Confused By Firmware?? Flashing??


birdofprey

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Sorry if I sound really stupid for asking these questions, but I'd rather know, being regarded as a moron than not know and still be one :)

Am I to understand that the different firmwares are how the GP32 loads up from startup? I think i got confused by this because, when I first bought my GP32 from GBAX.com and turned it on, I was confronted with a screen giving me 4 different ptions. To view pacrom, pclink, windups and another i cant remember. I believe this is Mr Spiv's is it not? I heard that the GP32 had an annoying intro but never got to see it as my GP came with this as the 'norm' (Holding start/select on startup gives Mr Spiv's screen again).

What is aquafish? is it an alternative to what I have (I automatically set it to windups every startup) and what exactly is flashing? is it just replacing what loads up at the beginning with something else?

Would love general feedback on what the terms mean, what aquafish is and wether its worth flashing or should i stick with what i got?

Thanks in advance
 
Yeah you have Multi FW2 same as me. The firmware is what your GP32 boots too but I don't think its an OS. There is a program called Zed that you can make your own firmware out of I believe and you can make a firmware with any program that will fit in the rom, for example you could have electromania as your firmware but you would probably need to get your GP repaired after that becaus eyou would have no access to other files :p I'm just gonna stick with Multi FW 2 cause it can auto boot into any program you want anyways.
 
What is aquafish? is it an alternative to what I have ?
aquafish is ... me... yea, my multifirmware is an alternative to what you use, it allow you to make some greats things like adding your own apps (from the smc) in the boot selector; what's more, it include the last official euro firmware (mr.spiv's multifw only include the old original 1.5.7 ...) and yafl 0.3 instead of wind-ups ...
 
The bios monitor isn't annoying!!! It's very useful. It's great for developing and actually lets you know that your gp32 has crashed. What would you rather have? You still have to turn the gp on and off.
 
You need the BIOSMon if you are going to develop (unless you are a perfect coder, and your code never has any bugs) ;) It is negative annoying :p
 
Spiv multifw for dev'rs

Aquafish for players ;)

for example you could have electromania as your firmware but you would probably need to get your GP repaired after that becaus eyou would have no access to other files

Aquafish FW lets you load other firmwares like Zed and Spivs as an additional link on the front menu screen - no flashing required. Zed is like an extension of Aqua FW. But you're right - you could flash it, but you'd be stupid to do so ;)

You still have to turn the gp on and off.
No you dont. It just resets to the start up screen with your links so you can start again

This crap about speed (from other threads) - multifw is fast ,so is Aquafish. There is like a difference of a second. ?!? Also you can load a graphic as a startup image (I have Kaneda's Bike :)) rather than have the "minimalist" look.

Technically Aqua's FW will never go out of date since you can link the latest launchers and file explorers as and when they come out via the boot editor.
 
I know how useful the bios monitor is to dev'rs but to me as a gamer I prefered it when my GP32 restarted instead of displaying loads of goobledegook (to me at least).

I may flash to aqua fishes firmware next week some time. Question is there an fxe version of aqua's firmware, because I did like the convienience of Mr Spivs fxe flasher thingy.
 
Question is there an fxe version of aqua's firmware, because I did like the convienience of Mr Spivs fxe flasher thingy
no, but darkfader's fw flasher is include in the archive...


This crap about speed (from other threads) - multifw is fast ,so is Aquafish. There is like a difference of a second.
i know that my multifw are a bit slow but if you need a real fast boot, the faster multifws are those made with Zed : fasters than mr.spiv's multifw ...
 
The point is that theres really no difference in time - loading for me in either Aqua FW or MultiFW - Aquafish firmware is still best for gamers with all the options it brings :)
 
hey, as long as it's faster than the eurofirmware :)

[edit] Another question, has anyone else noticed thatt their gp32 seems to crash a *little* more with MF2 and Windups? It just seems to me that OpenSnes9x is a tiny bit more unstable with this firmware.
 
I can't say I have, actually, but I imagine its possible. This GP is particularly stable in comparisson to my old one.

What I did notice, though, is that when I flashed from Pacrom to MultiFW1, ScummVM suddenly because a LOT slower - especially in the cursor movement, though only really when there's music playing. Its the only proggy I noticed that in, but it was very noticable.
 
Its used for choosing the colours of the boot up screen (e.g. for the text and the selection colour). If you have a boot picture on your smart media card, you can then see which colours work and which dont - then put the colours you want into the Boot editor. :) Saves time on editing your boot list to find that the colours you chose clash with the picture youve put in at startup.
 
aquafish_ posted on May 8 2004 at 02:57 PM said:
has anyone else noticed thatt their gp32 seems to crash a *little* more with MF2 and Windups?
mr.spiv's bios monitor make problems with some emulators... (that's why i've removed it from my multifw...)
well this is something new <_< I would like to hear more about this theory...
 
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