58 replies to this topic

[nathanallan]

Quote

Although I will still buy a Portable Atari when it's released I just couldn't wait any long so I went ahead and bought a GP2X, it's due to arrive at my house today.....man this is going to be a long day at work!!!

Could you give us a first-person review of it? I was thinking of getting one, too(planning but plans have been failing ). Let us know what you think.

[SalemFrost7800]

nathanallan, on Wed Aug 1, 2007 1:02 PM, said:

Quote

Although I will still buy a Portable Atari when it's released I just couldn't wait any long so I went ahead and bought a GP2X, it's due to arrive at my house today.....man this is going to be a long day at work!!!

Could you give us a first-person review of it? I was thinking of getting one, too(planning but plans have been failing ). Let us know what you think.

Yes I will, I plan to spend the rest of today (when I get home from work) playing with it and loading it with Atari 2600, mame and C64 games. I will also test the Video and pictures, I bought the TV cables so I can play games and watch videos Etc on my TV so I will let you know how that goes as well.

[mos6507]

nathanallan, on Wed Aug 1, 2007 10:02 AM, said:

Quote

Although I will still buy a Portable Atari when it's released I just couldn't wait any long so I went ahead and bought a GP2X, it's due to arrive at my house today.....man this is going to be a long day at work!!!

Could you give us a first-person review of it? I was thinking of getting one, too(planning but plans have been failing ). Let us know what you think.

I already wrote about it in my blog. The Stella port is spot-on. The problem is the physical design of the stick is poor. It makes for glitchy action play. It has a dead-zone in the center. You can't play Decathlon or any game that requires fast reversals or really accurate diagonals. If you hook it up to the dock adapter and use USB controllers it's fine but then you lose the portability aspect. Using it with home computer sims is tough because there is no keyboard and you have to fiddle with an online keyboard overlay.

[calfranklin]

SalemFrost7800, on Wed Aug 1, 2007 6:35 AM, said:

mos6507, on Wed Aug 1, 2007 5:35 AM, said:

nathanallan, on Wed Aug 1, 2007 1:00 AM, said:

see my signature

Stayyy on target. Aaalmost there.

Although I will still buy a Portable Atari when it's released I just couldn't wait any long so I went ahead and bought a GP2X, it's due to arrive at my house today.....man this is going to be a long day at work!!!

Does the GP2X emulate Atari? Is this why you bought this device?

[SalemFrost7800]

calfranklin, on Thu Aug 2, 2007 1:33 PM, said:

SalemFrost7800, on Wed Aug 1, 2007 6:35 AM, said:

mos6507, on Wed Aug 1, 2007 5:35 AM, said:

nathanallan, on Wed Aug 1, 2007 1:00 AM, said:

see my signature

Stayyy on target. Aaalmost there.

Although I will still buy a Portable Atari when it's released I just couldn't wait any long so I went ahead and bought a GP2X, it's due to arrive at my house today.....man this is going to be a long day at work!!!

Does the GP2X emulate Atari? Is this why you bought this device?

Yes it emulates atari, nintendo, C64, mame etc.

I have only had it for a day but so far the Atari emulation is great. I will mess with it for the next couple days and post a review this weekend.

[mimo]

the GP2X emulates 2600, 8bit home computers (inc 5200) Lynx and ST well.
The 7800 emulation is slow, but getting better.
The Jaguar emulation is not worth bothering with.
Mame is awesome and the Sega stuff really good too!
The only problem I had, and it made me get rid of the system was the poor joystick. I kind of miss it, and if the joystick ever gets updated I would buy another in a shot

[Hocus Cadabra]

mimo, on Thu Aug 2, 2007 6:32 PM, said:

the GP2X emulates 2600, 8bit home computers (inc 5200) Lynx and ST well.
The only problem I had, and it made me get rid of the system was the poor joystick. I kind of miss it, and if the joystick ever gets updated I would buy another in a shot

The GP2X would be an incredible device if it had a decent joystick or pad. I have owned 2, and sold both because of the bad joystick. They supposedly improved the joystick in the second version, but really just added a different "cap" so your thumb wouldn't slip as much. The problem with the joystick is that it has a HUGE dead zone in the middle, and you have to move it almost to the extreme position to get it to register any direction at all.

Edited by Hocus Cadabra, Thu Aug 2, 2007 7:45 PM.

[calfranklin]

SalemFrost7800, on Thu Aug 2, 2007 2:12 PM, said:

calfranklin, on Thu Aug 2, 2007 1:33 PM, said:

SalemFrost7800, on Wed Aug 1, 2007 6:35 AM, said:

mos6507, on Wed Aug 1, 2007 5:35 AM, said:

nathanallan, on Wed Aug 1, 2007 1:00 AM, said:

see my signature

Stayyy on target. Aaalmost there.

Although I will still buy a Portable Atari when it's released I just couldn't wait any long so I went ahead and bought a GP2X, it's due to arrive at my house today.....man this is going to be a long day at work!!!

Does the GP2X emulate Atari? Is this why you bought this device?

Yes it emulates atari, nintendo, C64, mame etc.

I have only had it for a day but so far the Atari emulation is great. I will mess with it for the next couple days and post a review this weekend.

ok, now I'm follwing you. I didn't know that GP2X was a hand-held gaming device. What do these normally sell for?

[Hocus Cadabra]

calfranklin, on Fri Aug 3, 2007 8:53 PM, said:

ok, now I'm follwing you. I didn't know that GP2X was a hand-held gaming device. What do these normally sell for?

$189... it has an Arm processor, so it's basically the same internal hardware as a low-end Pocket PC.

There is some talk over at the gp32x.com forums that a new revision is in the works, which fixes the poor joystick, among other improvements...

gp32x.com

BTW - The GP2x will emulate anything someone writes an emulator for. There's also quite a bit of original software being written for it...

Edited by Hocus Cadabra, Fri Aug 3, 2007 7:34 PM.

[nathanallan]

Hocus Cadabra, on Fri Aug 3, 2007 8:32 PM, said:

calfranklin, on Fri Aug 3, 2007 8:53 PM, said:

ok, now I'm follwing you. I didn't know that GP2X was a hand-held gaming device. What do these normally sell for?

$189... it has an Arm processor, so it's basically the same internal hardware as a low-end Pocket PC.

There is some talk over at the gp32x.com forums that a new revision is in the works, which fixes the poor joystick, among other improvements...

gp32x.com

BTW - The GP2x will emulate anything someone writes an emulator for. There's also quite a bit of original software being written for it...

DOH! I sent the manufacturer and email about the poor controller, as a customer that is shopping. I guess I didn't need to.

Nathan

[SalemFrost7800]

There has been allot of talk going about the GP2X in the FB2P thread so I thought we should move it here......

[TailChao]

The GP2X would have been an incredible device if the distributors didn't lie to most commercial developers prior to launch. It's great conceptually, but has some really bad business practices behind it, I'm honestly still sore from all the crap Craigx fed us, it's impossible to take the device seriously anymore.

[SalemFrost7800]

After just a few days of playing with my GP2X I have to say I LOVE IT....It's not perfect but it's very cool anyway. It emulates Atari 2600 games using a port of Stella made specifically for the GP2X. I have not tried any paddle games buy the Joystick games work great.

It also emulates MAME but you have to use v0.34 Roms for it to work, these are older roms and hard to find but i was able to download the entire set on the GP2X Torrent site. One of the best features of the GP2X is you can switch the screen to make it vertical to play games like Donkey Kong and Galaga.

Here is an introduction video on youtube

I also am using the VICE C64 emulator to play the Castles of Doctor Creep, but if I become "Trapped" in the game I am stuck, your supposed to be able to press the "restore" button and it kills you and resets you to the beginning screen however it's not working. I just sent VICE an email asking if there is a fix for this because anyone who has played the Castles of Doctor Creep knows, you get trapped allot.

I also am playing FRIDAY THE 13th for NES and it's perfect!!!

Nothing will stop my from buying a Flashback 2 portable when it comes out (maybe 2 or 3 even) but this is great in the meantime.

Edited by SalemFrost7800, Sat Aug 4, 2007 10:15 AM.

[Nognir]

be sure to also check out some homebrew games. there are many out there and some of them are really good!

[nathanallan]

How does it work as a movie player? I read that it uses a different format than most computers use (?). Have you had a chance to try out that function yet?

Nathan

[NE146]

I would love to have a GP2X, but I'm a little gun shy after forking it out for a GP32, and then having the GP2X come out very shortly afterward. It looks like it's been around for a while though...

[Forrest]

If you're looking for a similar portable device that has a built in web browser, 802.11b/g and Bluetooth and also runs on Linux then check out the Nokia 770 - available for about $140 new Nokia 770 wiki

The Nokia also works great as an MP3 and video player - with a 800 x 480 screen

[mos6507]

nathanallan, on Sat Aug 4, 2007 1:15 PM, said:

How does it work as a movie player? I read that it uses a different format than most computers use (?). Have you had a chance to try out that function yet?

It works better than most PMPs because it can play the kind of bulky 700MB DIVX DVD rips you find online without recompression. So odds are, if you downloaded a rip for your PC, you can just drag the file to an SD card and use it as-is. It doesn't work 100% of the time, but pretty close to it. It usually plays the videos at full framerate but sometimes I can notice some mild frameskipping. Depends on the video and how high you may be overclocking it. Most PDAs would choke on clips like these. Unfortunately the official mediaplayer is closed-source, otherwise it would probably be better. If it hadn't been as good of a video player it would not be worth the money, IMHO.

[mos6507]

Forrest, on Sat Aug 4, 2007 3:13 PM, said:

If you're looking for a similar portable device that has a built in web browser, 802.11b/g and Bluetooth and also runs on Linux then check out the Nokia 770 - available for about $140 new Nokia 770 wiki

The Nokia also works great as an MP3 and video player - with a 800 x 480 screen

It will be interesting to see what the next big thing is going to be in the next year or two. There is a LOT of movement afoot to create truly budget-class laptops and UMPCs. If that happens and they are fast enough to play movies and run emus at fullspeed then I can see these other specialized devices fading fast.

[remowilliams]

Forrest, on Sat Aug 4, 2007 6:13 PM, said:

If you're looking for a similar portable device that has a built in web browser, 802.11b/g and Bluetooth and also runs on Linux then check out the Nokia 770 - available for about $140 new Nokia 770 wiki

I've got a 770 and its an awesome cheap cool web tablet, but forget about playing games on it. The GP2X is a million times better when it comes to that respect, with lots 'o' cool emulators and some real nice homebrew

[AtticGamer]

Hocus Cadabra, on Fri Aug 3, 2007 2:45 AM, said:

mimo, on Thu Aug 2, 2007 6:32 PM, said:

the GP2X emulates 2600, 8bit home computers (inc 5200) Lynx and ST well.
The only problem I had, and it made me get rid of the system was the poor joystick. I kind of miss it, and if the joystick ever gets updated I would buy another in a shot

The GP2X would be an incredible device if it had a decent joystick or pad. I have owned 2, and sold both because of the bad joystick. They supposedly improved the joystick in the second version, but really just added a different "cap" so your thumb wouldn't slip as much. The problem with the joystick is that it has a HUGE dead zone in the middle, and you have to move it almost to the extreme position to get it to register any direction at all.

I totally agree, it is great in theory but the extremely bad design just ruins it for me. I was really excited about it but it was so dissapointing, the SNES and MAME emulators still require alot of overclocking and frame skip and the system freezes very often, besides eating batteries.

I loved it when I didn't have it, now I loathe it. A perfect concept ruined by bad contruction.

[nathanallan]

I just read this:

http://www.trustedre...-Date-Price-/p1

and it seems that the customers have gotten their wish! The stick has been redesigned and it now has a touch screen!

Quote

If you don't read the site regularly, or haven't yet cottoned on, I'm a huge fan of Linux and open source in general - I use Fedora and OpenOffice for my work PC and have a large collection of homebrew games for my PSP. So when I first heard about the GP2X portable gaming device it took me a lot of effort to stop me rushing out and buying one. Those urges have now returned because console has now been updated with some swanky new features and a new name, the GP2X-F200.

Foremost among them is a new screen that's now touch sensitive, with an updated firmware which should soon lead to some DS-style free game offerings from the GP2X community. The d-pad is now a 16-way digital affair, DS style as opposed to the PSP-esque stick on the previous model.

Internally, the main hardware is the same, so everything and anything developed for the previous incarnation will work on the F200 including the vast array of alternate firmwares, media players (including xVid and DivX playback support) and emulators. The card reader has been updated to accept SDHC cards, which enables you up to use 32GB of portable films and games.

Since the initial launch in 2005, 30,000 GP2Xs have been sold, making it around 1,700 times less prolific than the DS. Although that does mean that 30,000 people have been convinced that the idea of not having to pay for your games is a good one - which it assuredly is.

You can get your hands on the F200 from next month and, shelling out £125 for the privileged, about the same price as the new PSP Lite. If you consider that for your money you're getting a portable games console, media player and just about anything else you can code in Linux it's hard to deny the attraction.

I bet a lot of people will be trading up.

Nathan

Attached Thumbnails

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[mimo]

That looks very sweet, maybe a replacement for my NDS

[nathanallan]

When I get the money for something, it's gonna be a hard decision between the DS and the F-200.

Nathan

[poobah]

I've had a GP2X for a couple months....
I'll do a better run down later, that said:

Pros:
Emulation swiss army knife! Stuff up to about the SNES is just plain awesome. MAME is an older port, but it also rocks
Excellent homebrews., there's a pretty hardcore development community
decent mp3/movie player

Cons:
The stick- now this all depends, I don't mind it much myself, but I was born and raised on the 2600, so I don't whine about stuff without D-pads. If you are are an NES-kid, you may not like the stick, but even then, its not horrible.

a new revision is coming out with a 4 key d-pad-like replacement for the stick, so you may like that better, and if the stick doesn't bother you, there should be some deals on the older version from people who 'upgrade'

There's a cradle for it with a 4 port USB hub, TV-out, etc. Many game and emulators also support USB game pad/sticks/etc. so there's that. I've brought the cradle and a couple game pads places, plugged it into a tv, and had instant console goodness.

When the new revision is available, I plan on grabbing one, seeing which I like better, and selling the other one.

Oh yeah, its runs on 2 AA batteries, which is about 4-5 hours on a set. Some people whine about that, but I have 8 rechargeable AAs, 2 in the GP2X, 2 in the pouch, and 4 charged/charging. Works awesome, and I can always play it.

Edited by poobah, Wed Sep 26, 2007 5:32 AM.