Gpx2 Unvailed!!


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TeDaDeS posted on Jul 27 2005 at 05:39 PM said:
Can we have GBA emulation now ?

That would be cool, also:
-neogeo-pocket (color)
-Sega 32X (or even Saturn, but I doubt it)
-PS1
-Duke Nukem 3D !

looks like I have to get a job (again).
you will have more chance of emulaing a ps2 than a saturn i'm afraid!

psone is probably too much but who knows in the long run. 32x could also be tough as it shares many of the saturns internals.
 
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DaveC posted on Jul 27 2005 at 11:47 AM said:
Only 32 Meg of RAM? I guess NeoGeo is out too :(

Someone should get the cheap asses to put in 64 MB. I have to admit the specs are a bit underwhelming. 250 MHz? Some current GP32s go that high.

Also as Skeezix isn't going to be doing anything for it and may go to the DS (Not sure how he will like the small low res screens though) It is already getting the cold shoulder from some homebrew devs.

It should have had at least 400 MHz. Basically as is now it will basically just do the stuff we have now only a little smoother, and MAME worse in vertical mode.

Oh well, this one is a definate "wait and see"

DaveyC -- you'are always so quick to jump to negative :)

You already know I dev across platforms, and further from previous posts you already know I'm 100% underwhelmed by PSP and NDS. (I went to the game store and .. theres nothign for NDS interesting, or I'd pick one up.)

Anyway, what I'd like to see is solid reliable specs. So far it doesn't sound like its all that much more impressive than existing GP32's.

As to homebrew.. if peopel have it, they'll homebrew for it. If lots of people get it, there will be lots of of homebrew. Cold shoulder is too hard to tell, since its not released yet.

If I had one, I'd make sure my stuff runs onit natch, and I'll dev for whatever is on hand at the time. I'm pretty tempted to get one..

But I'll tell you what worries me the most --

GP and GPH -- I'm not going to buy two new GP32-descendants, so I worry that theres this one.. and another one. Are we going to divide up the GP32 scene into 2 GP and GPH scenes? Thats an awful mess... so thats quite discouraging.

The GP32 itself is not an impressive machine, but thats what made it unique -- being all off-the-shelf, its easy to code for. No custom hardware limits you, but means the tricks are all up to you. So these guys will likely be in the same vein.. common goods making it easy. However, relying on multiple CPUs for power instead of single more powerful CPU ratchets it up a touch, so newbie devs will be outclassed (at least for awhile.)

ie: Does Fenix support multiple CPUs and threading? If Fenix has thread support, then perhaps it can work across multiple CPUs. But if Fenix is single threaded, then it would still be limited to 250Mz, and -- theres already 250MHz GP32s, though most of us are at 160 give or take.

So the 'actual speedup' for a lot of things would be 160 to 250 -- a 30% or so speedup. Add in a CPU-class and bus improvement etc, and maybe the new units are twice as fast, single threaded.. at best, for newbies. For coders who get into multi-cpu action *dual core or not), then you're looking at best at a 4x speedup, but "two cpus" doesn't necessarily mean "double performance" -- they need to chatter back and forth and negotiate, and you generally are not running both maxxed out.. usually one CPU is waiting while the other is maxxed out.

So fudging enormosuly (ie: big guesses, high inaccuracy) perhaps we're talking an average of 2 to 3 times speedup over GP32, depending on the skill level and time investment of the coder.

(Also, if the CPU has some 2d acceleration, that could be nice. ie: Like the Zodiacs scaler and smoother.)

Its a shame theres no 3d GPU, which would make N64 and PSX emulation possible; as is, its not likely that 250 or dual-250 could pull off PSX or N64, since a 600MHz PoPC does it badly. (However, this would have less OS overhead than a PoPC, so PSX does sound doable. Certainly, its doable at high frameskip!)

So there you go.. its still "ARM in a box, not much added". So the question is.. do you want to spend another 200UKP to get somethign 2-3 faster than a GP32?

I don't know yet..

But sure enough, if everyone else gets one, I'll get one.

Gotta have CaSTaway right?

And I (or someone) would port UAE, since thats easily in the class to run UAE at least "okay".

But so far, I'm in the "wish it had more" boat, and will wait until everyone else gets one.

(Like you .. you buy one, glass-mod it, then I'll buy it off you? :)

jeff

Edit: I should note that yes, I can do arithmetic and 166->250 is a different %age. Doh :)

Edit: Note that.. a worry is how much can this be pushed; ie: Minimal UAE and 'better SNES' and such is all well and good.. but not that much more over GP32. ie: Will peopel dole out some more cash to get 'better' but not 'perfect'?

Certainly, over time people will.. if GP32s stop being sold, people will buy this as 'the new GP32'. But will people migrate _quickly_ or _slowly_?

We need real info. ie: Someone could make a poll "Will you buy the new GP32?", but no one can truly answer until we know true specs.

(But if its linux kernel, that'll entice a lot of people :)
 
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Newborn posted on Jul 27 2005 at 05:34 PM said:
Lurky posted on Jul 27 2005 at 03:59 PM said:
Is the screen backlit?
The site doesn't seem to say. I'd hate to think it would be as dark as my Nlu  :blink:

I don't think so, looking thru the gallery there doesn't seems to be a brightness button on the console, but maybe they use a button-combination to change to brightness of the backlight.

And there's a brightness control on the GP32 yes?
 
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@ skeezix

price should be closer to £100 UKP rather than 200, so this low price should hopefully entice many people to it.
 
Bah.

I was looking forward to this, and this seems like a real letdown.

Bah.

250Mhz?

32mb ?

Bah.

Also, looking at ARM's website (http://www.arm.com/miscPDFs/4491.pdf), it seems like the ARM940 may not be accessible from a coders point of view (as in, giving it some code to run).

Bah :(
 
That's 144 €... DS costs as much here. :p I know where I'll put my money, if I put money on anything... How much did GP32 cost from GBAX? I bought mine from Lik sang, at about 150€...
 
Also, looking at ARM's website (http://www.arm.com/miscPDFs/4491.pdf), it seems like the ARM940 may not be accessible from a coders point of view (as in, giving it some code to run).
Yes that is pretty sucky.

Edit: hopedully they take note of what they said:
"* We advise you the design and features could be changed for better quality"

And swap the part for a standard 400mhz ARM processor and up the RAM that would be nice.
 
What only 250 Mhz ,no 3d accelarator only 32Mb of ram...
Thats to less power for this time.
I have imagined more of this Gp2...
I´d rather buy a gizmondo if it is finaly cracked!
 
Considering there were handhelds out there last year that out spec this, I am completely underwhelmed. I have 4 handhelds that have better specs than this, and one is over 2 years old. Maybe they are trying to keep the cost down so more kids will buy it. Linux is a good idea though, I wonder if it will take Qtopia?
 
WarmFluffyUK posted on Jul 27 2005 at 04:46 PM said:
Newborn posted on Jul 27 2005 at 05:34 PM said:
Lurky posted on Jul 27 2005 at 03:59 PM said:
Is the screen backlit?
The site doesn't seem to say. I'd hate to think it would be as dark as my Nlu :blink:

I don't think so, looking thru the gallery there doesn't seems to be a brightness button on the console, but maybe they use a button-combination to change to brightness of the backlight.

And there's a brightness control on the GP32 yes?

I don't know if there is one on the BLU-type, there obviously isn't one on my NLU :D
 
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dont forget the price we are talking about, as it will be cheaper than the current gp its great enugh, only thing i miss is a touchscreen, it would add so much value espacialy for linux.
and when it is backwards compaible i bet it will sell good, cheaper than gp, more power, linux, what more do you want, and its a good media player also, compareable movie players retail for twice of the price.
 
A600 posted on Jul 27 2005 at 05:29 PM said:
Squidge posted on Jul 27 2005 at 06:54 PM said:
Bah.

32mb ?

Bah.

32 + 64 = 96


That 64 Meg is INTERNAL FLASH. That means it is for storing apps like FW etc. Remember flash memory has limited writes. So you would like wear out the write cycles in a week and have a paperweight. So it is only 32 MB RAM.
 
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Rather than start a new topic I though I'd just ask this in here. At the moment when I enter a thread I see the first post in the thread and then a list of all the other posts below. I don't know how this changed and I can't find the setting in my controls, any help will be appreciated.

Back on topic, the XGP is the portable media player one and this is the one that is supposed to be more like the original GP32. Although this one is also being billed as a portable media player, but considering the original GP32 was aswell, this isn't much of a surprise.
 
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