Which Emulator System?


GeneralJefe

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I just recently decided that I am going to get some kind of emulator system. I want to use it to play gba,snes,nes,sega Saturn and n64 games if possible(not required)
My question is should I go with a caanoo, or some other device? I think that I have decided against a wiz, so it's either a caanoo or some "android handheld," whatever that means.
From what I've read, the support for the caanoo has kind of died off, or is as time goes on. Will that be any different for an android handheld? Well before I ask anymore questions about an android handheld, could someone explain to me exactly what an "android handheld" even is? Thanks
 
Well, an android handheld is an tablet with a smaller screen and controlls ;). You use normal android and the software for it. Often the use better hardware then the caanoo, since they can just use cutting edge technology. On the other hand, the emulator are not as optimised since the hardware change often. Not sure about the quality, the caanoo quality is pretty good (south korea).

If you want other software to run like an email client use the android stuff. You will get more apps and better hardware. But probably not much optimisation.

If you want a simple, high quality, reliable, well tested game machine, with PDF reading and video / mp3 support, take the caanoo. It plays (almost) everything up to the SNES and older PSX games. But only if you can get it cheap (I paid 80€ for mine). I can bought the wlan stick too and use the aurora browser. It works quite good, I just could not get it to send message on meeboo (reading does work)-
 
rohezal said:
Well, an android handheld is an tablet with a smaller screen and controlls ;) . You use normal android and the software for it. Often the use better hardware then the caanoo, since they can just use cutting edge technology. On the other hand, the emulator are not as optimised since the hardware change often. Not sure about the quality, the caanoo quality is pretty good (south korea).

If you want other software to run like an email client use the android stuff. You will get more apps and better hardware. But probably not much optimisation.

If you want a simple, high quality, reliable, well tested game machine, with PDF reading and video / mp3 support, take the caanoo. It plays (almost) everything up to the SNES and older PSX games. But only if you can get it cheap (I paid 80€ for mine). I can bought the wlan stick too and use the aurora browser. It works quite good, I just could not get it to send message on meeboo (reading does work)-
Could you please tell me where you paid that little for it? I can't find it for any cheaper than $170.00, 80 euros translates to about $100, and if I can pay 100 instead of 170, then that's great. Can you provide a link that ships to the us and has the caanoo for sale at that price?
 
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I bought mine from ebay by a seller called camera girl. But it was a promotion selling.
 
If you're looking for Saturn emulation there's no handhelds that are capable of that yet, at least not well. The Pandora has a Saturn emu but it doesn't really play anything fast enough. For great PSX and pretty good N64 emulation look at one of the Android consoles. The Caanoo is a good choice for most consoles 16bit or older and has very decent PSX and MAME emulation but it's not perfect. Think about buying a GCW Zero when they become available, it's looking to be a fairly powerful unit.
 
Orion4874 said:
If you're looking for Saturn emulation there's no handhelds that are capable of that yet, at least not well. The Pandora has a Saturn emu but it doesn't really play anything fast enough. For great PSX and pretty good N64 emulation look at one of the Android consoles. The Caanoo is a good choice for most consoles 16bit or older and has very decent PSX and MAME emulation but it's not perfect. Think about buying a GCW Zero when they become available, it's looking to be a fairly powerful unit.
I'm somewhat new to this scene, I thought that the best I could do was a Caanoo and I'd be lucky to run an N64 emu on it. I had no idea these Android consoles even existed until today. From what it looks like, this GCW Zero will be able to run N64/PSX emus pretty well, which gets me excited. It'll be awesome to be playing some Mario 64/Zelda. Since you seem to be knowledgeable on this topic, I'll ask you, should I wait on the GCW Zero or go with a Yinlips YDPG18A? From what I'm reading, I'm going to guess you'll say the GCW Zero, but I just want to be sure. Lastly, how much do you think I should put away for this GCW Zero? If that is the system that you recommend.
 
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Well, it depends on your finances really. I'd personally recommend a YDPG16, they're powerful and decently priced, $80-$90 shipped. The G18's are about $120-$140 and don't really offer anything more besides screen size. The GCW Zero on the other hand probably won't be readily available until August or September and the launch price seems to be $110 which is not bad at all. The plus side to the Zero is it looks like it's going to get some good support from the Dingoo scene devs, so if you can, get an Android unit to tide yourself over until you can get your hands on a Zero.
 
Orion4874 said:
Well, it depends on your finances really. I'd personally recommend a YDPG16, they're powerful and decently priced, $80-$90 shipped. The G18's are about $120-$140 and don't really offer anything more besides screen size. The GCW Zero on the other hand probably won't be readily available until August or September and the launch price seems to be $110 which is not bad at all. The plus side to the Zero is it looks like it's going to get some good support from the Dingoo scene devs, so if you can, get an Android unit to tide yourself over until you can get your hands on a Zero.
Hm, well I might actually just do that, I might get a YDPG16 and the get the GCW Zero with it is released. But before I make any final decisions, could you tell me whether or not you think the 512MB of memory on the special edition Zero will make that big of a difference from the 256MB of ram on the normal model? I mean, will it affect the fluidity of certain emulators, like an N64 emulator? And if it will have no affect on that, what will it affect? Thanks in advanced.
 
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For the most part, anything pre-PSX wouldn't really need that much ram. The Caanoo for example has 128mb and plays most 16bit era and below very well not to mention the great PSX emu it has. Now, 256mb would probably be enough for near perfect PSX and pretty good N64 emulation like the Pandora offers. Another question would be how high can the Zero's cpu be overclocked before it locks up? My guess is that if the Zero had a 1.5 or 2ghz processor then it could take better advantage of the 512 but as it stands now it probably won't offer much over what 256mb can do. PSX, N64, Jaguar maybe but not that likely, Saturn could run but playability would be subpar, Quake 3 is a good bet. Have a look at the Pandora's library as alot of what runs on that handheld could most likely run on the Zero. Of course all of this depends on the devs and what they decide to port and how much they optimize the games and emus.

Btw, Justin, the guy who's producing the Zero, is accepting preorders from people that missed out on the original 100 special editions. In case you're interested here is the email to send inquiries, gcwnow@gmail.com
The first 100 were $65 down and the remaining $45 three weeks before it ships so i'm assuming it's the same now as well.
 
Orion4874 said:
For the most part, anything pre-PSX wouldn't really need that much ram. The Caanoo for example has 128mb and plays most 16bit era and below very well not to mention the great PSX emu it has. Now, 256mb would probably be enough for near perfect PSX and pretty good N64 emulation like the Pandora offers. Another question would be how high can the Zero's cpu be overclocked before it locks up? My guess is that if the Zero had a 1.5 or 2ghz processor then it could take better advantage of the 512 but as it stands now it probably won't offer much over what 256mb can do. PSX, N64, Jaguar maybe but not that likely, Saturn could run but playability would be subpar, Quake 3 is a good bet. Have a look at the Pandora's library as alot of what runs on that handheld could most likely run on the Zero. Of course all of this depends on the devs and what they decide to port and how much they optimize the games and emus.

Btw, Justin, the guy who's producing the Zero, is accepting preorders from people that missed out on the original 100 special editions. In case you're interested here is the email to send inquiries, gcwnow@gmail.com
The first 100 were $65 down and the remaining $45 three weeks before it ships so i'm assuming it's the same now as well.
Yeah, I saw thought, I sent an email the second I read it. I sent it a couple days ago and sent another today(last one I'll send, don't worry, I wont spam him.) I hope I can get one though.
Edit: Well, they only put up 50 more special editions and I managed to get one, now it needs to hurry up an be released!
 
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RAM is not too important for emulation. The wizz got 64 MB and can handle most games well. The PSX had 2 MB RAM and 1 MB Video RAM. The emulator (or better said the recompiler), needs some RAM. So the 64 MB of the Wizz sometimes are not enough for complicated games. The Caanoo with 128 can emulate all games I know.

So if you got "enough" RAM, more does not help to speed things up.

More important is fast RAM und and even more a faster CPU with good commands like NEON on the OMAP which is used by the pandora (neon means it can do 2 operations at when some constraints are fullfilled, so it speeds up the emulation a lot). If you got a good working GPU it can speed up a lot too.
 
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