Will It Ever Come Out?

[christo930]

I chose to let the thread die that he pointed to because he basically said the gp2x sucked and I could see that it would never go anywhere and he was trolling, he didn't "trounce" me. His points were no more valid or better stated than mine. (How he comes to a website about gamepark game systems and says they suck, but I'm the troll is beyond me)

Hey buddy, you don't like being called a troll why don't you watch who you call a troll in return.

you're right. It wasn't you who called me a troll and I don't resort to name calling. Sorry.

To everyone else, get a clue, a troll is someone who posts things just with no intent other than to annoy people, they have no actual attachment to what they're saying. This guy isn't a troll, he's just another person who's really biased and doesn't like to read the things people say, much less properly rebut them.

I am not biased. I don't hate the Pandora, the thing doesn't even exist. I just want the GP2X to has it fair run

I say that because I already told you that I didn't join these boards just to say GP2X sucks. I'm a developer of GP2X software in spite of the fact that I think it sucks, because people own GP2X's and want said software. I don't go around saying it sucks either, I only said it in this thread to illustrate that I'm not biased against Pandora like you are.

would you mind pointing out how the gp2x sucks (from a users point of view). I understand there may be things as a developer that you feel suck, but since most people are not developers, those aspects that suck don't effect most people.

I actually didn't say it sucked in the OTHER thread too so come up with a better reason for why you didn't respond.
Yes you did, that is exactly why I let it drop. (the PC emulator thread)

What I said is that your expectations for what can be done with the platform are unrealistic, and I think given the fact that I've spent far more hours trying to optimize code for it than you have... I'll let you draw your own conclusions on that one.

My expectations of the platform as far as emulation goes is that tg16 emulation should be perfect, unexpanded snes should be near perfect and gba should have a medium rate of compatability and good performance on a medium number of games. It's hard to quantify that last statement and I'm not a developer. I think a big part of the performance problem of dosbox is that it's ported from PC and that on the PC it's target hardware is pretty high. The reason I think emulating a 286 pc with ega graphicsc and an 8 bit sb, is the success of the Amiga emulation and the success of the snes. In the end, maybe I am wrong, but an attempt has not been made (just ports of pc software). Things that were said could not be done are a current reality like dsp support for snes (admittedly, I have not tried it as I am on a mame kick right now and havn't played snes in months). I remember at one point people were saying sega-cd emulation was very unlikely, yet most games can be played full speed 44khz sound while underclocking the gp2x. CPS2 emulation... And as far as home brew stuff goes, I have not heard a single dev complain that their projecct was being held back by technical constraints of the machine, I even asked. I am pretty sure that high computability psx emulation is unrealistic (and anything beyond that) and the gp2x isn't very good at 3d. I may be in the minority here, but I have no interest whatsoever in 3d games (except maybe doom and a couple of others).



One other thing, despite this disagreement, don't think I don't appreciate your development efforts, free of charge. Cause I do. Thanks.

Chris

 

[christo930]

I chose to let the thread die that he pointed to because he basically said the gp2x sucked and I could see that it would never go anywhere and he was trolling, he didn't "trounce" me. His points were no more valid or better stated than mine. (How he comes to a website about gamepark game systems and says they suck, but I'm the troll is beyond me)

Hey buddy, you don't like being called a troll why don't you watch who you call a troll in return. To everyone else, get a clue, a troll is someone who posts things just with no intent other than to annoy people, they have no actual attachment to what they're saying. This guy isn't a troll, he's just another person who's really biased and doesn't like to read the things people say, much less properly rebut them.

I say that because I already told you that I didn't join these boards just to say GP2X sucks. I'm a developer of GP2X software in spite of the fact that I think it sucks, because people own GP2X's and want said software. I don't go around saying it sucks either, I only said it in this thread to illustrate that I'm not biased against Pandora like you are.

Um, doesn't that statement prove you are biased against the gp2x and therefor to some extent biased for the Pandora?



I actually didn't say it sucked in the OTHER thread too so come up with a better reason for why you didn't respond. What I said is that your expectations for what can be done with the platform are unrealistic, and I think given the fact that I've spent far more hours trying to optimize code for it than you have... I'll let you draw your own conclusions on that one.

Chris

 

[Exophase]

I am not biased. I don't hate the Pandora, the thing doesn't even exist. I just want the GP2X to has it fair run

It's not hating Pandora that makes you biased, it's your strong desire to see GP2X continue to be active. I don't think you can deny that you see Pandora as a threat to this.

would you mind pointing out how the gp2x sucks (from a users point of view). I understand there may be things as a developer that you feel suck, but since most people are not developers, those aspects that suck don't effect most people.

Most people here have the F100, as I'm sure you know it has a terrible stick. While GP2X has moved to a d-pad for F200 I hear it's not without problems of its own. The build quality is not good, there are flaws in many units (mine for instance had a broken SD slot), the USB and power inputs are on the side which makes it almost unplayable while using either, it can't charge batteries, it doesn't come with an AC adapter and the ones users have certified to work with it are anything but cheap (thanks to the high power draw).

I personally wouldn't dare buy an F200 either; this might not apply to users so much but without USB device support you can't really remotely debug on it.

All in all, the CPU is just disappointing, and having a second one is not an attractive alternative to including a powerful main CPU. It's really not that much more powerful than GP32, and the RAM clocks are actually even worse. The 2D acceleration is also pretty pathetic, and most of the chipset features (which I'm sure draw power) are almost useless for anything aside from video playback. GP32 is a good four years older than GP2X. You might think it's too soon for GP2X to die but when you see it as more of an incremental improvement over GP32 instead of a platform that really distinguishes itself from it in terms of what it can do (and actually makes a lot of things worse) then it's no surprise that users can't stay interested in it for long. If Gamepark released a version of the GP32 with a CPU that could go a little higher, 4-8x the RAM, and SD card support instead of MMC, then I think it would have beaten the GP2X in pretty much every regard. Granted, I don't own a GP32, so this is just based on what I know about its specs, price, and what users have told me after I asked around about it. I asked if they thought this would be the case and they generally agreed.

My expectations of the platform as far as emulation goes is that tg16 emulation should be perfect, unexpanded snes should be near perfect, and gba should have a medium rate of compatability and good performance on a medium number of games.

I'm working on a PC-Engine emulator right now, so long as "full speed" and very high compatibility for the core platform is enough for "perfect" in that's what will happen.

SNES is probably not going to happen. Lots of people have made claim that SNES emulation should be better than it is, but you don't see that motivating people to pour lots of hours into something that might not pay off a lot, or at all.

If you ask me GBA already does a better than that, both in compatibility and performance - I don't know what your definition of "good performance" is though.

It's hard to quantify that last statement and I'm not a developer. I think a big part of the performance problem of dosbox is that it's ported from PC and that on the PC it's target hardware is pretty high. The reason I think emulating a 286 pc with ega graphicsc and an 8 bit sb, is the success of the Amiga emulation and the success of the snes.

Look, we've already been through this. 80286 CPUs are a lot more powerful and more demanding to emulate than 68k (Amiga) and 65c816 (SNES). SNES has a lot of video hardware but it can get frameskipped into submission. DOSBox for PC isn't a slouch and it's certainly not "fast enough" on high end platforms to the point where there's no interest in emulating it. Even on the best CPUs around I doubt it'll emulate at the level of more than a 75MHz Pentium or so and that's really not good enough. But it's expensive. It's true that there are a lot of things it does that are PC specific that haven't been done on the ARM version and it's true that the thing could be faster overall but doing a dynarec is a lot of work.

And I think that that target is not something that's very interesting, I'd expect most people who aren't content with 8088 level emulation will want 386+ emulation.

In the end, maybe I am wrong, but an attempt has not been made (just ports of pc software).

You're WAY off on this one. A lot of GP2X emulators use ARM CPU cores, largely because they've been circulating around for a while. Some even use renderers written in ASM too. And I'll thank you not to call gpSP and psx4all PC ports, given that they both have dynarecs for ARM.

Things that were said could not be done are a current reality like dsp support for snes (admittedly, I have not tried it as I am on a mame kick right now and havn't played snes in months).

I remember at one point people were saying sega-cd emulation was very unlikely, yet most games can be played full speed 44khz sound while underclocking the gp2x.

DSP1 support is actually not a huge deal, I think you're confusing it with the other special chips.

I already told you, it really doesn't matter what uninformed people say about what is and isn't possible. They were wrong. I never would have said that SegaCD was very unlikely, in fact I seem to remember having a conversation with quzar saying exactly that (where he thought that Dreamcast would be able to do it while GP2X wouldn't)

CPS2 emulation... And as far as home brew stuff goes, I have not heard a single dev complain that their projecct was being held back by technical constraints of the machine, I even asked. I am pretty sure that high computability psx emulation is unrealistic (and anything beyond that) and the gp2x isn't very good at 3d. I may be in the minority here, but I have no interest whatsoever in 3d games (except maybe doom and a couple of others).

Then listen up because I'm complaining about it, I know Squidge and zodttd would too, I'm sure there are many others.

Um, doesn't that statement prove you are biased against the gp2x and therefor to some extent biased for the Pandora?

No, it doesn't. Bias doesn't mean having an opinion, it's when your opinion of one thing influences your opinion of another thing. You're against the Pandora on the basis of what you think of GP2X. What I think of GP2X has no weight whatsoever on what I think of Pandora (which I've actually said very little of, I've mostly just been defending it against unfair comments)

 

[realyst]

QUOTE

Your entire response was an answer to the first question asked which was not asked by me so I don't see why you were referring to me.


Then nevermind. Apparently both the point and the recap flew over your head and impaled some poor bird. Let's move on.


QUOTE

The fact there are a few people on this board that disagree with me on this one issue, does not make me a troll (or a baby eater



Babies, kittens, whichever. Disagreement doth not a troll make, true, but let me bring back this quote from the very beginning of this thread:

Will the pandora ever come out? Looking at openpandora.org I see nothing but a poorly designed website. Is there a release date? Are there even plans to make it?

Now, to make my next point, I'll grab this lil' snippet too:

QUOTE

How he comes to a website about gamepark game systems and says they suck, but I'm the troll is beyond me



Now.....I just need to ask this through clever paraphrasing:

Why you come to the forum dedicated to the Pandora, for the Pandora, full of Pandora-wanting people, administered by the Pandora dev-team administrator on this site run by same, solely to denounce the Pandora as vaporware through not-so-subtle sarcasm is beyond me.

 

[christo930]

I am not biased. I don't hate the Pandora, the thing doesn't even exist. I just want the GP2X to has it fair run

It's not hating Pandora that makes you biased, it's your strong desire to see GP2X continue to be active. I don't think you can deny that you see Pandora as a threat to this.

I think the Pandora is too expensive to nix the GP2X, I think it will segment an already small market, take away developers and users, but not enough to support the Pandora. THis will make 2 game system markets that don't have enough devs or users to keep them going. I can't possibly see how the Pandora can remain viable without a user base at least as large as the gp2x. It might bring in new users, but I really don't think it will bring in too many. To be totally honest, I hope I am wrong. I would love to see the big boys notice and realize that there is a sizeable segment of the market that want to put their dollars in open systems., but I think it's a pipe dream.

would you mind pointing out how the gp2x sucks (from a users point of view). I understand there may be things as a developer that you feel suck, but since most people are not developers, those aspects that suck don't effect most people.

Most people here have the F100, as I'm sure you know it has a terrible stick. While GP2X has moved to a d-pad for F200 I hear it's not without problems of its own. The build quality is not good, there are flaws in many units (mine for instance had a broken SD slot), the USB and power inputs are on the side which makes it almost unplayable while using either, it can't charge batteries, it doesn't come with an AC adapter and the ones users have certified to work with it are anything but cheap (thanks to the high power draw).

I personally wouldn't dare buy an F200 either; this might not apply to users so much but without USB device support you can't really remotely debug on it.

All in all, the CPU is just disappointing, and having a second one is not an attractive alternative to including a powerful main CPU. It's really not that much more powerful than GP32, and the RAM clocks are actually even worse. The 2D acceleration is also pretty pathetic, and most of the chipset features (which I'm sure draw power) are almost useless for anything aside from video playback. GP32 is a good four years older than GP2X. You might think it's too soon for GP2X to die but when you see it as more of an incremental improvement over GP32 instead of a platform that really distinguishes itself from it in terms of what it can do (and actually makes a lot of things worse) then it's no surprise that users can't stay interested in it for long. If Gamepark released a version of the GP32 with a CPU that could go a little higher, 4-8x the RAM, and SD card support instead of MMC, then I think it would have beaten the GP2X in pretty much every regard. Granted, I don't own a GP32, so this is just based on what I know about its specs, price, and what users have told me after I asked around about it. I asked if they thought this would be the case and they generally agreed.

When I first got my GP2X I was ready to send it back after 10 minutes of playing with it (and I have the latest f100 with the improved joy cap), but a half an hour later I got used to it. I can not understand why they used that stick, especially when the gp32 had the best stick on any hand held, all they had to do was improve reliability. I don't ever play it with the usb cord plugged in, so that doesn't effect me. My unit has had no problems (knock on wood). I have a battery charger and about 20 AA rechargeable batteries and to be honest the thought never even occurred to me. The high power draw is a problem for the batteries, but 1 amp power adapters can be had for $10. That is how much I paid for mine and mine and it has a bunch of different voltages and connectors so I can use it with my camera and other devices besides. As far as comparing it with the gp32, I agree. I held off for a long time to buy the gp2x for that very reason. It just wasn't a big enough jump in power to make it worth while. But the back lit screen, the SD cards, real movie playing, extra buttons, newer version of MAME, NeoGeo, Sega CD emulation and a few other things made me make the move, especially the sd cards. I needed a new card and was looking at $80 for a new sd card since by then they weren't being made anymore. I figured 3 cards will just about pay for thing (saving $60 each time) and I like to play it at night (and on the bus) and I can't play it at night because of the lack of backlight. So the deal was cinched.

My expectations of the platform as far as emulation goes is that tg16 emulation should be perfect, unexpanded snes should be near perfect, and gba should have a medium rate of compatability and good performance on a medium number of games.

I'm working on a PC-Engine emulator right now, so long as "full speed" and very high compatibility for the core platform is enough for "perfect" in that's what will happen.

SNES is probably not going to happen. Lots of people have made claim that SNES emulation should be better than it is, but you don't see that motivating people to pour lots of hours into something that might not pay off a lot, or at all.

The fact that devs might not do it, is not the same as saying it can't be done. At bare minimum the sound should be put on the second cpu. Now, that may not be possible, but it worked with other emulators and I haven't heard anyone say it wouldn't work.

If you ask me GBA already does a better than that, both in compatibility and performance - I don't know what your definition of "good performance" is though.

Agreed. Most of the games I've tried have worked well enough, but I haven't tried that many

It's hard to quantify that last statement and I'm not a developer. I think a big part of the performance problem of dosbox is that it's ported from PC and that on the PC it's target hardware is pretty high. The reason I think emulating a 286 pc with ega graphicsc and an 8 bit sb, is the success of the Amiga emulation and the success of the snes.

Look, we've already been through this. 80286 CPUs are a lot more powerful and more demanding to emulate than 68k (Amiga) and 65c816 (SNES). SNES has a lot of video hardware but it can get frameskipped into submission. DOSBox for PC isn't a slouch and it's certainly not "fast enough" on high end platforms to the point where there's no interest in emulating it. Even on the best CPUs around I doubt it'll emulate at the level of more than a 75MHz Pentium or so and that's really not good enough. But it's expensive. It's true that there are a lot of things it does that are PC specific that haven't been done on the ARM version and it's true that the thing could be faster overall but doing a dynarec is a lot of work.

And I think that that target is not something that's very interesting, I'd expect most people who aren't content with 8088 level emulation will want 386+ emulation.

I think 386 emulation is unrealistic at a reasonable speed (say a 386-16) with VGA. But there are a lot of very good pc games that will work on a 286 ega - even more with vga (though I am not as confident that that is realistic). I am pretty sure I mentioned this before, but there was a pc emulator that ran on any quadra and emulated a 386 (it ran windows 3.x in 386enh mode). The gp2x is no Quadra, but were not trying to run Windows either. And saying it's a lot of work is like saying "well, we have software to port, so why write from scratch" There may be very good reasons for that. If I was a dev, I know that I wouldn't have time to write a pc emulator from scratch. But that doesn't mean it can't be done.

In the end, maybe I am wrong, but an attempt has not been made (just ports of pc software).

You're WAY off on this one. A lot of GP2X emulators use ARM CPU cores, largely because they've been circulating around for a while. Some even use renderers written in ASM too. And I'll thank you not to call gpSP and psx4all PC ports, given that they both have dynarecs for ARM.

I only meant pc emulation. I am well aware of the work that has gone into some of the emulators

Things that were said could not be done are a current reality like dsp support for snes (admittedly, I have not tried it as I am on a mame kick right now and havn't played snes in months).

I remember at one point people were saying sega-cd emulation was very unlikely, yet most games can be played full speed 44khz sound while underclocking the gp2x.

DSP1 support is actually not a huge deal, I think you're confusing it with the other special chips.

I already told you, it really doesn't matter what uninformed people say about what is and isn't possible. They were wrong. I never would have said that SegaCD was very unlikely, in fact I seem to remember having a conversation with quzar saying exactly that (where he thought that Dreamcast would be able to do it while GP2X wouldn't)
If I am wrong here and I've only been exposed to users point of view and not people who actually do the stuff, then forgive me for being misinformed. OTOH, nobody was denying it at the time

CPS2 emulation... And as far as home brew stuff goes, I have not heard a single dev complain that their projecct was being held back by technical constraints of the machine, I even asked. I am pretty sure that high computability psx emulation is unrealistic (and anything beyond that) and the gp2x isn't very good at 3d. I may be in the minority here, but I have no interest whatsoever in 3d games (except maybe doom and a couple of others).

Then listen up because I'm complaining about it, I know Squidge and zodttd would too, I'm sure there are many others.

Beyond porting, how many home brewers have the time and artistic talent to make up large complicated 3d games beyond the capabilities of the gp2x? Since Doom runs quite well and from what I hear Quake does as well, are you telling me you need more 3d power than Quake or Doom for a 1 man operation? I may be underestimating you guys, but most modern 3d games takes thousands of man hours to produce. Where are you going to get that kind of talent for free? Sure there are some projects to port, but for new content I thought you need a lot more than a 1 or 3 man team. Now-a-days for 3d games, you need musicians, graphic artists... Do you think (and this is not a rhetorical question) that you can compete with the multi-million dollar efforts that can be bought for more conventional systems?

Um, doesn't that statement prove you are biased against the gp2x and therefor to some extent biased for the Pandora?

No, it doesn't. Bias doesn't mean having an opinion, it's when your opinion of one thing influences your opinion of another thing. You're against the Pandora on the basis of what you think of GP2X. What I think of GP2X has no weight whatsoever on what I think of Pandora (which I've actually said very little of, I've mostly just been defending it against unfair comments)


I really don't see my comments as unfair. And I can't see how you wanting a system you'd rather develop on doesn't make you biased. Just as my wanting to keep the gp2x around for a while makes me biased against the Pandora (in the short run), your wanting to move on makes you biased for the Pandora. And since you are an active developer around here, I'm betting you were asked what you would like to see in a system, meaning you played a part in the design. How could you not be biased?

Chris

 

[JaqMs]

Every GP2X ever made is broken. Christo, accept the fact that when you bought your GP2X, you experienced a loss. Realize that CHINESE PMP's are about to match or possibly even surpass the GP2X's power. Besides, it sounds like you're forcing yourself to like it, thought I can't see how anyone could survive in such illogical design choices (AKA headphone jack on the top of the unit).

Anyway, let's hope the Pandora doesn't follow the footsteps of the XGP (though that was probably dropped due to an unrelated condition since all three XGP models were pretty much the perfect handhelds at the time).

 

[sbock]

The Pandora is a project between several people, one of which is EvilDragon who is the Admin of this site.

Just to get this right: EvilDragon is one mod of this site. Hando owns this site.
EvilDragon runs gp2x.de and the file archive.


@all
So today flaming GPH and the GP2x is well accepted in this community. But the Pandora is the holy grail or what? This is a very sad development. Dont't trust the hype...



@JaqMs
Hmm, my F-100 runs fine. And show me only one Chinese PMP with a similar software libary as the GP2x.

 

[realyst]

When I first bought my F100, I bruised my thumb on the digital stick. The headphone jack then broke when I inserted my earbuds, forcing me to burn myself on my soldering iron to re-attach it.

Then I was scoring very well on Noiz, and the unit turned off without bothering with the battery indicator light. But this was fine as I did very well on the second go. Of course, when I plugged in the DC adaptor, it reset the unit clearing it again.

Yeah, I was in love.

Now as far as a portable divx player with TV out(albeit with the twitchiest goddamn video out adaptor I've ever done seen), it's been very handy. Watching Firefly on train trips was nifty.

 

[StealthBagel]

while Exophase and I have not been on the best of terms as of late I am inclined to agree with him on most of his points here but also a small handful of Chris' and some other posters here's views re: Pandora.... the fact that this project isn't being presented professionally means the site is pretty hideous and gives a terrible first impression with an ugly render and unfulfilled deadlines for info to be provided. But at the same time the benefit of their approach is input from the people who will be buying it. This means lots of worthless immature posts and discussion because an internet forum is one of the least mature places to get feedback and suggestions for anything. This whole approach doesn't breed confidence in the consumer because you would never see a large company doing business that way.

Is it still possible to squeeze some potential out of the gp2x? Yes. But at the same time gp2x was a disastrous design and every triumph is fighting against uncooperative hardware that was never meant to play games, just watch videos or operate a camera or a set-top box.... you're not 'unlocking potential', you're finding new ways to get your code fast enough with the Gp2x fighting you every step of the way. What has been accomplished is impressive but it's time to move on to a real platform for gaming. Pandora is the best promise for that so far, and no matter how much you may want to kid yourself that the Gp2x was a wise investment if you're pleased with it don't shit on everyone else's parade who's not. If you like your purchase enjoy it, if you don't, oh well.

The person who sold you your gp2x should still support it if it breaks and GPH will still give you the same old shitty support we know them for, you can still use it and there's lots of software. If the developers decide to focus their efforts on Pandora that's their right and you have no say in what they do... personally I could give 2 shits about the gp2x anymore and I'd rather see a competent handheld come out. After the compound failures of gp2x my expectations are low but I would like to see this project succeed in the end.

 

[sbock]

Is it still possible to squeeze some potential out of the gp2x? Yes. But at the same time gp2x was a disastrous design and every triumph is fighting against uncooperative hardware that was never meant to play games, just watch videos or operate a camera or a set-top box.... you're not 'unlocking potential', you're finding new ways to get your code fast enough with the Gp2x fighting you every step of the way. What has been accomplished is impressive but it's time to move on to a real platform for gaming. Pandora is the best promise for that so far, and no matter how much you may want to kid yourself that the Gp2x was a wise investment if you're pleased with it don't shit on everyone else's parade who's not. If you like your purchase enjoy it, if you don't, oh well.

The person who sold you your gp2x should still support it if it breaks and GPH will still give you the same old shitty support we know them for, you can still use it and there's lots of software. If the developers decide to focus their efforts on Pandora that's their right and you have no say in what they do... personally I could give 2 shits about the gp2x anymore and I'd rather see a competent handheld come out. After the compound failures of gp2x my expectations are low but I would like to see this project succeed in the end.

We have got a proverb in Germany:
Under lots of blind people the one-eyed will be king.

Now look at some other handheld projects:

Gizmondo - Discontinued, company bankrupt
Tapwave Zodiac- Discontinued, company bankrupt
Gamepark XGP- Never released, company bankrupt
JXD 301- Discontinued after a few months

Even when some of these handhelds where technically great you can only call it a pyrrhic victory under the most favorable conditions.
So what do you want? A exquisite console with a minimal or no lifespan or an average machine with a decent product cycle and lots of great software?

The Pandora can have the best of both worlds, but that only the time can tell. No expert at this forum will know that for sure.

So face it: At least until the Pandora will be available the GP2x is some kind of king. If you like it or not.

Regards,
Stephan

 

[christo930]

Is it still possible to squeeze some potential out of the gp2x? Yes. But at the same time gp2x was a disastrous design and every triumph is fighting against uncooperative hardware that was never meant to play games, just watch videos or operate a camera or a set-top box.... you're not 'unlocking potential', you're finding new ways to get your code fast enough with the Gp2x fighting you every step of the way. What has been accomplished is impressive but it's time to move on to a real platform for gaming. Pandora is the best promise for that so far, and no matter how much you may want to kid yourself that the Gp2x was a wise investment if you're pleased with it don't shit on everyone else's parade who's not. If you like your purchase enjoy it, if you don't, oh well.

The person who sold you your gp2x should still support it if it breaks and GPH will still give you the same old shitty support we know them for, you can still use it and there's lots of software. If the developers decide to focus their efforts on Pandora that's their right and you have no say in what they do... personally I could give 2 shits about the gp2x anymore and I'd rather see a competent handheld come out. After the compound failures of gp2x my expectations are low but I would like to see this project succeed in the end.

We have got a proverb in Germany:
Under lots of blind people the one-eyed will be king.

Now look at some other handheld projects:

Gizmondo - Discontinued, company bankrupt
Tapwave Zodiac- Discontinued, company bankrupt
Gamepark XGP- Never released, company bankrupt

JXD 301- Discontinued after a few months

Are they fucking crazy? People were buying them up. Maybe they weren't making enough money on each one (to stay competitive) or didn't want to enter a game console market, especially a defacto one. But still.


Even when some of these handhelds where technically great you can only call it a pyrrhic victory under the most favorable conditions.
So what do you want? A exquisite console with a minimal or no lifespan or an average machine with a decent product cycle and lots of great software?

The Pandora can have the best of both worlds, but that only the time can tell. No expert at this forum will know that for sure.

So face it: At least until the Pandora will be available the GP2x is some kind of king. If you like it or not.

Regards,
Stephan




We have got a proverb in Germany:
Under lots of blind people the one-eyed will be king.

There's a short story by Wells or Verne (I can't remember which one), but trust me, in the land of the blind, the one eyed man is insane, locked up, tortured and forced to admit there is no light and no colors etc.
A good read.

Chris

 

[sbock]

Ah, yes. That must be The Country of the Blind from H. G. Wells. Indeed a good story from a great writer. He's one of my favourites.
Thanks for this quote!

Regards,
Stephan

 

[yaustar]

The Pandora is a project between several people, one of which is EvilDragon who is the Admin of this site.

Just to get this right: EvilDragon is one mod of this site. Hando owns this site.
EvilDragon runs gp2x.de and the file archive.
Point. I keep forgetting that since Hando doesn't come onto the board as often.

 

[christo930]

Every GP2X ever made is broken. Christo, accept the fact that when you bought your GP2X, you experienced a loss. Realize that CHINESE PMP's are about to match or possibly even surpass the GP2X's power. Besides, it sounds like you're forcing yourself to like it, thought I can't see how anyone could survive in such illogical design choices (AKA headphone jack on the top of the unit).

Anyway, let's hope the Pandora doesn't follow the footsteps of the XGP (though that was probably dropped due to an unrelated condition since all three XGP models were pretty much the perfect handhelds at the time).

I honestly don't understand what you mean when you say "every gp2x ever made is broken". obviously you don't mean it literally. When I bought my gp2x I experience a gain in just about every area, just not one as big as I would have liked. 8X the amount of ram, a backlit screen (with better color), modern cheap storage, better emulators (in most cases), more emulators, a lot of ported unix games, more buttons, awesome movie capabilities and about 74mhz (166 vs 240- mine won't over-clock these chips are rated at 240 not 200) and a second cpu for whatever it's worth (in most cases it's a liability since it's not being used, but still needs power). I lost an awesome stick and some battery life. Since rechargeable batteries are so cheap it really doesn't matter.

The fact that there may or may not be chipods with more cpu power is meaningless. There are laptops that could emulate the gp2x with cpu ticks to spare. But laptops don't fit in my pocket and chipods aren't game machines. An iphone probably has more power too, it's also not a game system. A controller to an industrial machine may have more power than my gp2x, it's also not a game system. I totally fail to see your point. My gp2x has more computing power than my vcr, should I throw the vcr away and replace it with a gp2x? It doesn't need much computing power.

What I do hope for the Pandora is that it grows the market enough so both can coexist until the gp2x life cycle is complete and since a new model has just been released, I would say that would be at least another 1.5 years. By then, the Pandora will be down in my price range and I'll get one (then argue against the Pandora 2 ) But I'll still need the gp2x to play low resolution games (unless a good algorithm comes out to make it look good full screen).

Chris

 

[StealthBagel]

What JagMs is saying is the gp2x is inherently problematic since there are a number of design flaws, so even if you get a non broken stick the stick is still a piece of garbage, the CPUs are still badly limited, the graphical acceleration is a joke, the RAM/bus communication speeds as Exophase said are lacking severely, there's no MMU, the way power is handled is ridiculous (the reset when you plug in or remove the AC brick), there's no springs in the battery compartment which has been a standard for decades, there isn't DMA between the sd card and RAM..... and these are just things GPH chose not to/were unable to fix in F200...

There's a short story by Wells or Verne (I can't remember which one), but trust me, in the land of the blind, the one eyed man is insane, locked up, tortured and forced to admit there is no light and no colors etc.

That's the perfect analogy for this forum, man. Bravo.

 

[christo930]

What JagMs is saying is the gp2x is inherently problematic since there are a number of design flaws, so even if you get a non broken stick the stick is still a piece of garbage,

I wouldn't go even half that far. For many games, the stick is fine. You get used it. It's not ideal, but it's not garbage either. You want garbage? Play an Atari 5200. Now that is the worst joystick ever devised.

the CPUs are still badly limited, the graphical acceleration is a joke, the RAM/bus communication speeds as Exophase said are lacking severely, there's no MMU,

Isn't the purpose of an MMU for virtual memory? What good would VM be with a source as slow as flash ram?

the way power is handled is ridiculous (the reset when you plug in or remove the AC brick),

I've never noticed that because I've never unpluged or pluged in the power supply while the unit was on. Obviously it could have been designed better in that respect.

there's no springs in the battery compartment which has been a standard for decades,

There are lots of devices made the same way. Springs are the obvious better choice because the pressure ensures a good contact. However, even a single battery leak can cause the spring to corrode and break causing the need for new springs. It also would have made the battery compartment bigger.


there isn't DMA between the sd card and RAM..... and these are just things GPH chose not to/were unable to fix in F200...

Wouldn't that have broken a lot of software if they had changed it in the F200?

There's a short story by Wells or Verne (I can't remember which one), but trust me, in the land of the blind, the one eyed man is insane, locked up, tortured and forced to admit there is no light and no colors etc.

That's the perfect analogy for this forum, man. Bravo.

Seriously, I really love old literature (well, turn of the century anyway) Wells, Verne, Burroughs... Even later stuff like Asimov, Bradbury and Clarke. A great deal of these stories would make great video games. Reading has actually displaced a lot of my video gaming time. One of the reasons I can't get a Pandora this year is that I want to get an e-ink machine. The tech is awesome. Looks like a typed paper, doesn't need electricity to keep the image either. Only needs it to turn the page. It will hold the same image forever until it is changed.

Chris

 

[b._.o._.b]

What JagMs is saying is the gp2x is inherently problematic since there are a number of design flaws

You are putting too much emphasis on hardware failures. Even more important than hardware is software. Hardware will always have failures, everybody got its own itch. I love the F200 and from a users perspective I only dislike the loud sound. I think I'm one of a few complaining about this, so it looks like my main complaint is not a big deal for others.

Even more important than hardware is software. For a piece of junk like the gp2x it has got some amazing software, don't you think?
Lot of devs chose the GP2X to develop for, and they turned it into a fantastic device. The GP2X is lightweight, feels good and with the new d-pad of the F200 it is an amazing handheld that I use on almost daily basis.
You can look and find flaws, but that will not change the fact that lots of people have a great time with it, and like it more than any other handheld.

The Pandora will be the GP2X and much more. The most exiting thing about the Pandora for me is not the Pandora itself, but the enthusiasm of lots of devs. The Pandora even resurected some Guru's
Notaz, Squidge, Exophase and more great devs are planning on developing for the Pandora.
That will make the pandora a huge success and I can't wait to pre-order.

 

[Prophet]

What JagMs is saying is the gp2x is inherently problematic since there are a number of design flaws

You are putting too much emphasis on hardware failures. Even more important than hardware is software. Hardware will always have failures, everybody got its own itch. I love the F200 and from a users perspective I only dislike the loud sound. I think I'm one of a few complaining about this, so it looks like my main complaint is not a big deal for others.

Even more important than hardware is software. For a piece of junk like the gp2x it has got some amazing software, don't you think?
Lot of devs chose the GP2X to develop for, and they turned it into a fantastic device. The GP2X is lightweight, feels good and with the new d-pad of the F200 it is an amazing handheld that I use on almost daily basis.
You can look and find flaws, but that will not change the fact that lots of people have a great time with it, and like it more than any other handheld.

The Pandora will be the GP2X and much more. The most exiting thing about the Pandora for me is not the Pandora itself, but the enthusiasm of lots of devs. The Pandora even resurected some Guru's
Notaz, Squidge, Exophase and more great devs are planning on developing for the Pandora.
That will make the pandora a huge success and I can't wait to pre-order.


Very true.

The devs will be the heroes in the end, just like always. The hardware is just a conduit. But Pandora does appear to be the best conduit we've ever had for a homebrew handheld gaming device. A good mix of power, control and versatility. And like the Zodiac before it, hopefully in utility as well.

The price will limit its appeal a bit though. Not that I think ~$300 is too much really (the Zodiac was around that much and more) but I do know many people will look at the price of the PSP, DS or GP2X and frown at the Pandora price. Still, if it's all that it seems to be, it should be worth it, certainly a few months down the road when devs start releasing alls sorts of emulators, games, apps, ports and utilities. No mainstream company will ever make something quite like it, ever. It may just be the first and last of its kind, so it should be a really fun ride while it lasts.

 

[sbock]

What JagMs is saying is the gp2x is inherently problematic since there are a number of design flaws

You are putting too much emphasis on hardware failures. Even more important than hardware is software. Hardware will always have failures, everybody got its own itch. I love the F200 and from a users perspective I only dislike the loud sound. I think I'm one of a few complaining about this, so it looks like my main complaint is not a big deal for others.

Even more important than hardware is software. For a piece of junk like the gp2x it has got some amazing software, don't you think?


Exactly the point. But for a few people excellent hardware seem to be more important than software. So everybody has his fetish. But nevermind, you can always use a piece of hardware without software as a beautiful doorstop.
Fortunately nobody told the devs, for which crappy console they write their great software...

Regards,
Stephan

 

[b._.o._.b]

The price will limit its appeal a bit though. Not that I think ~$300 is too much really (the Zodiac was around that much and more) but I do know many people will look at the price of the PSP, DS or GP2X and frown at the Pandora price.

I think you are right, it may limit its appeal. There is an advantage though, I think the ones buying it will be a bit more adult and/or really motivated to make the most out of their investment.

But for a few people excellent hardware seem to be more important than software. So everybody has his fetish. But nevermind, you can always use a piece of hardware without software as a beautiful doorstop.

lol

A beautiful doorstop with a dvorak keyboard