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GP2X Surpasses Expectations
Harry Trotter writes "Gameparks GP2X Linux Based Console had a lot to live up to with Some amusing boasts from Gamepark, but it has lived up to its pre-billing rather well with great ports of commercial games and emulators such as Mame, Vice (Commodore 64), NeoGeo CD, Duke Nukem 3D, ScummVM and another 150 more releases so far, all of which can be followed at GP2X News & GP32 Xtreme. The Open Source Development of this console has ensured a following that will keep the console alive for years to come."
A friend bought one of these, and borrowed it for a couple of days. You get something like three hours when you watch movies (DIVX), and the thing looks like it skips some frames. Don't really know, but it's looks like that. Also, the emulators are very unfinished. SNES lacks sounds, many lack good interfaces. Some readme's are in Korean, and you need to install some kind SDL libs for some emulators. Didn't say that in the docs. Or is my Korean that bad? ;) Still waiting for hardware accelerated SDL to surface.
I'd love to buy one, but currently the machine is lacking software. Very badly. Give it software and I'll buy one asap!
As a new GP2X owner, I can answer some of these questions.
;)
1. Is it Mac compatible? I assume it is just a basic Mass Storage device on the USB chain.
You assume correctly. An SD card is required though.
2. Does anyone have a link to the actual technical specs? I can't find anything on that site about the tech specs, other than the ARM processors.
links to tech specs (gp2x wiki)
3. How bright is the screen and how do they get 10 hours out of 2 AA batteries?
The screen is bright enough. It's similar to the original GBA SP screen (though it looks horrible currently - I assume this can be fixed with firmware upgrades). Also, they don't get 10 hours of battery life. They promise to somehow increase it with firmware upgrades (by reducing processor utilization, I believe)
The rest I can't answer - but for #7. Too bad I own one already.
Reality is fluffy!
Cleartype is a font rendering technology, not a cool way to resize images. It works on the idea that the text will be a solid color on a solid background. Throw an image at it and Cleartype will do absolutely nothing.
320x240 is a little grainy for a 17" screen, but it should look just fine on a 3"-5" screen. You'll never even notice the low resolution because the pixels are so small. IIRC, Quake II should have no problem with this resolution as it was designed with such ModeX's in mind. SuperVGA was fully supported, also, but it wasn't required.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Just a few thoughts in response to your questions.
- 18-05,%20Gp2x%20Review
The GBA got 20 hours out of 2 AA's, I'll believe 10 hours for this system. It's got a lot better hardware than the GBA, but it's got several years of technology evolution to help reduce the power usage.
Google searching found these specs as one of the first hits: http://www.killerredcar.com/?p=news/2005-12-28-22
To give you an idea of resolutions, the GBA is 240x160. I think the DS is 256x192 for each screen. Most N64 games ran at 320x240, with a few at 640x480 (and usually only with the RAM upgrade). I think most PS1 games were 320x240 as well.
BTW, most game manufacturers do profit from the hardware. It's only those that are desperate for marketshare that don't (Microsoft and Sega with the Saturn). But in the end there's much more money to be made from games.
Just a fair warning for anyone thinking about buying one. I've got one, and it's a great device, but it sucks up batteries like nothing else. The day I got mine, I put in the set of batteries that came with it, and they lasted me less than 2 hours. I threw some brand new duracell batteries in, those lasted about an hour and a half as well. I ended up buying some 2500mah recharagable batteries the day after I got the device, because it really does need them. With those I get battery life around 4 hours, which includes the fact that I'm turning it on and off every 5 minutes or so to test a game I've been trying to port. The popular import store Lik-Sang isn't selling them at this point because of minor issues like that. (That, and it's fairly easy to brick them upgrading the firmware) So if you're thinking of getting one, be prepared with good batteries or an AC adapter. :-)
You are missing the point. This is NOT a replacement for or competitor for a DS or PSP. It is a different device for different market. Do you really want another PSP or DS type device? I think it is nice to have an alternative. If you want to play the newest polygon based 3D games on the go then DS or PSP is for you. If you want a device to play emulators, homebrew games or hack up your own apps then this device is much better than those others. It SUPPORTS homebrew rather than try to stop it like the others. The screen aspect and resolution matches emulated games much better than those others as well. While some are early, many emulators ARE full speed as of now as well, like the fullspeed with sound Genesis emulator - DrMD. Also two 200 MHz cores and 64 Megabytes of RAM compare pretty well to the DS's small low res screen, 66 and 33 MHZ CPUs and 4 megabytes of RAM quite well.
I've got a GP2X and I have just started developing with it. It's a nice piece of kit. The hardware is pretty nice and the software coming out of the GP2X community is amazing. But I'd caution anyone who was thinking of buying it. It is not a PSP or a DS. It will never have super-fancy commercial titles released for it.
If you are a gamer, buy a DS or a PSP. You'll get better games and have more fun. If you want to program games/apps for an embedded system, buy a GP2X. We have good down-to-earth programmers who write games/apps for the love of it, and not because they think they'll "break in" to the games industry. You can test out new games ideas, port currently existing games and apps or write your own. It's very fun, but it isn't for everybody.
So if you are thinking of buying a GP2X, please consider if you really want it. It's a great machine but it's not for everybody. You might be better off with a DS or a PSP.
I own one and i can give my opinion (and some facts) about it.
:)
Some things good and some things bad about it:
Bad:
- Heavy interlaced screen (can be fixed by software: i added it to the profile script and now its OK)
- Long startup time, about 20 secs (think it have lo load a linux kernel)
- Troubles reading some SD cards (erratic, will be improved in next firmwares)
- Analog like feeling joystick (i prefer the less hard to move joystick of the GP32, but this seems more durable)
- Low battery life (hope with dynamic clock increase/decrease will improve this). Note: You can, for example, play perfectly some videos and games at half clockspeed.
Good:
- Good comunity (every day there are one or more releases of home made software)
- Linux based (easy software porting, easily scriptable/configurable)
- Great desing and low weight than i expected (even with batteries)
- Ability to easily develop for it
Emulation status:
- Play perfectly Megadrive/Genesis games, NeoGeoPocket, NES, Sega Mastersystem, GB and GB Color.
- Play 904 MAME Games (0.34 version), some NeoGeoCD games, SNES
- See some Gameboy advance and PSX games loading, but unplayable
Keep in mind that most of this emulators are near direct portings and none of them (as far as i know) use the second processor. Due the machine power we can expect to play perfectly GBA games in mid term. It is just a mather of time
Regards,
Ego
outdated? it's using the latest non-specialty hardware for it's price range. old? it just came out. rather crappy? how so? if you're talking about the problems it has, all it takes is a simple firmware update to fix it up. i've dropped mine a couple of times and it runs great, so it can't be the build quality. it runs correctly and as i expect it to, so it can't be the software. where's the crap factor? do you even own one? better think before making such rash remarks =] the point of the gp2x was to never be successful or popular on a global scale. but for something that has had no corporate advertisement or promotion it's doing pretty good. does it matter? well that depends if 1000's of retro games, new homebrew games, wide-range movie playback, mp3/ogg playback, picture viewing, and textbook reading matter to you.
I considered buying one of these for $180. Instead I paid $380 for my Zaurus C1000 (shipped from Japan).
Ignoring the non-gaming aspects of it... with the Z I get the following for emulation:
full keyboard
better emulation (snes9x runs at full speed, for example)
compact flash
CPU which is twice as fast (and can be overclocked to be 3x as fast)
VGA resolution.
This, when combined with the PDA and pocket workstation type functionality made the choice a no-brainer.