UPDATED - Why must the British do this to me!?!?!?!?!?!?

[sam fisher]

It is. I know about all these things. I was hinting at the fact that all DaveC does is complain I've been around GP32x for a LOOOOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG. Since I got my first gp32.

[minkster]

I agree he does complain, but he also contributes to the GP2x community. So it basically evens out for him

[sam fisher]

Yeah. Did you read the april fools thread? I made a DaveC emulator with sound in Fenix

[teraflop122]

I'm most interested in creating 3D applications for the GP2X, though I'm not quite sure where to start. I've heard some good things about yeti3D, and a whole heap 'o bad things about TinyGL and similar OpenGL ports.

Of course, I will read into it all a whole heck of a lot more when I actually recieve my GP2X sometime tomorrow.

[teraflop122]

Yeah, I finally got it from gp32z.com, even though they slacked off and performed worse than most eBay amatuers.

Anyway, the first thing you notice when you get the device is the relatively light-weight construction quality. Now, it isn't 'cheap' or anything, but it is built entirely out of very lightweight plastic. The unit also weighs very little for its size, especially when compared to the super-dense Sony PSP. Also, the plastic screen protector comes seperate from the unit, requiring you to place it yourself.

After putting the included foreign AA's into the unit and powering it on, I noticed that its screen is not anything special. Many have hyped about it being far better than that of the PSP- it isn't. The refresh rate seems to be slightly superior, but the PSP is much easier to look at.

Well, being the guy I am, the first thing I did was dig up some emulators (gasp!) and roms (double-gasp!) to load into the thing. DrMDx appears to be the only Genesis emulator for the GP2X, but perhaps it deserves that distinction, because it is very well made. You can make an enormous range of adjustments, including the CPU speed of the GP2X during play, and the frameskip levels. Auto-frameskip usually keeps the emulation running smoothly with sound turned on, though perhaps at maybe 90% full speed. I also tried SquidgeSnes, but I haven't managed to get the thing running yet. Even after downloading and installing the SDL library, SquidgeSnes fails to laucnh past a black screen with a few lines of text.

As for firmware upgrading, it isn't all that frightening as people say, really. Infact, upgrading the firmware is virtually painless. You just download the zip file, extract its contents into a SD card (which must first be formatted with FAT32) and boot the GP2X with the SD card inserted. The upgrade screen will show for scarcely more than 10 seconds, and then it'll load into the menu just like normal. Then you usually need to go into Utilities and run a patching program, which takes about 30 seconds. Then its all done.

I had some trouble with music, but I finally got MP3's to play by going into the ID3 tag and shortening a few oddly long Title and Author feilds. The GP2X has a pair of built in speakers, but these are not really meant to be used under any circumstances....at all

Being unable to run SquidgeSnes, I tried nkSNES2x, which did indeed work. This port of Snes9x runs, but is generally considered slower than SquidgeSnes. I'd rather use the better of the two, but I don't have much of a point at the moment

Snes emulation is best without sound, and even then isn't quite up to speed.

I'll post more as I observe more.

[sam fisher]

One, the screen is the same as in the BLU+ which is better than the screen in my BLU which is brilliant, Two, this is because of the Game Park Holding's monkeys that dont know how to use their hardware. Or to be precise its diginsys people.

[teraflop122]

I know this is against the rules, but could someone PM me who knows a good rom place? This is the first and last time you'll here me ask this, and I apologize for the slight breach of rules.

[sam fisher]

I could. But I won't. The worst thing about the automated search engines as their spiders index everything for almost every keyword.

[teraflop122]

Well, besides all that, I got SquidgeSnes working finally. Turns out I did something stupid when loading it onto the SD card. SquidgeSnes is deffinitely a whole heck of a lot faster than nkSNES2x, that's for certain!

My first pair of AA's ran dead after about 3 hours of continuous use. We'll see how some higher quality batteries last, as well as the NiMH's I'm charging up.

[Radon199]

Hmm, what's those batterys Ge-Force is always plugging... 15 min rechargables, they are made by Rayovac.

[teraflop122]

I'm currently formulating my plan to convert my GP2X for Li-Ion use. Powerizer and Batteryspace have the IC protection circuits I need, so I just have to pick out the ideal Li-Ions to use. I wanted to find AA formfactor Li-Ions so that I would not need to make modifications to the case, but most of those seem to be a measly 650 mAh. I need to open up the GP2X to see what kind of spare space I have to work with, but I think I should be able to get a couple flat polymer Li-Ions between the circuit board and the back of the case. I'm aiming for about 5600mAh, a number much more ideal than just 1800 or 2600