No More 275mhz Units?


You are coming across as a lone, bitter little man whos poor programming skills have left you with an unworkable product. You also seem to harbour a venomous hatred towards Craig.
I'm not going to have my programming skills brought into question by someone with a Bambi avatar and a furry member name who has probably never even written a Hello World application and could not code their way out of a wet paper bag to save their life. I'd also love to know what programming skill has to do with a broken stick, incompatible screen, faulty soldering, misaligned PCBs, shoddy plastics, overly-malleable battery terminals, scaler and TV encoder ICs with exessive current draw, faulty power subsystems, mechanically inconsistent shoulder buttons and carbon membranes, and incorrect-value LCD backlight resistor selection. Do you even know what half of these things are? I'd put money on 'no'. You're out of your league, go talk about emulators and Vektar. Or Disney DVDs.
I am in no position to comment on your programming skills since we have never seen even a screenshot of your project, let alone any functioning code. If you read my comment I merely stated that is the impression I get from reading your posts. What other impression do you think your vitriolic attacks on Craig and the GP2X are going to make ? It was intended as advice not criticism.

I could be like the others on here who are either genuinely swayed by the mob instinct your posts are inciting and joining in the attack, or as I suspect, more likely just egging you on for the entertainment value. It has been a bit quiet on the boards recently.

Since you are the only one complaining about being unable to get the GP2X run their code, your project is either poorly written or is beyond the capabilities of the GP2X. Either way it is not the fault of Craig, GPH or the GP2X.

No one is going to condemn the GP2X because it cannot emulate an X-box, it is beyond its capabilities. How a side scrolling shooter is beyond its capabilities it what mystifies me. Saying the reason being is that it has lots of large graphics is also baffling. There is not that many large objects you can fit into a 320x240 display area before it is going to end up an unintelligible mess.

The fact that you continue to avoid giving any real hard facts to support your accusations does not help your cause either. What specifically did Craig do and where are all the other embittered victims rallying to your side ?

Vimacs post really should be taken as the last word on this. Very well put.
 
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I've had a GP2X First Edition, and a GP2X MK-II, I don't see why people get so worked up about the older version, it's perfect here, and in this particular case this one clocks over 300 Mhz whilst my MK-II only manages around 260 Mhz ( sometimes ).

The screen, I have no complaints, picture on both is as good as I need it to be.

Feel... They feel the same, I only changed the stick of my First Ed because my thumb kept sliding off it :lol:

Repairs... Headphone on the First Ed.

Recommended batteries : Duracell NiMH 2500 mAh

---

Back on topic

As for selling the actual units as better or worse... Before it was random, and though it was the same chance for everyone it still meant that some people got faster units than others. Selecting these units removes the randomness and gives you the option to actually buy a faster one in the first place for a little extra cash... It doesn't mean that you will get a slow machine if you don't chose to buy the faster ones, it'll simply mean that you are getting one that doesn't reach the same speed as the more expensive one, but who knows, you may get one that clocks 269,99 Mhz :lol:


When I bought my GP2X Mk-II I would have gladly spent the little extra to reach those 270 Mhz.

Anyway, I'll stop talking crap, people should stop complaining about everything all the time ( not talking about anyone in particular ).
 
If you're not happy with a product, whatever it is, you should have sent it back within the refund time.

If the thing fell apart within the year (due to poor workmanship), then you should have complained and got your money back/replacement? Was this not possible???

Epicentre: "Stargazer will not achieve our intended intensity on the GP2X due to lack of a proper 2D accelerator to perform high-speed blitting. This is essentially the same problem-- the GP2X could draw all the wireframes for thousands of polygons just fine, with a fast integer-only renderer. But filling those polygons ('fill rate') will be appallingly slow due to the minimal blitter, CPU poorly suited for standing in for an accelerator, and issues with bus contention and RAM bandwidth. This is the same sort of delay encountered drawing a large number of pixels to the display in a frame for a sprite-intensive game."
If your game was designed this way and the gp2x was not up to the job, I'm afraid it was either naive of you not to write some test applications to check you weren't wasting your time using this method and/or (I have no idea [or care] if your claims are true, but other people seem to be coding for the machine fine or managing to work round the shortcomings) I can understand why people may doubt your skills and also see you as "bitter" (many of your recent posts could easily give this impression).

I'm afraid it's quite gruelling wading through another thread hijacked for your apparent vendetta; it's getting painful; I'd prefer you take it up with Craig directly rather than trying to muster support(??) or slagging him off in this forum.

Ontopic - I think I'd just prefer Craig slightly reworded his adverts if they could be misunderstood.
 
Vimacs post really should be taken as the last word on this. Very well put.
'Well put'? More GP2X-fanboy-viewpoint-touting circlejerky nonsense from where I'm standing. But I will let this topic of discussion end since all that needs to be said HAS been said. I'm not going to be changing any minds at this stage, everyone's views are set in stone, apparently. That said I'll respond to what you had to say, here.

Since you are the only one complaining about being unable to get the GP2X run their code, your project is either poorly written or is beyond the capabilities of the GP2X. Either way it is not the fault of Craig, GPH or the GP2X.
Actually, if the GP2X cannot run a game that CAN run on a system with even a low-end 2D accelerator, it is the GP2X's fault, and thereby GPH's fault. The fact that the terrible blitter was misrepresented as a proper accelerator is false advertising on the part of GPH/Craig, but the least of their offenses. The CPU and RAM specifications of the GP2X far overshoot our requirements. As I've stated many times the 2D subsystem is the real issue.

No one is going to condemn the GP2X because it cannot emulate an X-box, it is beyond its capabilities. How a side scrolling shooter is beyond its capabilities it what mystifies me. Saying the reason being is that it has lots of large graphics is also baffling. There is not that many large objects you can fit into a 320x240 display area before it is going to end up an unintelligible mess.
Surely you've heard of parallax scrolling-- multiple complex images placed over each other in layers that move at different speeds to simulate distant and nearby objects. Well, we're using multiple background layers that are nearly entirely filled with image data, as well as overlapping foreground layers, character sprites, object sprites, effect sprites, and a HUD. This is way too much for the GP2X's blitter to handle, so the CPU has to take over-- and it's poorly suited to drawing tasks-- so the whole system lags miserably. This also leaves little to no CPU time for audio decoding. It has nothing to do with filling the entire screen with a mess of sprites as you describe. (Such a situation would probably result in an unplayable framerate, by the way.) The bottlenecked paths to memory don't make this situation any simpler, and the physical problems with the GP2X only serve to complement these issues and round out what is wrong with the GP2X as a serious game development platform.

Compare this to say, the DS, which can run a game of that complexity level without incident, because of its snappy (real) 2D acceleration. Its CPU is about a quarter the performance level of the GP2X's ARM920T-- the fault in the '2x is thereby made even more apparent. The efficiency of my code is no incident; before a large number of sprites are drawn to the screen, framerate is outstanding; when doing engine tests the game logic used so little CPU time it'd probably run at full speed on the GBA's CPU. I found it overshot the LCD's maximum framerate quite often, sometimes reaching well beyond 220 FPS. But do some decent quantity of actual sprite drawing, something that has nothing to do with code efficiency or CPU work ordinarily-- and watch the framerate plummet.

The fact that you continue to avoid giving any real hard facts to support your accusations does not help your cause either. What specifically did Craig do and where are all the other embittered victims rallying to your side ?
I've explained AGAIN and AGAIN in at least TEN THREADS what Craig did. There have been plenty of persons to complain about the GP2X or Craig and GPH's three ring circus of fraud, lies and broken hardware, but they generally told this forum to go fuck itself and left after being flamed excessively. I'm only here to discuss the XGP and occasionally take part in the Off-Topic forums as they are occasionally amusing. If I find a fun argument to take part in on the GP2X side of things, I will, but I generally avoid it because some people here don't know when to accept that not everyone loves their fucking GP2X, and that the best way to convert them is to pelt fanboyish rants at them for page upon page. If I'm a bitter little shell of a man for finding that to be fucking hilarious, pity me all you want or flame me all you want. I frankly don't care. :)

If you're not happy with a product, whatever it is, you should have sent it back within the refund time.

If the thing fell apart within the year (due to poor workmanship), then you should have complained and got your money back/replacement? Was this not possible???
Since the rest of the units were also broken from the factory for the buyer's convenience, no, this was not a viable option. GP32Z is now out of business, so I won't be getting my money back either.

If your game was designed this way and the gp2x was not up to the job, I'm afraid it was either naive of you not to write some test applications to check you weren't wasting your time using this method and/or (I have no idea [or care] if your claims are true, but other people seem to be coding for the machine fine or managing to work round the shortcomings) I can understand why people may doubt your skills and also see you as "bitter" (many of your recent posts could easily give this impression).
Yes, I could absolutely tell what the GP2X's miserable 2D accelerator which is horrifically documented (see: barely documented at all) was capable of, especially before I owned one. I'm yet to see one game that uses any degree of intense 2D. I see a lot of games with 1 or 2 graphical layers, tops, and some very simple sprites, and quite few of them at that. I see no complex scenes with a significant number of large sprites. I have seen quite a few shooters, the only ones that run at acceptable framerate are of Galaga's complexity. ProjectZero and LevelShmup were both extremely inefficient and ran at a terribly low framerate, Odonata was also a very bad culprit-- we achieved higher framerates (2 or 3 times higher) with far more intense scenes, however there is a limit and our ambition is much beyond that limit. If your idea of a quality 2D game for a modern handheld is something like Space Invaders, well, then I guess you're entitled to that opinion. But our philosophy is to develop quality classic-themed games that still take proper advantage of the kind of hardware advancement we've had in the past couple decades, and games of the quality the GP2X can manage won't accomplish this.

I'd prefer you take it up with Craig directly rather than trying to muster support(??) or slagging him off in this forum.
Tried. He likes asking me what my problem is with him in public so he can act innocent, when he knows damn well what he did-- then refusing to respond to PMs, or messages via IRC. He'd rather not discuss a thing, he even lies to his associates (e.g. EvilDragon) about our prior attempts at a business relationship (something Craig proved, in exemplary fashion, he lacks the professionalism and maturity to create or maintain.) Of course, he's not above laughing behind my back on IRC while refusing to take part in the sincere dialogue he requests. It's quite an argumentative strategy that reminds me of elementary school.

I'm afraid it's quite gruelling wading through another thread hijacked for your apparent vendetta; it's getting painful
Here's just an idea, you could stop reading the thread and go away. :)
 
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Heres a better one: Get the fuck out of this forum and stop spreading your lies until you can actually prove any of the bullshit that's dropping out of your head.
If i would be in Craigs position I would have sued you by now.
 
Oh, I wish him luck with suing me. He'll need it. ;) At any rate, there is no issue of proof. I have the required technical knowledge, documentation and records of correspondence with Craig to make my points' truth apparent. I've posted much of it before, but apparently, given you and others asking for proof or even an explanation of what Craig DID, you managed not to catch it. Bravo.
 
I ordered one of the 270 Mhz tested GP2X and after my order was redirected to these forums. I found this thread and became concerned that I made a mistake ordering the 270 Mhz.

Then I received this email

Hi,

We are now out of stock of the GP2X 270Mhz console due to the
exceptionally high demand. We can replace this with the GP2X 266Mhz
version and a refund of £5, or change to the standard GP2X console.
If neither of these options are suitable we can refund your order.
Please let me know what you wish to do.

Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience.

Kind regards
Jacquelyn

My question to her

Is there a different processor in the 270Mhz verses the standard or the 266Mhz?

Her response:
No it is not a different processor. The 270 or 266 are tested and
guaranteed to run stable at that speed.

I decided to order the 266Mhz tested gp2x. If they were looking to rip me off they could have sent me what ever gp2x they had lying around and said it was tested to 270. They didn't. They even offered to cancel my order completely, because they couldn't deliver what they promised on their website. I am sure there have been others that have had a bad experience with this company. No company provides perfect customer support, but at least from the exchange I had with them, they are trying to provide a service that to me is worth a little extra money over the the luck of the draw.
 
i think the majority of people who have actual lives, can see that craig isnt ripping people off. its just another option.

sheesh its alot of bollocks
 
"madbanjoman" said:
I decided to order the 266Mhz tested gp2x. If they were looking to rip me off they could have sent me what ever gp2x they had lying around and said it was tested to 270. They didn't. They even offered to cancel my order completely, because they couldn't deliver what they promised on their website. I am sure there have been others that have had a bad experience with this company. No company provides perfect customer support, but at least from the exchange I had with them, they are trying to provide a service that to me is worth a little extra money over the the luck of the draw.

I agree, I found them very pleasant to deal with. Several years ago when they were selling GBA flash carts they exchanged one for me three times as for some reason I couldn't get it to work with my PC (I'm sure they didn't have to as it wasn't a fault as such). As far as my experience goes their customer service is excellent.

As for going for a 266Mhz guaranteed model I'm sure you'll find it's fast enough for just about everything, I don't normally bother overclocking higher than that myself.
 
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Of course Craig isn't ripping people off. Epicenter has a corncob stuck up an unpleasant place and he firmly believes that it was Craig who put it there. As far as I can gather, the whole thing goes back to whether Craig said this or said that to Epicenter, based upon which Epicenter decided to start a coding project that didn't go to plan.

Now, think: Craig is a retailer. A salesman. He imports and sells the geeps. Granted, he is knowledgeable and passionate about his products, but still - He is, basically, a GP2x dealer. Now, if I am about to start a project that is very important to me, which lives or dies based on the technical specs of some piece of hardware, do you go ask the salesman in the shop, or do you ask the manufacturer? Apparently Epicenter asked the dealer, designed his game based on the technical specs from him, and then got mad when it turned out that those numbers were not correct. Or something like that.

So, either Epicenter naively assumed that asking the shop salesman was as good as asking the manufacturer...

...or, he actually got the correct specs but failed to design his game to run on those specs...

...or designed it correctly but failed in coding.

Any way it is difficult to see how Craig can be the big bad ripper-off-of-innocent-developers here, but there you go, the corncob is in place and Epicenter desperately needs to blame its position on someone apart from himself.
 
I'll put your fourth-grade level corncob remarks aside and address the issues here... AGAIN ... (this thread really didn't need to come back from the grave, did it?)

Moxie posted on Dec 1 2006 at 12:17 PM said:
Now, think: Craig is a retailer. A salesman. He imports and sells the geeps.
Moxie posted on Dec 1 2006 at 12:17 PM said:
imports and sells the geeps.
Moxie posted on Dec 1 2006 at 12:17 PM said:
the geeps.
Moxie posted on Dec 1 2006 at 12:17 PM said:
emot-suicide.gif
 
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I still fail to see how the failure of a software project due to a mismatch of design to hardware (or possibly coders to design) can be anybodys responsibility but the developers. I can't see how finalizing a design based on hearsay, rather than actual practical hands-on experience on the hardware, could be anything but gross negligence on the part of the designer. Particularily when the hardware in question is new and unknown. A design for anything on new and unproven hardware that isn't flexible enough to be fitted to the actual hardware limitations, when those aren't known in advance, is simply a broken design. I fail to see how anyone except the developer can be responsible for that.
 
Oh, I wish him luck with suing me. He'll need it. ;) At any rate, there is no issue of proof. I have the required technical knowledge, documentation and records of correspondence with Craig to make my points' truth apparent. I've posted much of it before, but apparently, given you and others asking for proof or even an explanation of what Craig DID, you managed not to catch it. Bravo.

Then please point us towards those posts.

I've read your "accusations" before and they were even weaker than geoffstechno's. If you have more than that, let's see it.
 
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I've been thinking about what resembles this situation the most in other areas and I have come up with the new Intel Core 2 DUO's.

As was mentioned earlier in this thread CPU's get sold depending on what speed they can reach, after they have been created and get rated by the highest speed they can stably reach whilst meeting silly criteria. This rating is assigned by the manufacturer, not anybody else.

The Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 has a standard clock speed of 1.86 GHz. This processor has been reported to be highly overclockable, reaching well over 3 GHz in some cases, but by no means in all cases. Most people seem to be able to reach about 2.8 GHz.

An online, uk based reseller called OverClockers.co.uk is basically run by a bunch of overclocking computer enthusiasts. More or less everything they stock is known to be overclockable or to aid in overclocking. I'm sure they would like nothing other than to sell CPU's for a higher price, if they can guarantee it will reach a certain speed, but they can't. In the name of the E6300, even though they can more or less guarantee that it can reach 2.8 GHz, they call it 1.8GHz, because that is what the manufacturer rated it as. What they have to do is clearly state the actual speed of the CPU, and then in the general blurb they mention that they have been known to overclock to stupid speeds.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct....rodid=CP-126-IN


That didn't sound as good as I wanted it to, but I'm sure somebody can work out what I'm trying to say ;)
 
Want more power?
The Power pack is the same as above but runs at 270MHZ and comes with a Screen Protector.
270Mhz GP2X Power Pack

I've just read a post on another forum where a customer has been considering buying a gp2x and now is thinking of holding off due to the release of 270MHz units to "see how high they go" first. They were under the impression the gp2x was now been made with 270MHz processors and may have a higher cpu later.

I really think this is very poorly worded. Although the intention may not be to deceive customers I beleive the current wording is going to do so in some cases.

It wouldn't take much to make it totally clear *what* people are paying extra for.

Want more power?
The Power pack is the same 200MHz GP2X described above but has been personally tested to overclock to 270MHZ and comes with a Screen Protector.
270Mhz GP2X Power Pack

Or some similar wording that clearly points out you are paying extra NOT for a 270MHz unit, but a 200MHz unit that will overclock to 270MHz.

I really don't see why there would be a problem with changing to the wording to make it clear what is been bought. Unless the intention is to deceive customers, which I really doubt is the case.

On a similar note

240Mhz GP2X Console MK2 (Latest version)

Is there a new MK2 that has a 240MHz cpu? Or again is this just down to advertising what it has been tested to overclock to? I'm guessing the latter after reading bits of this thread, but havn't been following the GP2X too closely recently.
 
muphicks posted on Dec 2 2006 at 01:40 AM said:
Is there a new MK2 that has a 240MHz cpu? Or again is this just down to advertising what it has been tested to overclock to?

The Mk2 CPU is rated at 240mhz (as in the minimum speed all units can reach), but defaults to 200mhz (because most things run fine at that, no point wasting battery juice). The Mk1 was supposedly rated at 266mhz on release, but a few units failed to reach that speed.

I fully agree with your suggestion to change the wording to avoid confusion, although it has to be said the current wording is technically correct.
 
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gaterooze posted on Dec 1 2006 at 09:40 PM said:
muphicks posted on Dec 2 2006 at 01:40 AM said:
Is there a new MK2 that has a 240MHz cpu? Or again is this just down to advertising what it has been tested to overclock to?

The Mk2 CPU is rated at 240mhz (as in the minimum speed all units can reach), but defaults to 200mhz (because most things run fine at that, no point wasting battery juice). The Mk1 was supposedly rated at 266mhz on release, but a few units failed to reach that speed.

I fully agree with your suggestion to change the wording to avoid confusion, although it has to be said the current wording is technically correct.
http://www.mesdigital.com/Products/product_mmsp2.asp says "Operation frequency :200MHz"

Regardless of if every GP2X clocks to 240, it's not a 240MHz processor.
 
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