Wiz Coming In Mail, Some Questions


cybergenesis

Still Fresh
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Mar 16, 2010
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Hey everyone, my Wiz is in the mail, due in 48 hours... Can't wait.. But I have some questions

Firstly I keep hearing talk that all the developers have left this handheld for pandora and that there is no more development of emulators? Is this true?

I have some issues with emulators in general. I wish my system to be as easy to play as possible, so I can just hand it over to the kids and they can play it. However from my experience with emulators, you get this sort of problem (i'll use the c64 as an example). First you have to load the game, wait for it to load, watch the crack intro, wait for it to unpack, skip the trainer, wait for more unpacking/ play the game... For me it is desirable to be able to save snapshots (preferably current disk image in drive also saved) once the game has loaded, and to save these snapshots as replacements for the actual game images.. This way, none of all the screwing around while each game loads up etc.

I have heard that the stylus is quite inaccurate? I am especially hoping for somebody to eventually fix the apparent issue with the amiga emulator, so that the stylus can be used as a mouse replacement- this would be AWESOME. If it was up to me, I would allow one touch of the stylus to the screen to position the mouth pointer, but if the stylus is liften and repressed on the screen (within a certain distance) with 0.5 seconds then it would function as a left mouse click etc.

How many of the default games that come with the unit (or freeware type games that can be easily downloaded) support using the stylus?

I have also heard there is no working macplus emulator for the system? While the mac's are heavily mouse based, if the stylus was supported, it could be very cool... I'd LOVE to play some old macplus games such as Dark Castle which is a classic (and the Amiga version SUCKED compared to the mac version). The old mac also had lots of cool freeware games.

While I know there will be hassling around with emulator settings , some games working and some games not, and all that sort of stuff, I cannot wait for my unit. I have THOUSANDS of games ready to install on it, I have many hand picked games for the following systems: Amiga, C64, GBA, Super Nintendo, Flash Games, Nintendo... Still have to do a megadrive/genesis collection but it hasn't even arrived yet!

Yeah I really think being able to save emulator snapshots and use these as replacements for loading the disk images, I think this is the way to go for convenience when selecting a game to play. While many of the games are cool, navigating around the emulated system to get the game up and running can be a pain.
 
Hi.

Firstly I keep hearing talk that all the developers have left this handheld for pandora and that there is no more development of emulators? Is this true?

No, not all.

I have heard that the stylus is quite inaccurate?

No, not for all. I'm fine with the accuracy but some people still report problems. Maybe a hardware fault or it can be fixed with better firmware, I dunno...

How many of the default games that come with the unit (or freeware type games that can be easily downloaded) support using the stylus?

Wiztern, Boomshine and Animatch use the touchscreen. (And the 5 Flash games.)

Regards,
Stephan
 
Touch screen works great in SCUMMVM for me (all those lovely point and click games). There is a problem using it with the amiga emulator (which still doesnt scale the screen properly which in truth is more of a problem for me). There is of course DOSBOX, and yes I've used it and got it working, but I think for 99% of wiz users, unless it gets a major speed increase and better touch screen support then it's not worth the major chore of setting it up. Mac emu would be nice - especially if we could use the mac ports of all those DOS games I really wanted to play. I still think our best bet is to get an update on the amiga emulator though.

For the kids picodrive (sega megadrive and Sega CD), snes and GBA emulators should be just great. Try and get versions ported to these systems. Nearly all the console games are easy to run and set up. For emulators of old computers like the c64 you have to remember that you only have a virtual keyboard, and that the keyboard was a MAJOR component of a computer, unlike a console. Still, I bought the Wiz specifically for C64 emulation, and I'm generally happy (my only gripe is that it can't run fullspeed with true drive emulation, so I cant watch much of my demo collection) - if you love old computers then you'll enjoy loading games and watching the old crack intros, thats part of the fun. IDE64 fixed games work great without true drive emulation in VICE 2.1 (2.2 has speed issues) which means Creatures 1&2 and Mayhem in Monsterland are playable! Always try and get versions released by Remember and Nostalgia, as they are usually fixed to work on emulators (no fastloaders means you don't need truedrive emulation.

Loading times on the amiga emulator are a big PITA, but some great games are still fully playable - Magic Pockets, Superfrog, Wings and Alien Breed for example are fine. The screen doesn't quite fit properly, and for a few games like Project X and Superobliteration this is a major handicap as you can't see the powerup/status bars at the bottom. Pickle, if you're listening it's my birthday next week, a proper scaling option would be the perfect present!

I really hope you and your family have great fun with your Wiz. If you have any problems with any of the emulators I've covered here (except DOSbox, forget it) then feel free to send me a PM and I'll try and help you sort things out.
 
Thanks both of you for your useful replies!

I am damn so excited my GP2X Wiz is supposed to arrive in the post today!

I'm 35, but I feel like a little kid getting a big birthday present!
 
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