The "i <3 Gp2x" Thread

[wipeout2000]

Ive been active in the psp and I will admit one thing, I hate about half the community at least. People complain to developers and yell at them because they didn't include certain features. They report devs if they don't send them roms etc. Thats one of the reasons I actually post on gp32x.de

 

[Cheezer]

I use my gp2x to play the games that I grew up playing. Those games got me interested in computers and I became an avid PC gamer. I'm now a Network and Systems Engineer and I credit my love of video games with my desire to learn about computers.

I was around 14 or 15 years old when I used to go over to my friends house who had an Amiga 500 and play all of those amazing games. I still can't believe I can now play all of those games in the palm of my hand!

I also love it that I can now play a Lynx that's better than my Lynx II! Better form factor and battery life in the gp2x for sure!

I also listen to podcasts in the efficient OGG format and I easily convert video podcasts to DiVX using "Super".

There are just so many emulators and things to try out on the gp2x for free! How can you not love that!?

 

[Parkydr]

I love my GP2X so much I take it to bed with me, irritates my wife though.

I use the e-book reader most, you can read in the dark and the buttons aren't as noisy as turning pages.

I enjoy devving for it too, something I haven't felt since I got a BBC model B 25 years ago.

 

[krosfyah]

I enjoy devving for it too, something I haven't felt since I got a BBC model B 25 years ago.

I remember typing in the programs from the Welcome manual like it was yesterday. Except it was May 1983 :blink:

 

[EvilDragon]

Love the community. This board was the first (and last) I stayed longer than a week (except my own german gp2x board, which also has a similar, impressive and big community (over 800 members already )

I also love releases like Oldplay. Or homebrew games like the Carrot game (it's a fun game ) or Max Ghostpix... GP Ladykiller... the list is endles...
I like some of the emulators, however, I find homebrew to be much cooler than emulators

I like telnetting into the gp2x and fiddling around with its Linux

Oh, and the Visual Novels are great

 

[skeezix]

The GP32 and GP2x communities are about the only place you get an actual sense of community, despite being distributed across the entire globe. Its like the old BBS days but bigger, here A community is what gets you people like ED etc, and has people coming back for years at time.

Hugs-all-around to everyone, and gorramn it all if the gp32-related sites ever go down on us

jeff

 

[dosteridge]

I also love it that I can now play a Lynx

I also love the Lynx emulation, is great.

I mostly love the 2x (and 32) for the talented and friendly devs and comunity.

I really only use mine for emulation of everything from 8bit upwards, and a bit of homebrew. I use it daily and do not have a bad word to say about the whole experience.



Edit: sorry Cheezer I cut your quote a bit short!

 

[GameGod]

For the two days that I had my GP2X (it's being repaired right now, hopefully on it's way back), here's the things that I loved about it:

- Emulators were dead easy to use. No more fussing around setting up keys, just load up the emulator and go!
- Telnetting to the thing and hacking around on it was VERY easy to do from Linux. I've hacked around on a different embedded Linux system, and it was a bit of a pain in the ass to connect to your PC. The GP2X's ease-of-telnetting is going to make developing quite fun.
- The community. You guys are creative, support, and very well organized. You've got the file archive which the only place you'll ever need to go to get (legal) stuff, and you've got these fantastic forums. (Can't forget #gp2x/gp2x-dev either.)
- The GP2X is unrestricted, guilt-free fun. It's nice not having a company like Sony fighting your community all the time.

(Can you tell I'm excited to get my GP2X back?)

 

[namco]

community, the open sourceness, playing games from yesteryear in my hand.

Especially very happy about playing AVP and DnD (from the CPS2).

Lastly the ability of my handheld having so much playability that most of my mates won't play with it - I mean in the sense that they'd just play with it morning noon and night.

 

[linoleum13]

I just like the quote:
"GP2X: Your misspent youth in a box."

I cant remember who originally said it though.

It pretty much sums things up.

 

[Unfathomable Depths]

1 : mame - having the classics on a handheld with very little trouble is worth the entrance fee alone.

2 : coding - I love writing games and not since the ST have I had the chance.

3 : video - the train from Glasgow goes twice the speed it used to.

*edit* speelling

 

[DaveC]

What I like about it are emus obviously. I do like the HB and ports as well but my main use are the emus. I have never loaded a movie, MP3 or e-book on my GP2X. To me the form factor of the GP2X is perfect for emulation. Everything from the good sized ideal res QVGA screen to the button layout and digital controls to the shape is near perfect for emulation of older systems. While there were complaints about "build quality" from some for me it is fine. It doesn't need iPod or PSP slickness to be enjoyable. It is very ergonomic to hold and actually play. No-frills, no BS, no gimmicky widescreens or other nonsense. I actually find it much more comfortable than my PSP to play even with it's supposed better "build quality". I really wouldn't change much except maybe for a little quicker CPU and some work RAM for the second core, d-pad but that is a different topic. The GP2X may not be without flaws, but no handheld is perfect. Example: The PSP has a powerful CPU but also has ghosting screens (for many of us), weird aspect and a less then stellar d-pad. The DS has great games and decent hardware but for emus the screen is too low res and has low CPU speed and RAM. Nothing is "perfect". All around I still prefer the GP2X even with its flaws for what I use it mainly for.

Having all of the old systems capured like a time capsule in this small portable box is great. Sure I can get all of that on the PC but it isn't the same. It just seems way cooler to have all of that stuff on a tiny box that you can pull out any time anywhere, yes even "the bog" Booting up a Pentium PC to play Pac-man all stretched and filtered on my PC monitor just isn't the same. The GP2X is like a working reference book of gaming history in your hand. There are many books on the subject of the history of video games but nothing beats playing the real games. That is why to me all emus are important that can be done sucessfully with hardware constraints in mind. This means a Vectrex emu or Atari 2600 emu is important to me as well as SNES or NeoGeo.

The devs are great as well. I like how you can suggest things and many times they implement the suggestions (if they make sense of course). There is alot of great talent here. I hope to see it continue to grow. To them thanks for all of the hard work, hope it was/is fulfilling.

Skeezix said it somewhere and hopefully I won't butcher it too bad. He said it is not all about how many polys you can render or what kind of uber l337 hardware you have. It is about the fun of hacking around and making more with less. It is about eeking out something cool and sharing it, having fun doing it and the community having fun with it. Those are the things that many "hardware whores" seem to miss.

 

[Auritribe]

It's versatile, plain and simple.

One of the reasons I bought a GP2X is because my iPod is starting to die.

I was in the market for a new mp3 or video player, and I remembered back when I was here a year ago drooling over a GP2X. I thought to myself, sure, it doesn't have as good battery life, nor does it have the storage of an iPod. But hey, it plays DivX right out of the box, plays mp3s, and I get some games as well.

The fact that its built on linux, and has such an open dev environment, means we basically have a miniature computer in the palm of our hands. That's the other great thing, the interpereters mean for the first time we can play a few of those pc games like doom and duke.

I know its a bit of a stretch, but I consider the GP2X to potentially be the swiss army knife of gadgets that I own. It can do a little bit of everything and I like that.

Sure, the Zodiac has the touch screen giving it a little more potential and versatility, but its horrible battery life and flimsy AC Adapter design really killed it for me.

 

[naples39]

I bought the GP2X mainly for 8bit and 16bit emulation. Aside from the stick and incomplete SNES emulation, it has been very successful in my mind. I have spent the overwhelming majority of my time with it playing Genesis, NES and MAME. Just having a fullspeed, highly compatible NES emulator with an unscaled image seems to complete some portion of my childhood.

 

[EvilDragon]

The GP32 and GP2x communities are about the only place you get an actual sense of community, despite being distributed across the entire globe. Its like the old BBS days but bigger, here A community is what gets you people like ED etc, and has people coming back for years at time.

Heh, I actually ran a FIDONet BBS until January 2006 on my old Amiga

 

[Klepto]

I love my GP2X.

I love playing games on the GP2X. Payback is great, the only problem I've had is with the direction of reverse handbrake turns. UQM is fun too, and I'm finally playing all the old Amiga and ST classics I didn't get to when I was a teenager. Freedroid is wonderful other than crashing when u complete it (may be fixed now, it's been a while). It's surprising how many old C64 games are actually still playable, and how many are playable without a proper keyboard, "Black Hawk" is still the best vertically scrolling shoot-em-up of all time.

I love coding abstract vapourware for my GP2X. The ARM is a wonderful CPU, it makes x86 look really ugly. ARM DDI0100E makes really good bedtime reading IMHO. Come to think of it, coding vapourware can probably be counted as a game, even if I am still stuck on level 1.

Other than the stick the GP2X is all I could hope for.

 

[TelcoLou]

MAME
Genesis
NES
SNES
NeoGeo
GBC
ColecoVision
Atari 800/5200, 7800, 2600
NeoGeo Pocket Color
Intellivision
C64/128/PET

Yes, I'm an emulator fiend. Ever since I got NESticle running on an old Win95 machine, I was fascinated by the magic of playing games on a system other than the one they were originally made for.

... and I'll finally get to finish Kid Chameleon. Some day ...

 

[gaterooze]

... and I'll finally get to finish Kid Chameleon. Some day ...

Okay Telco, I started playing this damn game and got to about the third level. I was in a cave and turned into this skull dude which was cool. I went right and then up and then left until I reached this shaft which went up to the top... There's two little platforms there, but they don't seem to be enough to get me higher. Anyway, I turn into this stupid Knight and whenever he jumps on those platforms they are destroyed! How the heck do you get past that joint?

 

[TelcoLou]

... and I'll finally get to finish Kid Chameleon. Some day ...

Okay Telco, I started playing this damn game and got to about the third level. I was in a cave and turned into this skull dude which was cool. I went right and then up and then left until I reached this shaft which went up to the top... There's two little platforms there, but they don't seem to be enough to get me higher. Anyway, I turn into this stupid Knight and whenever he jumps on those platforms they are destroyed! How the heck do you get past that joint?

... Action button, ("C" by default) makes him climb walls ... climb up, then jump when you're high enough.

 

[dodgyville]

Where to being?

The archive is great - having everything in the one place. The forum is excellent - the longest one I have ever read (over a year now).

Making and distributing my own games, what a great feeling. Seeing what other people can do with the device - there a lot of talented people out there.