Why So Little Interest In The Wiz?

[Orkie]

KungPhoo and I have had the 3D libraries for a while now, just no kernel to match. They are OpenGL ES 1.1 however.

 

[Unfathomable Depths]

ES? Through hardware then?

Nice

 

[Larken]

I'm writing as a user, as I have no dev experience. I am pretty excited about the Wiz. I have never seen an oled screen, so while it sounds like a vast improvement, I can't get too excited about it. I'm mainly excited about the size of the unit. I am a guy who likes to carry my handheld distractions on my belt, and a GP2X is a little too beefy to do that comfortably. The Wiz looks just right. I also don't care about the lack of WiFi. I have used a Palm for ages. I bought a WiFi SD card for it and only used it a few times. As for how I use a handheld, I use it for scheduling, games, ebooks, movies, and music, all of which a Wiz should be able to do. My main worry is the font quality in ebooks. I hope a good reader is developed for it, and I hope the smaller screen helps the font quality. The 320x240 on the GP2X didn't produce pretty fonts like I'm used to on a Palm device. Oh... I like the Hold feature too. Boot-Up time on the GP2X got annoying. If I can just put the Wiz into a suspend state, that would be awesome, esp with the huge battery it is packing. Anyway, my two copper worth...

 

[MWeston]

I love playing this device and OLED really does make such a difference! It's soo bright and I can play games perfectly just about everywhere which was a huge problem with my GP32, PSP and GP2X.

That screen does look nice and bright from the youtube videos I have seen. Perhaps higher resolution, larger panels will be easy to come by for Pandora 2 someday. I guess that will depend on the success of the technology.

I don't mean to seem off topic, although this is a wiz question. Since OLED creates its own light, how do you control the brightness? Is it just through gamma control? Laying in bed playing at normal brightness would be quite painful I would think.

 

[anexanhume]

I love playing this device and OLED really does make such a difference! It's soo bright and I can play games perfectly just about everywhere which was a huge problem with my GP32, PSP and GP2X.

That screen does look nice and bright from the youtube videos I have seen. Perhaps higher resolution, larger panels will be easy to come by for Pandora 2 someday. I guess that will depend on the success of the technology.

I don't mean to seem off topic, although this is a wiz question. Since OLED creates its own light, how do you control the brightness? Is it just through gamma control? Laying in bed playing at normal brightness would be quite painful I would think.


Confirmed pandora 2!>!?!?11?!

J/K

If there is a pandora 2, I hope OLED is a robust and cheap enough tech at the time to implement it.

 

[christo930]

Looking at this forum there is very little talk about the new "upgrade" device from GPH. Go over the the Pandora forum and there's at least 15 topics that have posts for today. I was just wondering why there is so little interest "on a gp32/2x forum for the Wiz. Are there that many people that are disowning GPH and going for the Pandora? With a new gp2x device being out this month I would have thought there would be at least a couple topics going on every few days. However, it's kind of dead. Just wanting to know why there's so little interest, or is it the fact that most are waiting for reviews? At least there are "final" pictures and a release date, plus some nice videos of a couple homebrew games. Any thoughts?...

I for one am really looking forward to the wiz. It's everything I want and nothing more at the right price. So long as there is software for it, I'll be picking one up. Gamepark showed by their delaying the device and changing the controls that they are willing to listen to their customers. It's true they made some mistakes with the gp2x, but overall I think it's a great console and I've had many hours of use out of it.
I personally think the Pandora suffers from the kitchen sink syndrome and it's driven the purchase price up too high. I think the interest will be there when it starts shipping, especially if it starts shipping this month like it's supposed to. It's a much bigger and better upgrade than the gp2x was compared to the gp32. The GP2X was only a marginal upgrade from the gp32, but the wiz is substantially more powerful than the gp2x. I think the wiz will do very well.

Looking forward to seeing this

Hopefully its not just jargon for a FPU

Highly unlikely me thinks.


Somebody on this website created a grid of features with polygon count in it, so the specs are out there. It isn't quite as powerful as the pandora, but it is lower resolution so it doesn't need to pump as many poly's. I for one, couldn't care less about 3d games. If I wanted to play 3d games I'd buy a psp or a nds. Nevertheless, it is there. It can also play flash games from the internet. The only thing I don't like about it is that it uses a rechargeable battery and not regular batteries like the gp2x, where I know there will always be batteries available for it and pretty cheap.

 

[WarmFluffyUK]

That screen does look nice and bright from the youtube videos I have seen. Perhaps higher resolution, larger panels will be easy to come by for Pandora 2 someday. I guess that will depend on the success of the technology.

I don't mean to seem off topic, although this is a wiz question. Since OLED creates its own light, how do you control the brightness? Is it just through gamma control? Laying in bed playing at normal brightness would be quite painful I would think.

I think brightness is controlled by an overall brightness factor, and oddly enough I have played games in the dark and in bed and it never seems to blind me. It's not like TFT at all, especially the blacks, they are true deep blacks and there is a true contrast, unlike TFT where the contrast control makes weird washed out or over bleached areas. And 99% of the TFT's I have ever used always have some sort of ambient backlight issue going on as in order to get black, you have to set the pixel to blank out the back light. Totally inefficient in my books.

I have it on good authority that OLED is the future, or so says out Physics dept as they are investing a lot of time and effort into it. I had a tour around what they are mucking about with a few weeks back and flipping heck it's amazing. Holding a bit of paper in my hand and having it light up bright blue was awesome! Was like a mega LED. And the fact that the technology to print OLED transisters using OLED inks (Yes I said print) will make huge screens very cheap.

OLED is the future, and we have just touched the surface folks, cheap awesome low energy, high output, fast refresh thin screens are on the horizon.

The only thing I don't like about it is that it uses a rechargeable battery and not regular batteries like the gp2x, where I know there will always be batteries available for it and pretty cheap.

I thought this would be a problem, but so far I have saved a fortune in batteries and it's easier than rechargables as I just plug my Wiz into the recharger or USB cable, I can even play it while it's recharging. I like it!

We're off to bed now so nighty night, lets hope we don't blind ourselves :blink:

 

[slaanesh]

I'm looking forward to the Wiz.
Anyone know if there is something like Rlyeh's "minimal lib" available for it yet?
I'd like to bring across GP2X software as soon as I get mine.

 

[Orkie]

Anyone know if there is something like Rlyeh's "minimal lib" available for it yet?

There is indeed, and I have been working on it (on and off) since I got my Wiz.

 

[Squidge]

ES? Through hardware then?

Yep, things like Geometry Transformation Engine, Clipping, Triangle Setup Engine, Rasterizer, etc, in hardware, and also the processor can basically upload commands to the 3D engine and it'll get on with them without supervision.

Not as good as the Pandora's OMAP of course but a lot better than a DS for example. Quake I/II will run quite happily.

 

[sam fisher]

I have fired off an email to GPH requesting more info, it will be tomorrow before I get a response because of the time difference. Maybe Peter can chip in with his vast knowledge before I get it...

Orkie beat me to it. I will however confirm that the Wiz can emulate a towel with the number 42 on it at 100% compatability.

ll I am sure if you have something to contribute, GPH will be happy to give you a test machine as a gift.

They have like 100 with two dpads to get rid of

 

[SunSpire]

I'm sure the wiz has some neat features like the faster CPU and 3D capabilities, but the smaller screen IS an issue for me, OLED or not. It also lacks wifi and TV Out, the latter being a real drawback from the F200 and even tho they changed the 2nd DPad into buttons, it still looks awful IMO. With the pandora in sight at the horizon I don't see why I should settle for a wiz, especially since I already have a GP2X F200 that does most of the things I expect from it well enough. Too little too late, as they say

"SunSpire"

 

[craigix]

Plus the fact the Wiz is actually more powerful than a PSP so that is also a message to other devs out there.

Is it? The 3D chip certainly isn't even close and I suspect the CPU is actually pretty similar. I think the PSP has the edge, actually probably quite a bit more than just an edge, the Wiz does not even have a FPU.

I'm sure we will see some nice ports on the Wiz, faster SNES etc. but I'd like to see some performance figures from SNES or Amiga to get a real judge of its true speed advantage over say a 266mhz GP2X.

From what I've been told a 290Mhz overclocked GP2X is nipping on the heels of the Wiz in terms of emulator performance which is a little worrying... I'd love to be more involved in the Wiz since I'm a distributor but GPH have not sent us one yet.

 

[christo930]

Plus the fact the Wiz is actually more powerful than a PSP so that is also a message to other devs out there.

Is it? The 3D chip certainly isn't even close and I suspect the CPU is actually pretty similar. I think the PSP has the edge, actually probably quite a bit more than just an edge, the Wiz does not even have a FPU.

I'm sure we will see some nice ports on the Wiz, faster SNES etc. but I'd like to see some performance figures from SNES or Amiga to get a real judge of its true speed advantage over say a 266mhz GP2X.

From what I've been told a 290Mhz overclocked GP2X is nipping on the heels of the Wiz in terms of emulator performance which is a little worrying... I'd love to be more involved in the Wiz since I'm a distributor but GPH have not sent us one yet.

In most cases it's probably about 2x as fast as your 290mhz machine, and most don't clock that high. The extra speed and 3d will get psx emulation, snes, amiga and just most other older systems except Saturn and Jaguar. It should play a great deal of pc 3d games as well. It makes a great media player and probably decent for e-books as well. While it doesn't have internet, what would internet really bring to it? Your not going to surf websites on that screen. Even a psp leaves a lot to be desired for using internet. I personally view the Pandora as a different device than the wiz. The Pandora is a umpc, posing as a game system (or the other way around). Hopefully it will be good as both. But for quick games, emulation, homebrew, showing off pics of the kids... I think the Wiz fills that great. A pda that is good at playing games is what the Pandora seems to be (to me) and that is what I would use it for.

 

[Alex.]

I'm very interested in both the Wiz and Pandora, and hope to support both of them. It would be nice to have a small public subforum for the Wiz (the current Pandora one would be a good template for it), where discussion about it would be implicitly encouraged.

 

[Adventus]

QUOTE
In most cases it's probably about 2x as fast as your 290mhz machine, and most don't clock that high.
Do you have any benchmarks to back that up? Double Clockrate != Double Performance.

I'm also worried by the PSP comparison, There is little additional the Wiz offers... unless they manage to drive the price down.

 

[christo930]

I'm very interested in both the Wiz and Pandora, and hope to support both of them. It would be nice to have a small public subforum for the Wiz (the current Pandora one would be a good template for it), where discussion about it would be implicitly encouraged.

I would think that in this website, which has traditionally been a Gamepark based website for owners of Gamepark devices to meet and swap, would not just have a "small subforum" for the Wiz. I would hope it would keep it's gamepark roots and support the Pandora as well, on equal footing. To be relegated to the corner would be a very sad outcome.

 

[jbrodack]

I'm interested in the wiz. there just haven't been many announcements about it since the initial full announcement so there isn't too much to talk about. plus there isn't a specific official forum for the wiz yet.

 

[quasist]

I interested in Wiz because two years ago I wanted XGP mini
But XGP was not yet out so I bought GP2X

 

[Ghaleon]

I love the Wiz and have no interest in the Pandora. No offense to Pandora users; I'm sure it will be very good at what it's for. It's more of a computer. The Wiz is more of a console.

I personally think the Pandora is too big. I thought the Nintendo DS was too big. I bought it anyway for Nintendogs, but I only use it occasionally. I take the Game Boy Micro wherever I go, mainly because of its size and the breadth and quality of its game library.

If you want to play first person shooters, buy a Pandora. If you want to emulate the Amiga, buy a Pandora. However, since I want to emulate games for the Atari 2600, the Genesis, and the Neo Geo, and I want to do so using a portable device, I will buy a Wiz.