Why So Little Interest In The Wiz?

[Iorgy77]

So little interest?

Maybe because it won't be out until February 2009. Kind of a long way off.

Well to be fair it kinda looks like that's when most of us will be getting our hands on the pandora.

 

[coldfish]

I dont mind waiting.

It gives the devs a chance to generate some solid content and GPh time to polish the system.

Maybe by Feb the $AUD will be in better shape too?

I'll keep using my trusty ole' 2X a while longer.

 

[sbock]

@Exophase

Good post as always. Just one point: The 3D libaries are available but not integrated yet if I understand Orkie right...

Regards,
Stephan

 

[MiniSinisterMinister]

I think the Whiz looks really nice. And if you just want to run a media player and 8/16Bit emulators on it, it is an attractive handheld because of its size, price and availability. However, I would always miss more buttons and analog sticks for the emulation of systems with more complex controls. And I would also miss WLAN and a web browser.

By the way, aren't you worried about the life span of the OLED? I read somewhere that they start to corrode and produce growing black dots after some time. And I would also like to know wether GPH is really marketing the handheld towards a western audience. Because I read somewhere that it is mainly marketed towards Koreans as a language learning handheld (and probably media player). That would explains the strange idea of using two d-pads instead of buttons - maybe it was never designed as a gaming-handheld. On the other hand, it has a 3D graphics accelerator.

 

[klikklak]

I'm not worried about the lifespan of the OLED. I think it'll last for long enough. Also the _gp2x_ was/is used as a language learning aid, I'm not aware that there are plans to use the wiz in a similar way. Yes, I think they're aiming the west and to hopefully improve on the gp2x.

 

[DaveC]

By the way, aren't you worried about the life span of the OLED? I read somewhere that they start to corrode and produce growing black dots after some time.

OLED screens mostly shift color over time because the blue elements have a much shorter lifespan. They tend to go yellow. They are also prone to burn-in as well so leaving a static image on screen for awhile is not recommended.

 

[WarmFluffyUK]

By the way, aren't you worried about the life span of the OLED? I read somewhere that they start to corrode and produce growing black dots after some time.

OLED screens mostly shift color over time because the blue elements have a much shorter lifespan. They tend to go yellow. They are also prone to burn-in as well so leaving a static image on screen for awhile is not recommended.

The OLED screen is more likely to outlast the lifespan of the Wiz you know. And at least you don't get any dead pixels. Plus the fact OLED screens look fantastic compared to TFT. I have said it once, and I will say it again, OLED technology is the future, it's going to replace plasma and TFT in TV and monitors and in our handhelds. And I for once support that as The Wiz's screen looks amazing.

Oh and don't forget that TFTs suffer from degradation of the backlight and inverter failures. Inverters are one of the most common faults in TFT screens.

 

[nubie]

Oh and don't forget that TFTs suffer from degradation of the backlight and inverter failures. Inverters are one of the most common faults in TFT screens.

To be fair inverters are practically service parts (at least I service them ), and most modern hand-helds/portables are going to be using LEDs, so that cuts the high voltage and CCFL completely out of the picture :lol: pun intended?

 

[WarmFluffyUK]

Oh and don't forget that TFTs suffer from degradation of the backlight and inverter failures. Inverters are one of the most common faults in TFT screens.

To be fair inverters are practically service parts (at least I service them ), and most modern hand-helds/portables are going to be using LEDs, so that cuts the high voltage and CCFL completely out of the picture :lol: pun intended?

Sorry, I was referring to TV's and Monitors in relation to OLED technology there, I should have made that a bit clearer. And you're right about inverters being an easy to repair part, but the point is they are a part that tends to go often, and the average Jo wouldn't know how to repair it themselves, people like us charge them for that

 

[christo930]

QUOTE
And assuming the cpu in the Wiz is as powerful, clock for clock, then pure cpu power is nearly twice as powerful. Granted, that's probably a big assumption, but overall the system is more than twice as powerful as the gp2x. I wouldn't call it fantasy at all. One other thought, I don't know what percentage of gp2x's can hit 290 and be stable there, but I haven't heard of any until this thread.
The problem with your assumption is that many programs will probably be bandwidth limited. Even some GP2X programs are bandwidth limited at 250mhz. The Wiz has roughly the same memory bandwidth as the GP2X (DDR but half the bitrate) and it hasn't changed anything to conteract this factor (ie bigger caches). Unless the GPU has onboard memory (which i doubt) or a very efficent TBR approach it will probably be significantly limited by bandwidth aswell.

You also seem to be forgetting that the GP2X has dual 200mhz CPUs.

PS: My f200 is stable at 280mhz. Some of them are stable at ~300mhz. They probably average ~250mhz.

There is a common misconception that the gp2x is a dual core machine. They are two different chips with different names even, at least as pointed out to me. IF devs were using both cpu's or cores or whatever they are called, I would have to agree. Unfortunately, they are not. Picodrive is the only emulator that I know of that uses both core/cpus or whatever you want to call them, but nothing else. I think SNES emulation would be pretty much full speed if the sound were moved to the second processor like Picodrive does and a few others would probably benefit as well (just meaning emulators that are close to being full speed).

Are there any systems you predict the Wiz would probably be able to do without the bandwidth limitation, but with the bandwidth limitation become unworkable? Or does this more apply to homebrewing or porting 3d apps from the pc linux? I always thought of emulation as being cpu intensive, to the point that cpu power was the main limiting factor. Not being a developer, I might very well be wrong. Would you care to inform me?

Chris

 

[christo930]

QUOTE
I think the Whiz looks really nice. And if you just want to run a media player and 8/16Bit emulators on it, it is an attractive handheld because of its size, price and availability. However, I would always miss more buttons and analog sticks for the emulation of systems with more complex controls. And I would also miss WLAN and a web browser.


I don't really see how having built in wi-fi or a web browser would help the Wiz. The screen is too small and the resolution is too low to have any satisfying web experience. Wireless gaming is always nice, but lets face it, most people are very unlikely to know anyone else with a Wiz. Online gaming is unlikely given the homebrewn nature of the machine, since few people would be able to host any sort of online gaming for any length of time. Granted, someone with a cable modem and a Static ip address might be able to be a host, but how long is anyone going to do this? Frankly, I think the same exact issues I just mentioned apply to the Pandora as well, but to a lesser degree since it has a larger screen with a higher resolution. WIth that said, the only small screen devices that most people agree give a decent web experience, are able to do so because they use a browser designed for a small screen. Look at the iPhone with Safari for iPhone. It's Safari that gives the iPhone user the good web experience. Look at an iPaq with IE for PPC and compare the experience. To be blunt, it sucks. I know there are a couple of other small screen web devices that are known to be decent, but they use a custom version of Opera. I grant you, this is speculation on my part since I haven't seen the Pandora or the Wiz, but given past experiences with small screen devices, they just don't give a good experience.

QUOTE
By the way, aren't you worried about the life span of the OLED? I read somewhere that they start to corrode and produce growing black dots after some time. And I would also like to know wether GPH is really marketing the handheld towards a western audience. Because I read somewhere that it is mainly marketed towards Koreans as a language learning handheld (and probably media player). That would explains the strange idea of using two d-pads instead of buttons - maybe it was never designed as a gaming-handheld. On the other hand, it has a 3D graphics accelerator.



I would guess that most people would loose interest in the device before the screen gets to the point where it's ugly or unusable. It is possible that won't be the case and that in a year or 2 the screens will start to fail. Unfortunately, that's a chance you take when you go with a new technology. I don't think it's a big enough reason to worry about it too much, especially given the fairly low cost of the Wiz (at least compared to the Pandora).

(edit) someone mentioned that the OLED screens are subject to burn in. I would assume that developers would take this into consideration when developing games. Depending on how fast a burn in can take place, it seems to me that this could be a big problem with certain types of games. Does color cycling help with burn in like with crts? IF so, maybe static areas could use color cycling to avoid burn-in.
Chris

 

[Adventus]

QUOTE
There is a common misconception that the gp2x is a dual core machine. They are two different chips with different names even, at least as pointed out to me. IF devs were using both cpu's or cores or whatever they are called, I would have to agree. Unfortunately, they are not. Picodrive is the only emulator that I know of that uses both core/cpus or whatever you want to call them, but nothing else. I think SNES emulation would be pretty much full speed if the sound were moved to the second processor like Picodrive does and a few others would probably benefit as well (just meaning emulators that are close to being full speed).
The reason few developers use the 2nd core effectively is probably due to the bandwith constraints. Also, The 2nd CPU has smaller caches, so (in most cases) it will use more bandwidth via cache misses than the 1st CPU to achieve the same result.

Moving the Sound Rendering to the 2nd CPU may infact decrease overall performance because the 2nd CPU could end up using more bandwidth and slowing down the main CPU. Unless your looping very small samples that fit well in dcache (8kb) it may not be worth the work required.

QUOTE
Are there any systems you predict the Wiz would probably be able to do without the bandwidth limitation, but with the bandwidth limitation become unworkable? Or does this more apply to homebrewing or porting 3d apps from the pc linux? I always thought of emulation as being cpu intensive, to the point that cpu power was the main limiting factor. Not being a developer, I might very well be wrong. Would you care to inform me?
It really depends on how its coded, porting something like a PC emu would likely be heavily bandwidth constrained, However the GP2X apps have been optimised with this in mind. Exophase seems pretty adament that most programs are significantly bandwidth limited, but i guess you would have to ask the specific emu devs.

Still there's no doubt it's more powerful than the GP2X, but more powerful than the PSP might be an overstatement.

Edit: Woops thats should be 4 KiB of dcache.

 

[MiniSinisterMinister]

QUOTE
I don't really see how having built in wi-fi or a web browser would help the Wiz. The screen is too small and the resolution is too low to have any satisfying web experience.


You are right. What I really meant was that I want a handheld with web browsing capabilities. But obviously the Whiz is not designed for this because of several reasons.

QUOTE
I grant you, this is speculation on my part since I haven't seen the Pandora or the Wiz, but given past experiences with small screen devices, they just don't give a good experience.


Actually, I am already satisfied with the Sony PSP's screen resolution when I use its web browser occasionally. The PSP fails in this for other reasons: Loading web pages is too slow, it runs out of memory quickly, it cannot do flash ect. and the soft-keyboard is awful (text message like keyboard wtf Sony!). I assume that Pandora will be a great improvemnt compared to what I currently use. I agree with you in the fact that these handhelds are only good with a web browser that is designed for a small screen. But the developers of firefox are working on "fennec", a version specifically designed for handhelds and will be ported to Pandora. So I don't worry about this too much.

 

[Squidge]

There is a common misconception that the gp2x is a dual core machine. They are two different chips with different names even, at least as pointed out to me. IF devs were using both cpu's or cores or whatever they are called, I would have to agree. Unfortunately, they are not.
The GP2X has a single processor (chip) which contains two versions of an ARM9. To most people, thats two seperate cores, not two different chips, the only difference being cache size and memory management units (MMU vs MPU). Your second argument doesn't sound right either - a machine is only dual core if developers use both cores? Thats like saying an Intel Core2 Quad is a P4 as theres a lack of software which can use all 4 cores. There is a reason devs don't use both cores, and that reason is due to both cores using the same memory controller, and so having to rely on there caches. The second core (the 940) can slow down the primary core (920) simply due to halting it whilst its messing with main memory due to cache misses.

 

[christo930]

There is a common misconception that the gp2x is a dual core machine. They are two different chips with different names even, at least as pointed out to me. IF devs were using both cpu's or cores or whatever they are called, I would have to agree. Unfortunately, they are not.
The GP2X has a single processor (chip) which contains two versions of an ARM9. To most people, thats two seperate cores, not two different chips, the only difference being cache size and memory management units (MMU vs MPU). Your second argument doesn't sound right either - a machine is only dual core if developers use both cores? Thats like saying an Intel Core2 Quad is a P4 as theres a lack of software which can use all 4 cores. There is a reason devs don't use both cores, and that reason is due to both cores using the same memory controller, and so having to rely on there caches. The second core (the 940) can slow down the primary core (920) simply due to halting it whilst its messing with main memory due to cache misses.

As I said, I was only repeating what was pointed out to me by one of the more vocal developers around here.
I have a question though. How is Picodrive able to circumvent the problems pointed out above? Is he a better developer or does the genesis emulation lend itself very well to the way the gp2x is setup? Is it the way the emu is laid out and made from the ground up for a machine other than a pc? And I don't mean it like HUH HUH! I am really just curious.

Chris

 

[Firefox]

The extra speed and 3d will get psx emulation, snes, amiga and just most other older systems except Saturn and Jaguar.

I'll certainly be having a go at getting T2K going on the Wiz.

 

[Poobik The Hare]

Because the Pandora is a console built by the community for the community.
GP/GPH have proven that while they make good consoles, they do have quite a few flaws and missing features. So the Pandora steps in, designed to have mostly everything that you could need in a handheld console, giving developers lots of power and features to play with, and end users lots of functionality.

and just when will the Pandora step in? early next year? next summer? ever?.

 

[Adventus]

QUOTE
and just when will the Pandora step in? early next year? next summer? ever?.
Probably before the Wiz.

QUOTE
I have a question though. How is Picodrive able to circumvent the problems pointed out above? Is he a better developer or does the genesis emulation lend itself very well to the way the gp2x is setup? Is it the way the emu is laid out and made from the ground up for a machine other than a pc? And I don't mean it like HUH HUH! I am really just curious.
The techical aspects of most emulators are probably lost on me, but the fact the Megadrive tends to play small looping samples that likely fit in the dcache of the 940t probably helps alot. The megadrive itself had 8kb of sound ram. All the others are also important factors, Notaz knows his shit.

The SNES APU seems to have 64kb of RAM so, in a bandwidth constrained environment, its less likely to get good performance.

As i say, total conjecture here. I could be way off.

 

[iprice]

I'll certainly be having a go at getting T2K going on the Wiz.

And I'll be interested in playing it on Wiz

 

[czoom]

They need TV-OUT or I will not buy