Optimus
Member
This is no joke. I just wonder if you like GP32 or GP2X better and why?
I started with a GP32. Then got also a GP2X because of the community moving there. It was faster, better, several problems fixed, the screen was so clear I loved it. Though I was dissapointed by several other minor or major facts that make me like my GP32 better. I use my GP32 to play emulators, homebrew games, view pictures, play MP3s, MODs, YM, SID, view demos more than I do on the GP2X. I only use the GP2X to show to my friends what is possible, to impress people and just for developing in order to support the community. I won't play emulators or games or even fire up a music player for my own enjoyment because the battery will fade out after 2 hours (maybe I should buy and try those Ansman?). I'll just run some MAME and impress my friends by playing Metal Slug for 2 minutes and then switching to another emulator where I will just show for other 5 minutes some popular title to just impress people but not actually sit there for hours to actually play a game or something. And that's because of the battery life. Too much processor power, much fewer fun.
And then we go on to the handheld itself. Oh yes, I could just plugin power in the DC on the right. But where the jack is and the cable of the power supply is it makes it annoying for me to place my hand and touch the buttons, it's really on my way and so I am playing carefully (but not intensively) so that I don't accidentaly pull off the plug and close the machine. I don't like the position of some of the jacks that prevent from grabing the GP2X tight, also the old GP32 had better curves for my hands to grab and feel (talks like it's some kind of chixxor
The joypad. It has a better (softer) feeling in the GP32 and I like it's clicky sound. GP2X is harder but we all know this fact. However, at the beginning I didn't found it very annoying. I already hated how it was impossible any more on the old GP32 joypad to do diagonials anymore and happy it seems to work well on GP2X. But recently, sometimes the GP2X stick denies to go left. I guess this one started malfunctioning too. It's still funnier to play games on GP32, at least the ones that don't need diagonial in their gameplay necessary. Maybe I should open it and fix it..
The volume button of GP2X. I hate it! Especially when a programm doesn't support it to make sound low (Ok, I have neglected having this support in my demos too.
The GP32 has the backlit button to turn on/off the light on the screen. GP2X has that not (is there a key combination I don't know?). Not very important but. In fact, when the GP2X is at the end of the battery life it instantly freezes. You never expect it. But the GP32 flashes and darkens the light and there are few minutes I can turn off light and manage to save my game before it goes totally off. Ok, those are not very important but add.
More processor power, bigger storing cards, more memory, but much bigger file sizes. That's probably because of these SDL and other libs having to be inside the exe. I am always happy when I see GP2X progs using the minilib or doing it low-level. Because it's rare! And the thing that is often is a programm that is something like at least 1MB or 2-3 or more! Recently, I browsed the GP32 downloads and wished to download all latest versions of my favorite emulator or homebrew I may be missing, and was surprised to see the average size of the download being 200-300kb. Shit!!!
I also for some reason still like that clumsy shape and color of my beloved GP32. Maybe memories? Maybe still can't get the same love from the GP2X that looks like a PSP???
But that's not important. Maybe the most important negatives for me in the GP2X are the battery life, power jack position, volume button and stick. I only like how clear the screen is in GP2X and dislike how dark it is on my GP32 (Still need to brighten up some photos in my PC in order to be able to watch them on the GP32). My GP32 is not BLU+ and so I wonder if anyone of you knows whether the BLU+ has brighter screen that is like the GP2X? I might get one BLU+ for my collection too, especially if this is true..
And now the negative of GP32:
0) I don't care much about CPU power, memory, SMC size in comparison to GP2X because even the old processor power of the GP32 was more than enough for what I like to develop and maybe more challenging to (And still I haven't got the chance to try coding some ARM assembly and try to optimize bits there. With such processing power I am lazy and prefer to code in C). Ok, maybe I can't run MAME, Amiga or SNES but who cares?
1) The dark screen.
2) The stick that breaks easilly and makes no diagonials.
3) Some things making programming harder. Like the choice to have vertical videoram instead of the horizontal like on the PC. Harder to simply port things. The sound crackling bug of a music player while code that process heavily the videoram (it can be solved though fairly easilly). I think that's all.
The possitive of GP2X:
0) The processor power. But who cares? Also at first I was dissapointed because some ported code from the GP32 to GP2X of demo effects didn't prooved as fast and sometimes slower and to fill the videoram was slower. But that was because the upper 32MB were uncached and needed to apply the mmuhack. Then everything was almost twice faster than on the GP32 that makes a sense. And the second CPU would be nifty to try to use. And maybe the video hardware too (blitter?).
1) The clear screen. Lovely!
2) Stick is still worse than GP32 feeling but it almost haven't malfuncitoned yet.
3) Horizontal serial videoram now, SDL is good here even though I'd prefer to go low level oneday if I get the chance. No sound crackling or stuff. Sometimes though HW accelerated SDL flickers if I also don't vsync and vsync doesn't seem similar to GP32 (and sometimes GP32 seems to have smoother sync and scrolls seem perfect unlike GP2X. But maybe that's because of SDL or my code?)
4) Those cool things like TV-Out and additional hardware. Ok, GP32 had something for it too (that keyboard thing) but not TV-Out.
5) You can now see the battery life either on menu or batter light. And an application can be programmed to also so percentage of battery life.
6) Menu is niftier and has more interesting options.
7) It runs Linux (whatever that means
And so I still love my GP32 =)
I started with a GP32. Then got also a GP2X because of the community moving there. It was faster, better, several problems fixed, the screen was so clear I loved it. Though I was dissapointed by several other minor or major facts that make me like my GP32 better. I use my GP32 to play emulators, homebrew games, view pictures, play MP3s, MODs, YM, SID, view demos more than I do on the GP2X. I only use the GP2X to show to my friends what is possible, to impress people and just for developing in order to support the community. I won't play emulators or games or even fire up a music player for my own enjoyment because the battery will fade out after 2 hours (maybe I should buy and try those Ansman?). I'll just run some MAME and impress my friends by playing Metal Slug for 2 minutes and then switching to another emulator where I will just show for other 5 minutes some popular title to just impress people but not actually sit there for hours to actually play a game or something. And that's because of the battery life. Too much processor power, much fewer fun.
And then we go on to the handheld itself. Oh yes, I could just plugin power in the DC on the right. But where the jack is and the cable of the power supply is it makes it annoying for me to place my hand and touch the buttons, it's really on my way and so I am playing carefully (but not intensively) so that I don't accidentaly pull off the plug and close the machine. I don't like the position of some of the jacks that prevent from grabing the GP2X tight, also the old GP32 had better curves for my hands to grab and feel (talks like it's some kind of chixxor
The joypad. It has a better (softer) feeling in the GP32 and I like it's clicky sound. GP2X is harder but we all know this fact. However, at the beginning I didn't found it very annoying. I already hated how it was impossible any more on the old GP32 joypad to do diagonials anymore and happy it seems to work well on GP2X. But recently, sometimes the GP2X stick denies to go left. I guess this one started malfunctioning too. It's still funnier to play games on GP32, at least the ones that don't need diagonial in their gameplay necessary. Maybe I should open it and fix it..
The volume button of GP2X. I hate it! Especially when a programm doesn't support it to make sound low (Ok, I have neglected having this support in my demos too
.The GP32 has the backlit button to turn on/off the light on the screen. GP2X has that not (is there a key combination I don't know?). Not very important but. In fact, when the GP2X is at the end of the battery life it instantly freezes. You never expect it. But the GP32 flashes and darkens the light and there are few minutes I can turn off light and manage to save my game before it goes totally off. Ok, those are not very important but add.
More processor power, bigger storing cards, more memory, but much bigger file sizes. That's probably because of these SDL and other libs having to be inside the exe. I am always happy when I see GP2X progs using the minilib or doing it low-level. Because it's rare! And the thing that is often is a programm that is something like at least 1MB or 2-3 or more! Recently, I browsed the GP32 downloads and wished to download all latest versions of my favorite emulator or homebrew I may be missing, and was surprised to see the average size of the download being 200-300kb. Shit!!!
I also for some reason still like that clumsy shape and color of my beloved GP32. Maybe memories? Maybe still can't get the same love from the GP2X that looks like a PSP???
But that's not important. Maybe the most important negatives for me in the GP2X are the battery life, power jack position, volume button and stick. I only like how clear the screen is in GP2X and dislike how dark it is on my GP32 (Still need to brighten up some photos in my PC in order to be able to watch them on the GP32). My GP32 is not BLU+ and so I wonder if anyone of you knows whether the BLU+ has brighter screen that is like the GP2X? I might get one BLU+ for my collection too, especially if this is true..
And now the negative of GP32:
0) I don't care much about CPU power, memory, SMC size in comparison to GP2X because even the old processor power of the GP32 was more than enough for what I like to develop and maybe more challenging to (And still I haven't got the chance to try coding some ARM assembly and try to optimize bits there. With such processing power I am lazy and prefer to code in C). Ok, maybe I can't run MAME, Amiga or SNES but who cares?
1) The dark screen.
2) The stick that breaks easilly and makes no diagonials.
3) Some things making programming harder. Like the choice to have vertical videoram instead of the horizontal like on the PC. Harder to simply port things. The sound crackling bug of a music player while code that process heavily the videoram (it can be solved though fairly easilly). I think that's all.
The possitive of GP2X:
0) The processor power. But who cares? Also at first I was dissapointed because some ported code from the GP32 to GP2X of demo effects didn't prooved as fast and sometimes slower and to fill the videoram was slower. But that was because the upper 32MB were uncached and needed to apply the mmuhack. Then everything was almost twice faster than on the GP32 that makes a sense. And the second CPU would be nifty to try to use. And maybe the video hardware too (blitter?).
1) The clear screen. Lovely!
2) Stick is still worse than GP32 feeling but it almost haven't malfuncitoned yet.
3) Horizontal serial videoram now, SDL is good here even though I'd prefer to go low level oneday if I get the chance. No sound crackling or stuff. Sometimes though HW accelerated SDL flickers if I also don't vsync and vsync doesn't seem similar to GP32 (and sometimes GP32 seems to have smoother sync and scrolls seem perfect unlike GP2X. But maybe that's because of SDL or my code?)
4) Those cool things like TV-Out and additional hardware. Ok, GP32 had something for it too (that keyboard thing) but not TV-Out.
5) You can now see the battery life either on menu or batter light. And an application can be programmed to also so percentage of battery life.
6) Menu is niftier and has more interesting options.
7) It runs Linux (whatever that means
And so I still love my GP32 =)
