Xgp-kids: Most Potential Ever!

[Athlor]

I've developed on a lot of portable platforms like the Cybiko, Palm, TI Calcs, BlackBerry, WinCE PDAs and Gameboy and always admired the GPX. But it was too expensive for me and easily rationable to get something else like a PSP. But to have the capability of a machine like the XGP-Kids for $75. Where do I sign up? I am there.
I read this machine is taking a whipping from people that already have more capable versions. I don't get that, the thing wasn't designed for them. I believe it was designed to attract a whole new type of person. It potentially could be the biggest-selling GPx-type machine of all time. It's priced under the 'magic $99' price point by a significant margin and has no real competition.
I had planned to buy another GBA SP before they're discontinued because they are the last Gameboys that support older Z-80 Gameboy/Color games but not any more. For the same price, I'd rather get the XGP-Kids and modify a GBA emulator to work on it. The areas in software development I like are Os-related, emulators and RPG's.
The two most complained about specs were flash and screen resolution. Coming from the machines I mentioned these are more than adequate. The Cybiko only hadabout 200k to spare and I'm use to a 160x160 resolution. More developers, like me, getting into the XGP-Kids could be a major boom for all GPx machines.

Athlor
Orcware

 

[shinneri]

The GPKiDS (that's what Gamepark calls XGP Kids) doesn't have a large enough resolution to display GBA games... or genesis, snes, nes, and the list goes on.

 

[JaqMs]

Yeah the GPKids will definately not be a emulator-intensive handheld. Since it has the same specs as the GP32, GBA is impossible. Only systems with smaller resolutions will be able to be emulated. So if for some reason the GPKids does sell to developers, they would mostly yield original homebrew games.

 

[OMars]

You might as well dev for this device, it's already out and has 1/2GB built in: Link Have fun. B)
It not open source but neither was the gameboy right?

 

[tritt_conner]

You might as well dev for this device at it's already out and has 1/2GB built in: Link Have fun. B)
It not open source but neither was the gameboy right?

That's more then $99 and it's not designed for games.

 

[OMars]

You might as well dev for this device at it's already out and has 1/2GB built in: Link Have fun. B)
It not open source but neither was the gameboy right?

That's more then $99 and it's not designed for games.

Actually it does have some games on it. And like I said, it has 1Gig built in, that is equivalance of an xgp kids and a one gig card. Put that in your pipe and smoke my good sir. :rolleyes:

 

[Vimacs]

uhm, xgp will have a free sdk, this dosn't, whats your point?

 

[rei_yano]

ofc open sdk never comes up... but yeah gba emulation wont work cuase gba is at a res of 240x160. too big for 220x176 I think... could be wrong though... maybe some great coding can fix this? I cant imagine though.....

 

[JaqMs]

I just said that GBA emulation is impossible on the GPKids, so you shouldn't even be questioning that.

 

[rei_yano]

I just said that GBA emulation is impossible on the GPKids, so you shouldn't even be questioning that.

:blink:

 

[OMars]

I just said that GBA emulation is impossible on the GPKids, so you shouldn't even be questioning that.

You don't know if this guy programs in assembly, so don't make assumptions. Even though the res is not right, maybe they'll change res, but not likely. But if it did have a 320x240 screen and he did know assembly, then there would be some great times to be had!

 

[iignotus]

I just said that GBA emulation is impossible on the GPKids, so you shouldn't even be questioning that.

You don't know if this guy programs in assembly, so don't make assumptions. Even though the res is not right, maybe they'll change res, but not likely. But if it did have a 320x240 screen and he did know assembly, then there would be some great times to be had!

Ah, so that's why there's a great, near-fullspeed GBA emulator for the GP2X! I was wondering why.

Oh, wait...

 

[OMars]

I just said that GBA emulation is impossible on the GPKids, so you shouldn't even be questioning that.

You don't know if this guy programs in assembly, so don't make assumptions. Even though the res is not right, maybe they'll change res, but not likely. But if it did have a 320x240 screen and he did know assembly, then there would be some great times to be had!

Ah, so that's why there's a great, near-fullspeed GBA emulator for the GP2X! I was wondering why.

Oh, wait...

It is being written in assembly now and will be near if not full speed. Please stop with the nonsense guys, the current gba emulator wasn't even ported and enhanced with assembly. When it was released the person who ported it even said it was a "quick and dirty" port.

 

[Fishbong]

I read this machine is taking a whipping from people that already have more capable versions. I don't get that, the thing wasn't designed for them. I believe it was designed to attract a whole new type of person.

Its designed for people that just want to plug in a card and play a game. People who never heard of emulators and homebrew. Its for kids.

 

[Epicenter]

Whether a GBA emulator is written in assembly is wholly beside the point. The only reason a GBA emulator at full speed is achievable is because the GP2X shares the ARM architecture with the GBA. Since the GBA used an ARM7 at 16 MHz and the GP2X an ARM9 at 200 MHz+, the program code can be translated to run natively on on the GP2X's processor. Then all that needs to be worried about is mostly just graphics and audio, which are pretty formidable tasks on their own-- the GBA has quite the complex graphics subsystem, much like the SNES before it.

I don't see how GBA emulation is 'impossible' because it is similar to the GP32. I saw one project of this nature for the GP32 and nothing was ever even released from it! There was no chance to prove anything.

Now, with a bit of overclocking perhaps needed, the XGP KiDS should be able to emulate the GBA. You'd have to provide 2 options though, to scale the display and make it look pretty crummy, or to just center it and shave off part of the frame. At least you won't lose TOO much of the picture. You could also scroll around like some NES Emulators for the GBA do-- the GBA's resolution is insufficient for those, too.

The issue that bugs me more about the XGP Kids than the flash capacity is the memory. I can always put any program on an SD card of any size, and that's no issue-- but if there's only 8MB of RAM, and there could potentially be broken SD DMA like on the GP2X's MMSP2-- you could not smoothly stream data from the SD card, meaning you have very little room to work in. While that's workable, it puts a real limit on the complexity of games, and that's very discouraging to me as a developer. For example, Stargazer would run poorly on this machine-- it'd need to be scaled cropped or otherwise, lose most of its graphical detail, OGG music playback would be mostly impossible and many more things would need to be toned down to fit the memory requirements.

Of course, the obvious response is that the XGP Kids will flourish with orginal titles designed just for it. I have my doubts there'll be that many, though, since no one can bring over their existing works that required a larger screen display-- it is pretty discouraging to have to start from scratch like that. And the games won't run very well on the GP2X or other XGP models (without scaling the screen, etc.)

 

[iignotus]

I just said that GBA emulation is impossible on the GPKids, so you shouldn't even be questioning that.

You don't know if this guy programs in assembly, so don't make assumptions. Even though the res is not right, maybe they'll change res, but not likely. But if it did have a 320x240 screen and he did know assembly, then there would be some great times to be had!

Ah, so that's why there's a great, near-fullspeed GBA emulator for the GP2X! I was wondering why.

Oh, wait...

It is being written in assembly now and will be near if not full speed. Please stop with the nonsense guys, the current gba emulator wasn't even ported and enhanced with assembly. When it was released the person who ported it even said it was a "quick and dirty" port.

Uh, when did I ever mention the VBA port? :blink:

 

[OMars]

I just said that GBA emulation is impossible on the GPKids, so you shouldn't even be questioning that.

You don't know if this guy programs in assembly, so don't make assumptions. Even though the res is not right, maybe they'll change res, but not likely. But if it did have a 320x240 screen and he did know assembly, then there would be some great times to be had!

Ah, so that's why there's a great, near-fullspeed GBA emulator for the GP2X! I was wondering why.

Oh, wait...

It is being written in assembly now and will be near if not full speed. Please stop with the nonsense guys, the current gba emulator wasn't even ported and enhanced with assembly. When it was released the person who ported it even said it was a "quick and dirty" port.

Uh, when did I ever mention the VBA port? :blink:

What were you talking about then, are you drunk or something?

 

[Game_over]

Um There is a Game boy Advance emulator for the n-gage and that has a lower resolution. It's not really that of the resulotion making emulation imposible is just a matter of can the system handle it and how will it actually display I think. But anythings possible.

 

[iignotus]

I just said that GBA emulation is impossible on the GPKids, so you shouldn't even be questioning that.

You don't know if this guy programs in assembly, so don't make assumptions. Even though the res is not right, maybe they'll change res, but not likely. But if it did have a 320x240 screen and he did know assembly, then there would be some great times to be had!

Ah, so that's why there's a great, near-fullspeed GBA emulator for the GP2X! I was wondering why.

Oh, wait...

It is being written in assembly now and will be near if not full speed. Please stop with the nonsense guys, the current gba emulator wasn't even ported and enhanced with assembly. When it was released the person who ported it even said it was a "quick and dirty" port.

Uh, when did I ever mention the VBA port? :blink:

What were you talking about then, are you drunk or something?

Why do you feel you have the requisite knowledge to say what's potentially possible on any given handheld? Uh-oh, the GBA emulator is being coded in assembler!! It must run full-speed upon completion, then. Next stop, N64 emulation! As long as it's written really, really well, it's bound to emulate fullspeed.

Don't randomly bring up points that aren't part of the conversation, it makes you look foolish. I have the utmost confidence and hope in anyone working on the GBA emulation scene for GP2X, but you act like you're participating in it yourself and know what you're talking about.

 

[Epicenter]

Well, he is right that GBA emulation at or near full speed is doable on the XGP Kids .. but it doesn't have anything to do with assembly. It has to do with the 2 systems sharing a processor architecture ..

I just said that GBA emulation is impossible on the GPKids, so you shouldn't even be questioning that.

Yes, he should, because you're wrong. You don't even own a GP2X, so you aren't in the best position to make assertions about what is or isn't possible. The CPU horsepower required should be there, and with a bit of overclocking it's even more feasible. The GP2X does not have any decent 2D acceleration, so the biggest limitation I can see for 'acceptable' GBA performance is the small RAM capacity-- meaning you could probably kiss playing GBA games that are over 4MB goodbye. Unless SD-DMA works and is very fast you'd see a LOT of slowdown trying to read a game ROM from SD in realtime. (I'm sure if you owned a GP2X, you'd be familiar with the slideshow effect that comes from trying to read massive amounts of GFX data from the SD card in Gngeo2x. You don't see it much, but when you first start a game you can, and it's pretty noticable.)