Gameboy Advance Clone Superemulator

Aluminum Tuesday writes "During a raging internal debate over whether to fork out for the new Gameboy Advance SP, I came across the Korean GP32, a handheld console that looks superior to the GBA in every way. It's capable of emulating the GBA, Super Nintendo, Commodore 64, etc. plus there's a SCUMMVM engine for Monkey Island games and a Java VM. Seems to have a huge online following. It runs its own OS, and there are programs capable of playing divx/mp3 files, though there's also a Linux port on the way. Not too expensive either. (99UKP / 149USD) That's a UK supplier; they ship worldwide, though I found this more expensive American supplier too. (179USD)" Gotta catch 'em all!

Comments

One thing not mentioned in the submission...

[mattrix2k]

Is it's ability to link with up to 4 other SP32's wirelessly: http://www.gp32news.com/?page=showpage&lang=en&id= 6

specs

[slyguy420]

cpu 32 bit risc cpu
screen 3.5" tft
rom 512 kbyte
media smc(smart media card)
sdram 8mb
communication usb port
sound 16bit stereo sound
4 channel wav mixing
resolution 320 x 240 pixel
power supply 2 batteries aa
display colors 65536 colors

tech specs

[Hubert_Shrump]

Dimension/Weight 147mm X 88mm X 34mm(163g)
Display 3.5" Reflective TFT LCD(65,536 concurrent colors)
Resolution 320 X 240 pixel
CPU 32-bit RISC CPU(ARM9)
RAM 8MB SDRAM
ROM 512K
Sound 44.1Khz 16 bit Stereo Sound / 4 Channel Wav Mixing, 16Poly S/W MIDI Support / Earphone Port / 2 Speakers
External Storage Medium Smart Media Card (SMC)
Wireless Multiplayer Gaming 4-Channel RF Module PC Connection USB Port Connection
Power Supply 2AA batteries (12 hours use time between charges) / DC 3V Adapter
Option Rechargeable Battery
Controls 8-way directional pad (joystick) + Durable 6 key button
MP3 Capability MPEG ( , )
Audio Support Other Add-on Applications
Image Viewer, Text Viewer, Media Player, E-Book Viewer
RF Module 2.4GHz ISM Band

Excuse me?

[Cutriss]

Nowhere in that list does it say "Game Boy Advance" or "GBA". Considering that it lists the Game Boy separately from the Game Boy Color, I think it's a bit presumptuous to say that it supports GBA games just because you see that category there.

So, seeing as how it does not actually support GBA games, I don't find it superior to my GBA, which *does* play GBA games.

Re:Excuse me?

[edrugtrader]

it plays GBA games. i own one.

I'll pass. It really flimsy and stinks.

[Viewsonic]

Everyone I know who has bought one thinks it was a waste of money so far. It sounds great on paper but the unit is very cheaply made, and emulation is sub par. Not to mention it's total piracy. Wonder why Slashdot posted a blatant piracy article?

Re:Emulation and DMCA

[afidel]

ZSNES can run every rom file I've thrown at it. The SNES is pretty old and pretty well understood. Also I doubt they would look the other way if they had a way to stop this as it has no native interface for the GB and GBA carts so most people will play pirated roms.

Re:Emulation and DMCA

[Com2Kid]

• How well does the emulation work? If there's any emulator for PC that emulates all the SNES games (or whichever kind) in existence, i've yet to hear about it.

Zsnes

and of course the sourceforge page for it.

Ok ok granted there are like three SNES games it does not fully emulate.

So freakin what.

But for portability you REALLY want snes9x

Unfortunately their provider is complaining to them about bandwidth usage, doh!

Luckily you can still download the latest binaries and source from Zophar's Domain

So, yah, the SNES has pretty much been owned by the EMU community. :) With brief periods of mad translation going on (followed by seemingly long fallow periods. . . .) a ton of the Japanese only games have come over to the SNES as well.

• And does it have enough processing power to run the non-native code without any slowdown or such?

I know the minimum requirements for most simpler SNES emulation are about a Pentium II 266mhz with 64 megs of RAM, the FPU seems to be rather important as I have heard of users with far faster K6-2s and K6-3s not being able to run very many games full speed.

Of course platform specific optimizations should take those requirements down even further, and obviously it was a fairly long time ago when I was using those system specs, so all the additional speed encasements that have made their way into both SNES9x and ZSNES may have brought the requirements down a tad bit more.

Reading around a bit seems to indicate that there ARE problems getting the SNES emulation on the GP32 up to full speed, and IIRC the GP32 does not have a dedicated graphics unit, making it unlikely to be able to ever accomplish all the nifty real time effects of the GBA or even the SNES.

Then again, it does have that rather fast main CPU. :) Nintendo tends to love their tricked out dedicated co-processors, the GP32 is more of a general purpose machine (as can be seen by the MP3 players and even video players out for it).

One must also take media costs into account though, Memory Cards are expensive!

Then again, at least with the GP32 you have the CHOICE of being able to play MP3s and everything, with the GBA you end up having to buy third party accessories to get those same types of options.

I am so tied to my desktop now days that (and this is a bit of a surprise given how much I used my original Game Boy and my Game Boy color 'back in the day') I do not even own a 'modern' portable gaming system. ^_^

one other advantage over *any* nintendo product...

[BrazenChippie]

is that they encourge unlicensed 3rd party development, where nintendo does their best to squash independent coders.

http://www.devrs.com/gp32/
http://devkitadv.sou rceforge.net/index.html
http://groups.yahoo.com/g roup/gp32dev/

i'm thinking of picking one up explicitly for this purpose. anyone have any experience coding for one of these?

The article's also wrong about GBA emulation.

[dabootsie]

According to the GP32 Xtreme site linked as source for the emulators, there's no GBA emulator for the GP32. It can currently emulate the Gameboy/Gameboy Color and even the SNES... but not the GBA.