What The Gp2x Has That Other Systems Don't

[jbrodack]

since lately I've been hearing emulation on psp is as good or better than gp2x in almost all cases I've been thinking what makes the gp2x unique and still worth having over a psp.

heres a couple feel free to add more:

1) great community sites. both this site gp32x.de and the spanish site gp32spain are well designed and seem to have relatively friendly communities. Both have easy access to all homebrew and emulators. psp sites I've looked at seem poorly designed and hard to find anything useful.

2) touch screen on f200. while not many games make use of it at the moment a touchscreen on an open console makes for a lot of possibilities.

3) great and plentiful homebrew games. yeah psp has homebrew too and gp2x homebrew sometimes gets ignored in favor of emulators but we have some great homebrew from dedicated devs such as alex. the gp2x has one the most varied and just plain good homebrew libraries out there

what do you guys think?

 

[Vince2501]

Convenience.

I picked up an F200 mainly because I've been wanting an MP3/Movie player for some time. Plus the ability to play classic games is very nice. I avoided the PSP because I don't want to deal with the hassle of downloading hacked firmwares, and this and that; just putting together my current PC has proven to be a headache. DS emulation is primitive at best. Plus me being a Metal Slug whore made this very tempting. And I don't really play too many modern games, I prefer FPS when it comes to that stuff. Games today lack uniqueness and specialty. Back in the 90's you could spot a Neo Geo game, or Turbo Grafix game, or Playstation game just by the look and feel of the game. That doesn't exist today, and I find the Wii and DS too gimmicky.

So you could say that me being an old school gamer and disliking the Ipod turned me onto the GP2X.

 

[techFreak]

Convenience.

I picked up an F200 mainly because I've been wanting an MP3/Movie player for some time. Plus the ability to play classic games is very nice. I avoided the PSP because I don't want to deal with the hassle of downloading hacked firmwares, and this and that; just putting together my current PC has proven to be a headache. DS emulation is primitive at best. Plus me being a Metal Slug whore made this very tempting. And I don't really play too many modern games, I prefer FPS when it comes to that stuff. Games today lack uniqueness and specialty. Back in the 90's you could spot a Neo Geo game, or Turbo Grafix game, or Playstation game just by the look and feel of the game. That doesn't exist today, and I find the Wii and DS too gimmicky.

So you could say that me being an old school gamer and disliking the Ipod turned me onto the GP2X.

USB Host, TV-Out, smooth playback of large Divx and XviD videos and finally reasonable price.

 

[yodaofborg]

Well, its Open Source, and you are encouraged to develop for it, not restricted by firmwares needing messy hacks. Anyone can put an emulator on the gp2x and have some success, whereas the PSP might become a brick in some users hands, when trying to use it as an emulation system.

The GP2X also still has geek appeal, where as the PSP really does not.

 

[Jae686]

geek appeal? Sure it does. And open right out of the box.

 

[xcen]

Linux? =)

 

[suppafly]

A crappy stick and just one firmware update per year?

 

[imhotep]

The new slim PSP has TV out AFAIK and is smaller and lighter than it used to be. In these respects it is catching up.

Things that the GP2X is still much better on:-

- No hacking required
- Screen is right resolution for retro games, meaning most emulators run at native res at close to full screen. Full screen on PSP means ugly stretching and wrong aspect ratio.
- Screen doesn't ghost, ever.
- Uses standard SD cards inc. SDHC support. Memory stick is much less universal.
- SD slot easy to access (unlike PSP)
- Sega CD emulation
- MAME emulation used to be much better (not sure if still the case)
- Controller is better
- Can play standard res video well (e.g. 640x480) without re-encoding first (2nd processor scales on the fly).
- USB host makes things much easier for development (F100 only)
- Spare batteries cheaper and non proprietary
- Touch screen (F200 only)
- Wonderful community

 

[yaKC]

What he said

and the F200's got a corker of a D-Pad if you wouldn't know how to pull of those weird sounding moves in fighting games No more falling off the side of ladder's or jumping when you don't want to on old 8-bit games, perfect control thankfully.

 

[zektor]

Well, the PSP does have TV-Out, BUT you must have a newer progressive scan TV to display it. I have a first gen Sony Wega, and while I can output UMD movies just fine, all I am greeted with is an error when I try to output any emu or game..."Progressive scan required". Bah...

Ok, maybe you are not in the same boat and you CAN tv-out at home. But what about elsewhere? If you stay at a motel on a business trip (I do occasionally) and you want to plug the game into their TV it better be a good one to output the PSP. What about a friends house? He'll need a better TV as well.

At least the GP2X hooks up to any TV with S-Vid (I have had s-vid on all my TV's for the last 10 years)...and even if not you can always use an s-vid to standard video adapter. This means you can hook it up to any TV with RCA a/v jacks.

Might not make a big deal to many people, but it does to me. I have never even *seen* a game on my PSP tv-out, and I own both the PSP and the cable (component), and have component inputs on my TV which is also a Sony product....just sad.

 

[zektor]

I also wanted to add again (you said it too)..the community. The PSP community is terrible in my opinion. I think it is due to the fact that the PSP is not only a homebrew device (after hacking it of course) but also a piracy device for it's own retail software. This mixes that community with homebrewers and videogame pirates of the latest "warez".

The GP2X community is a more professional, "grown up" crowd that is almost always eager to give a helping hand and have a friendly conversation. People that are here for homebrew and tickering.....my favorite pastimes

 

[Manjuu]

imhotep pretty much listed all the things that the GP2X currently does better.

I believe another reason why this community is much better has to do with the size. The PSP community has no doubt a larger base of users (with a lot of younger ones), so the number of "immature" members are also greater. Well it's like how an old saying goes, Quality over Quantity.

 

[jbrodack]

The new slim PSP has TV out AFAIK and is smaller and lighter than it used to be. In these respects it is catching up.

Things that the GP2X is still much better on:-

- Sega CD emulation
- Controller is better




I love my gp2x and agree with your other points but like to get the facts straight. notaz did port over picodrive to psp so psp now does have sega cd emulation as well. He has said that it currently does run better on the gp2x though.

And with the f100 controller I actually did fighting game moves fairly well but moving in all directions in a straight line was a hassle.
f200 controller makes moving in all directions easier but now I have trouble with fighting moves especially dragon punches.

Its kind of funny that the additions to the psp slim are what the gp2x has had already had. 64mb ram and tv out.

the f200 firmware sucks but gmenu2x smooths things over. can't wait for open2x. 100% community made firmware and not just a hack.

I saw some "should i get a psp or gp2x" threads going to getting a psp and wanted to bring back to everyones minds why gp2x is worth having and a great device. I got my f100 2 years ago and constantly used it til i got my f200 this year.

 

[imhotep]

And with the f100 controller I actually did fighting game moves fairly well but moving in all directions in a straight line was a hassle.
f200 controller makes moving in all directions easier but now I have trouble with fighting moves especially dragon punches.

Yeah in summary it seems like the F100 is the choice for diagonals and the F200 is better for horizontals and verticals.

From what I've heard, the PSP d-pad is bad for diagonals too and not very nice to use either. It's surprising that this wasn't addressed with the new Slim version.

Does anyone here prefer the PSP d-pad over the GP2X pads (either one)?

 

[Manjuu]

And with the f100 controller I actually did fighting game moves fairly well but moving in all directions in a straight line was a hassle.
f200 controller makes moving in all directions easier but now I have trouble with fighting moves especially dragon punches.

Yeah in summary it seems like the F100 is the choice for diagonals and the F200 is better for horizontals and verticals.

Hmm... I personally don't have problems with the diagonals in the F-200. I also find that doing dragon punches to be on the simpler side of the move list (though I still mess it up from time to time like I do with any other controller ). I do have problems when it comes to moves that require long sweeping motions. I can pull them off if I take my time, but that's rarely the case.

Well aside from fighting games, I do generally like the D-buttons.