What's The Difference ?

[jislizard]

Firstly I have pre ordered a GPX2 to replace my ageing Archos AV380

http://www.archos.com/products/av300_series.html

because
a, the flashy internal battery now won't hold a decent charge
b, I can't be bothered to re-encode all my films to the one format it understands

Anything else the GPX2 can do emulationwise is just a bonus

but if it can't emulate any of the newer systems, N64, PSX, Gamecube etc, and it won't be able to emulate the GBA or SNES (something about transparencies on SNES) then why did the company make it ?

they already have a hand held that can't do all of the above!

is it :

a, they can no longer get the components to get make the old one as they are no longer being made

b, perfect SNES, GBA, PSX and N64 emulation are low down on everyone's want lists

c, they know something we don't and aren't letting on

I mean to say, they have gone to a lot of trouble to put two different 200Mhz CPUs in instead of a single larger CPU , was that just to make it more interesting for the developers ?

If the machine isn't capable, on paper, of doing amazing things then why bother releasing it or even making it, surely there aren't that many people that think they will make games etc. for it.

Anyway before you get all upset and start giving me grief, I have pre ordered one, I have convinced my sister to pre order one, I am learning to code in C so I can write a few program for it and I have read the FAQ. I do think that running ROMs is stealing even if you can no longer buy them (unless you own the originals) and see no distinction between running ROMs from an obsolete machine and running them from GBA, I don't particularly care either.

When do they arrive in the UK? Can't wait to port my new Farenheit to Centigrade Conversion prog.

 

[Jarska333]

The machine, on paper, is capable of doing plenty of amazing thing. Newer MAME, Amiga, 99% SNES, MD, and anything under that, perfect Quake, perfect many things. NeoGeo, etc. And where have you gotten the impression, that it can not emulate GBA or SNES very well? Nobody knows, some people think they know, and many people know that they do not know.

And it supports SD-cards up to 4Gigs, if i recall correctly. Plus it has more buttons.

 

[Sonic-NKT]

yeah it can do more than the gp32.
the normal gp32 could clock up to 132 mhz. the gp2x has 2x 200Mhz (and these are maybe overclockable) snes on the gp32 is with sound at fs2 playable (166mhz) so on the gp2x, when u also use the special functions, it should get fullspeed easily (without transparency). GBA emulation could get to a playable state on this one too. Amiga is now possible as also NeoGeo and CPS2. With 64MB Ram we can port much more PC games which didnt run on the gp32 because of memory issues (exult, quake2?..) and maybe transform it into a PDA (linux opie, matchbox, GPE)
And if a could coder really works on a psx emu, it could get playable without sound too.

 

[jislizard]

more buttons is always good of course, and i got the impression that it can't emulate GBA or SNES very well from the experts on these very pages.

Speculation and hope are all we will have until we get hold of the machine, and by we, I mean other people that know what they are doing.

I didn't think for a minute that they would bother to go through all the R&D just to produce a substandard bit of kit so I am going for answer C.

 

[NoBrain2k]

personally I think people are being a bit pessamistic with the whole SNES and GBA thing. I'd be totally shocked if full speed SNES emulation with sound wasn't possible on the GP2X, seriously.

As for GBA, it may take time to get full speed, but i think it would probably happen sooner or later... Remember, the community is blessed with some very talented developers.

Of course I could be wrong... but this is what my crystal ball says!

 

[vincent85]

For me ,the reason i want to buy GP2X is A PERFECT SNES emu!
if the gp2x can not handle full speed SNES emulation with sound than it is nothing compair to PSP! IMO

in this case, maybe the XGP can !

 

[Sonic-NKT]

hmm the psp cant do fullspeed snes yet too... so at least thats what i heard last time.

 

[BlackDayz]

I think that the GP2X is capable of full speed SNES, but it'll take a little time. The PSP is under-utilized (hardware wise) because of the closed nature of the system. The open nature of the GP2X will make for outstanding emulation in my opinion.

 

[NoBrain2k]

Just think of it this way, the GP32 is getting damn close to full speed snes, many games are quite playable... now add over twice the processing power and larger ram to that. Plus its a new hand held, so devs will be more enthusiastic.

 

[xafier]

Just think of it this way, the GP32 is getting damn close to full speed snes, many games are quite playable... now add over twice the processing power and larger ram to that. Plus its a new hand held, so devs will be more enthusiastic.

​

You need to understand its NOT twice the power, well, it is and it isnt... it's not like a normal dual CPU system (which btw still dont fully use 100% of both), the 940T doesn't have all the abilities of memory access and such that the main CPU the 920T does, it's going to be difficult (not sure if impossible, I'm sure someone can find a way) of easily keeping the data synced between them...

I dont believe (at least for a while) we'll see full utilization of the 2nd core, I think for the foreseeable future the 2nd CPU will be very under-utilized doing simply things like outputing sound and blitting etc... not being FULLY used to emulate say the entire SPU of SNES or something while the 920T does the GPU and CPU...

lets just wait and see, but please understand its not approx 400mhz of pure power to utilize...

 

[scoobydew]

He does have a point though on why GPH released a new handheld with only just 2 200mhz processors, 64mb ram, and two more buttons when they could of made it even more powerful since the components to do it are out there(i'm only listing some of the newer things it has and not trying to be exhaustive in my critique).

I know the price would be more for the materials but having a portable N64 to carry around would be great on top of perfect SNES instead of maybe perfect SNES and maybe decent GBA. The GP32 does the SNES really well along with mame, pcengine, doom but several steps forward would of been better instead of 1 or 2 steps forward.
That's all i'm saying.

Again for those that like to pick, the GP2x looks great and I preordered one in september so i'm all for it. I just thought he does have something for us to think about regardless if we love the new system or hoped it had better specs.
I really like the way it looks though.
Thanks, Joe.

 

[Alpha2]

When GP decided it was time to make the XGP that's when GPH split off from them. Obviously the idea is that they wanted to continue down the path that the GP32 went and saw the most success with.

The GP32 was going to go away, no more where going to be made. Why try to keep making a 5 year old system? Even if GPH could buy the rights from GP to continue making it that just seems counter productive. So it made sense to make a new system that functioned the same way but add a bit more power to it. But at the same time it had to stay cost conscious. Hense the 2 200mhz processors instead of the 1 400 that would have cost more to manufacture (the plant where they're being made isnt set up for it or something.)

As for what it can do, it can certainly do more than the GP32, the thing is it just might not be perfect interms of emulation. SNES will eventually be faster, Perfect? who knows, but it can get faster with the new tech and you would need to scramble around with settings to find an extra 2 buttons. Homebrew is also more than just emulators, we've got more memory for BoR mods that didn't fit in the GP32, a better storage medium in the SD card and no mor ehaving to worry about NLU, FLU, BLU and BLU+ issues. I'd love some portable N64 too but we're not going to get it anytime soon and not on this handheld. A full catalog of MVS NeoGeo games would be awesome too but I suppose I have to be happy with what I get, atleast with the Linuxheads popping up it means a chance for new things other than what we had.

If that's not enough of a reason, go read these threads where it's been said a number of times before already. It's getting like freaking Groundhog's Day around here.

http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?showtopic=21243

http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?showtopic=21192

http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?showtopic=21035

and specific to the 2, 200 mhz issue is this one.
http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?showtopic=20822

 

[codesmith]

Hense the 2 200mhz processors instead of the 1 400 that would have cost more to manufacture (the plant where they're being made isnt set up for it or something.)

​

Because of the way chips are manufactured, their price goes up exponentially with MHz (the machines in the manufacturing plant, which regularly crank out high quality 200MHz chips, may be incapable of producing commercially-viable runs of 400MHz chips). This means chips that get a lot more expensive as speed goes up, and a 2x increase in speed can add a lot to cost. For example, if I look at the price of AMD64 CPUs (if anyone knows how to cut costs in high tech chips, it's AMD) at newegg.com, I see that the 1.8GHz 3000+ goes for $146, while the 2.4GHz 3800+ goes for $323. Both chips have the same CPU core, same amount of cache, in fact the only difference is a 33% speed boost, which corresponds to a 221% difference in price. Even though the MMSP2 is not in the GHz range, I don't think it's a stretch to say that doubling the speed of the chip could easily double its price. Considering how cheap memory and LCDs are becoming nowadays, the MMSP2 could easily be half the cost of the GP2X (there's not a lot in there besides the three things I just mentioned ). Since the current cost is ~$200, doubling the price of the MMSP2 would push the price into the $300 range (I know the console does not cost $200 to manufacture, but I'm assuming that the profit margins will be low enough that a 50% increase in manufacturing cost will cause roughly a 50% increase in retail price - GPH wants to keep prices low). At which point, you end up in the PSP's price range, and a GP2X, even with a 400MHz CPU, cannot compete head to head with a PSP - if the 3D accelerator doesn't get you, the volume of games and Sony's UMD movies will. There's a lot more to making a successful console than putting in all the cool widgets you can cram in there.

Anyone still awake?