DaveC posted on May 5 2006 at 03:23 AM said:
critical posted on May 4 2006 at 12:24 PM said:
The GP2X emulators are all so polished and great that it wasn't worth attempting to do anything else for it - bases are already covered. I hit a bit of demotivation trying to integrate cyclone, so like a magpie went for the next shiny thing that came along

I'm afraid I'm fairly random.
They are?
I beg to differ.
PC-Engine, SMS, SNES, ColecoVision, all could use alot more work especially PC-Engine and SNES. Look at your giz SNES it runs circles around the GP2X one. Overclocking to 266 for a PC-Engine emu? Crazy. That could use ALOT of work as that ran better on a 133 MHz GP32.
Taking a stroll down the Boulevard Tangential...
Maybe I should re-phrase that, then. The GP2X (and the GP32 before it) has some of the most technically-capable coders I've encountered (judging from their output - I haven't seen their source). I can't compete with that - I just don't have the raw talent. The people concerned can improve their emulators, for sure, but it's a question of diminishing returns, isn't it? We're still very much in frontier territory with the GP2X, and the temptation is always to look at the zone adjacent to where you are, rather than setting up a pretty house, being happy, and watching the garden grow (to torture an analogy).
I've said it before - I think the difference in emulators on the Gizmondo versus the GP2X is that the ports that I've worked from to use on the Gizmondo have been adapted for small-screen, lower-powered devices already. They didn't happen overnight - I'm sure a hell of a lot of work went into PocketSNES, for example.
As an end user, why should you care? Well, you don't need to, of course. But this is a community, and we're being given some great emulators by some very skilled people, very early in the console's life cycle.
There's much more skill in releasing quality software for the GP2X rather than just chucking 400Mhz at the problem and seeing what happens.
I firmly believe that the GP2X has a lot more mileage in it than has been demonstrated to date, but that some emulators won't show that off so much as other releases due to lack of raw horsepower. If we get quality, creative releases, that would be more than enough for me. I think there's a lot of potential for that, given some of the stuff we've already had the chance to play with.
The ideal retro gaming handheld hasn't been released yet, IMHO. It isn't the PSP with its screen format, and it certainly isn't the Gizmondo with its 2D performance. The GP2X is surely the best compromise option for now...