GP2X

[Nanashi]

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...

[GUTS]

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.

[Keranu]

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.

[Nanashi]

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...

[Keranu]

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 .

[rolins]

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.

[Nanashi]

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...

[nodtveidt]

Dracula X is also a very CPU-intensive game for the PCE, so it's not surprising.

[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?

[pixeljunkie]

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.

[16-bit]

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.

[Keranu]

I would really love to have a GP2X, but just not willing to spend that much on one.

[MissaFX]

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).

[Kitsunexus]

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?

[Keranu]

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.