else keep dead batteries in their GP2X's when using an adaptor to give it some weight?

 

[nubie]

I am VERY happy with my gp2x (f100, mk2). One thing to note is that it's not a budget device. in fact, it would probably be much cheaper to go with almost any other device - ds, psp, etc. However, the gp2x is the only machine that allows you to customize and hack it to work just the way you want, without being treated like a criminal, and worrying about updates, etc. Some people complain about the lack of updates and everything. That's absolutely true, the community of gp2x users and homebrew developers are the main reason this unit is so great - not so much the company (especially 1/2 of the company went out of business, if I remember the sequence of events correctly).

.....

I'm not sure how much I would anticipate more development though, since the gp2x is a bit dated, but I'll hold on to mine for a while.. although once a similar device drops that can emulate PS1 / N64 / etc. I'll be set, and waiting for the ps2 emulator, and so on.

It isn't that expensive, my last two I only payed $135 apiece for, and they came with goodies like TV cable, batteries and a case.

Plus the money you save on $10 2GB SD cards makes up for it greatly.

 

[nubie]

I just got a read on the Dpad mod into an f200 page. Good job on DaveC for the custom milled Dpad, and kudos to the guys making their product better with snips and super glue. I really feel that if you pay nearly $200 for something you shouldn't have to do that to get a decent control surface (I know I keep buying the f100, but that is my curse to bear, and I don't pay close to $200 for it.)

Clearly GPH is still being stupid and getting it wrong. People are literally using a dremel and super glue on their f200 models to get a proper Dpad.

Why the hell is it so freaking hard for them to get it straight? It can't be the language barrier, I mean Hyundai figured out that their cars were crap and have steadily been improving them, they are pretty good now. (it did take them a couple decades, maybe in 10 years GPH can pull their heads out of their asses and get a move on.)

I do love nearly everything about the GP2x, and I could forgive nearly all the faults (usb, finicky screen, lousy firmwares, shoddy build, etc). But the basic controls just cannot be this flaky. It isn't even a question of a finicky D-Pad, or one that just doesn't feel quite right. There Is NO D-Pad!!, that is what boggles the mind, the concept is simple, the execution of it has been handled by hundreds of products for 30 years or more, and yet they just can't understand it.

 

[scientist]

It isn't that expensive, my last two I only payed $135 apiece for, and they came with goodies like TV cable, batteries and a case.

Plus the money you save on $10 2GB SD cards makes up for it greatly.

i had a much different experience. GP2X + Case + Power Supply w/adapter (US) + SD card + batteries + charger = roughly $250. Plus if anything goes wrong, i figure im SOL. Not complaining at all, but I was under the impression that going the gp2x route was "cheap." Turns out it was the opposite, in retrospect (considering the cost of a new PSP, and that it could be easily returned anywhere in the US, or sent in for repair).

 

[Russell88]

So, what's the general consensus on the F200?

I feel like it's a pretty damned big step forward regardless of some pain in the ass quirks. I'm happy this is the first GP handheld I ever bought, all things considered.