Details Regarding The Xgp 2d/3d Accelerator


Incidently DaveC, not everyone in the world is interested in emulators. A homebrew wifi instant messanger would be good enough for me to get an XGP.
 
JaqMs posted on Sep 1 2006 at 01:26 PM said:
Incidently DaveC, not everyone in the world is interested in emulators. A homebrew wifi instant messanger would be good enough for me to get an XGP.
There you go, not every alternative handheld has to be tailored for specific emulators, that's where the variety and freedom of choice come in :)

- Alex
 
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Well, none of them are really tailored to certain needs. Hell, any of the apps for any of the platforms can be cross-compiled or rewritten for any of the other platforms, XGP included.

Well, within the limitations of the hardware in some cases. I really don't think the GBA would be superb at playing movies and Homebrew on the PSP is a pain in the neck apparently. The GP2X isn't a 3D powerhouse, and Nintendo DS' screens are rather strangely proportioned for some titles. Every console has it's shortcomings, even the 2X. The XGP will surely have it's little strengths too, but for everyone who's got what they need or have a particular style of handheld picked out, I'm sure there's already a model out there that does it well or well enough. If I knew nothing about handhelds, I would probably go with the PSP or GBA or NDS, cause they are well established. If I knew a lot about handhelds, I'd be looking right now at what's available for titles, homebrew, ports, etc.... The GP2X is already out and the problems are mostly fixed. The XGP is scheduled for released not anytime soon, and the final release specs aren't full decided if I'm reading right.

GP2X - Joystick is hardly full quality, replacements are being sought.
XGP - Joystick is analog, replacement is being considered. This IS honestly the worst control scheme for most games designed for dpad-style play.

So far, XGP has only seemed to win over those people who COLLECT handhelds or want to code on all possible machines/PSP clones from what I can understand
 
Well you can't just say the GP2X is automatically better than the XGP just because it has lots of homebrew on it already. And there has been many systems in the past that were similar but both of them had communities of their own: NES and SMS, C64 and ZX Spectrum, Amiga and Atari ST, PC and Mac, etc. At the time those systems were released, each company had close to the same reputation or were relatively unknown at their time. Some of them were released a couple years after the other.

Just because GP2X owners have superiority complex for it doesn't mean it's better simply because it was released earlier.

And by seeing your argument, I could imagine you and others saying that the Gamecube WILL be better than the Wii. Graphics-wise, the Wii won't be that much more powerful. Therefore, you would prefer the Gamecube simply because the controller is more traditional.
 
Simply put, the XGP is an upgraded GP2X internally. This is because they use a more advanced chipset from the same company, MagicEyes, with the difficult-and-cumbersome to use 940T replaced by a 2D/3D accelerator, something vitally required by a machine aspiring to be a quality game console and not just a media player. It'll feature more RAM as well, so internally the machine will be superior. It's the interface (LCD and controls) that are 'more' or 'less' comfortable; but in no way will the GP2X be a superior machine to any of the XGP line, with the exception of KiDS, which not even similar to the rest of the XGP line and should really have a different name.
 
Epicenter posted on Sep 1 2006 at 11:03 PM said:
in no way will the GP2X be a superior machine to any of the XGP line, with the exception of KiDS
Sigh, hardware can only do so much, it's the community that makes the difference. The two handhelds will coexist as they will end up having different software for the most part, and thus will attract different people with different needs and different tastes. Some people (me included) prefer 2D over 3D any day, whether that would be original homebrew or classic emulation.

And Goity, keep it to yourself will you.

- Alex
 
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dont forget that the opengl accerlation is also great for speeding up 2d games, and IF it haves a real fpu that could make a hell of a difference.
 
Im looking forward to the xgp and I still want a gp2x. Both seem interesting. however if the xgp changed thier widescreen and analog to what users want for the gp2x then I wouldnt see a good reason to buy a gp2x... other than the fact that it uses some proprietary battery... that is bothering me..... double As would be better I think... anyways its all perspective here.
 
Rei Yano posted on Sep 8 2006 at 05:36 AM said:
Im looking forward to the xgp and I still want a gp2x. Both seem interesting. however if the xgp changed thier widescreen and analog to what users want for the gp2x then I wouldnt see a good reason to buy a gp2x... other than the fact that it uses some proprietary battery... that is bothering me..... double As would be better I think... anyways its all perspective here.
That is pretty much what every person without a gp2x is thinking. ;)
 
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I have a GP2X and he summed up my thoughts pretty well. When I looked at the specsheets I was wondering at the resolution myself, and I am worried about the analogue vs d-pad issue messing up the emulation of a few consoles, but... For those consoles I have the GP2X. I was excited about the XGP initially because of Linux being listed as one of thier OS choices of three (?) and because of the 3d accelerator making emulating certain systems easier.

They fill very different voids that not all experience, and, frankly, if most developers feel how DaveC does, then we won't have to worry about many authors and devs leaving. Dave does have a very good point, and in the middle of this semi-hype, it's good to hear the downside.
 
If the XGP/XGPmini do use Linux (or it's ported if not officially supported, but I doubt it comes to that) then GP2X software will easily port over. So, it isn't as if the XGP needs its own dedicated community to survive. There are interested developers; Zodttd for example expressed a lot of excitement at the prospect of bringing over PSX4ALL since it will run enormously faster than it would on the GP2X with no dedicated GPU. He was even happier with the concept of an FPU/Vector processor being included, too. I doubt the machines will hurt for developers at all.
 
How about an analog stick and a D-Pad, that way everyone gets what they want and the whiners can shut the fuck up? :)
 
That'd be a bit more complicated in a way .. you'd have to bind them to differnet controller assignments (JOY0, JOY1 for example) and which one was default for any given program would have to be set somewhere, it's just much more complicated for software not coded for a double control scheme in mind..
 
Epicenter posted on Sep 25 2006 at 05:02 AM said:
That'd be a bit more complicated in a way .. you'd have to bind them to differnet controller assignments (JOY0, JOY1 for example) and which one was default for any given program would have to be set somewhere, it's just much more complicated for software not coded for a double control scheme in mind..

Why would that be hard? It would just take a little more time to set the bindings...
 
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But the less things to screw with, the better.. at least when it comes to decent market penetration. You don't want it to be viewed as 'for hackers only' like a lot of people view the GP2X.
 
That isn't true at all. If you have one of those dual shock -> USB adapters, Linux reads both analogue sticks and the dpad as part of the same joystick.
 
They still have to be assigned in software-- only one is going to control your applications unless they are specially coded to do so. I was just using a gamepad with a 2 Analog sticks and a D-Pad last night-- in all the games I tried, Analog took over as the primary option-- even in games it didn't work correctly in (so the analog was interpreted as 'ON' or 'OFF' and none of the states in between, so the movement was uneven and jerky, pretty much unplayable.) Attaching a different pad had the D-Pad take priority and the analog wouldn't work. That's the sort of complication that should probably be avoided.

Orkie said:
That isn't true at all. If you have one of those dual shock -> USB adapters, Linux reads both analogue sticks and the dpad as part of the same joystick.
Exactly what I tried, too-- analog worked, D-Pad wouldn't. :(

As far as adding both, I've never thought the tiny analog nub on the PSP was very comfortable at all, and making it much larger would probably get in the way of your hands using the D-Pad, or make the unit unnecessarily large. If one were added though, it should definitely only go on the full XGP ...
 
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That is because the dpad acts as standard buttons. Since you would clearly wouldn't want to use the dpad for analogue tasks and vice versa if you had the luxury of both, I don't think it would be an issue. You'd program dpad tasks for the dpad and analogue tasks for the analogue stick.
 
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