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Non-NEC Console Related Discussion => Console Chat => Topic started by: Nanashi on March 04, 2006, 08:06:54 PM

Title: GP2X
Post by: Nanashi on March 04, 2006, 08:06:54 PM
For people who follow only the major consoles the GP2X may not seem familiar... Those who follow niche markets may remember the GP32 and it's homebrew lineup... especially the emulation side... GPH (A company that split of from the original GP who made the GP32) has recently released it's GP2X system... which is  nice upgrade over the GP32... but for those who are confised, i'll explain...
The GP2X is a homebrew-based handheld... It's biggest selling point is it's emulation capabilities...Now, I got one of these for Christmas (sadly one with a faulty batter terminal so I had to send it back days later :( ), and I had an AC adapter... Among the list of emus that are playable right now are: Genesis, GB/C, SNES (although depends on what you call playable), and PCE/CD... PCE/CD? Yes, being this is a PCE fansite i thought I might bring this up as the main topic when i speak of this handheld... The GP2X emulates PCE fullspeed... and runs ISO's (provided you have a big enough SD card to put them on)... I got to try the PCE emu in it's earlier incarnations (it's updated alot now so...) and I had to say I was impressed... It ran everything I threw at it fullspeed... For a handheld at a low price (189.99 USD in most cases), you can get alot out of it... Now you have to buy other stuff (Standard alkaline AA's are a no-no, 2500 mAh rechargables are much better; asn the SD card, although if you only plan on playing HuCard games, a 30 dollar 128 MB SD card will suffice)... and... the system has a TV-out cable (if you want to play PCE games as they were originally intended). Now, how does it compare with a TurboExpress? Pretty well... The LCD is alot better than the one used in the TGE, and is at a higher resolution. Battery life is sameish if you use 2500 mAh rechargables with it... So if you are a retro fan, or if you don't want to bother getting a TGE, the GP2X and it's emulation scene is pretty big right now... Like I mentioned earlier, there are already ALOT of emualtors available for the system. Geneseis runs fullspeed. GB runs fullspeed. SNES runs near fullspeed (SuperFX games are still slow right now). It also supports alot of different media formats... Pick it up if you want portable emulation... you won't regret it...
Title: GP2X
Post by: GUTS on March 05, 2006, 03:45:45 PM
A friend of mine has one of those, they're pretty cool.  The only thing I don't like is that the screen kinda sucks compared to the DS (not nearly as bright) and especially the PSP (which smokes it completely), and they feel really cheap.  The stick is really nice though, controlling old school games on it was way easier than on the PSP (who's D pad sucks ass).   Ultima VII was pretty awesome on it too.
Title: GP2X
Post by: Keranu on March 05, 2006, 07:05:06 PM
GP32 has interested me in the past years and the GP2X especially interests me. They do seem ideal for portable emulation and as a portable media player in general, though still not sure I am ready to get one. Though this is what I said about the GP32 and now that sucker goes for more these days, so I might want to leap for a GP2X. The one thing that turns me off though is that it probably will have very little actually produced software titles for it, even less than the GP32, since it's a pirate's portable. This isn't a big deal though since you'll be able to play a heap load of free downloadable games anyways.
Title: GP2X
Post by: Nanashi on March 09, 2006, 03:04:55 PM
yeah... It's mostly for emulation and homebrew games... also, "pirated handheld" what does that mean? Emulation is the only reason things would be pirate on them, and even then emu's are legal... anyway, it's pretty cool and considering i don't have my TurboExpress anymore, it's an excellent substitute...
Title: GP2X
Post by: Keranu on March 09, 2006, 03:37:48 PM
By "pirated handhelds", I meant that you could just download a bunch of stuff on it illegally (as you would on your computer) and play it, like movies, mp3s, ROMs, etc... A GP2X is, in a way, a pirate's dream, like myself :D .
Title: GP2X
Post by: rolins on March 14, 2006, 10:51:28 AM
I've been keeping an eye on this for a while now. I'm interested in the emulation, but I really want get one mainly to just watch divx movies.

The old GP32, you had to re-encode movies to a certain resolution and make it small enough to fit on a 128mb SMC. Now with the GP2X just drag and drop divx movies up to 2gb on a SD card. You don't even have to re-encode them either.

I want one now, but I'll have to wait until I can set aside some money for it.
Title: GP2X
Post by: Nanashi on March 26, 2006, 09:22:00 AM
it's pretty nice... So far, the emu runs most HUcard games at full or near fullspeed... CD games are a different story though... Dracula X runs...but at about 65% speed with sound...
Title: GP2X
Post by: nodtveidt on March 26, 2006, 03:29:11 PM
Dracula X is also a very CPU-intensive game for the PCE, so it's not surprising. :D
Title: GP2X
Post by: Daedalus on March 26, 2006, 11:13:54 PM
DoEs anyone have any screenshots to see what the screen looks like lit up?  I am curious if this is a better wayt to go than PSP I only use my psp for emulation and rarely play real games for it, but I must say that the psp has a decent battery and a great screen.  Can anyone share the comparison fo these 2 side by side?
Title: GP2X
Post by: pixeljunkie on March 27, 2006, 04:02:38 AM
Quote from: "Daedalus"
DoEs anyone have any screenshots to see what the screen looks like lit up?  I am curious if this is a better wayt to go than PSP I only use my psp for emulation and rarely play real games for it, but I must say that the psp has a decent battery and a great screen.  Can anyone share the comparison fo these 2 side by side?


I ditched my PSP about 6 months after launch....tried the emulators....the ghosting on the screen made me want to rip my eyeballs out. Drac X ran okay on it though.
Title: Re: GP2X
Post by: 16-bit on March 09, 2008, 05:54:16 PM
Sorry to bump such an old thread, but I thought you guys might be interested in knowing that there is a new TG16/PCE emulator out for the GP2X that runs games perfectly/nearly perfectly.  The program is called TEMPER.

Title: Re: GP2X
Post by: Keranu on March 09, 2008, 06:12:17 PM
I would really love to have a GP2X, but just not willing to spend that much on one.
Title: Re: GP2X
Post by: MissaFX on March 09, 2008, 09:34:01 PM
DoEs anyone have any screenshots to see what the screen looks like lit up?  I am curious if this is a better wayt to go than PSP I only use my psp for emulation and rarely play real games for it, but I must say that the psp has a decent battery and a great screen.  Can anyone share the comparison fo these 2 side by side?

I would stand by the PSP as the portable handheld emulation machine over the GP2X any day.  Heck, there are ports of a few GP2X emulators on the PSP and they run at full speed if not faster than on the GP2X.  The only advantage I can see if that the GP2X has easy TV out while the PSP requires a progressive scan HD TV to play games on your built in TV out (this applies to slims only).
Title: Re: GP2X
Post by: Kitsunexus on March 09, 2008, 09:40:23 PM
I would stand by the PSP as the portable handheld emulation machine over the GP2X any day.  Heck, there are ports of a few GP2X emulators on the PSP and they run at full speed if not faster than on the GP2X.

Why not just give PSP Linux?
Title: Re: GP2X
Post by: Keranu on March 09, 2008, 09:52:53 PM
The only advantage I can see if that the GP2X has easy TV out while the PSP requires a progressive scan HD TV to play games on your built in TV out (this applies to slims only).
Not to mention a better d-pad and lower price for GP2X, and I would also assume that setting stuff up on it would be more straight forward on GP2X since you don't have to mess with firmware stuff. Problem is that for only whatever amount of more money, you can get a PSP,  which mostly does what the GP2X does but also gives you actual hard software to buy too, which interests me more (though there aren't a whole lot of PSP games that interests me at the moment).

If GP2X was at a more reasonable price to me for a portable emulator (maybe $100 most), then I would definitely take it over a PSP but at it's current price I think I might just rather spend the extra for the PSP.
Title: Re: GP2X
Post by: MissaFX on March 09, 2008, 10:14:27 PM
and I would also assume that setting stuff up on it would be more straight forward on GP2X since you don't have to mess with firmware stuff.

Actually you have to flash the FW on the GP2X too.  And it bricks sometimes with the officially released FWs when you upgrade.  I have no idea how hard they are to fix from this state.

With the PSP if you brick it, you did something really wrong like mess with your ID storage keys or try to run a FW your hardware cannot run (without say Time Machine).  Short of letting the official upgrader check the update.  Then in less than a second swapping the memory stick for one with a corrupted version of the update file on it right before it starts loading the decompressing the files.
Title: Re: GP2X
Post by: 16-bit on March 10, 2008, 06:41:28 AM
I fully understand why one would choose a PSP over a GP2X.  I also own 2 psps, but I went with the GP2X as well because of my interest in obscure hardware and my disinterest in messing with my PSP. Moreover I prefer the F100mk2 joystick to the PSP1000 control pad.

Anyway, I've had my GP2X for nearly a year and I have gotten great mileage out of it:

Perfect port of Snatcher for the Sega CD
The joystick (I have the F100mk2) is ideal for playing some of my favs: HerzogZwei and International Superstar Soccer.
Near Perfect to Perfect Neo Geo emulation (I mainly play turfmasters).
and now pefect hu card emulation via Temper.

I'll have mine with me at the Midwest Gaming Classic if anyone wants to try it out.

Title: Re: GP2X
Post by: Kitsunexus on March 10, 2008, 07:25:44 AM
I still want a GP2X, but I will not sell my PSP for it as originally reported.
Title: Re: GP2X
Post by: termis on March 10, 2008, 02:55:41 PM
I like my GP2X mk1 (the later edition, too), but the diagonals at times isn't recognized properly.  It drives me nuts, because it's intermittent, and I hear it one of the more common problems on them.

Older console emulations seem to run good, no big complaints there.

MAME emulation is decent, but still has some way to go, as some of more "recent" retro games (those from say, 90 & up) can run a tad slow, even with overclocking.  But I think there's still a lot of optimization left to be done with the GP2x MAME, so hopefully it'll improve with time.

Title: Re: GP2X
Post by: guyjin on March 10, 2008, 07:25:53 PM
If I were going to get one, I'd primarily want to emulate PCE and Game Gear games - how do those fare?

Also, if you can get a big enough SD card, do PCE CDs work?