What Is The Next Great Emulation Handheld?

[Swiss_Cheeseman]

And another thing: the Zodiac will never be much better than the GP32 for emulation. It's got a 200MHz processor where the GP32 has 166MHz - a 20% increase. But, it's got a 480x320 screen which will take a lot of extra processing power to fill up. So it'll probably end up about even.

Zodiac's graphics and sound chips are no use when you're emulating, everything has to be drawn dot by dot, and sounds are made sample by sample. Nothing much can be done to accelerate that!

The bigger memory might help, but 128MB isn't necessary for *any* emulatable system. GP32 can go to 32MB, so why worry?

A pretty shitty comparison. The Zodiac uses a different type of ARM CPU, which is far more efficient, and the graphics chip may actually help, especially with sprite rotation and scaling, however I dunno if developers would use it. The zodiac is significantly faster than the GP32, and is a good choice for emulation.

The more memory the better, if someone makes a Neo Geo emulator, it will be needed. The 32mb GP32 mod is completely useless. Hardly anyone will mod it.

 

[EoS]

but guys, have u seen that stunt car racer game on the gametrac site? it looks pretty nice!

so maybe the gametrac isnt that bad after all?

 

[Charge]

I'll probably be using my GP32 for some time to come, and after that I may go to the Gametrac cos of the processing power, but only if a devkit becomes available. Maybe an emu of the GP32 for the gametrac could be made, as they are both using the same CPU and the GP32 has no custom chips.

 

[lizard808uk]

Don't you need to be a licensed developer of Tapwave to even play the SNES emulator?

I reckon the Sony PSP will smoke everything, and there will be unofficial ways of modding it for emulators. Will probably be some kind of flash linker device and Bung will probably have something to do with it. :rolleyes:

Stick with GP32 until the market matures - this will take 2 years unless you have money to burn. B)

 

[Guyfawkes]

Heres my thoughts, I wont go into specs on each as its been done above this is more towards the commercial and homegrown scene thoughts:

GP32 - The new 'blu' GP32 is way too expensive, you are looking at around $250 for it. Virgin have the money to spend for advertising but at the end of the day very few commercial games are being made which decides for the average person if they are going to buy it or not, the current games library is rubbish when comparing to other handhelds. The homegrown scene is what keeps the GP32 alive for the past 2 years without it the GP32 would have never got as popular. At the moment its the best choice for portable emulation but the Zodiac is slowly catching up. I dont think the euro launch will be that successful in my opinion.

Zodiac - The Zodiac1 isnt that much more expensive than the 'blu' GP32, $300 compared to $250 for GP32. Theres a long list of commercial games both zodiac compatible and zodiac specific which is good for the average user. Homegrown software isnt as popular than the GP32 but there are already a few emulators such has SNES, PC Engine, NES, Game Gear etc, theres a GBA emulator but the release of that is uncertain. The SDK is pretty much available to the public which is good as it opens up the homegrown dev scene. Giving that its only available to buy online from the US its doing very well so far and I think the retail shop launch and possibly the international launch will do well as there is a decent library of games for the average user.

Gametrac - This is a strange one, fairly good specs and a few commercial games are planned. I have heard that the SDK will only be available to licensed developers which will probably mean a small homegrown scene so unlikely to see any emulators unless the SDK gets leaked or something. Rumours are that it will sell for £90 with phone contract which is very cheap, but the spam messages may put people off using it. Theres alot of hype surrounding the Gametrac but not a great deal of information, one to keep an eye on though, could be a dark horse.

PSP - This will sell alot just from the name. Companys will develop anything just like the PS1/PS2 because they know it will sell. I dont really know much about the PSP so not much to comment on. Homegrown development will be tricky because of no public SDK and also the media the PSP uses.

Nintendo DS - I reckon this will do the same as the PSP, people will buy just because of the name and if it is GBA compatible then its almost guaranteed to sell well. Again, closed development will hamper the homegrown scene at first but as proven with the GBC/GBA you will most likely see a very big homegrown scene if a GCC compiler version is made.

Next Generation Pocket PC - Im surprised this didnt make it on the poll vote but there are some impressive specs for the next generation of PPC. Theres already a large homegrown and commercial scene and alot of companies are interested in writing for the next generation of PPC. Another handheld to keep an eye on.

I tried not to be biased towards any console, I own a GBA, GP32, PPC and Zodiac so I hope I can give honest thoughts about each. I am thinking about buying a Gametrac and Nintendo DS when released as they could be interesting consoles.

To sum it up I would say it depends on what you want your handheld to do, if you want emulation/amateur games then the GP32 is currently the best choice, in the future I would say the Zodiac. For commercial games the Zodiac is currently the best choice. PSP, Nintendo DS and Gametrac are not released yet but my feelings are that the PSP will be the best choice for commercial games based on the hardware and the Sony name and that Nintendo always tend to make 'kiddies' games for their console. Gametrac will probably take the nice market filling the gap until the PSP and DS are released, I dont think it will make a very big impact though.

edit - just a little addition about zodiac emulators working only for developers.. yoyo hasnt submitted the programs to be signed (think of it like a commercial game for GP32 being a GXE) so only developers can currently use the emulators (think of the developers only having free launcher to load FXEs). The emulators are only in beta but he has mentioned the next release of LittleJohn will be signed and available to use by anyone.

 

[kotd]

I don't know if anyone mentioned this but developers were complaining about the 8mb of ram in the PSP so Sony jacked it up to 32mbb which I think its great. SO its 32 not 8mbs as in the first post. Got this from IGN and gamespot.

 

[Charge]

I have found out that the Gametrac will have 64MB of DRAM and that initially the company has no plans to release home dev kits. They are looking at the possibility of adding a home developer community but nothing has been decided yet.

 

[wildcat]

Not too convinced on the Gametrac after Tiger's Game.com but we shall see

 

[Daz_Genetic]

Not too convinced on the Gametrac after Tiger's Game.com but we shall see

You are talking about a different company. Tiger Telematics isn't related to Tiger Electronics.

 

[wildcat]

Ah my mistake.

 

[Alpha2]

hehehe but appropriate that you'd make the comparison. I really see the Gametrac falling behind all the others the most.

 

[Efompor]

I hate most Zodiac users... look at what these ones said on IGN

Dreamwriter
collection | wishlist
Posts: 6,741
Registered: Aug 00
Date Posted: 2/16 1:00pm Subject: RE: Gp 32?????????????
Its CPU is half the speed of the Zodiac, it has no hardware graphics or sound acceleration, wireless linkup is a $60 addon, many of the commercial games have horrid framerates, even though they are 2D, most of the games are in Korean...need I go on? I have a GP32, it was a decent hobbyist system for its time, but the Zodiac is replacing it as a hobbyist system, since it is way more powerful, and is going to be released worldwide, not just in Korea.

Anyways, I wouldn't say it has a lot more games than Zodiac - Zodiac has 16 games for sale on their website, and hundreds of Palm games you can buy elsewhere that work perfectly fine on it.

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"We are the Music Makers , and We are the Dreamers of Dreams"
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iceicetimmy
collection | wishlist
Posts: 5
Registered: Jan 04
Date Posted: 2/18 4:01pm Subject: RE: Gp 32?????????????
Pssshh That piece of crap isn't even worthy of being looked upon by REAL gamers. Besides it's on the top ten list of handhelds that never made it.

 

[dazmanultra]

Just let them be whilst we play thousands of great games on GPEngine, Little John etc.

 

[Antiriad]

One question though, can the Zodiac run all emulators for PalmOS? And by the same logic will the Gametrac be able to run all Windows CE emulators?

 

[Daz_Genetic]

One question though, can the Zodiac run all emulators for PalmOS? And by the same logic will the Gametrac be able to run all Windows CE emulators?

The Zodiac can run unmodified Palm Apps, but I think the Gametrac will need a recompilation.

 

[RockOut]

What the GP32 needs are just a few nice shoot em' up action games like 007 that we hear about every day and a few racing games like Need for Speed. I have notice that Gamepark has never developed any "US known" games before.

 

[Alpha2]

...because those known games require licences, which require money to buy. That's why all the current known games we have like Doom are ports or clones made by home brewers.

 

[ilarri]

there are many powerful machines that, at the end, hasnt very famous.
3Do,for example, has in his moment 500 developers,but at the end win psx the battle.
Another example its the high powefull DC,that sega, as alwways,cut his ears before time..no many time..but have his scene, that true.

i think gp32 has a really life scene,many people coding for that,and many of this machines wouldnt be open source so....gp32 powa!!

 

[Alpha2]

Also:

First PSP screenshots:
http://www.spong.com/detail/news.asp?prid=6390

video download here(12.7mb):
http://zdmedia.vo.llnwd.net/o1/Death_JR/deathjb.zip

It's early but it does show a lot of strength, plus they're saying it's technically more powerful than a PS2, so if it has games on the same level I doubt anyone will even bother with trying to make emmulators for it, they'll be too busy PLAYING it.

 

[Daz_Genetic]

I think this system will kick all the others' asses.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detai...=A1PA6795UKMFR9