New Gp32 Owner - Needs Help !


psj3809

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Aug 27, 2004
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Hi all

Well after reading this forum for a few weeks i bought myself a GP32. Its the BLU 180 mhz version. Finally received it, unit looks excellent and i started putting on a fair few emulators.

Having a 'mare ! I use my Pocket PC normally for emulators but wanted to try the GP32. So far its been so frustrating...

Loaded up Speccyal'K and that never loads up, it seems to reset the GP32. All the files are in the right place, totally confused why it wont load up.

GPEngine seemed to be working very well but so far most of the roms i've tried freeze after a while

The C64 emulator seems to work well but nearly every emulator i've tried fails to work or seems to reset the machine.

I've installed Doom, put the .wad file in the right place but everytime i load up Doom it says no wad file present ?

Sorry for the newbie questions. I havent flashed anything onto it so its the standard factory menu bit. I'm wondering now if i should have just stuck with the 166 mhz instead. Has any other 180 mhz GP32 users had problems ?

Very frustrated with it, i hope i just havent got a duff one but just not sure

Any help would very very much be appreciated !

Cheers for reading
 
Hmm... Firstly, check your batteries if there is any flickering going on on the screen before crashes. That's the most common cause of them, I think, and finding a different set and seeing if the same things happen is hardly going to hurt.

GPEngine, I've had it crash on a few games and get graphically corrupted on a few others, but not that many. I think the only ones I can think of are AoE Blink (which is a supreme game, and I'm very annoyed that the translated one doesn't work - the untranslated rom works fine though, at least if you set the region to Jap first) and Street Fighter. There are a few more, but most should work. If they're crashing inasfar as just displaying a black screen rather than resetting the GP32, try changing the region to US or JAP manually, since it sometimes gets the auto-detection a bit swoddled.

You should also try re-formating your SMC, since sometimes that'll help. Then run a scan to make sure it doesn't have a load of bad blocks on it. The way you did this used to be to choose PC-Link without the cable plugged in, but I'm not familiar with the new Euro fw (the one that's mostly blue with 2 options) so that may no longer work. If you aren't on the new one, then hold select to get into the menu (as you'll have been told to by GBAX presuming that's where you got yours from), choose Pacrom, goto the Tools bit, and choose "check SMC for errors".

Beyond that, get hold of Mr_Mirko's overclocking tester, to find out if you've a dud one or not. Run that and start at 133MHz (with sound for maximum stressing of the CPU), then increase it say at 5 MHz increases, running it for about the length of time it takes for games to crash at each speed... this could take quite a while, but if you find you can hit 180MHz without issue (and its worth going a little beyond since it isn't a perfect stress-tester; 180MHz in it may be slightly better than what you'll get in other programs, for example, though I'd be surprised), then you probably don't have a dud machine.

So far as GPDoom is concerned, I had the very same error myself, and I haven't the foggiest how I fixed it. But it probably involved re-formatting the card from within PC-Link, since that tends to fix an awful lot of problems that shouldn't show up, and for most people don't, but for occasional cases do. If that doesn't work, then try and get yourself a very cheap SMC, say 32Mb, and try it on that - you may find it works there where it wouldn't on your old one. But it is a bug with GPDoom. And its one its very hard to trace and fix.

I'm not going to advise you with Frodo and Speccyal'K, mainly because I've never used them, so anything I say on the subject is suspect. Sorry.

Now, if you think you may have an emu set up wrong, and this is causing the crashes, here's a few simple test games you can try, since I know they work. If they run, then you're just extremely unlucky in that the games you're trying either need different settings or are corrupt roms, or just won't work anyway.

fGen32, Gigadrive: Sonic The Hedghog, with sound, tests the emu well.
OpenSnes9x 0.3: Lufia 2 definitely works, so does Live a Live, both are good with sound at 166MHz, and shouldn't, on a 180MHz guaranteed unit, crash bar when the batteries run out.
fSMS32, SMS32: Sonic 1, Sonic Chaos, pretty much whatever; I've yet to come across a game that doesn't work with these two.
fGB32, GPvGB: I know I tried the GBC Lufia game on GPvGB; I don't think I've actually used fGB32 though, but since its based on the same emu source to start with, the same should work. As should most others - compatibility is said to be great.
GPEngine: Bomberman '94 works perfectly. So do Bonk 1 and 3, and the latter 2 I think do without needing to fiddle with regions.
LJGP, NesterGP: Mario 3 is a good one to try, though again, most NES games will work. There are a few that won't though.
CaSTaway: Magic Pockets runs perfectly with a single frameskip. Not sure which compilation disk it is on though. Xenon 2 defininately works, though it may be a very little bit jumpy. Likewise, Another World.
fMSX: MSX 1 games will work, almost no question, but the penguin racer game (can't remember what its called, but its fairly common) is a good tester. MSX2, 2+ games are by no meas perfect in my experience, though it is possible to get them to run, mostly. Do try Metal Gear 1, 2 as well - they are supposed to be ones that work fine on the emu.
PlusIVemu: Ran almost everything I threw at it. Definitely included the "Dizzy" games, so give them a shot.

That's all the emus I can think of at the moment that I know anything about. Hope that's helped a bit :)
 
Hey thanks a ton for that. When i finish work later i'll try a lot of that out.

I'm so used to Pocket PC's and the emulators on there i think i'm a bit spoilt so when things stopped working i thought oh no ! But i think i'll reformat the memory card and start again and try that overclocking tool.

If i can get Master System / NES / C64 / Speccy / PC Engine and GB games working perfectly i'll be happy as anything !

Superb device, i mean the controls are excellent, just having a few nightmares at the moment !

Damn i so want to get that speccy emulator working well ! Thanks for your help though
 
Hi!
I bet you are using GPMANAGER for transfering things to SMC. Throw GPMANAGER! It will corrupt your transfers very ofen... :(
Try to download/use PC-link instead (or buy a SMC reader/writer).

Byes
 
Thanks for that tip, yep i was using the standard GP Manager program but i'll try the other one you mentioned

Cheers
 
And of course, there's always GPDrive/Phodrive, at least for small things. Larger things I'm told it can corrupt on occasion too, but small ones - nope.

And lets not forget Squidgelink, superceded though it is for the most part by GPDrive :)
 
I'm just totally lost on what to do

I reformatted my card and stopped using the GP Manager

Put a few emulators on my card and a few games to test, the spectrum one when i click on it to start it just makes a weird noise and the screen goes crazy

Yet again Doom does the same and says the wad file isnt there. I tried the clock test program someone sent me, set it to 133 mhz and a whirley graphic appeared then seemed to freeze and i had to reset my machine again. Surely my GP32 which is meant to run at 180 mhz can handle a 133 test ?

Confused what i should do whether i should try to take it back or not. I'm not normally a dunce with these things, ran emulators on my Pocket PC for years but so far i'm having no such luck with this GP32 which is very frustrating

Unsure if i have a crappy one or if the memory card is a bit crap or something.
 
Tobriand posted on Aug 27 2004 at 12:43 PM said:
And of course, there's always GPDrive/Phodrive, at least for small things. Larger things I'm told it can corrupt on occasion too

ive never experienced that. this is by far the best program to transfer files, its speed is unbelievable
 
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If the clock speed tester loaded - i.e. the swirley graphic actually appeared - then the chances are that .fxe is not corrupt, I think. And if it then crashed, that seems to say that the GP32 is dud, at least at 133MHz, if that's where you started it, which given you paid for a 180MHz one, should NOT be the case.

Try checking the SMC for errors again, and if it says its fixed any bad blocks, re-transfer the clockspeed tester and try again. Otherwise, contact GBAX (presumably where you bought it from) and ask for an exchange, I think. They've always been extremely helpful when I've dealt with them (had one dud FLU a while back that had to be repaired, which they dealt with very quickly and efficiently). It sounds like you aren't doing anything stupid with it.

Only thing, did you change your batteries too? Remember - most common cause of crashed = bad batteries, so go buy some brand new Duracels or some other well known darn good brand and try the same tests with those. If they work, then its not the GP32 after all. And you should invest in a set of high capacity NiMh batteries and a charger ASAP to save on bills. And you will save a LOT in the long run.
 
Hey thanks a ton. Believe it or not it was a simple thing ! Replaced the batteries and all the emulators started working well !

I thought it cant be the batteries and if it was like my Pocket PC it would just turn itself off or like a Gameboy the screen fades. I didnt expect the emulators not to work but put in some Duracell and it all works now !

Thanks for the patience !

Last question ! ;-)

i've put the doom exe in the standard folder its meant to be in, i then put the .wad file in the correct path but it still doesnt find it. Someone mentioned earlier that they had a strange bug trying to get Doom to work. Any tips ?

Anyway now that the emulators are working its very cool
 
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