Main Restorations Software Audio/Jukebox/MP3 Everything Else Buy/Sell/Trade
Project Announcements Monitor/Video GroovyMAME Merit/JVL Touchscreen Meet Up Retail Vendors
Driving & Racing Woodworking Software Support Forums Consoles Project Arcade Reviews
Automated Projects Artwork Frontend Support Forums Pinball Forum Discussion Old Boards
Raspberry Pi & Dev Board controls.dat Linux Miscellaneous Arcade Wiki Discussion Old Archives
Lightguns Arcade1Up Try the site in https mode Site News

Unread posts | New Replies | Recent posts | Rules | Chatroom | Wiki | File Repository | RSS | Submit news

  

Author Topic: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted  (Read 52328 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

opt2not

  • Trade Count: (+15)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 6173
  • Last login:April 02, 2024, 07:42:30 pm
Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« on: January 09, 2013, 12:57:08 pm »
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gcw/gcw-zero-open-source-gaming-handheld

I've been really excited about this little piece of hardware. It's an upgrade, well, more of a leap from the dingoo portable. Open-source, Linux-base, hdmi-out, wifi...all good sounding stuff!

For the last little while I've been using my DS as my portable emu device and haven't jumped on some of the others 'cause I never thought they were worth it. I also never kickstarted a plege before: Both, till now. The Zero is boasting emulation capabilities all the way to PSX.  A lot of the prototype play-testing videos shows off some really good benchmarking.

opt2not

  • Trade Count: (+15)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 6173
  • Last login:April 02, 2024, 07:42:30 pm
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #1 on: January 10, 2013, 06:13:25 am »
18 days to go, and at 10% of the target.  This is definitely aggressive!  :applaud:

Well Fed Games

  • Trade Count: (+6)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1884
  • Last login:January 07, 2025, 04:42:47 pm
  • Delicious!
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #2 on: January 10, 2013, 10:53:59 am »
That seems like a really nicely designed handheld. I've never tried any similar devices (Caanoo, etc.) but this one looks great.
Completed projects: Pac bartop (Plug & Play), 30th Anniversary Pac cab (MAME), Point Blank (PS1), Centipede (arcade hardware- light restore), VS. Super Mario Bros (arcade hardware- light restore) Tetris Cocktail (SNES), Arcade Classics upright (60-in-1, then MAME), Multi-Raiden (arcade hardware). Pac Man vs.(Gamecube),

Working on: Pinball Re-theme, Homebrew arcade arena shooter

Franco B

  • Trade Count: (+10)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3766
  • Last login:February 15, 2024, 09:14:06 am
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #3 on: January 10, 2013, 11:19:12 am »
I've backed it, I really want to get my hands on one of these. They look ace  :afro:

404

  • Trade Count: (+3)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1019
  • Last login:August 04, 2015, 10:19:10 pm
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #4 on: January 11, 2013, 09:01:13 am »
FYI, this isn't really new at all. This is an ODM ordered device and its on its second production run already. The first set were developer consoles with double the ram sold and given out to reputable dingoo developers. The second batch sold real fast. They used kickstarter for the third round in order to ramp up production.

It is quite literally a dingoo on steroids and runs the same Igenic SOC family line as the original, only faster. The same processor is also being used in the Neo Geo X.

opt2not

  • Trade Count: (+15)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 6173
  • Last login:April 02, 2024, 07:42:30 pm
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #5 on: January 11, 2013, 01:35:12 pm »
Yup, no one in this thread said anything about it being new. Like the first post states, it's a leap beyond the dingoo.
It just seems the best option for portable emulation right out of the box. Comparing it to the NGX is a moot point 'cause this device is specifically built for the open-source community without any hacking/SD modding required.

Here's a nice video outlining the history of this unit:

ark_ader

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 5645
  • Last login:March 02, 2019, 07:35:34 pm
  • I glow in the dark.
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #6 on: January 12, 2013, 10:21:40 am »
This is better than a modded PSP because?
If I had only one wish, it would be for three more wishes.

Well Fed Games

  • Trade Count: (+6)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1884
  • Last login:January 07, 2025, 04:42:47 pm
  • Delicious!
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #7 on: January 12, 2013, 12:55:48 pm »
This is better than a modded PSP because?

built for the open-source community without any hacking/SD modding required.

Seems like a pretty big "pro" to me, to be purpose-built rather than hacked.
Completed projects: Pac bartop (Plug & Play), 30th Anniversary Pac cab (MAME), Point Blank (PS1), Centipede (arcade hardware- light restore), VS. Super Mario Bros (arcade hardware- light restore) Tetris Cocktail (SNES), Arcade Classics upright (60-in-1, then MAME), Multi-Raiden (arcade hardware). Pac Man vs.(Gamecube),

Working on: Pinball Re-theme, Homebrew arcade arena shooter

ark_ader

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 5645
  • Last login:March 02, 2019, 07:35:34 pm
  • I glow in the dark.
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #8 on: January 12, 2013, 02:29:13 pm »
Why cannot someone come out with a portable case for mobile phones that have the controls via bluetooth.

If I had only one wish, it would be for three more wishes.

opt2not

  • Trade Count: (+15)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 6173
  • Last login:April 02, 2024, 07:42:30 pm
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #9 on: January 12, 2013, 03:16:55 pm »
Why cannot someone come out with a portable case for mobile phones that have the controls via bluetooth.
I was reading that this year's CES featured a lot of this. I'll have to dig up the article, but apparently this is the year developers realize that touch-controls for digital buttons suck-ass.
We'll apparently be seeing these pretty soon...

On topic - the kickstarter is over 20% now. Still a bunch to raise,but  hopefully with 16 day left the climb will stay steady as she goes!

ahofle

  • Trade Count: (+1)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 4544
  • Last login:August 30, 2023, 05:10:22 pm
    • Arcade Ambience Project
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #10 on: January 13, 2013, 05:39:43 pm »
I'll definitely be picking this up.
The dingoo has very mature emulator ports of the popular PC versions -- my only complaint is that it's a little small/underpowered and the dpad isn't the best.  This sounds like it will fix both of those issues.

opt2not

  • Trade Count: (+15)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 6173
  • Last login:April 02, 2024, 07:42:30 pm

opt2not

  • Trade Count: (+15)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 6173
  • Last login:April 02, 2024, 07:42:30 pm
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #12 on: January 14, 2013, 05:07:33 pm »
This is better than a modded PSP because?


 :laugh2:
« Last Edit: January 14, 2013, 05:10:46 pm by opt2not »

opt2not

  • Trade Count: (+15)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 6173
  • Last login:April 02, 2024, 07:42:30 pm
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #13 on: January 14, 2013, 05:56:28 pm »
Here's a couple more great videos of this thing running:

Ported/Homebrew games:


Emulators:

Bender

  • Trade Count: (+1)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1919
  • Last login:November 28, 2016, 08:12:21 pm
    • Happ to Tron Conversion tutorial
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #14 on: January 15, 2013, 10:24:47 am »
Just backed this
hope they makes their goal
The GPX Wiz is out of production and  there's no D-pad on the caanoo plus this  has much better specks
This thing looks awesome
« Last Edit: January 15, 2013, 10:17:46 pm by Bender »

opt2not

  • Trade Count: (+15)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 6173
  • Last login:April 02, 2024, 07:42:30 pm
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #15 on: January 15, 2013, 12:35:47 pm »
That seems like a really nicely designed handheld. I've never tried any similar devices (Caanoo, etc.) but this one looks great.

I've backed it, I really want to get my hands on one of these. They look ace  :afro:

Just backed this
hope they makes there goal
The GPX Wiz is out of production and  there's no D-pad on the caanoo plus this  has much better specks
This thing looks awesome

Having the caliber of these gents backing this, it's pretty clear this thing is quality!
At < 50% and 13 days to go, it's going to need a push to get there. C'mon folks, support this awesome piece of hardware, even if you are on the fence about it, a $5 pledge helps! What's $5? A Starbucks coffee, a Big Mac and fries, bus-fare to and from...any little bit helps get this baby off the ground and in the hands of people like us that want easy, full-speed, portable emulated and homebrew (not forgetting ported) games on the go!

Help us obiwan...you're our only hope!

Also this was just announced:
Quote
After some serious debate in the comments section here on our Kick Starter page and other forums, we have decided to upgrade the RAM from 256MB to 512MB.
We have also decided to upgrade the internal storage capacity from 8GB to 16GB on the console.

We think both of these upgrades will provide more value for the money you are pledging to get this great gaming console we call The GCW-Zero.
:applaud:
« Last Edit: January 15, 2013, 12:39:50 pm by opt2not »

Bender

  • Trade Count: (+1)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1919
  • Last login:November 28, 2016, 08:12:21 pm
    • Happ to Tron Conversion tutorial
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #16 on: January 15, 2013, 11:44:47 pm »
opt2not

you should post this on the main page so some more people see it, I only saw it by chance in your signature in a completely different thread

opt2not

  • Trade Count: (+15)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 6173
  • Last login:April 02, 2024, 07:42:30 pm
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #17 on: January 16, 2013, 10:07:46 am »
opt2not

you should post this on the main page so some more people see it, I only saw it by chance in your signature in a completely different thread

The mods are good.   :applaud:

Jumpman64

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 164
  • Last login:October 12, 2017, 04:58:42 pm
  • I want to build my own arcade controls!
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #18 on: January 16, 2013, 12:11:38 pm »
Backed it, but it's not looking good for reaching the goal by the deadline...

404

  • Trade Count: (+3)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1019
  • Last login:August 04, 2015, 10:19:10 pm
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #19 on: January 16, 2013, 02:18:28 pm »
Backed it, but it's not looking good for reaching the goal by the deadline...

probably would have if they had issued review samples like they originally promised. Friend of mine who runs a gaming website was offered a sample last year after the GCW guys announced their project. Friend put up multiple posts about the GCW on his website plugging the product. First two batches were sold off and no review sample were ever issued. he says he knows of another website that came across the same issue with them.

Last i heard, they were just contracting the work out from an ODM and hong kong company Success and Blaze were going to offer their own model possibly as another variation of the game-gadget.

Anpanman

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 26
  • Last login:November 21, 2020, 08:43:20 am
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #20 on: January 16, 2013, 03:11:29 pm »
I don't understand why so many people are trying to fund these sorts of things when there are already similar products being marketed cheaply by the Hong Kong companies.  It's a nice pipe dream and everything but I can't see it going anywhere.

opt2not

  • Trade Count: (+15)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 6173
  • Last login:April 02, 2024, 07:42:30 pm
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #21 on: January 16, 2013, 05:24:14 pm »
I've been watching a lot of the youtube vids lately, Nick Nillo has been updating daily ones of emulated (so far SNES) games. He's been calling it "challenge accepted", and is taking requests of games people want to see running on this thing:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkXdWqQxb8AlH5E5H5sAgMg?feature=watch


WindDrake

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 271
  • Last login:December 03, 2020, 09:49:05 pm
  • Electrical Engineer
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #22 on: January 16, 2013, 07:54:07 pm »
If I hadn't just built a new cab, I'd be all over this.  :angry:

404

  • Trade Count: (+3)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1019
  • Last login:August 04, 2015, 10:19:10 pm

opt2not

  • Trade Count: (+15)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 6173
  • Last login:April 02, 2024, 07:42:30 pm
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #24 on: January 17, 2013, 01:14:50 pm »
Wow the slashdot comments are so idiotic. People actually think the older consoles like the SNES run higher than 320x240?

WindDrake

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 271
  • Last login:December 03, 2020, 09:49:05 pm
  • Electrical Engineer
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #25 on: January 17, 2013, 04:12:34 pm »
Most folks have issues wrapping their heads around the concepts of 1080i vs. 1080p. 80's/90's game console resolution is asking way too much. :P


opt2not

  • Trade Count: (+15)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 6173
  • Last login:April 02, 2024, 07:42:30 pm
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #26 on: January 17, 2013, 04:58:21 pm »
I think this is a by-product of today's retro gamers. Most people play retro games on emulators, and naturally have their computers, xbox's, PSP's set to higher resolutions with upscaling happening. So they think, that's the way its supposed to be.  Back in the day, no one talked about TV resolutions as extensive as now. Most people don't know that Standard Resolution is 640x480, but those older consoles outputted half of that, some a little < 320x240 and were interlaced to display at standard def.
Now we have people saying "it's not 640x480 so it's crap", but it was never *really* that resolution in the first place... :banghead:

Also, today the GCW broke it's #1 spot for pledges in a day, and it's still raising!  Go go go!

Malenko

  • KNEEL BEFORE ZODlenko!
  • Trade Count: (+58)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 14019
  • Last login:July 02, 2025, 09:03:11 pm
  • Have you played with my GingerBalls?
    • forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,142404.msg1475162.html
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #27 on: January 18, 2013, 01:01:32 pm »
I backed it today. I hope these guys deliver.
If you're replying to a troll you are part of the problem.
I also need to follow this advice. Ignore or report, don't reply.

RandyT

  • Trade Count: (+14)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 7014
  • Last login:Today at 01:59:43 pm
  • Friends don't let friends hack keyboards.
    • GroovyGameGear.com
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #28 on: January 18, 2013, 01:27:07 pm »
RE:Resolution

320x240 is fine for a screen this size, given the purpose of the device.

But I'm wondering what the effect of gearing everything for that screen size will have on the mini-HDMI output.  Not that I ever use a handheld on a big screen, but it seems that this question is still unanswered.

Then there's the other question as to exactly how far the Chinese manufacturers are behind on producing a device with similar capabilities, possibly at a lower price point, given their penchant for cranking out these types of handheld devices en masse.  Definitely looks like a fun device though, and it has me seriously considering joining in.

Bender

  • Trade Count: (+1)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1919
  • Last login:November 28, 2016, 08:12:21 pm
    • Happ to Tron Conversion tutorial
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #29 on: January 21, 2013, 10:06:49 am »
Looks like pledges have picked up the last few days and that they will make their goal
And we'll be able to get our hands on these

Pretty cool!
I'm pretty psyched about the possibilities for this thing

Malenko

  • KNEEL BEFORE ZODlenko!
  • Trade Count: (+58)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 14019
  • Last login:July 02, 2025, 09:03:11 pm
  • Have you played with my GingerBalls?
    • forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,142404.msg1475162.html
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #30 on: January 21, 2013, 11:37:11 am »
yup, under 17k to go and 1 week left
If you're replying to a troll you are part of the problem.
I also need to follow this advice. Ignore or report, don't reply.

opt2not

  • Trade Count: (+15)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 6173
  • Last login:April 02, 2024, 07:42:30 pm
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #31 on: January 21, 2013, 02:28:20 pm »
 :applaud:
I am so psyched to get my hands on this thing.
According to the podcast interview, Justin is planning on shipping these out mid-march after the kickstarter ends. awesome.

I think I'm going to go with a Black one, to match my iphone. I think it'll look more "professional" too, for some reason I find white devices like this to look more toy-like.

HaRuMaN

  • Supreme Solder King
  • Global Moderator
  • Trade Count: (+45)
  • Full Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 10328
  • Last login:July 14, 2025, 02:03:34 pm
  • boom
    • Arcade Madness
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #32 on: January 21, 2013, 03:37:45 pm »
Looks like they are gonna make it...   :cheers:

WindDrake

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 271
  • Last login:December 03, 2020, 09:49:05 pm
  • Electrical Engineer
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #33 on: January 21, 2013, 04:14:28 pm »
Was on the fence till I saw the Genesis Emulator running SegaCD games.

Backed. Can't wait to get my hands on one.

gamepimp

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 462
  • Last login:April 06, 2025, 08:48:37 pm
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #34 on: January 21, 2013, 08:47:35 pm »
So does anyone know if the emulators available for Dingoo or Caanoo will run on the OS for this device? Or would we have to wait for emulators made specifically for this handheld?

Dcpmark

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 172
  • Last login:December 30, 2023, 11:28:10 pm
  • I want to build my own arcade controls!
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #35 on: January 21, 2013, 09:56:28 pm »
Ok, I'll be the guy that asks.....will this do anything that my GP2X or Dingoo A-320 won't do? I still can't believe my little A-320 does MAME and Neo Geo games.... :applaud:

WindDrake

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 271
  • Last login:December 03, 2020, 09:49:05 pm
  • Electrical Engineer
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #36 on: January 21, 2013, 10:32:17 pm »
It's a lot faster then the Gamepark and the Dingoo. More ram, etc. It'll run games the others would have struggled with.

Emulators are already out and running on the GCW-Zero, but you've got to have one to get access to all that stuff.

Dcpmark

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 172
  • Last login:December 30, 2023, 11:28:10 pm
  • I want to build my own arcade controls!
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #37 on: January 21, 2013, 11:24:07 pm »
It's certainly one of the best-looking units I've seen, and I'm a sucker for these things. My only concern is the size of the screen. How does it compare to something like this? I bought one, but cancelled when shipping got delayed a few months:

http://www.wholesaleonepiece.com/droid-x360-game-tablet-5-inch-capacitive-allwinner-a10-android-40-ics-8g-hdmi_p4536.html

WindDrake

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 271
  • Last login:December 03, 2020, 09:49:05 pm
  • Electrical Engineer
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #38 on: January 22, 2013, 12:14:55 am »
3.5" 4:3 Ratio screen versus a 5" 16:9 Widescreen on the Droid thing.

The GCW-Zero's screen should be as tall, but not as wide. Which is no big deal as old consoles & arcade games are 4:3 ratio, not widescreen.

Malenko

  • KNEEL BEFORE ZODlenko!
  • Trade Count: (+58)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 14019
  • Last login:July 02, 2025, 09:03:11 pm
  • Have you played with my GingerBalls?
    • forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,142404.msg1475162.html
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #39 on: January 22, 2013, 08:19:01 am »
THEY MADE IT!
If you're replying to a troll you are part of the problem.
I also need to follow this advice. Ignore or report, don't reply.

opt2not

  • Trade Count: (+15)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 6173
  • Last login:April 02, 2024, 07:42:30 pm
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #40 on: January 22, 2013, 09:49:22 am »
YEEEEEEeeah!!! Great stuff! Now to work towards that protective pouch  :lol

RandyT

  • Trade Count: (+14)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 7014
  • Last login:Today at 01:59:43 pm
  • Friends don't let friends hack keyboards.
    • GroovyGameGear.com
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #41 on: January 22, 2013, 01:24:53 pm »
3.5" 4:3 Ratio screen versus a 5" 16:9 Widescreen on the Droid thing.

The GCW-Zero's screen should be as tall, but not as wide. Which is no big deal as old consoles & arcade games are 4:3 ratio, not widescreen.

See the image below for a scale comparison.  If emulation improves on Android, and they put a good phone in the things, it would be tough to ask for more.

Jumpman64

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 164
  • Last login:October 12, 2017, 04:58:42 pm
  • I want to build my own arcade controls!
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #42 on: January 22, 2013, 03:34:22 pm »
THEY MADE IT!

Well slap my face and call me Sally!  Woot!  :-)

 :applaud:

RandyT

  • Trade Count: (+14)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 7014
  • Last login:Today at 01:59:43 pm
  • Friends don't let friends hack keyboards.
    • GroovyGameGear.com
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #43 on: January 22, 2013, 04:37:05 pm »
I just backed it as well.  If the HDMI port ends up working well, and it works with a USB gamepad, it could be a cool foundation for a bartop or a mini.

WindDrake

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 271
  • Last login:December 03, 2020, 09:49:05 pm
  • Electrical Engineer
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #44 on: January 22, 2013, 08:48:46 pm »
3.5" 4:3 Ratio screen versus a 5" 16:9 Widescreen on the Droid thing.

The GCW-Zero's screen should be as tall, but not as wide. Which is no big deal as old consoles & arcade games are 4:3 ratio, not widescreen.

See the image below for a scale comparison.  If emulation improves on Android, and they put a good phone in the things, it would be tough to ask for more.

Just ran the math (3.5" = 2.1" High 2.8" Wide and 5" = 2.5" high) so my original fuzzy thinking was indeed off. Thanks for the diagram. :)

I still want one. Atari 2600 and SegaCD on the go.  :burgerking:

Generic Eric

  • Trade Count: (+2)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 4520
  • Last login:July 15, 2024, 09:18:25 pm
  • Restore! Don't maim for MAME, build from scratch!
    • forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,143226.0.html
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #45 on: January 22, 2013, 10:22:26 pm »
Argh....


Can someone identify the cost difference between this and what device preceded it?   On the monetary fence. 

Malenko

  • KNEEL BEFORE ZODlenko!
  • Trade Count: (+58)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 14019
  • Last login:July 02, 2025, 09:03:11 pm
  • Have you played with my GingerBalls?
    • forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,142404.msg1475162.html
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #46 on: January 23, 2013, 08:01:49 am »
i just wish they'd stop emailing me every 28 minutes
If you're replying to a troll you are part of the problem.
I also need to follow this advice. Ignore or report, don't reply.

ahofle

  • Trade Count: (+1)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 4544
  • Last login:August 30, 2023, 05:10:22 pm
    • Arcade Ambience Project
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #47 on: January 23, 2013, 10:20:41 am »
So does anyone know if the emulators available for Dingoo or Caanoo will run on the OS for this device? Or would we have to wait for emulators made specifically for this handheld?

It runs Dingux I believe, so it will run all the same emulators that the Dingoo runs.

XtraSmiley

  • Trade Count: (+2)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 958
  • Last login:November 02, 2024, 06:07:19 pm
  • Kill the Big Dog
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #48 on: January 24, 2013, 10:36:12 am »
Although the screen rez is fine for old school consoles, but what about MAME games? Many of them had higher rez right? So how would it handle them?
hearingprotectionBIGDOG@yahooBIGDOG.com

Kill the Dog man.

Haze

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1296
  • Last login:October 04, 2023, 08:30:02 am
  • I want to build my own arcade controls!
    • MAME Development Blog
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #49 on: January 24, 2013, 11:07:58 am »
The screen res and CPU power are pretty much garbage even for classic consoles, looks more like another kickstarter scam to me even if they do make it.

320 isn't wide enough for CPS1
240 isn't high enough for a lot of PS1 screens which run in interlace mode, nor is 320 wide enough for a great number of titles.
240 won't work well with games of NTSC resolution, you'll get black bars, or very ugly scaling effects.
PCE, SNES etc. all do higher res too. even Genesis on occasion.

Based on control layout it doesn't look like something you'll be able to rotate either, so you'll be stuck playing vertical games in the middle of a tiny screen and even then find the screen isn't big enough even for pacman (224x288 resolution, hence why many old home ports had to scroll & move the status bar to the side)  sure you could scale it down but that will just look ugly and/or use more cpu power.

Basically if you thought the NeoGeo Gold X whatever it's called handheld was junk (and it was, plus they were just running hacked up copies of FBA) then this is no better.

at best you're likely to get some sub-par ports of the existing emulators for the linux platforms it runs, offering the same sub-par emulation you've always seen with no real improvements, and the product has no real reason to exist at all beyond the hype of it being yet another kickstarter project people are willing to pump endless money into for little outcome.  this offers nothing new over kit you could buy years ago.

maybe I should start my own to create the worlds best multi-game emulator, then just copy the mame source with a few tweaks, because it's REALLY not much different to what these guys are doing when it comes to existing handhelds.

sorry to be so negative over this, but bleah.
« Last Edit: January 24, 2013, 11:12:36 am by Haze »

XtraSmiley

  • Trade Count: (+2)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 958
  • Last login:November 02, 2024, 06:07:19 pm
  • Kill the Big Dog
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #50 on: January 24, 2013, 11:33:15 am »
maybe I should start my own to create the worlds best multi-game emulator, then just copy the mame source with a few tweaks, because it's REALLY not much different to what these guys are doing when it comes to existing handhelds.

Yes please!

Thanks Haze, you just saved me some coin. THIS is the kind of real answers I enjoy from this forum.

That being said, I like my NGX, but yeah, it is junk.
hearingprotectionBIGDOG@yahooBIGDOG.com

Kill the Dog man.

Bender

  • Trade Count: (+1)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1919
  • Last login:November 28, 2016, 08:12:21 pm
    • Happ to Tron Conversion tutorial
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #51 on: January 24, 2013, 03:21:41 pm »

sorry to be so negative over this, but bleah.

Hey, to each his own

I loved my Wiz (still do, but it's been hacked into my Micro DK) and My Caanoo
The GCW-Zero is just an upgrade of those plus an analog AND D-pad for a quick game on the go that fits in my pocket, I'm not expecting perfect emulation just some fun with classics on the go

Will it run everything, No
But will it be fun, fit in my pocket and cost just over a $100?
Yep! :cheers:
« Last Edit: January 24, 2013, 03:23:16 pm by Bender »

Malenko

  • KNEEL BEFORE ZODlenko!
  • Trade Count: (+58)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 14019
  • Last login:July 02, 2025, 09:03:11 pm
  • Have you played with my GingerBalls?
    • forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,142404.msg1475162.html
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #52 on: January 24, 2013, 03:59:47 pm »
sorry to be so negative over this, but bleah.

Its bound to run them at least as well as my PSP, and its smaller. I'm not interested in 100% perfect emulation; I just wanna play some throwback games on the go or while Im going.
If you're replying to a troll you are part of the problem.
I also need to follow this advice. Ignore or report, don't reply.

Dcpmark

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 172
  • Last login:December 30, 2023, 11:28:10 pm
  • I want to build my own arcade controls!
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #53 on: January 24, 2013, 04:01:00 pm »
The screen res and CPU power are pretty much garbage even for classic consoles, looks more like another kickstarter scam to me even if they do make it.

...

sorry to be so negative over this, but bleah.

Haze, i dont know if you saw this from earlier in the thread, what do you think of something like this? Are Android-based handhelds decent for running and scaling different MAME games?

http://www.wholesaleonepiece.com/droid-x360-game-tablet-5-inch-capacitive-allwinner-a10-android-40-ics-8g-hdmi_p4536.html
« Last Edit: January 24, 2013, 04:05:12 pm by Dcpmark »

opt2not

  • Trade Count: (+15)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 6173
  • Last login:April 02, 2024, 07:42:30 pm
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #54 on: January 24, 2013, 04:24:39 pm »
The screen res and CPU power are pretty much garbage even for classic consoles, looks more like another kickstarter scam to me even if they do make it.
:dizzy:
Say what now? I'm not sure if you're blatantly trolling, or just really just don't know what the heck's going on.  The GCW's specs are perfectly sufficient for classic console and arcade emulation.  I've used, and seen people use older PC's with worth specs as this for the basis of their machines.  The 1Ghz + Vivante GC860 + 512 MB of RAM is completely fine, far from calling it garbage.

And how is this a kickstarter scam? There already has been a prototype run of these units (about 150) and has been in the scene for the last year or so. That's much more lead-way than most products you see on kickstarter, and the fact that the play-tested proof is out there even strengthens this product as the real-deal.  Over at http://boards.dingoonity.org/gcw-zero/ there are tons of threads you can sift through that have people showing off the GCW they got in the prototype run, so saying this is just another scam is completely indignant.

Ok down to the nitty-gritty:
320 isn't wide enough for CPS1
Fair enough. There will be scaling there...not the end of the world. Given that most CPS1 and 2 games have very solid ports to home systems as an alternative. But really, at a screen size this small, unless you've got your nose right up to the screen, scaling will be acceptable visually.

Quote
240 isn't high enough for a lot of PS1 screens which run in interlace mode, nor is 320 wide enough for a great number of titles.
The PSX's native output ran multiple resolutions, including progressive modes at 240p, while only a handful of games supported higher, for instance Crash Bandicoot, and Wipeout 3. A majority of titles (and the PSX's library was probably the largest in console history) ran at 240p and 480i.

But why the heck would you want interlaced mode for this screen anyways?  What's the point of line-doubling/scan-lining when your screen's resolution is 320x240?
I think this is a by-product of today's retro gamers. Most people play retro games on emulators, and naturally have their computers, xbox's, PSP's set to higher resolutions with up-scaling happening. So they think, that's the way its supposed to be. Back in the day, no one talked about TV resolutions as extensive as now. Most people don't know that Standard Resolution is 640x480 (roughly VGA), but older consoles actually outputted half of that and were interlaced (line-doubled) to display at standard def. Hence 480i.

Here are the native non-interlaced modes of the PSX (240p):
256 x 240
320 x 240
512 x 240
640 x 240

Here are the interlaced modes (480i):
256 x 480
320 x 480
512 x 480
640 x 480

See what I"m getting at here?  You get a crisp image at progressive scan running at the native resolution without having the hardware push harder to double the line output. Which connects back to my earlier point of the specs being completely adequate. 

Quote
240 won't work well with games of NTSC resolution, you'll get black bars, or very ugly scaling effects.
PCE, SNES etc. all do higher res too. even Genesis on occasion.
This is a little facetious.
NES/Master System/Snes/Genesis all ran at 256×224 natively.

MSX = 256×192
ColecoVision = 256×192
Atari 2600 = 192x160
DOS games = mostly ran at 320x240
N64, like the PSX had most games that ran at 320x240, but some games had the ability to run at 640x480, but not a lot of them.

Basically anything made earlier than the SNES ran lower than 320x240 natively.
Sega Saturn can output a display resolution of 320×224 and higher, but it's similar to the PSX, some games were programmed to do so.

Are you really concerned about an 8 pixel black-bar, at the top and bottom? Back in the day, you'd still get the same thing, but the only difference is that on CRT's you had control over the vertical geometry that your monitor's v-scale. Unfortunately with LCD technology, we can't get that type of control (see my many rants on why CRTs are so much better than LCDs). Heck, even some of the cheaper TVs back then didn't have v or h-scale potentiometer, and compensated by having the shroud overhang the view-able image!

But come-on, an 8 pixel bar is not the end of the world.

Quote
Based on control layout it doesn't look like something you'll be able to rotate either, so you'll be stuck playing vertical games in the middle of a tiny screen and even then find the screen isn't big enough even for pacman (224x288 resolution, hence why many old home ports had to scroll & move the status bar to the side)  sure you could scale it down but that will just look ugly and/or use more cpu power.
Looks pretty good to me: http://youtu.be/3t0aR4W3KRQ?t=1m47s

I don't know why you think you can't play this in vertical mode.  If you can play Dodonpachi with it looking this good, pacman is a no-brainer. 
The screen is physically 3.5".  That's roughly the same size as an Iphone4's display, so if you've played games on your phone as a touch screen and display, I'm pretty sure you'll be fine without being encumbered by your fingers getting in the way on this screen.


Quote
Basically if you thought the NeoGeo Gold X whatever it's called handheld was junk (and it was, plus they were just running hacked up copies of FBA) then this is no better.
??? Wrong. 
A. you don't need to hack up this unit, or get SD adapter hacks to get more games/other emulators on it (if there even is anyone supporting other emulators for the NGX)
B. The physical buttons on the GCW are reported to be of higher quality than the NGX. The NGX doesn't even have a d-pad!
C. NGX has less RAM. 
D. NGX has less storage. 
E. NGX has no wifi, no hdmi out.
F. NGX doesn't have an Accelerometer!
G. NGX doesn't have a mic!  (think about the multiplayer gaming possibilities on the GCW...)

Clearly the GCW is better.

Quote
at best you're likely to get some sub-par ports of the existing emulators for the linux platforms it runs, offering the same sub-par emulation you've always seen with no real improvements, and the product has no real reason to exist at all beyond the hype of it being yet another kickstarter project people are willing to pump endless money into for little outcome.  this offers nothing new over kit you could buy years ago.

maybe I should start my own to create the worlds best multi-game emulator, then just copy the mame source with a few tweaks, because it's REALLY not much different to what these guys are doing when it comes to existing handhelds.

sorry to be so negative over this, but bleah.
Please watch the videos previously linked. The emulators that have been (easily) ported from the dingoo already show a vast improvement from previous revisions. It even out performs the PSP ports, which a lot of people think is better, and are clearly wrong.
Again, the proof is in the pudding here. The early prototyping really helped push this "hype" to reality, and has jazzed a lot of people who understand what this unit really is, and what they want to use it for.

Honestly, if you want to take on an endeavor like this, please by all means. Not everyone has the funds to be able to just jump into the hardware industry, and if you do, then you're one of the more well-off ones. Heh, in fact, I'd love to see your solution for supporting multiple screen resolutions for emulating all the different hardware, without scaling, black-bars, and scrolling...better put a patent down on a screen that can physically shrink and grow to fit all sizes. Some kind of organic technology perhaps?

Granted, haters are gonna hate. For me, from the research I've done on what the current options for easily portable retro gaming are out there, all signs point to this unit being the best there is. Everything else seems to be either cheaply made, no longer supported, or require hardware/firmware hacking.  I just want something easy, and for a price point of $135, this little unit is definitely the top pick.
« Last Edit: January 24, 2013, 04:32:41 pm by opt2not »

404

  • Trade Count: (+3)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1019
  • Last login:August 04, 2015, 10:19:10 pm
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #55 on: January 24, 2013, 05:03:39 pm »
^^ the NGX has HDMI and an empty wifi slot inside the unit. Some sources have claimed that both units have the same ODM. The original Ram specs for the GCW were exactly the same as NGX. The developer consoles were the first batch with double the memory.

The leaked specs from the upcoming GameGadget which not-so-coincidentally is sold by blaze and success which both market the NGX to Europe and Asia respectively are exactly the same as both the NGX and GCW. The original GameGadget was basically nothing more than a slightly stronger dingoo as well.

opt2not

  • Trade Count: (+15)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 6173
  • Last login:April 02, 2024, 07:42:30 pm
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #56 on: January 24, 2013, 05:16:33 pm »
I stand corrected on the HDMI. So the empty slot for the wifi is for upgrades later?  I can't see any mention of wifi on their official site...

Yeah, the original GCW specs for RAM was the same, but no longer. The GCW is confirmed to ship the same specs as the prototype SE units, with the upgraded RAM amount.

One thing I forgot to mention is that the battery-life on the NGX is officially quoted to be 3-4 hours on a charge, while the GCW is reported to be 7-10 hours. Double the play time -- for me that's very favorable for the GCW, especially on trips and long commutes.

404

  • Trade Count: (+3)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1019
  • Last login:August 04, 2015, 10:19:10 pm
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #57 on: January 24, 2013, 10:02:56 pm »
So the empty slot for the wifi is for upgrades later?

No. It's a blank spot internally. However, it clearly shows that there was some expansion or re-use of the board in mind when created.

Yeah, the original GCW specs for RAM was the same, but no longer. The GCW is confirmed to ship the same specs as the prototype SE units, with the upgraded RAM amount.

If i remember correctly, the very first batches out, which were a mere handful of units, did not contain the doubled ram. I could be wrong though. There seems to be some blurry edges in terms of who got what test units when.

picture of Success' latest expo catalog. Shows some new gamegadget devices which have been long rumored.

Haze

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1296
  • Last login:October 04, 2023, 08:30:02 am
  • I want to build my own arcade controls!
    • MAME Development Blog
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #58 on: January 25, 2013, 12:42:31 am »
If people want to buy them / donate to the cause I'm not going to stop them, all I'm saying is I don't really see the point in it at all like so many other Kickstarter projects.

For the most part you'll end up with the same emulators as the existing Dingoo devices, and while yes you do have a lot more CPU power there is a big step between emulating things at an accuracy level needed for 'cheap as chips' hardware, and a level good enough to make a huge difference to the quality / experience offered.

I can just see it being a device people use with the emulators already out there, running the same quality of emulation they've played for ages, some crappy port of MAME4ALL with all the usual MAME4ALL bugs rather than the newer 'reloaded' ports etc.

Ok, it's cheap, but I'd still throw it in with the Pi in terms of things holding back emulation rather than allowing it to move forward in any meaningful way.

As for resolutions, SNES has some 512 wide ones, Genesis has the 480i mode, and like you point out PSX can do an awful lot more and it's not like you get to choose if a screen is 480, so you'll be forced to scale down any such screens and plenty of games run in the wider resolutions.  It's not going to be any kind of 'ultimate emulator handheld' however it's packaged up and with the pace things seem to be moving at it will end up even more dated very quickly IMHO.  Yes, a number of the 8-bits like SMS are strictly limited to sizes this can support, but even the MSX series could push higher.  For arcades PGM is 448 wide, even the midway games like MK use wider resolutions and you're going to be noticably chopping pixels, classics like Tapper,Rampage and Spy Hunter are 512x480, Popeye is 512x448 and there are a whole load of other games / systems people are going to be interested in where the screen won't be able to do them justice.  As for rotating it your dpad will end up at one end, and the buttons at the other,surely that's going to be more than just awkward?

Also how many buttons does it have? I can see 4 main ones, possible a trigger each side?  for the PSX you'd need 2 triggers each side for a good number of games.  Directions? looks like the only physical input it has for them is the digital d-pad, which may or may not be a problem depending on what you want to play.

As I said, sorry for not being enthusiastic, but it just seems to be a cookie cutter, cheap, chinese-build style handheld device and not remotely worth the hype and that's why I compare it to the NGX.  If that's what people want then fine, but it's not going to be some super-good product everybody is going to remember as the best thing ever made to emulate classic games, there are already devices out there capable of running emulators better, albeit the usual complaint being lack of 'real' controls for many of them.

As stated, this is my opinion, it just seems to be promising an awful lot and like so many kickstarter projects IMHO will end up under delivering if people have expectations too high.  They're upfront with the specs, yes, that's good, but at the same time I think people need to know what those specs imply.

It does have the potential to be a decent enough system to emulate other handheld systems, like the NGPC, Lynx, GBA, Wonderswan etc. but as these are the arcade controls forums I thought it important to make note that there are many arcades it's not going to play nice with.

« Last Edit: January 25, 2013, 01:17:54 am by Haze »

opt2not

  • Trade Count: (+15)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 6173
  • Last login:April 02, 2024, 07:42:30 pm
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #59 on: January 25, 2013, 02:52:04 am »
Quite honestly this is the best option for having classic games, both arcade and console on-the-go. Right now I play on my iPhone during commutes or when waiting around. But I can't stand touch controls, and the ports brought over are all poorly adapted. The GCW is a very sleek device that does promise a lot, but I err on the side of positivity (it's better for the soul), and have no doubts this handheld will be the best that's out there. Just looking at all the YouTube videos, it's plain to see.

Construction-wise, I gotta say it looks much more higher quality than the dingoo and NGX. From the build it looks close in quality to the PSP, there's even a video on YouTube comparing them together.

Personally my plans for usage is going to mainly be:
- old console emulation, 8 and 16bit, especially systems I wasn't privy to in my youth: MSX, TG-16, ZX Spectrum
- Portables like GBA, NEOGEO pocket, game gear
- a few games on PSX, like castlevania SOTN, Gradius Gaiden, R-type Delta, Einhander, and Legend of Mana. (All of these not requiring all PSX shoulder buttons). Oh and a slew of rpg's
- DOS emulation for FPS's like Doom, Hexen, duke3D, please-oh-please Dark Forces, and rise of the triads
- Scumm emulation: yeah Full Throttle, The Dig, Day of the tentacle!

All of these, except for the PSX titles are completely doable and proven to run really well on the GCW now.
The dingoo homebrew scene is already getting excited about this console, and dev support is coming over from there. Emulators will get better and more optimized than what the dingoo had, and the fact it's just a recompile with new libraries to get the old software working makes it even easier for devs already established in that scene.

Yes this is BYOAC and arcade is the main thing, but it was originally posted in the Consoles section and we moved it to Main so that more exposure to it would help the kickstarter pass.

We're all gamers here and I'd be willing to bet not exclusively just arcades for a lot of us. This is a very sexy product that IMHO is the best option for retro gaming portability. It handles all the old consoles, arcade, and DOS games like a champ, and from the list of things I want to use it for, it really is my be-all-end-all device.

I can't wait to get my hands on it! I think I'll be choosing the black version, it looks pretty sleek. Wesley Snipes said always bet on black. :lol

tris_d

  • -driverman-
  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 51
  • Last login:February 24, 2013, 03:23:13 am
  • I want to build my own arcade controls!
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #60 on: January 25, 2013, 03:48:17 am »
For the most part you'll end up with the same emulators as the existing Dingoo devices, and while yes you do have a lot more CPU power there is a big step between emulating things at an accuracy level needed for 'cheap as chips' hardware, and a level good enough to make a huge difference to the quality / experience offered.

Can you name several of those huge differences? What platform are you comparing it with, a PC?

So, would you say Dingoo is not worth its price, or not worth having at all? How about PSP? If MAME ran better on PSP I think that would be good enough to make this GCW:Zero redundant. I also hear Dingoo does much better job for MAME and majority of the games across many emulators, so what more people want?


Quote
I can just see it being a device people use with the emulators already out there, running the same quality of emulation they've played for ages, some crappy port of MAME4ALL with all the usual MAME4ALL bugs rather than the newer 'reloaded' ports etc.

What do you think is crappy about MAME4all, can you name several of those usual MAME4all bugs? What do you think is better about MAME4droid Reloaded?

If you ask me, I'd tell you the most obvious bugs in MAME4all are the same bugs from official MAME build. They were there in 0.37b5 build, and they are still there in the most recent MAME build. How apparently these bugs manifest depends on the hardware configuration. For example, MAME4all on PSP not only performs poorly, the reason it really sucks is that it doesn't handle properly when the game can not run at full speed. But at least those game that do run at full speed on PSP work fine. However with  MAME4droid you get video hiccups and audio crackling even when the hardware is quite powerful and runs games at full speed, and that's the case with both MAME4droid and Reloaded. It's because many Android devices have awfully uneven time interval from one frame to another, probably due to lots of background processing, so all those MAME bugs, that still exist in official MAME build and have always existed, just become much more apparent.
This user is driverman. Permanent probationary status contingent upon following forum rules of decorum. --- saint

Haze

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1296
  • Last login:October 04, 2023, 08:30:02 am
  • I want to build my own arcade controls!
    • MAME Development Blog
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #61 on: January 25, 2013, 09:14:45 am »
As an actual MAME developer I just think the old versions suck balls, the sound is just absolutely bleah on a lot of systems, graphical glitches galore, even stuff like CPS1 is held together by gross hacks in those builds and let's not begin to talk about the Sega systems where most of the versions they run are hacked up bootlegs because we couldn't handle the originals properly back then (look at Alien Storm, it's a mess, missing enemies, missing backgrounds etc.)  YEARS of work has gone in since the things they were made from, even just this year Robotron was seeing tweaks in MAME to how the blitter delays are handled.  On top of that things like the 4ALL builds tend to have their own sets of additional hacks, CPUs being underclocked in drivers causing sound to run badly, or drop out completely, complex priority schemes ripped out for performance reasons, and they're based on ancient versions so a lot of things people might be interested in are missing completely.

The newer versions are slower, yes, because we've been improving them all the time, a phenomenal number of bugs have been crushed since then, 0.37b5 is from 13-14 years ago, it's retro in itself, there are people using MAME today who weren't even born when that was released!  It just seems as soon as we start to see progress on the mobile front somebody comes up with another cheap rubbish device, ports all the rubbish old versions to it because it won't run anything better, and we're back to square one.

The emulation of many games in 0.37b5 was nothing short of a travesty, on both a technical level, and to the end user.  Sure there are many *newer* drivers just as bad in MAME today, but that's because it's a project in constant development where new things are always discovered and I assure you we know a lot more now about every single thing supported in 0.37b5 than we did when 0.37b5 was released.
« Last Edit: January 25, 2013, 09:31:08 am by Haze »

kahlid74

  • Trade Count: (+1)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1366
  • Last login:January 01, 2021, 12:42:56 pm
  • Gaming for a better future!
    • GamersAnon
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #62 on: January 25, 2013, 09:37:29 am »
As an actual MAME developer I just think the old versions suck balls, the sound is just absolutely bleah on a lot of systems, graphical glitches galore, even stuff like CPS1 is held together by gross hacks in those builds and let's not begin to talk about the Sega systems where most of the versions they run are hacked up bootlegs because we couldn't handle the originals properly back then (look at Alien Storm, it's a mess, missing enemies, missing backgrounds etc.)  YEARS of work has gone in since the things they were made from, even just this year Robotron was seeing tweaks in MAME to how the blitter delays are handled.  On top of that things like the 4ALL builds tend to have their own sets of additional hacks, CPUs being underclocked in drivers causing sound to run badly, or drop out completely, complex priority schemes ripped out for performance reasons, and they're based on ancient versions so a lot of things people might be interested in are missing completely.

The newer versions are slower, yes, because we've been improving them all the time, a phenomenal number of bugs have been crushed since then, 0.37b5 is from 13-14 years ago, it's retro in itself, there are people using MAME today who weren't even born when that was released!  It just seems as soon as we start to see progress on the mobile front somebody comes up with another cheap rubbish device, ports all the rubbish old versions to it because it won't run anything better, and we're back to square one.

I get the feeling you don't like Kickstarter, which is fine, to each their own.  My own experience with KickStarter has been beyond awesome but you get what you put in and if you don't put yourself out there, you're not going to see how bright the sky can be at night.

Perhaps if I was in the trenches with you coding MAME I would agree but I don't.  I couldn't care less about the accuracy of a game, only that it plays.  When I sit down to play Sunset riders with my 6year old nephew it's about the moment, and the experience of an age of gaming past. 

Cynicaster

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 407
  • Last login:March 19, 2025, 09:31:43 pm
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #63 on: January 25, 2013, 09:49:30 am »
I think that thing looks badass.  DoDoPachi in my pocket?  Yes please!

Forgive my ignorance but I have no idea how Kickstarter works.  Can I still order one, even though I didn't "pledge" up front?


tris_d

  • -driverman-
  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 51
  • Last login:February 24, 2013, 03:23:13 am
  • I want to build my own arcade controls!
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #64 on: January 25, 2013, 10:02:22 am »
I think that thing looks badass.  DoDoPachi in my pocket?  Yes please!


It seems to me vertical games are awkward to play due to buttons ending up on top when rotated.

This user is driverman. Permanent probationary status contingent upon following forum rules of decorum. --- saint

XtraSmiley

  • Trade Count: (+2)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 958
  • Last login:November 02, 2024, 06:07:19 pm
  • Kill the Big Dog
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #65 on: January 25, 2013, 10:23:05 am »
I get the feeling you don't like Kickstarter, which is fine, to each their own.  My own experience with KickStarter has been beyond awesome but you get what you put in and if you don't put yourself out there, you're not going to see how bright the sky can be at night.

Perhaps if I was in the trenches with you coding MAME I would agree but I don't.  I couldn't care less about the accuracy of a game, only that it plays.  When I sit down to play Sunset riders with my 6year old nephew it's about the moment, and the experience of an age of gaming past.

No I disagree, I don't "think" Haze hates Kickstarter, he just doesn't like cheap products claiming they are going to do something, which ends up being less than what's really advertised, like saying it will perfectly emulate old games when in reality the screen doesn't allow for the proper resolution on games.

I'll let Haze speak for himself though.

As for your "couldn't care less" comment. Geez, why even play MAME then? Just stick to one of the ---smurfy--- emulators out there that are more about speed hacks and what not? MAME is designed to do things correctly so that the game is as close to, if not just like the game as it was intended to be. It seems like you are wasting your time with MAME.
hearingprotectionBIGDOG@yahooBIGDOG.com

Kill the Dog man.

Haze

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1296
  • Last login:October 04, 2023, 08:30:02 am
  • I want to build my own arcade controls!
    • MAME Development Blog
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #66 on: January 25, 2013, 10:33:48 am »
As an actual MAME developer I just think the old versions suck balls, the sound is just absolutely bleah on a lot of systems, graphical glitches galore, even stuff like CPS1 is held together by gross hacks in those builds and let's not begin to talk about the Sega systems where most of the versions they run are hacked up bootlegs because we couldn't handle the originals properly back then (look at Alien Storm, it's a mess, missing enemies, missing backgrounds etc.)  YEARS of work has gone in since the things they were made from, even just this year Robotron was seeing tweaks in MAME to how the blitter delays are handled.  On top of that things like the 4ALL builds tend to have their own sets of additional hacks, CPUs being underclocked in drivers causing sound to run badly, or drop out completely, complex priority schemes ripped out for performance reasons, and they're based on ancient versions so a lot of things people might be interested in are missing completely.

The newer versions are slower, yes, because we've been improving them all the time, a phenomenal number of bugs have been crushed since then, 0.37b5 is from 13-14 years ago, it's retro in itself, there are people using MAME today who weren't even born when that was released!  It just seems as soon as we start to see progress on the mobile front somebody comes up with another cheap rubbish device, ports all the rubbish old versions to it because it won't run anything better, and we're back to square one.

I get the feeling you don't like Kickstarter, which is fine, to each their own.  My own experience with KickStarter has been beyond awesome but you get what you put in and if you don't put yourself out there, you're not going to see how bright the sky can be at night.

Perhaps if I was in the trenches with you coding MAME I would agree but I don't.  I couldn't care less about the accuracy of a game, only that it plays.  When I sit down to play Sunset riders with my 6year old nephew it's about the moment, and the experience of an age of gaming past.

Nah, I think the concept is good, there just seem to be too many 'have your cake and eat it' type projects when it comes to cost and expectations and in the end a lot of them just end up being clones of your regular 'made in china' stuff anyway.

I mean surely if you were trying to do an innovative, interesting, and different for an emulation / retro targetted handheld you'd design it in some way that meant maybe the controls were removable from the screen, and you could remove them, then reattach them to the vertical edge instead, thus giving you a rotatable screen with the controls still on the left / right edge, with such a design you could also offer alt control parts, maybe one with an analog stick, another with 6 buttons, or a dual stick option.

Of course it becomes more costly, and requires more actual design work if you're to produce something still sturdy and at the same time not overly difficult to change, but if you're doing something targetted at retro games (and in doing that one of your real advantages over the phones / tablets on the market now must be tactile controls) surely things like that are what you want to be considering over 'generic handheld'

People want to throw their money behind it, that's fine, and of course what KS is all about, but if there are too many projects people back, where what they end up with is ultimately not much better than what would have likely come to market anyway then it may well end up putting people off showing the same support for future, and potentially more interesting projects.
« Last Edit: January 25, 2013, 10:37:15 am by Haze »

tris_d

  • -driverman-
  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 51
  • Last login:February 24, 2013, 03:23:13 am
  • I want to build my own arcade controls!
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #67 on: January 25, 2013, 11:31:55 am »
As an actual MAME developer I just think the old versions suck balls, the sound is just absolutely bleah on a lot of systems, graphical glitches galore...

What are you suggesting, people should carry laptops in their pockets? You can not compare mobile devices with desktop PCs, at least not without taking into account everything else, like price, convenience, circumstances, and such.

Sound is good for most games as long as there are no glitches. Perhaps it's not totally authentic, but different devices sound differently anyway. Maybe colors are not authentic, but different displays show different colors anyway, so who cares? And if some game is particularly badly emulated, then don't play it, there are thousands more. 

Glitches are all that really matters, but visual glitches, and audio crackling that usually goes along, are on the PC as well, the same ones - due to mismatch between game and display frame-rates, due to poor auto-frame skipping algorithm, and due to MAME devs reluctance to change the game speed to match refresh frequency of the given display. Basically, with any official MAME build and without CRT you pretty much ought to have glitches with quite a few if not most of the games. At least older build can be used with much cheaper hardware and the difference in speed gain I think more than enough justifies any inaccuracies, since making games run at full speed is really important to minimize those glitches, and that's all it matters.


Quote
...even stuff like CPS1 is held together by gross hacks in those builds and let's not begin to talk about the Sega systems where most of the versions they run are hacked up bootlegs because we couldn't handle the originals properly back then (look at Alien Storm, it's a mess, missing enemies, missing backgrounds etc.)  YEARS of work has gone in since the things they were made from, even just this year Robotron was seeing tweaks in MAME to how the blitter delays are handled.

As if someone could actually notice?


Quote
On top of that things like the 4ALL builds tend to have their own sets of additional hacks, CPUs being underclocked in drivers causing sound to run badly, or drop out completely, complex priority schemes ripped out for performance reasons, and they're based on ancient versions so a lot of things people might be interested in are missing completely.

I am under impression people are quite happy with MAME4all on GP2X. It seems to me it's just PSP and Android port that really suck, and so what they need are hacks, but hacks specific to that hardware, not GP2X hacks. MAME on handhelds is about playing games, not about accuracy and documenting history, so if they help games run more smoothly then hacks are just as good solution as any.


Quote
The emulation of many games in 0.37b5 was nothing short of a travesty, on both a technical level, and to the end user.  Sure there are many *newer* drivers just as bad in MAME today, but that's because it's a project in constant development where new things are always discovered and I assure you we know a lot more now about every single thing supported in 0.37b5 than we did when 0.37b5 was released.

What you call travesty no one cares about or even notice. If the game plays smoothly, that's all it matters. It's about having fun while riding on the bus, not... whatever it is you care about.
This user is driverman. Permanent probationary status contingent upon following forum rules of decorum. --- saint

opt2not

  • Trade Count: (+15)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 6173
  • Last login:April 02, 2024, 07:42:30 pm
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #68 on: January 25, 2013, 11:41:16 am »
Haze, I get where your concerns are coming from, and I understand the bitterness that a lot of the mame devs hold from the progression of mame, how it's been handled and the drama that ensued. But I think your jadedness is causing you assume a lot of things that doesn't sound like factual evidence.
Claims of the hardware quality is just your assumption since you haven't actually held on these in your hands. The only way to prove this is by physically assessing the product, something sheer visual images cannot fully cover. Humans are tactile beings, we really need things in our hands to fully analyze.
Your concerns of halting mame progression is a bit selfish since this device isn't only "just for mame", and the bugs comment is also a bit unfair since its not the fault of device like these that bugs from decades ago are still present.
And the "made in china" comments -- c'mon man, what's not made in china these days? Or Malaysia, or indonisia, or India... Everything practically is, but not everything is cheaply built. I'm going to wait till I have the thing in my hands to really judge the build quality, till then this is all speculation.

Your idea about modular controls is valid, but like you say, it's costly to produce. At the same time, being able to pull off this concept without it being cumbersome to change things around might be a logistical nightmare. Add that to your physically-resizing-screen for resolution support, and we've got a pretty fantastical device that's is a bit unrealistic.

Point is, there is never going to be a solution to fit all needs. But saying "this thing is crap" because it doesn't do x when it handles y and z well is a bit of a hallow statement.
I don't think this device is for you, since it sounds like you just want something that handles arcade emulation solely, while this unit is meant for more than that.

Like my aforementioned list of software/games I'm intending to run on the GCW: and that's the thing isn't it? A majority of people that are hyped to get this thing all want the same thing I do. Mainly, snes and prior consoles on-the-go. Look at the comments, you'll be hard-pressed to find anyone mentioning arcade. Few are there, but most people want to run console and DOS games on this device.

To each's own, but I'm the type of person that is willing to throw a little money at something that looks promising enough for my needs. And even the story behind the conception of the GCW appeals to me: I'd rather give my money to a gamer, ex-low-level retailer that took the concerns of his customers and decided to make change to an existing failing product. He's also an American, and I'd rather give him money than some fly-by-night Asian knockoff company that doesn't give two shits about the end-user...and I'm Canadian. :lol

HaRuMaN

  • Supreme Solder King
  • Global Moderator
  • Trade Count: (+45)
  • Full Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 10328
  • Last login:July 14, 2025, 02:03:34 pm
  • boom
    • Arcade Madness
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #69 on: January 25, 2013, 11:42:07 am »
Didn't think it would happen in this thread, but... 


WindDrake

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 271
  • Last login:December 03, 2020, 09:49:05 pm
  • Electrical Engineer
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #70 on: January 25, 2013, 12:18:49 pm »
Re; Mame, I agree with Haze. Hacking up old Mame builds isn't doing anybody any good.

The rest? I backed the GCW-Zero to play Genesis, NES, and Atari 2600 on the go. Everything else is extra. :)

Haze

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1296
  • Last login:October 04, 2023, 08:30:02 am
  • I want to build my own arcade controls!
    • MAME Development Blog
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #71 on: January 25, 2013, 12:27:43 pm »
Haze, I get where your concerns are coming from, and I understand the bitterness that a lot of the mame devs hold from the progression of mame, how it's been handled and the drama that ensued. But I think your jadedness is causing you assume a lot of things that doesn't sound like factual evidence.
Claims of the hardware quality is just your assumption since you haven't actually held on these in your hands. The only way to prove this is by physically assessing the product, something sheer visual images cannot fully cover. Humans are tactile beings, we really need things in our hands to fully analyze.
Your concerns of halting mame progression is a bit selfish since this device isn't only "just for mame", and the bugs comment is also a bit unfair since its not the fault of device like these that bugs from decades ago are still present.
And the "made in china" comments -- c'mon man, what's not made in china these days? Or Malaysia, or indonisia, or India... Everything practically is, but not everything is cheaply built. I'm going to wait till I have the thing in my hands to really judge the build quality, till then this is all speculation.

Your idea about modular controls is valid, but like you say, it's costly to produce. At the same time, being able to pull off this concept without it being cumbersome to change things around might be a logistical nightmare. Add that to your physically-resizing-screen for resolution support, and we've got a pretty fantastical device that's is a bit unrealistic.

Point is, there is never going to be a solution to fit all needs. But saying "this thing is crap" because it doesn't do x when it handles y and z well is a bit of a hallow statement.
I don't think this device is for you, since it sounds like you just want something that handles arcade emulation solely, while this unit is meant for more than that.

Like my aforementioned list of software/games I'm intending to run on the GCW: and that's the thing isn't it? A majority of people that are hyped to get this thing all want the same thing I do. Mainly, snes and prior consoles on-the-go. Look at the comments, you'll be hard-pressed to find anyone mentioning arcade. Few are there, but most people want to run console and DOS games on this device.

To each's own, but I'm the type of person that is willing to throw a little money at something that looks promising enough for my needs. And even the story behind the conception of the GCW appeals to me: I'd rather give my money to a gamer, ex-low-level retailer that took the concerns of his customers and decided to make change to an existing failing product. He's also an American, and I'd rather give him money than some fly-by-night Asian knockoff company that doesn't give two shits about the end-user...and I'm Canadian. :lol

Well it does just grate me a bit when people find out I work on MAME stuff, then tell me it sucks because (lets use the example of Alien Storm) it still has the same bugs, and ask me when I'm going to fix them, and I have to tell them '2004' ...

Also the last such thing I used took the same approach with the Genesis emulators, building off old versions with old sound cores before a lot of the secrets were unlocked meaning games like (from memory) Scooby Doo, and one of the Spiderman titles have absolutely horrible music, again the old cores were just being used because they were faster.  Even the MAME/MESS Genesis is heavily out of date now (I did it in 2007) and a staggering number of things have been discovered since then, just emulating them requires a lot more cpu power and is also a lot more difficult to get your head around (taking into account some register changes for the next 'vdp read slot' which could be every 8 or so pixels rather than every scanline etc.)   True if you're just casually playing a few titles you might not notice / care about the glitches, but if one of them happened to be your favourite game you probably will.

The MAME point has been hammered home already, but those versions also predate a great deal of work done on even absolutely 'must have' classics like Bubble Bobble and Rainbow Islands... that's why it depresses me and why I was glad to see people finally actually realising there is hardware out there capable of running the newer versions, with the newer progress, even if sometimes the fallback to older ones is needed.

Proper emulation needs good specs, at least if you're dealing with portable projects rather than handcoding everything in self-modifying assembly code locked entirely to the video system and general hardware profile of one machine profiled to the needs of one specific game, and nobody really does that these days because it's simply not worth it.

Is it all the fault of the device? No, but it's almost inevitable people will port the very same things they've always been porting, so aside from it being a new device you're not actually going to see much progress in offering better emulation than many of the previous ones.
« Last Edit: January 25, 2013, 12:38:21 pm by Haze »

opt2not

  • Trade Count: (+15)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 6173
  • Last login:April 02, 2024, 07:42:30 pm
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #72 on: January 25, 2013, 12:49:52 pm »
Re; Mame, I agree with Haze. Hacking up old Mame builds isn't doing anybody any good.

The rest? I backed the GCW-Zero to play Genesis, NES, and Atari 2600 on the go. Everything else is extra. :)
Hey WindDrake have you checked out the youtube video posted about the 7200 homebrew ports running on the GCW?

Donkey kong and Pacman looks and sounds pretty good!

XtraSmiley

  • Trade Count: (+2)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 958
  • Last login:November 02, 2024, 06:07:19 pm
  • Kill the Big Dog
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #73 on: January 25, 2013, 01:24:15 pm »
My question to all you backers is, why not just buy a PSP and hack it to run these emulators? A PSP new is pretty cheap, and the screen is nicer than what you get here.

If you say, oh the PSP doesn't run the emulation as well, I'd have to say, I thought you didn't care about that? As long as it runs right?
hearingprotectionBIGDOG@yahooBIGDOG.com

Kill the Dog man.

opt2not

  • Trade Count: (+15)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 6173
  • Last login:April 02, 2024, 07:42:30 pm
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #74 on: January 25, 2013, 02:01:48 pm »
My question to all you backers is, why not just buy a PSP and hack it to run these emulators? A PSP new is pretty cheap, and the screen is nicer than what you get here.

If you say, oh the PSP doesn't run the emulation as well, I'd have to say, I thought you didn't care about that? As long as it runs right?

Actually I care about emulation, but I'm not naive to think that all games are going to be perfect. The PSP's support base is gone, emulators haven't been updated in a while now, and not all of them run that well in the first place.

But please read the previous posts about this, it was covered a little ways back. There's even a video for those who don't care to actually read the contents of this thread.


XtraSmiley

  • Trade Count: (+2)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 958
  • Last login:November 02, 2024, 06:07:19 pm
  • Kill the Big Dog
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #75 on: January 25, 2013, 02:12:58 pm »
My question to all you backers is, why not just buy a PSP and hack it to run these emulators? A PSP new is pretty cheap, and the screen is nicer than what you get here.

If you say, oh the PSP doesn't run the emulation as well, I'd have to say, I thought you didn't care about that? As long as it runs right?

Actually I care about emulation, but I'm not naive to think that all games are going to be perfect. The PSP's support base is gone, emulators haven't been updated in a while now, and not all of them run that well in the first place.

But please read the previous posts about this, it was covered a little ways back. There's even a video for those who don't care to actually read the contents of this thread.

LOL, I know dude, I was being snarky b/c a couple of people were like we don't care about accuracy.

I know you have vested interest in this thing getting made, but the reality is that Haze is right and if one cares about a good hand held to run MAME as well as home consols, than this might not be it.

Good luck though, it's kickstarters like this that help push things forward.
hearingprotectionBIGDOG@yahooBIGDOG.com

Kill the Dog man.

opt2not

  • Trade Count: (+15)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 6173
  • Last login:April 02, 2024, 07:42:30 pm
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #76 on: January 25, 2013, 02:52:56 pm »
It's cool bro. ;)

In other news:  Looks like we'll most likely hit the 2nd stretch goal...yay, hdmi cables...neat-o.  :-\  I was really hoping to get that carrying pouch, but now I have to figure out where to get a case for this thing. I don't want to get it scratched!

Bender

  • Trade Count: (+1)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1919
  • Last login:November 28, 2016, 08:12:21 pm
    • Happ to Tron Conversion tutorial
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #77 on: January 25, 2013, 07:36:54 pm »
I think that thing looks badass.  DoDoPachi in my pocket?  Yes please!

Forgive my ignorance but I have no idea how Kickstarter works.  Can I still order one, even though I didn't "pledge" up front?

You can still pledge for 3 more days

Then they will be selling later this year on there website probably for a little bit more $


404

  • Trade Count: (+3)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1019
  • Last login:August 04, 2015, 10:19:10 pm
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #78 on: January 25, 2013, 07:53:55 pm »
Didn't think it would happen in this thread, but... 



Don't mind being labeled in the haters club. I really see no point at this moment in a dingoo clone on steroids. Not to mention buying from a disorganized, dishonest team that already made a cut of money from the first two batches they sold without the need of kickstarter. Not to mention the product isn't exactly unique in the ODM market.

shateredsoul

  • Trade Count: (+4)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1412
  • Last login:January 25, 2013, 08:23:51 pm
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #79 on: January 25, 2013, 08:23:51 pm »
Oh no, i'm not falling for this again...


opt2not

  • Trade Count: (+15)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 6173
  • Last login:April 02, 2024, 07:42:30 pm
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #80 on: January 25, 2013, 08:41:21 pm »
Don't mind being labeled in the haters club. I really see no point at this moment in a dingoo clone on steroids. Not to mention buying from a disorganized, dishonest team that already made a cut of money from the first two batches they sold without the need of kickstarter. Not to mention the product isn't exactly unique in the ODM market.
So should I buy a Dingoo instead?  I don't have any of these devices, I'm fresh meat...

Instead of straight hating, what device can you recommend instead? With valid selling-points...?

Yenome

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 547
  • Last login:November 12, 2024, 07:07:56 pm
  • Punch a fish. Make a wish
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #81 on: January 25, 2013, 09:30:58 pm »
Why cannot someone come out with a portable case for mobile phones that have the controls via bluetooth.
http://www.powera.com/moga
something like this :P and its only 50 buck or so. plus can be used with just bout anything that accepts a bluetooth controller
My Gf made me put a sig up. /whipped

Dcpmark

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 172
  • Last login:December 30, 2023, 11:28:10 pm
  • I want to build my own arcade controls!
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #82 on: January 25, 2013, 10:32:10 pm »
Don't mind being labeled in the haters club. I really see no point at this moment in a dingoo clone on steroids. Not to mention buying from a disorganized, dishonest team that already made a cut of money from the first two batches they sold without the need of kickstarter. Not to mention the product isn't exactly unique in the ODM market.
So should I buy a Dingoo instead?  I don't have any of these devices, I'm fresh meat...

Instead of straight hating, what device can you recommend instead? With valid selling-points...?

That is what I was going for myself. Having a Dingoo A-320 that runs NeoGeo, Mega Drive, and other games quite nicely, I was wondering what this would do for me that I don't already have. A 3.5" screen isn't a massive improvement over the Dingoo's 2.8" screen like the 5" Android unit I was thinking about getting.

tris_d

  • -driverman-
  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 51
  • Last login:February 24, 2013, 03:23:13 am
  • I want to build my own arcade controls!
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #83 on: January 25, 2013, 11:11:58 pm »
Don't mind being labeled in the haters club. I really see no point at this moment in a dingoo clone on steroids. Not to mention buying from a disorganized, dishonest team that already made a cut of money from the first two batches they sold without the need of kickstarter. Not to mention the product isn't exactly unique in the ODM market.
So should I buy a Dingoo instead?  I don't have any of these devices, I'm fresh meat...

Instead of straight hating, what device can you recommend instead? With valid selling-points...?

That is what I was going for myself. Having a Dingoo A-320 that runs NeoGeo, Mega Drive, and other games quite nicely, I was wondering what this would do for me that I don't already have. A 3.5" screen isn't a massive improvement over the Dingoo's 2.8" screen like the 5" Android unit I was thinking about getting.

How does MAME4all run on Dingoo, say SF2 or Metal Slug run at full speed? Any glitching or sound crackling issues? Have you noticed any differences in "accuracy" of emulation when compared to most recent MAME builds on a PC?   

Have you played MAME4droid or Reloaded, have you not noticed glitching and sound crackling?
This user is driverman. Permanent probationary status contingent upon following forum rules of decorum. --- saint

404

  • Trade Count: (+3)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1019
  • Last login:August 04, 2015, 10:19:10 pm
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #84 on: January 25, 2013, 11:16:50 pm »
Don't mind being labeled in the haters club. I really see no point at this moment in a dingoo clone on steroids. Not to mention buying from a disorganized, dishonest team that already made a cut of money from the first two batches they sold without the need of kickstarter. Not to mention the product isn't exactly unique in the ODM market.
So should I buy a Dingoo instead?  I don't have any of these devices, I'm fresh meat...

Instead of straight hating, what device can you recommend instead? With valid selling-points...?

I didn't bother to take jabs at them for the devices capability. I went after them for their money making and marketing tactics. They already have a record of being nearly as shady as Blaze was with their first GameGadget.

If you do want to talk abilities, I'll bite.. I will warn you ahead of time; If you are fresh meat then you should really do some more research on the subject ahead of time. You would realize that your question really works against GCW marketing.

Ask yourself, how many of these already out of the box dingux emulators are going to run better on the GCW? Every single emulator demonstrated running on the gcw are community projects, nearly all open source that so far run perfect if not nearly perfect on a standard dingoo running dingux. One exception to that would be the psone emulator however, the same emulator demonstrated on the GCW ran sub-par.
Hell, the JXD M1000 home console also uses the same processor as the GCW and is marketed as a dedicated psone emulator system; That unit still doesn't play psone games very well and that's literally what the device is primarily marketed to play.

Emulators for the Dingux platform will continue to cater to the standard dingoo hardware for the foreseeable future.

Everyone buys the dingoo for one thing, emulating classic consoles. They don't buy the dingoo to play another tired port of quake or the 3-5 indy homebrew titles available on the platform. The Dingoo and similar portables have and will likely always will be catered and marketed as portable retro gaming handhelds. Nothing more.


There are also a dozen or so non-Igenic SOC based devices out there including the A380 which run a chinachips SOC and have a slew of emulators already available.

Now, if you want to pay more for for the same emulators that the COMMUNITY developed,  a slightly faster processor to run those same emulators, an accelerometer that is currently supported in ZERO games and hdmi support then be my guest; That's your financial funeral.



Still Hatin'  :afro:

RandyT

  • Trade Count: (+14)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 7014
  • Last login:Today at 01:59:43 pm
  • Friends don't let friends hack keyboards.
    • GroovyGameGear.com
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #85 on: January 25, 2013, 11:58:47 pm »
I may as well give my views, since I supported the Kickstart project.

Resolution:

What is often overlooked, or possibly ignored, is that more resolution on a device than what it is primarily designed for, is not a benefit.  The resolution picked for this unit was, IMHO, an intelligent and well thought out choice.  More resolution means more work for the device, meaning likely decreased performance where the resolution isn't required, and which could also impact battery life.  Artifacting from downscaling, considering that it will, for a large percentage of the small segment where it is necessary, basically be displayed in "half" resolution.  The screen isn't large, so this should not be offensive.  While some performance could be impacted by the downscaling, these titles would probably still be able to enjoy a performance boost if the emulation is written to discard half the information, rather than process it and not display it.  For odd resolutions, like EGA, this might not be as pretty, but it's a pretty small segment to be extremely concerned about.

Accuracy:

I have to say that, while I understand and appreciate the concerns of folks looking for true accuracy, I think it's a bit misplaced when applied to a device like this one.  On a full size rig, I too want to see the best possible representation.  But this is an OTG device, and one with a fairly small screen.  Fully accurate MAME functionality would be great, but it's not a necessity.  One could just play ports to the lower console systems, but they never really stack up to the originals.  In the end, even with the limitations in earlier versions of MAME, the experience will still be more satisfying than what the ports can deliver, and as long as the hardware can do that well, it will have succeeded in the most important way.

What makes this more interesting than the usual fare:

This is simple.  At least the appearance of an exuberant developer base, and a group dedicated to furthering the cause.  This is something which, as mentioned before, is very hit or miss with the typical Chinese devices of this nature.  The Dingoo has enjoyed a decent amount of support, and it looks like those who developed for it liked it enough to go to work on the hardware side to get past issues they might not ordinarily be able to get past.  This is a "good thing", as it indicates a commitment to the platform.  It also looks like they tried to gauge the hardware base to the task at hand, so that developers for emulation wouldn't be left wanting in the ways which are the most important.  I have a GP2x, which was also supposed to be an emulation powerhouse, and it wasn't bad for it's time.  But even with the support it had, it still wasn't as good as many had hoped.  Community support was short-lived, due to new hardware obsoleting the older, and the poor choice of directional controller doomed it once the better ones came along.  So now it lives on my personal "Island of Mis-fit Toys".   The PSP was the next stop, and it's a great device.  But the sketchy nature of modifying the firmware severely limits the audience for both developers and users.  The system is proprietary, and what is known about the internals had to be hacked to be discovered, or gleaned from an official developer sympathetic to the cause.  This is another hindrance which causes development for the platform to go stale, and one which isn't present with the GCW.  Android, on the other hand, seems very promising.  It's open, and there's no shortage of inexpensive devices which run it and run it well.  But it too has some concerns.  The fact that the hardware bases are so plentiful and varied makes it hard to get the most out of any particular device being developed for, without risking compatibility with others.  And with the Chinese manufacturers cranking out a half dozen new ones every week, this problem isn't getting any better.  So while one could theoretically just pick one to focus on, and push the community in that direction, without financial commitment to the device there is no guarantee that the device will continue to be available, making all of that investment of time, short on return. 

In a sense, the folks with the GCW are doing what I just described as the key for Android, and are going about it in the right way.  A standardized, and fairly powerful, hardware base which they can continue to have manufactured so long as there is demand, and as they seem committed to the device, they have the tools to help fuel that demand.  If they continue to squash the bugs in the emulation, and deliver a solid performing unit, they will cause a "snowball" effect on the size of the user base, which will in turn, help to guarantee continued development.  I believe something not so different is why MAME is where it is today.  If there was no interest (demand) there would not have been so many talented and dedicated individuals involved in the project.  So my feeling is, if the concept of the GCW is one which appeals to you, and you were already considering a Dingoo (which I was), or any other handheld for emulation purposes, why not give it a chance?

tris_d

  • -driverman-
  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 51
  • Last login:February 24, 2013, 03:23:13 am
  • I want to build my own arcade controls!
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #86 on: January 26, 2013, 12:20:16 am »
Re; Mame, I agree with Haze. Hacking up old Mame builds isn't doing anybody any good.


Do any good? What does that even mean? What's the alternative? There is simple choice here: old MAME with most of the games running smoothly, or few more thousands of supported games with recent MAME build where barely any game would run at full speed. And what good is then Robotron's more accurate timing if the game is glitching and skipping frames? That is not better emulation, that's worse.
This user is driverman. Permanent probationary status contingent upon following forum rules of decorum. --- saint

opt2not

  • Trade Count: (+15)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 6173
  • Last login:April 02, 2024, 07:42:30 pm
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #87 on: January 26, 2013, 12:30:00 am »
I didn't bother to take jabs at them for the devices capability. I went after them for their money making and marketing tactics. They already have a record of being nearly as shady as Blaze was with their first GameGadget.

If you do want to talk abilities, I'll bite.. I will warn you ahead of time; If you are fresh meat then you should really do some more research on the subject ahead of time. You would realize that your question really works against GCW marketing.
I may be fresh to pulling-the-trigger on these devices, 'cause none of them did what I wanted them to do, till now. I have done my research extensively though, so when I say I'm fresh meat, it doesn't mean I don't know what I'm talking about. But I wanted to hear what device you'd actually recommend.

Quote
Ask yourself, how many of these already out of the box dingux emulators are going to run better on the GCW? Every single emulator demonstrated running on the gcw are community projects, nearly all open source that so far run perfect if not nearly perfect on a standard dingoo running dingux.
The emulators demonstrated on the GCW are perfect re-compiled versions (using the new libraries) of the same emulators on the dingoo's.  The GCW runs them just as well, but with one difference --> quicker loading times based on the hardware's expanded capabilities.

Quote
One exception to that would be the psone emulator however, the same emulator demonstrated on the GCW ran sub-par.
Hell, the JXD M1000 home console also uses the same processor as the GCW and is marketed as a dedicated psone emulator system; That unit still doesn't play psone games very well and that's literally what the device is primarily marketed to play.
The psx emulator you have seen demonstrated on the GCW is an unoptimized version. Give it some time, and there is no doubt going to be vast improvements to it's performance. The fact that it ran that good without being optimized is amazing actually! That Castlevania:SOTN and Crash Bandicoot demo shows real promise, since the only setback was frame-rate speeds, when it could have been worse like crashing or failure to load.  In the software industry this is a great sign, and is very workable for developers.

Quote
Emulators for the Dingux platform will continue to cater to the standard dingoo hardware for the foreseeable future.
Well that is true, but of course pretty obvious. In software development you have to cater to your lowest hardware spec. It's common to building your projects from the ground up, then when running it on advanced hardware you have already gained that speed-up and efficiency right out the gate. It's a matter of slight changes to cater to that advanced hardware, for (layman) examples: screen resolution, or audio rates. 

Quote
Everyone buys the dingoo for one thing, emulating classic consoles. They don't buy the dingoo to play another tired port of quake or the 3-5 indy homebrew titles available on the platform. The Dingoo and similar portables have and will likely always will be catered and marketed as portable retro gaming handhelds. Nothing more.
The only difference for emulation intentions between the two is that the dingoo's physical hardware is inferior. Example: d-pad is cheap, and hard to hit diagonals, smaller screen, etc... AND pretty much everything I wrote earlier about the NGX being inferior.

Quote
Now, if you want to pay more for for the same emulators that the COMMUNITY developed,  a slightly faster processor to run those same emulators, an accelerometer that is currently supported in ZERO games and hdmi support then be my guest; That's your financial funeral.
Oh no! A $15 difference is going to break the bank!  Also, you're wrong about the accelerometer: You can use it in Decent, which was already demonstrated in the videos previously posted.
But honestly, the perks of the GCW compared the A320 is well worth the cost of a lunch. I for one would much rather pay for an upgraded device for such a small price margin difference.

Also the superior hardware will benefit homebrew game-devs, those making indie games, which is what the GCW's "legal" statement is solely for. Obviously we're all wanting to run emulators primarily, but the newer games, like for instance Cave Story, will be able to keep up to good performance because of the better hardware. Indie games are a bonus here for me, and I am looking forward to what people do for it.
In fact, I'd be willing to try building my own...I've only ever worked on a team, and have day-dreamed about doing something myself. I know a bit of python, and could probably learn pygame...one more project to list perhaps!  :)
Hmm....

Anyway, RandyT hits the nail on the head here.  Go GCW go!!!  :lol
« Last Edit: January 26, 2013, 03:14:02 am by opt2not »

tris_d

  • -driverman-
  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 51
  • Last login:February 24, 2013, 03:23:13 am
  • I want to build my own arcade controls!
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #88 on: January 26, 2013, 12:43:04 am »
Don't mind being labeled in the haters club. I really see no point at this moment in a dingoo clone on steroids. Not to mention buying from a disorganized, dishonest team that already made a cut of money from the first two batches they sold without the need of kickstarter. Not to mention the product isn't exactly unique in the ODM market.
So should I buy a Dingoo instead?  I don't have any of these devices, I'm fresh meat...

Instead of straight hating, what device can you recommend instead? With valid selling-points...?

I don't think they have anything against the hardware. They seem to hate MAME4all, but they have no alternative. They simply want you to wait until handhelds are powerful enough to run more recent MAME, for some strange reason.

I think you wouldn't make a mistake to buy Dingoo, GP2X or Wiz as it seems to me GCW:Zero doesn't offer much more except that more games would be running at full speed, so it's a question of how many games didn't already run at full speed on Dingoo and do you really care about them. The other question is price difference and waiting period for this thing to come out.
This user is driverman. Permanent probationary status contingent upon following forum rules of decorum. --- saint

Dcpmark

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 172
  • Last login:December 30, 2023, 11:28:10 pm
  • I want to build my own arcade controls!
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #89 on: January 26, 2013, 12:52:23 am »
Well, I've come full circle. As an owner of a GP32, a GP2X, a Dingoo A320, a modded PSP, and a modded DS, I didn't think I was ever going to get another "open source" handheld. Just didn't see a reason to. And I don't have an Android-based handheld system for my collection yet, so that's what I thought my next purchase was going to be. But after seeing the reviews for the the latest and greatest Android unit from China, I've decided to get a GCW-Zero. What the hell.....it's only money, and you can't take it with you.  :cheers:

404

  • Trade Count: (+3)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1019
  • Last login:August 04, 2015, 10:19:10 pm
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #90 on: January 26, 2013, 10:01:45 am »
I may be fresh to pulling-the-trigger on these devices, 'cause none of them did what I wanted them to do, till now. I have done my research extensively though, so when I say I'm fresh meat, it doesn't mean I don't know what I'm talking about. But I wanted to hear what device you'd actually recommend.

So much for being "fresh meat" right?

The emulators demonstrated on the GCW are perfect re-compiled versions (using the new libraries) of the same emulators on the dingoo's.  The GCW runs them just as well, but with one difference --> quicker loading times based on the hardware's expanded capabilities.

Whoa there. New Libraries do not necessarily mean you are going to get greater performance. Any homebrew dev that has worked with community libs can tell you that.

Sometimes new libs also introduce new bugs to your code. And while new libs may bring on slightly better performance and quicker loading times for roms etc it doesn't mean that its directly correlated to new hardware. That doesn't make the GCW better at all. In fact you just brought up another one of GCW's lame marketing myths.

The psx emulator you have seen demonstrated on the GCW is an unoptimized version. Give it some time, and there is no doubt going to be vast improvements to it's performance. The fact that it ran that good without being optimized is amazing actually! That Castlevania:SOTN and Crash Bandicoot demo shows real promise, since the only setback was frame-rate speeds, when it could have been worse like crashing or failure to load.  In the software industry this is a great sign, and is very workable for developers.

Crashing or failure to load would be a failure of the emulator, not the hardware. That statement in itself brings up yet another dishonest point in GCW's marketing comparisons, which do nothing but bash emulator authors really. They showed the GCW playing a number of games that have known issues on the psp and android. The GCW team then showed those same games running fine on the GCW in a sad attempt to show that somehow their hardware is better than an android device and/or a PSP when nothing could be further from the truth. Anyone with half a brain that wasn't a rabid Dingoo fanboy would quickly come to realize that those bugs are not limitations of the hardware but bugs in the emulators.

As i already stated, there are devices running the same exact hardware that cannot keep up with psone games. Leaves folks with very little excuses in this area. I don't hold my breath on being able to "optimize" for a handful of games at best.

Well that is true, but of course pretty obvious. In software development you have to cater to your lowest hardware spec. It's common to building your projects from the ground up, then when running it on advanced hardware you have already gained that speed-up and efficiency right out the gate. It's a matter of slight changes to cater to that advanced hardware, for (layman) examples: screen resolution, or audio rates. 

You have to cater to the defacto standard. The GCW is not that defacto standard yet.

The only difference for emulation intentions between the two is that the dingoo's physical hardware is inferior. Example: d-pad is cheap, and hard to hit diagonals, smaller screen, etc... AND pretty much everything I wrote earlier about the NGX being inferior.

There are a handful of clones and derivatives. There really isn't anything special about the dingoo tbh.  It's an igenic SOC with an LCD slapped on top. Dingux is not exclusive to the Dingoo and GCW. It will now literally run on any igenic SOC platform. That includes the GameGadget, GameBox, GameBox Advance  and a dozen or so other derivatives.

Hell, you can buy a GameGadet and run dingux in sandbox mode from an SD card. The GameGadget has a slightly faster processor than the original Dingoo and sells for half the price. No issues with diagonals, better build quality etc.

Oh no! A $15 difference is going to break the bank!  Also, you're wrong about the accelerometer: You can use it in Decent, which was already demonstrated in the videos previously posted.
But honestly, the perks of the GCW compared the A320 is well worth the cost of a lunch. I for one would much rather pay for an upgraded device for such a small price margin difference.

wow, you got me there. One game runs the accelerometer!  :notworthy:


Also the superior hardware will benefit homebrew game-devs, those making indie games, which is what the GCW's "legal" statement is solely for. Obviously we're all wanting to run emulators primarily, but the newer games, like for instance Cave Story, will be able to keep up to good performance because of the better hardware. Indie games are a bonus here for me, and I am looking forward to what people do for it.
In fact, I'd be willing to try building my own...I've only ever worked on a team, and have day-dreamed about doing something myself. I know a bit of python, and could probably learn pygame...one more project to list perhaps!  :)

We can discuss this when there are more indy game titles available for the platform. I don't hold my breath on that at all though.

RandyT

  • Trade Count: (+14)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 7014
  • Last login:Today at 01:59:43 pm
  • Friends don't let friends hack keyboards.
    • GroovyGameGear.com
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #91 on: January 26, 2013, 10:50:04 am »
Whoa there. New Libraries do not necessarily mean you are going to get greater performance. Any homebrew dev that has worked with community libs can tell you that.

I guess it depends on the libraries.  One of the first things they did was break backwards compatibility by enabling floating-point math hardware, which exists on the GCW, but not on the Dingoo.  This should make certain things considerably faster.  Once they did that, there wasn't much reason to not break it further in the name of performance, so they did.  They also mentioned a way of dumbing it back down for compatibility where necessary, but I don't know if they bothered, as it seems like there are quite a few emulators which have now been tweaked and re-compiled for the GCW.

Quote
Crashing or failure to load would be a failure of the emulator, not the hardware. That statement in itself brings up yet another dishonest point in GCW's marketing comparisons, which do nothing but bash emulator authors really. They showed the GCW playing a number of games that have known issues on the psp and android. The GCW team then showed those same games running fine on the GCW in a sad attempt to show that somehow their hardware is better than an android device and/or a PSP when nothing could be further from the truth. Anyone with half a brain that wasn't a rabid Dingoo fanboy would quickly come to realize that those bugs are not limitations of the hardware but bugs in the emulators.

I don't think they ever stated that specifically.  But they are squashing many of those bugs, and IMHO, that is part of what the GCW and Pandora enthusiasts are offering.  In the end, if it doesn't work right on the PSP and Android (and no-one is actively trying, or able, to fix it), and it does on the GCW, isn't that what matters?

Quote
As i already stated, there are devices running the same exact hardware that cannot keep up with psone games. Leaves folks with very little excuses in this area. I don't hold my breath on being able to "optimize" for a handful of games at best.

If PSX is one's main focus, there's no better platform for that than PSP.  And like you stated, it probably has more to do with the emulator than the hardware, so I wouldn't count it out just yet.


You have to cater to the defacto standard. The GCW is not that defacto standard yet.

Why do developers who support the GCW and Pandora need to cater to the defacto standard?  Is there even one with these types of gadgets?


There are a handful of clones and derivatives. There really isn't anything special about the dingoo tbh.  It's an igenic SOC with an LCD slapped on top. Dingux is not exclusive to the Dingoo and GCW. It will now literally run on any igenic SOC platform. That includes the GameGadget, GameBox, GameBox Advance  and a dozen or so other derivatives.

Hell, you can buy a GameGadet and run dingux in sandbox mode from an SD card. The GameGadget has a slightly faster processor than the original Dingoo and sells for half the price. No issues with diagonals, better build quality etc.

Which pretty much drives home the idea that it isn't the hardware that is the most important part of the equation.  But it can't hurt.  It boils down to whether you believe that the team behind the GCW is committed to supporting it.  It appears that you don't.  I'm willing to give them a chance for the small price difference and the possible benefit to the community.

It sounds as though you already have something you are more fond of.  Which one are you using?
« Last Edit: January 26, 2013, 11:32:21 am by RandyT »

tris_d

  • -driverman-
  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 51
  • Last login:February 24, 2013, 03:23:13 am
  • I want to build my own arcade controls!
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #92 on: January 26, 2013, 11:15:06 am »
wow, you got me there. One game runs the accelerometer!  :notworthy:

On what device with what emulator do you play what other games with accelerometer?
This user is driverman. Permanent probationary status contingent upon following forum rules of decorum. --- saint

tris_d

  • -driverman-
  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 51
  • Last login:February 24, 2013, 03:23:13 am
  • I want to build my own arcade controls!
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #93 on: January 26, 2013, 11:22:30 am »
It sounds as though you already have something you are more fond of.  Which one are you using?

I agree complaints have no much sense without offering an alternative. What are the contenders here? PSP? Android phones? Original Dingoo, or GP2X?
This user is driverman. Permanent probationary status contingent upon following forum rules of decorum. --- saint

404

  • Trade Count: (+3)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1019
  • Last login:August 04, 2015, 10:19:10 pm
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #94 on: January 26, 2013, 11:58:11 am »
I guess it depends on the libraries.  One of the first things they did was break backwards compatibility by enabling floating-point math hardware, which exists on the GCW, but not on the Dingoo.  This should make certain things considerably faster.  Once they did that, there wasn't much reason to not break it further in the name of performance, so they did.  They also mentioned a way of dumbing it back down for compatibility where necessary, but I don't know if they bothered, as it seems like there are quite a few emulators which have now been tweaked and re-compiled for the GCW.

Which once again brings up the other question; Exactly how many authors are going to actively support two different builds. At the end of the day, they are going to support their biggest userbase which so far is a dingoo.

I don't think they ever stated that specifically.  But they are squashing many of those bugs, and IMHO, that is part of what the GCW and Pandora enthusiasts are offering.  In the end, if it doesn't work right on the PSP and Android (and no-one is actively trying, or able, to fix it), and it does on the GCW, isn't that what matters?

With all due respect, do you think they are going to specifically state that the emulators on other systems suck? They have however, made that very clear with their own video comparisons. Your statement on development rings true only for the PSP models, Android emulators are still being worked on.


If PSX is one's main focus, there's no better platform for that than PSP.  And like you stated, it probably has more to do with the emulator than the hardware, so I wouldn't count it out just yet.

I wouldn't count on it too much either. The PSP and a dingoo are two totally different beasts.


Why do developers who support the GCW and Pandora need to cater to the defacto standard?  Is there even one with these types of gadgets?

The Pandora is nothing like a dingoo. They run TI OMAP SOC processors. Again, two different beasts.



Which pretty much drives home the idea that it isn't the hardware that is the most important part of the equation.

So why bother defending the GCW. Your words, not mine.  Never told anyone not to buy it. I made my case quite clear as to why i believed they were being less than honest and why i personally would not buy one. If you want to drop your dime on one, be my guest.


  It boils down to whether you believe that team behind the GCW is committed to supporting it.  It appears that you don't.  I'm willing to give them a chance for the small price difference and the possible benefit to the community.

All i ever said was that in my view, they are no different than the GameGadget team on a smaller scale. However, stating that there could be a possible benefit for the community when the community has thrived and is well established already without them is a bit of a misnomer to say the least. It benefits GCW and only them.. at least at the moment.


It sounds as though you already have something you are more fond of.  Which one are you using?

I have and have had many different obscure systems that i enjoy, collecting them is a hobby of mine.  Doing a quick search here would have shown you that I've even documented some igenic based units on these very forums.
« Last Edit: January 26, 2013, 07:11:23 pm by 404 »

RandyT

  • Trade Count: (+14)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 7014
  • Last login:Today at 01:59:43 pm
  • Friends don't let friends hack keyboards.
    • GroovyGameGear.com
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #95 on: January 26, 2013, 01:13:11 pm »
Which once again brings up the other question; Exactly how many authors are going to actively support two different builds. At the end of the day, they are going to support their biggest userbase which so far is a dingoo.

There are answers to these questions.  The GCW folks have stated that they will not support the use any emulators which are not open source.   It's simple to infer from this position that they intend to take the work of others, improve where they are able, and optimize it for the Zero.  Again, they are making clear that support for the hardware is a part of what they intend to offer.   Whether you have confidence in that notion is up to you.

Quote
With all due respect, do you think they are going to specifically state that the emulators on other systems suck? They have however, made that very clear with their own video comparisons. Your statement on development rings true only for the PSP models, Android emulators are still being worked on.

Regardless, that doesn't change the reality of things.  They are able to make things work, which don't currently on other platforms.  I also find the future of Android for this type of thing very promising.  However, the best solutions are likely going to be app products which you will need to purchase.  That's not a bad thing, as financial motivation can do wonders for a developer's progress.  But they aren't there yet, and they are already charging money for them.   I'm sure there are also quite a number of Android devices those apps won't work on, or perform poorly with.  A strong, standardized hardware base with good developer support is key for a device like this, as that is the reason you saw improvements in quality for every year a specific classic console was continuing to be offered.

Quote
The PSP and a dingoo are two totally different beasts.

A PSX and a x86 system are as well.  Emulation has more to do with system capability than similar architecture, as there is always the option to use brute force, or translation.  The fact that developers have been able to get past the FX chip limitations demonstrates this.

Quote from: RandyT
Why do developers who support the GCW and Pandora need to cater to the defacto standard?  Is there even one with these types of gadgets?
Quote
The Pandora is nothing like a dingoo. They run TI OMAP SOC processors. Again, two different beasts.

This doesn't answer the questions I posed.

The reason I included the Pandora was that they too have their own scene, not because I thought the architectures were similar.  There was also talk from GCW about teaming up with the other communities, Pandora mentioned specifically, and working toward advancing the emulators.  What is found to work on one, will certainly be of value to the other, so long as the system performances are on par.

Quote
So why bother defending the GCW.

Because if you really want to fix some of the issues in the emulators which are out there, you need a group or entity funneling resources to make it happen.  Sure, you might find an extremely talented and devoted individual who will not rest until he has perfected everything and won't take a dime for doing so, but these folks aren't as plentiful as we would all like to think.  While I have no inside knowledge of the business model being considered by GCW, it's not a stretch to think that they will be using proceeds from the profit they make on the consoles to pay some of the hard-working developers for their time.  This is what gets things done.

Quote
All i ever said was that in my view, they are no different than the GameGadget team on a smaller scale. However, stating that there could be a possible benefit for the community when the community has thrived and is well established already without them is a bit of a misnomer to say the least. It benefits GCW and only them.. at least at the moment.

You are, of course, entitled to your view.  But since they are being sticklers about the open-source nature of the system and software they choose to support, one would have to conclude that the fixes they come up with will be made public knowledge, and benefit the rest of the community.  Whether those fixes are such that they can be implemented on a lower hardware base is another question, but that wouldn't be the fault of GCW.

Quote
I have and have had many different obscure systems that i enjoy, collecting them is a hobby of mine.  Doing a quick search here would have shown you that I've even documented some igenic based units on these very forums.

Don't we all ;).  But which one specifically are you rooting for to actually make the Zero the completely unnecessary device you claim it to be?  It's fairly obvious you are rooting for a different team and I'm curious to know which.
« Last Edit: January 26, 2013, 01:15:13 pm by RandyT »

tris_d

  • -driverman-
  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 51
  • Last login:February 24, 2013, 03:23:13 am
  • I want to build my own arcade controls!
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #96 on: January 26, 2013, 02:07:11 pm »
I also find the future of Android for this type of thing very promising.

What do you mean? Android is Operating System, not a specific device. What are you referring to? In any case, there is already everything there.  It's been few years now most of the emulators are on the market, and devices powerful enough to run even N64 and PlayStation games at full speed have been around for quite some time as well. What more do you expect future could bring?

The problem with Android (by which I mean Android Smart Phones) are controls. For majority of console, home computer and arcade games touchscreen is not even an option, it's that bad. There are devices with D-pads and even joysticks on them, and there are joystick accessories that can be attached, and yet somehow none of that still doesn't seem to quite compare.



Xperia Play 

For some reason I don't see people consider such devices to be a real contender for gaming handhelds. Perhaps it's price, or maybe people are not aware. Who knows? Why would you for example rather invest in GCW:Zero and wait than simply buy Xperia Play right now? That thing already runs all the emulators at full speed, you will not need another for the rest of your life, and beyond.
This user is driverman. Permanent probationary status contingent upon following forum rules of decorum. --- saint

RandyT

  • Trade Count: (+14)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 7014
  • Last login:Today at 01:59:43 pm
  • Friends don't let friends hack keyboards.
    • GroovyGameGear.com
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #97 on: January 26, 2013, 02:44:47 pm »
What do you mean? Android is OS, not a specific device.

...

For some reason I don't see people consider such devices to be a real contender for gaming handhelds. Perhaps it's price, or maybe people are not aware. Who knows? Why would you for example rather invest in GCW:Zero and wait than simply buy Xperia Play right now? That thing already runs all the emulators at full speed, you will not need another for the rest of your life and beyond.

All of the above.  My nephew has one of these phones and the first thing he said was that the controls were poor.  It was also costly, and according to him, not a very good phone.

I know Android is an OS.  Like all OSes, how well they run depends on not only the quality of the hardware, but the build of the OS for that hardware.  That last part always seems to be the "rub" with the typical Chinese devices.  Like with the tablets, the very first thing most (who are aware of such things) will do is seek out a hacked ROM to try to fix the performance issues.  Many devices use proprietary drivers which make such endeavors very difficult or even impossible.

There are so many generic Android devices, and now the generic handhelds being added to the fray, that it seems difficult for any of them to take root in the market for any period of time.  Also, many do not come with official marketplace support, which makes getting the software you want more of a chore than a lot of casual users are willing to endure or are capable of.  And even if that "magic" piece of hardware manages to float down the supply chain, how long will it be available before the unknown manufacturer changes the internals and doesn't bother telling anyone?

Like I stated, it looks like there is headway being made on dedicated Android gaming handhelds, but until all of the pieces come together, in a reasonably priced unit, it's still a sketchy proposition.  I currently own 3 Android devices; 2 Chinese tablets and an HTC Inspire 4G.  The only one which I didn't need to spend 10 hours on, researching, rooting and tweaking, in order to get decent use from, was the one which was properly supported and has a well established hardware base.  Outside of the poor Sony example for this type of application, and even that needs to be rooted, there aren't many options yet.
« Last Edit: January 26, 2013, 02:59:37 pm by RandyT »

opt2not

  • Trade Count: (+15)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 6173
  • Last login:April 02, 2024, 07:42:30 pm
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #98 on: January 26, 2013, 03:05:20 pm »
Bah here I was writing up yet another reply, but RandyT is on the case!
I completely agree on all points RandyT has put on the table, but I just wanted to point out as we continue forward, that the GCW team's  "official support" is open-source homebrew. Not specifically emulators, but the all-encompassing category of home brewed wares. The video examples I mentioned before are from the COMMUNITY, and not official GCW video releases. qbertaddict does not officially represent GCW, he is a community member. 

404: Point of the accelerometer usage is one clear example that you might not be a creditable objecter. It's a small point, but your statement made it seem like you we fully aware of its shortcomings. Which you're not.
 
Secondly your statement about price was also facetious, since it really isn't much of a difference in comparison to the competitors. Also, your failure to state what product YOU already own, rather the knowledge tou hold from research, and lack of backing a specific one just shows that you're arguing for the sake of it.

Also, I was specifically talking about the emulator re:PSX not being optimized. That wasn't a point of the hardware 

I respect your opinion, but I still don't see why I shouldn't back the GCW. the alternatives are still unappealing to me and you haven't presented any factual evidence to sway my opinion. Like I said, out of all the options out there, the GCW looks the most promising for my needs.
 

tris_d

  • -driverman-
  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 51
  • Last login:February 24, 2013, 03:23:13 am
  • I want to build my own arcade controls!
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #99 on: January 26, 2013, 03:42:03 pm »
What do you mean? Android is OS, not a specific device.

...

For some reason I don't see people consider such devices to be a real contender for gaming handhelds. Perhaps it's price, or maybe people are not aware. Who knows? Why would you for example rather invest in GCW:Zero and wait than simply buy Xperia Play right now? That thing already runs all the emulators at full speed, you will not need another for the rest of your life and beyond.

All of the above.  My nephew has one of these phones and the first thing he said was that the controls were poor.  It was also costly, and according to him, not a very good phone.

I know Android is an OS.  Like all OSes, how well they run depends on not only the quality of the hardware, but the build of the OS for that hardware.  That last part always seems to be the "rub" with the typical Chinese devices.  Like with the tablets, the very first thing most (who are aware of such things) will do is seek out a hacked ROM to try to fix the performance issues.  Many devices use proprietary drivers which make such endeavors very difficult or even impossible.

There are so many generic Android devices, and now the generic handhelds being added to the fray, that it seems difficult for any of them to take root in the market for any period of time.  Also, many do not come with official marketplace support, which makes getting the software you want more of a chore than a lot of casual users are willing to endure or are capable of.  And even if that "magic" piece of hardware manages to float down the supply chain, how long will it be available before the unknown manufacturer changes the internals and doesn't bother telling anyone?

Like I stated, it looks like there is headway being made on dedicated Android gaming handhelds, but until all of the pieces come together, in a reasonably priced unit, it's still a sketchy proposition.  I currently own 3 Android devices; 2 Chinese tablets and an HTC Inspire 4G.  The only one which I didn't need to spend 10 hours on, researching, rooting and tweaking, in order to get decent use from, was the one which was properly supported and has a well established hardware base.  Outside of the poor Sony example for this type of application, and even that needs to be rooted, there aren't many options yet.

That's a bit too dramatic. Perhaps two years ago, or if you went for something really cheep, then you could have such problems, but today it's kind of hard to buy a new one that will not run most of the emulators at full speed, out of the box. Most of the problems you speak of have been largely sorted out, and emulators like all other apps generally run on anything from 2.1 or later OS. While not standardized as iPhone, considering number of various different hardware, Android devices do have quite high compatibility across all the iterations of the OS. Sure there are specific devices having specific problems with particular ROMS, but with time it has become increasingly harder to buy a crappy device even if you go for the cheapest one, and with little research before buying you can ensure to avoid surprises.


So anyway, let me put it this way: if I could find Android phone with similar power as Xperia Play, but with better d-pad/joystick, say as good as on GCW:Zero, and if it was under $150, would you then rather buy that over GCW:Zero?
This user is driverman. Permanent probationary status contingent upon following forum rules of decorum. --- saint

RandyT

  • Trade Count: (+14)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 7014
  • Last login:Today at 01:59:43 pm
  • Friends don't let friends hack keyboards.
    • GroovyGameGear.com
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #100 on: January 26, 2013, 04:41:39 pm »
That's a bit too dramatic. Perhaps two years ago, or if you went for something really cheep, then you could have such problems, but today it's kind of hard to buy a new one that will not run most of the emulators at full speed, out of the box. Most of the problems you speak of have been largely sorted out, and emulators like all other apps generally run on anything from 2.1 or later OS. While not standardized as iPhone, considering number of various different hardware, Android devices do have quite high compatibility across all the iterations of the OS. Sure there are specific devices having specific problems with particular ROMS, but with time it has become increasingly harder to buy a crappy device even if you go for the cheapest one, and with little research before buying you can ensure to avoid surprises.

It looks like the JXD units are some of the more easily obtainable units available out there.  But I see the same issues being brought up with those.  I have seen the N64 and PSX compatibility demonstrated, but in their current state. I don't believe I would bother.   Gliitchy, slow, etc.. so little gain on that end.  There is also a push to put larger and larger screens on these devices, which, unless you want to pretend you are playing a Wii-U, I don't find as a positive on a device designed to carry around.

Quote
So anyway, let me put it this way: if I could find Android phone with similar power as Xperia Play, but with better d-pad/joystick, say as good as on GCW:Zero, and if it was under $150, would you then rather buy that over GCW:Zero?

Phone? Yes, that would interest me.  But it wouldn't take much for the controls to be "better" than those on the Xperia.  How about "really good" instead? :)  It'll be hard to gauge at this point, though, since not too many people have the GCW:Zero.
« Last Edit: January 26, 2013, 04:55:24 pm by RandyT »

tris_d

  • -driverman-
  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 51
  • Last login:February 24, 2013, 03:23:13 am
  • I want to build my own arcade controls!
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #101 on: January 26, 2013, 04:54:24 pm »
I respect your opinion, but I still don't see why I shouldn't back the GCW. the alternatives are still unappealing to me and you haven't presented any factual evidence to sway my opinion. Like I said, out of all the options out there, the GCW looks the most promising for my needs.

If I were you I'd be worried about just one thing:
- "Another thing that we are still working on is the OpenGL driver."

It sounds to me like they are avoiding to license proper drivers, and if so it will hardly ever be worked out. That's old story with Linux and graphic drivers due to GPU functions being kept secret, in order to protect IP or hide stolen IP. It doesn't mean games would run poorly as you still have 1GHz CPU, but the device as a whole would be underutilized. And what that means is that any 1Ghz Android device, most if not all of which do have proper GPU drivers, would likely outperform GCW, and possibly by large margin.
« Last Edit: January 26, 2013, 05:09:50 pm by tris_d »
This user is driverman. Permanent probationary status contingent upon following forum rules of decorum. --- saint

404

  • Trade Count: (+3)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1019
  • Last login:August 04, 2015, 10:19:10 pm
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #102 on: January 26, 2013, 05:10:19 pm »
There are answers to these questions.  The GCW folks have stated that they will not support the use any emulators which are not open source.   It's simple to infer from this position that they intend to take the work of others, improve where they are able, and optimize it for the Zero.  Again, they are making clear that support for the hardware is a part of what they intend to offer.   Whether you have confidence in that notion is up to you.


To be clear, GCW has absolutely ZERO say in what the unit runs and doesn't. Any coder can make anything that runs on the GCW as it's devoid of DRM. This "support" stuff is pure nonsense and anyone that takes the time to think about that will realize it.


Regardless, that doesn't change the reality of things.  They are able to make things work, which don't currently on other platforms.  I also find the future of Android for this type of thing very promising.  However, the best solutions are likely going to be app products which you will need to purchase.  That's not a bad thing, as financial motivation can do wonders for a developer's progress.  But they aren't there yet, and they are already charging money for them.   I'm sure there are also quite a number of Android devices those apps won't work on, or perform poorly with.  A strong, standardized hardware base with good developer support is key for a device like this, as that is the reason you saw improvements in quality for every year a specific classic console was continuing to be offered.

Made things work? From what they have shown, it's really not at a playable stage yet. See my post above concerning psx/psone emulation. Doesn't matter how anyone tries to spin things, it's still nowhere near where it needs to be.

This doesn't answer the questions I posed.

The reason I included the Pandora was that they too have their own scene, not because I thought the architectures were similar.  There was also talk from GCW about teaming up with the other communities, Pandora mentioned specifically, and working toward advancing the emulators.  What is found to work on one, will certainly be of value to the other, so long as the system performances are on par.

I'm really scratching my head over this one. Really, why would you bother to even bring this up? Any coder with half a brain knows that even if both companies teamed up right now and made some sort of ground breaking announcement it would involve either both units running the same OS, api and/or having the same architecture. They currently do not share any of those traits with each other and would be a long way off.  Silly IMO to even bring this up.

Sure, you might find an extremely talented and devoted individual who will not rest until he has perfected everything and won't take a dime for doing so

^^ Basically didn't need to post any further beyond that IMO

You are, of course, entitled to your view.  But since they are being sticklers about the open-source nature of the system and software they choose to support, one would have to conclude that the fixes they come up with will be made public knowledge, and benefit the rest of the community.  Whether those fixes are such that they can be implemented on a lower hardware base is another question, but that wouldn't be the fault of GCW.

And yet, you made a big fuss about the addition of the FPU to the latest igenic SOC and GCW's ability to use the FPU even if it broke compatability with other Igenic devices. We both know that they could simply use the cpu power overhead to improve emulators running on the GCW without compromising compatibility. Yet, they are promoting FPU usage in their hardware as if it were a godsend to EVERYONE in the community.

Don't we all ;).  But which one specifically are you rooting for to actually make the Zero the completely unnecessary device you claim it to be?  It's fairly obvious you are rooting for a different team and I'm curious to know which.

I thought i made it pretty clear that i have various consoles. I can already run dingux on a number of different systems including my gamebox and gbasp clone. I don't need a dingoo or GCW for that matter. I'm not rooting for any team. I'm not a vendor, don't sell products and don't pander to an audience. Most importantly, I don't need to put an already completed console which already sold 2-3 batches on to the digital pan-handling website kickstarter for "funding".
« Last Edit: January 26, 2013, 05:13:21 pm by 404 »

Well Fed Games

  • Trade Count: (+6)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1884
  • Last login:January 07, 2025, 04:42:47 pm
  • Delicious!
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #103 on: January 26, 2013, 05:38:33 pm »
I don't need to put an already completed console which already sold 2-3 batches on to the digital pan-handling website kickstarter for "funding".

For what it is worth, Kickstarter is as much a venue for PR as it is for funding at this point. And not sure if fund raising=begging anyway. My favorite band just successfully kickstarted an album, and it was probably the best album "purchasing" experience I've had as a fan. I hope they do it for every album to come.
Completed projects: Pac bartop (Plug & Play), 30th Anniversary Pac cab (MAME), Point Blank (PS1), Centipede (arcade hardware- light restore), VS. Super Mario Bros (arcade hardware- light restore) Tetris Cocktail (SNES), Arcade Classics upright (60-in-1, then MAME), Multi-Raiden (arcade hardware). Pac Man vs.(Gamecube),

Working on: Pinball Re-theme, Homebrew arcade arena shooter

tris_d

  • -driverman-
  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 51
  • Last login:February 24, 2013, 03:23:13 am
  • I want to build my own arcade controls!
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #104 on: January 26, 2013, 05:52:52 pm »
It looks like the JXD units are some of the more easily obtainable units available out there.  But I see the same issues being brought up with those.  I have seen the N64 and PSX compatibility demonstrated, but in their current state. I don't believe I would bother.   Gliitchy, slow, etc.. so little gain on that end.  There is also a push to put larger and larger screens on these devices, which, unless you want to pretend you are playing a Wii-U, I don't find as a positive on a device designed to carry around.

Possibly you are reading some forums where people come to complain about bugs. There are probably hundreds times more people who have nothing to complain about. I've been working on Android for more than a year now, and in process testing software on many various devices almost daily, so I can report to you maybe one in 50 phones would have any problems, mostly just random force close issues or in worst case complete refusal to start application.

1GHz Android should run N64 and PlayStation emulator at full speed, I think even 700MHz CPU with good GPU could. Maybe you didn't try good emulators. I think the best ones were taken off the market, for some reason, and possibly there are no any good left for free. I have whole bunch of them, including those good ones that are no longer available on the market. Let me know if you want to try them out and I'll upload it somewhere.


Quote
Phone? Yes, that would interest me.  But it wouldn't take much for the controls to be "better" than those on the Xperia.  How about "really good" instead? :)  It'll be hard to gauge at this point, though, since not too many people have the GCW:Zero.

Phone, yes, what else? Tablets are too big to be contenders to GCW. A phone with d-pad or stick even, I'll try to google it later on. Something like XperiaPlay, only better and cheaper. I think I shall find something, something interesting at least. That would be the only serious contender to GCW, don't know what else.
This user is driverman. Permanent probationary status contingent upon following forum rules of decorum. --- saint

opt2not

  • Trade Count: (+15)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 6173
  • Last login:April 02, 2024, 07:42:30 pm
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #105 on: January 26, 2013, 06:44:59 pm »
Hey 404, those are all RandyT's quotes, two of your posts back, not mine. Seems to be a theme for you with information you read...  :laugh2:

404

  • Trade Count: (+3)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1019
  • Last login:August 04, 2015, 10:19:10 pm
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #106 on: January 26, 2013, 07:09:17 pm »
Hey 404, those are all RandyT's quotes, two of your posts back, not mine. Seems to be a theme for you with information you read...  :laugh2:

Noticed a horrific pattern of really bad multi-quote support in SMF. Their nested multi-quote really sucks. We should make a kickstarter to save arcadecontrols from the worst forum software imaginable. Now that would be some worthy digital pan-handling!

tris_d

  • -driverman-
  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 51
  • Last login:February 24, 2013, 03:23:13 am
  • I want to build my own arcade controls!
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #107 on: January 26, 2013, 07:11:35 pm »
Phone? Yes, that would interest me.  But it wouldn't take much for the controls to be "better" than those on the Xperia.  How about "really good" instead? :)  It'll be hard to gauge at this point, though, since not too many people have the GCW:Zero.


How about this, little sticky joysticks:





Complete handheld:


http://www.aliexpress.com/item/JXD-S7300-1gb-ddr3-android-4-1-1024-600-hdmi-camera-wifi-3G-dual-joysticks-superuser/736007608.html

* Screen Size: 7.0" (1024*600 pixel )
* Cortex A9 Dual core 1.5GHz CPU, ARM mali400 GPU,
* 1GB DDR3 RAM, 8GB internal storage
* 5 point capacitive touch, double LR buttons, two sticks, G-sensor
* HDMI Dual-screen display,  up to 1080P
* USB2.0 High Speed / OTG Connector (keyboard, mouse, flash disk...)
* Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g/n), external connection to Ethernet and 3G

$140.80
« Last Edit: January 26, 2013, 07:58:51 pm by tris_d »
This user is driverman. Permanent probationary status contingent upon following forum rules of decorum. --- saint

RandyT

  • Trade Count: (+14)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 7014
  • Last login:Today at 01:59:43 pm
  • Friends don't let friends hack keyboards.
    • GroovyGameGear.com
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #108 on: January 26, 2013, 07:46:28 pm »
To be clear, GCW has absolutely ZERO say in what the unit runs and doesn't. Any coder can make anything that runs on the GCW as it's devoid of DRM. This "support" stuff is pure nonsense and anyone that takes the time to think about that will realize it.

Obviously.  When I stated "support", I meant the direction of their resources toward a given piece of software.

Quote
Made things work? From what they have shown, it's really not at a playable stage yet. See my post above concerning psx/psone emulation. Doesn't matter how anyone tries to spin things, it's still nowhere near where it needs to be.

Wasn't referring to PSX emulation.  More like SNES titles where the FX co-processor was used, transparency effects, advanced interrupt coding methodologies, etc.

Quote
Any coder with half a brain knows that even if both companies teamed up right now and made some sort of ground breaking announcement it would involve either both units running the same OS, api and/or having the same architecture. They currently do not share any of those traits with each other and would be a long way off.  Silly IMO to even bring this up.

I guess it's a good thing I have whole one then.  When solving difficult problems, it's not the exact thing one does which is important, rather the methodology and approach one takes.  Those approaches are portable.  In the case of emulation, certain titles are programmed for the native consoles in ways which are undocumented, and in some cases not known to writers of the emulation software.  A couple of the examples shown where the emulator on the GCW:Zero was able to display certain elements of the game, missing on the same game under a different emulator, show this quite clearly.  That doesn't mean the other emulator or hardware running under it isn't able to be fixed, but it could mean that the emulation author didn't know how to accommodate the way the game was programmed and have it function correctly.  This is the type of information which will help further compatibility in the hands of an experienced coder.


Quote
And yet, you made a big fuss about the addition of the FPU to the latest igenic SOC and GCW's ability to use the FPU even if it broke compatability with other Igenic devices. We both know that they could simply use the cpu power overhead to improve emulators running on the GCW without compromising compatibility. Yet, they are promoting FPU usage in their hardware as if it were a godsend to EVERYONE in the community.

I think you are reading more into it than what was actually stated.  Any good coder will utilize the resources they have available when they are applicable to the task at hand.  One never knows when that additional overhead will be required for the things for which there are no hardware resources.  Better for them to do it it up front than realize that the horsepower they could have saved is the difference between getting something to run well and not.  Should they also not use the GPU?


Quote
I thought i made it pretty clear that i have various consoles. I can already run dingux on a number of different systems including my gamebox and gbasp clone. I don't need a dingoo or GCW for that matter. I'm not rooting for any team. I'm not a vendor, don't sell products and don't pander to an audience. Most importantly, I don't need to put an already completed console which already sold 2-3 batches on to the digital pan-handling website kickstarter for "funding".

Well, I don't really have a horse in this race either.  I also have a gamebox, and have witnessed the hell people were going through to try to get it do anything other than what it was shipped with.  I'm sure there must have been some progress by now, but I gave up on it.  Have they managed to get this fully opened up now?  Anyway, the KickStarter for the GCW:Zero has surpassed it's goal by a good margin, even making it past the second stretch goal.  There seems to be demand for the device, so using KickStarter to get the word out looks like it was a good strategy.  Will they deliver on the promises? Time will tell.  If they do, then great, if not, it's still going to work at least as well as a Dingoo, with a little larger screen and more memory.  Not worth getting emotional about for the small difference in cost.

Possibly you are reading some forums where people come to complain about bugs. There are probably hundreds times more people who have nothing to complain about. I've been working on Android for more than a year now, and in process testing software on many various devices almost daily, so I can report to you maybe one in 50 phones would have any problems, mostly just random force close issues or in worst case complete refusal to start application.

Heh, you must not be dealing with some of these wonderful Chinese tablets.  You get what you pay for with these, so issues are expected.  It's always fun to go to the app store and find a cool looking app thinking "I wonder if this one will work".   But for the most part they do what I need them to, after some tweaking.  I can't help but to think that the gaming units won't be very different in this regard.

Quote
1GHz Android should run N64 and PlayStation emulator at full speed, I think even 700MHz CPU with good GPU could. Maybe you didn't try good emulators. I think the best ones were taken off the market, for some reason, and possibly there are no any good left for free. I have whole bunch of them, including those good ones that are no longer available on the market. Let me know if you want to try them out and I'll upload it somewhere.

Thanks for digging those up, but I've seen them.  Too big, on-screen controls, etc...They don't really compete at the form factor.  I've mostly been looking at the YouTube videos and reviews.  Here's one, albeit a bit old, which shows how performance can vary between two supposedly comparable Android devices...it may have improved by now, but it's an interesting video.


opt2not

  • Trade Count: (+15)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 6173
  • Last login:April 02, 2024, 07:42:30 pm
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #109 on: January 26, 2013, 07:46:49 pm »
Those look interesting, but the obvious concern for me is they're huge! I can't fit those in my pocket at 9.5"x5"...that's like carrying around a Wii-U!
Plus ugly sprite scaling isn't for me...

The specs look good though, and if I just wanted to play 3D games like PSX or N64 exclusively, I'd probably consider those. But I want good looking sprite-games I can carry around.

Btw: 47 hours to go, and almost at stretch goal #3! Gimme some of that pouch action! :lol ;)

404

  • Trade Count: (+3)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1019
  • Last login:August 04, 2015, 10:19:10 pm
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #110 on: January 26, 2013, 07:50:47 pm »

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/7-INCH-S7300-dual-Core-Smart-android-4-1-1gbddr-8GB-consoles-dual-joysticks-dual-speaker/735860776.html

* Screen Size: 7.0" (1024*600 pixel )
* Cortex A9 Dual core 1.5GHz CPU, ARM mali400 GPU,
* 1GB DDR3 RAM, 8GB internal storage
* 5 point capacitive touch, double LR buttons, two sticks, G-sensor
* HDMI Dual-screen display,  up to 1080P
* USB2.0 High Speed / OTG Connector (keyboard, mouse, flash disk...)
* Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g/n), external connection to Ethernet and 3G

$141.50

Friend of mine was just shipped a sample of the S7300. should know how well that works in the next few days.  :D

tris_d

  • -driverman-
  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 51
  • Last login:February 24, 2013, 03:23:13 am
  • I want to build my own arcade controls!
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #111 on: January 26, 2013, 07:57:48 pm »
Those look interesting, but the obvious concern for me is they're huge! I can't fit those in my pocket at 9.5"x5"...that's like carrying around a Wii-U!
Plus ugly sprite scaling isn't for me...

The specs look good though, and if I just wanted to play 3D games like PSX or N64 exclusively, I'd probably consider those. But I want good looking sprite-games I can carry around.

Btw: 47 hours to go, and almost at stretch goal #3! Gimme some of that pouch action! :lol ;)

What do you mean ugly sprite scaling? Because the screen is large so all the game would get scaled? There is powerful GPU there to anti-alias all that, smooth the whole screen. Plus, lots of emulator i think have some post-rendering filters like scan lines effect and such, just like on a PC.
 
By the way, I just realized those four handhelds are actually just one and the same device, from different suppliers I guess, hence different price. I'll delete 3 and leave just one.
This user is driverman. Permanent probationary status contingent upon following forum rules of decorum. --- saint

tris_d

  • -driverman-
  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 51
  • Last login:February 24, 2013, 03:23:13 am
  • I want to build my own arcade controls!
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #112 on: January 26, 2013, 07:59:51 pm »
Friend of mine was just shipped a sample of the S7300. should know how well that works in the next few days.  :D

I'm looking forward to hear about it.
This user is driverman. Permanent probationary status contingent upon following forum rules of decorum. --- saint

RandyT

  • Trade Count: (+14)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 7014
  • Last login:Today at 01:59:43 pm
  • Friends don't let friends hack keyboards.
    • GroovyGameGear.com
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #113 on: January 26, 2013, 08:12:59 pm »
Friend of mine was just shipped a sample of the S7300. should know how well that works in the next few days.  :D

Looks like a nice unit, based on the videos.  If I was in the market for something that large, this one would be on the short list.

opt2not

  • Trade Count: (+15)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 6173
  • Last login:April 02, 2024, 07:42:30 pm
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #114 on: January 26, 2013, 08:18:29 pm »
What do you mean ugly sprite scaling? Because the screen is large so all the game would get scaled? There is powerful GPU there to anti-alias all that, smooth the whole screen. Plus, lots of emulator i think have some post-rendering filters like scan lines effect and such, just like on a PC.
Exactly, ugly. You'll never going to be able to get it looking like it did with those filters. Beleive me, I've put together a handful of mame cabs, working on a couple more at the moment (all posted here). I've exausted my patience with trying to get the original look on LCDs. This is why a majority of people on this forum build cabinets with an ArcadeVGA (in conjunction with soft15khz) hooked up to a CRT. At least, the good ones. ;)
I really don't want to get into this debate yet again, there are a ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- ton of threads about this already.

Native resolutions on a small screen is fine by me.

Welcome to the forum. Have a look around. ;)
« Last Edit: January 26, 2013, 08:23:19 pm by opt2not »

404

  • Trade Count: (+3)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1019
  • Last login:August 04, 2015, 10:19:10 pm
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #115 on: January 26, 2013, 08:47:58 pm »
Exactly, ugly. You'll never going to be able to get it looking like it did with those filters. Beleive me, I've put together a handful of mame cabs, working on a couple more at the moment (all posted here). I've exausted my patience with trying to get the original look on LCDs. This is why a majority of people on this forum build cabinets with an ArcadeVGA (in conjunction with soft15khz) hooked up to a CRT. At least, the good ones. ;)
I really don't want to get into this debate yet again, there are a ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- ton of threads about this already.

Native resolutions on a small screen is fine by me.

Welcome to the forum. Have a look around. ;)

You bash large screens because they offer "ugly" scaling for low resolutions yet you seemingly ignore the fact that the GCW offers a higher resolution than most retro games ran in natively.

Seriously, I rest my case.  :dunno

opt2not

  • Trade Count: (+15)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 6173
  • Last login:April 02, 2024, 07:42:30 pm
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #116 on: January 26, 2013, 09:09:53 pm »
You bash large screens because they offer "ugly" scaling for low resolutions yet you seemingly ignore the fact that the GCW offers a higher resolution than most retro games ran in natively.

Seriously, I rest my case.  :dunno

By what 16 pixels for most consoles? It would be ridiculous to scale at that difference. Please read the previous posts about resolutions.

Are we really going to bring up your $15 price difference issue yet again? Same type of exaggeration.

Just take your case and please do rest it. You're embarrassing yourself now.

tris_d

  • -driverman-
  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 51
  • Last login:February 24, 2013, 03:23:13 am
  • I want to build my own arcade controls!
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #117 on: January 26, 2013, 09:31:36 pm »
Heh, you must not be dealing with some of these wonderful Chinese tablets.  You get what you pay for with these, so issues are expected.  It's always fun to go to the app store and find a cool looking app thinking "I wonder if this one will work".   But for the most part they do what I need them to, after some tweaking.  I can't help but to think that the gaming units won't be very different in this regard.

I have tested quite a few tablets as well. I'd say the bottom line is that for any 1GHz Android you should be able to find at least one emulator (for almost any given platform, including N64 and PSX) that works well and full speed on that particular device.


Quote
Thanks for digging those up, but I've seen them.  Too big, on-screen controls, etc...They don't really compete at the form factor.  I've mostly been looking at the YouTube videos and reviews.  Here's one, albeit a bit old, which shows how performance can vary between two supposedly comparable Android devices...it may have improved by now, but it's an interesting video.

I think Snapdragon (the one that glitched) is actually better then the other one. Some other N64 emulator should work just fine on that phone, or some earlier version of that same emulator. It's annoying you have to try different emulators sometimes, but good chances are at least one should work just fine.
This user is driverman. Permanent probationary status contingent upon following forum rules of decorum. --- saint

Malenko

  • KNEEL BEFORE ZODlenko!
  • Trade Count: (+58)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 14019
  • Last login:July 02, 2025, 09:03:11 pm
  • Have you played with my GingerBalls?
    • forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,142404.msg1475162.html
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #118 on: January 26, 2013, 09:38:18 pm »
All these broken up quote replies are giving me Xouchebacks and headaches.  Im gonna get one of these because it looks like its gonna be a great little OTG device to play some old consoles. MAME and PSX performance dont mean much to me, but I think maybe we should draw our conclusions AFTER its released. For those who don't want to buy one......then don't buy one?

Haze, you seem to not like the "4all" emulators and what not, why not get MAME or MESS ported over to this or the dingoo?
If you're replying to a troll you are part of the problem.
I also need to follow this advice. Ignore or report, don't reply.

404

  • Trade Count: (+3)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1019
  • Last login:August 04, 2015, 10:19:10 pm
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #119 on: January 26, 2013, 10:21:43 pm »
By what 16 pixels for most consoles? It would be ridiculous to scale at that difference. Please read the previous posts about resolutions.

Are we really going to bring up your $15 price difference issue yet again? Same type of exaggeration.

Just take your case and please do rest it. You're embarrassing yourself now.

16 pixels? What will you be mostly playing?

And please, don't be so worried about me embarrassing myself. You have contradicted yourself at every step; even so much as ignoring my statements that there are cheaper units out there which make your continual $15 price difference excuse null and void. Then again, YOU are the one that wanted to bring up technical comparisons of the devices, not me.  8)

My gripe with them is their shady tactics. Your grip with everyone else is that their project is not as "kewl" as the GCW. 
« Last Edit: January 26, 2013, 10:23:55 pm by 404 »

opt2not

  • Trade Count: (+15)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 6173
  • Last login:April 02, 2024, 07:42:30 pm
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #120 on: January 26, 2013, 10:40:49 pm »
I've already posted what I'll be playing here in this thread.  Go find it.
Also the only contradiction was the HDMI comment. Which I owned up to.

Are you going to own up to being an elitist ---tallywhacker--- who hasn't contibuted anything but negative baseless remarks since you joined this forum?  Probably not.
Come back to me when you've contibuted something useful. I'm over it.

In more relivent news: Duke3D port!!


I really stoked to get the GCW.

tris_d

  • -driverman-
  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 51
  • Last login:February 24, 2013, 03:23:13 am
  • I want to build my own arcade controls!
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #121 on: January 26, 2013, 10:53:45 pm »
What do you mean ugly sprite scaling? Because the screen is large so all the game would get scaled? There is powerful GPU there to anti-alias all that, smooth the whole screen. Plus, lots of emulator i think have some post-rendering filters like scan lines effect and such, just like on a PC.
Exactly, ugly. You'll never going to be able to get it looking like it did with those filters. Beleive me, I've put together a handful of mame cabs, working on a couple more at the moment (all posted here). I've exausted my patience with trying to get the original look on LCDs. This is why a majority of people on this forum build cabinets with an ArcadeVGA (in conjunction with soft15khz) hooked up to a CRT. At least, the good ones. ;)
I really don't want to get into this debate yet again, there are a ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- ton of threads about this already.

Native resolutions on a small screen is fine by me.

Welcome to the forum. Have a look around. ;)

Actually, that is quite large. That's tablet size I realize now. It looks smaller on the photos.

Ok, how about this then, seems close to PSP format and design:


http://www.aliexpress.com/item/JXD-S602-4-3-Android-4-0-Handheld-Game-Console-Capacitive-touch-screen-Tablet-PC-WiFi/736086857.html

* Screen size: 4.3 inch (480x272)
* ARM Cortex A8 1GHz CPU, POWERVR SGX531 GPU
* 512MB DDR3 RAM, 4GB internal storage
* shoulder L & R buttons, D-pad, analog stick, G-sensor
* Support HDMI TV-out
* USB 2.0, Micro TF Card max. 32GB
* Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n

$63.58


I know that's good GPU, I have several devices with very similar hardware and this should run all the emulators at full speed no problem, with exception only to some MAME games. I think this could be quite a bit better buy than GCW.
This user is driverman. Permanent probationary status contingent upon following forum rules of decorum. --- saint

Singapura

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 496
  • Last login:April 24, 2015, 08:43:05 pm
  • I, for one welcome our new insect overlords!
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #122 on: January 26, 2013, 11:08:38 pm »
I have one of these: and despite the initial bad reviews, I found that it plays most of the retro console games flawlessly. Even better, the updated version of Final Fantasy III is the best I played on any console. The analogue sticks are as good as my PSP and the screen is nice enough to even surf and watch videos. Only the battery life sucks big time (3 hours tops). Mame works but I prefer a real stick anyway.
Wish list: Galaga, Pacman, Pooyan, Star Wars cockpit, Gauntlet, Tron

And the Lord spake, saying, 'First shalt thou take out the Holy Pin. Then, shalt thou count to three. No more. No less. Three shalt be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, nor either count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three.

404

  • Trade Count: (+3)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1019
  • Last login:August 04, 2015, 10:19:10 pm
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #123 on: January 26, 2013, 11:31:51 pm »
I've already posted what I'll be playing here in this thread.  Go find it.
Also the only contradiction was the HDMI comment. Which I owned up to.

Are you going to own up to being an elitist ---tallywhacker--- who hasn't contibuted anything but negative baseless remarks since you joined this forum?  Probably not.
Come back to me when you've contibuted something useful. I'm over it.

In more relivent news: Duke3D port!!


I really stoked to get the GCW.

Interesting... So because i haven't contributed anything (at least in your eyes), that makes me an elitist ---tallywhacker---. Quite an amusing comment really. I also find it rather amusing that instead of finding stronger debate points for the very subjects YOU brought up, you resort to petty and childish insults.

Now on to the allegations of "negative, baseless remarks" since I've joined the forum: I joined about 1.5 years ago to learn a bit more about the fine art of building arcade machines. That was long before there was a GCW and can't remember ever spending my time making constant "negative, baseless remarks" like you said.

 Onto the so called contributions i haven't made. I admit I'm far from an expert wood worker and/or mame expert. I've actually worked with a number of developers to port emulators for various home consoles in the past. Not to mention a slew of other homebrew projects. I also helped document a number of Igenic soc based hardware which are all part of the extended dingoo family. Nearly all of them now coincidentally can run a port of Dingux . Could all of that been done without me? Sure. I'd like to think i had a tiny hand played in all of that though.

opt2not

  • Trade Count: (+15)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 6173
  • Last login:April 02, 2024, 07:42:30 pm
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #124 on: January 27, 2013, 12:42:07 am »
Damn I miss pbj. I don't have nearly half the nose for sniffing out bs as he did.

404

  • Trade Count: (+3)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1019
  • Last login:August 04, 2015, 10:19:10 pm
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #125 on: January 27, 2013, 08:13:18 am »
Damn I miss pbj. I don't have nearly half the nose for sniffing out bs as he did.

Quite amusing really. You must really think those petty jabs are going to get at me. That's fine, I'm an adult with thick skin. Keep at it.

I never told you or anyone here not to buy anything. You can waste your dime on whatever you want. You got offended when i pointed out just how un-special the device is in a broader scope of things and how lame the team behind the portable is.


tris_d

  • -driverman-
  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 51
  • Last login:February 24, 2013, 03:23:13 am
  • I want to build my own arcade controls!
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #126 on: January 27, 2013, 09:38:15 am »
I never told you or anyone here not to buy anything. You can waste your dime on whatever you want. You got offended when i pointed out just how un-special the device is in a broader scope of things and how lame the team behind the portable is.

How about we decide on two more competing devices then google up benchmarks for all three and let numbers speak for themselves? I think absolute winner would be one of those Android gamepads with Cortex A9 Dual 1.5GHz + mali400 GPU, there is one with 5'' screen for around $70. Can you beat that?
This user is driverman. Permanent probationary status contingent upon following forum rules of decorum. --- saint

Bender

  • Trade Count: (+1)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1919
  • Last login:November 28, 2016, 08:12:21 pm
    • Happ to Tron Conversion tutorial
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #127 on: January 27, 2013, 10:35:05 am »
Like Randy indicated
it will all come down to support
I think there are some nice things happening with the GCW
I also think it will be a nice boost to the community that there will be a 1,500 or so in the hands of users all at once

RandyT

  • Trade Count: (+14)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 7014
  • Last login:Today at 01:59:43 pm
  • Friends don't let friends hack keyboards.
    • GroovyGameGear.com
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #128 on: January 27, 2013, 11:38:05 am »
How about we decide on two more competing devices then google up benchmarks for all three and let numbers speak for themselves? I think absolute winner would be one of those Android gamepads with Cortex A9 Dual 1.5GHz + mali400 GPU, there is one with 5'' screen for around $70. Can you beat that?

Can you find a link to this unit?  I haven't seen one with these specs in that price range.

The thing that still rubs me a bit with these is the fact that the physical controls are layered onto the touchscreen control scheme for most games.  It may work fine, but it seems a bit "hacky" to me, and seeing a visual confirmation of what button is being pressed, or where the stick is being moved, layered over game graphics is annoying.  I know some applications allow them to be turned off, but Android is primarily touch screen oriented, so that pretty much means that devices with physical controls are the "oddballs" as far as support from developers is concerned.  I also firmly believe that any application which has to run under the Android OS will have more breathing room under Linux, due to the number of background processes, etc.   So that, in my mind, says good things about the prospects for a device like the GCW:Zero.  So long as it has good code, support , and a fast processor, it should be able to do better than Android given equal specs.  Of course the lack of any of those could cripple it, so all we can do is wait and see what happens.

404

  • Trade Count: (+3)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1019
  • Last login:August 04, 2015, 10:19:10 pm
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #129 on: January 27, 2013, 11:53:44 am »
I have one of these: and despite the initial bad reviews, I found that it plays most of the retro console games flawlessly. Even better, the updated version of Final Fantasy III is the best I played on any console. The analogue sticks are as good as my PSP and the screen is nice enough to even surf and watch videos. Only the battery life sucks big time (3 hours tops). Mame works but I prefer a real stick anyway.

Friend of mine who ended up being shipped a review sample of the JXD wii-u gamepad like device was very close to getting one of those archos units. I do feel that the Eurogamer review of the device was way too harsh and it almost felt like they simply blindly compared it to gaming on touch screen controls without any regard for gamers that will flat out refuse to play touch screen games because of the sheer lack of physical controls.


How about we decide on two more competing devices then google up benchmarks for all three and let numbers speak for themselves? I think absolute winner would be one of those Android gamepads with Cortex A9 Dual 1.5GHz + mali400 GPU, there is one with 5'' screen for around $70. Can you beat that?

Have to respectfully disagree. Not because i think those specs aren't strong enough etc but simply because i just feel that it's always entirely up to the end user. I have more than one igenic powered device. I don't need to shill out to a shady group for another one. I have android devices and chances are, if i were to really analyze things, i could come up with the same conclusion as to why i don't need another android device either. It boils down to what the end user wants, their price point and what's the most enjoyable for them.

 Because I don't feel like the GCW is worth my time and money doesn't mean i won't defend the right of the blindest fanboy to spend his money on one. It's their choice and i feel that android is really no different in that respect. There are some people that simply don't like the android platform. It's entirely their choice.

tris_d

  • -driverman-
  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 51
  • Last login:February 24, 2013, 03:23:13 am
  • I want to build my own arcade controls!
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #130 on: January 27, 2013, 02:06:44 pm »
Can you find a link to this unit?  I haven't seen one with these specs in that price range.

I couldn't find any 5 inch with 1.5GHz, I probably made a mistake. The smallest one with 1.5GHz seem to be 7 inch. Still, 1GHz should be quite enough. Format and size of this one seem close to PS Vita, you can see on YouTube how it (JXD S5110) runs N64, PS1 and other emulators. I fast-watched several videos and it all seems fine, also good reviews regarding build quality.


http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Factory-price-for-Hot-selling-JXD-S5110-Android4-0-game-console-WIFI-OTG-4G-Game-Console/642166478.html


Quote
The thing that still rubs me a bit with these is the fact that the physical controls are layered onto the touchscreen control scheme for most games.

Touchscreen input is separate from hard buttons input and input through USB. Like keyboard and mouse. If not used touchscreen could very well be disabled and not even supported by application at all.


Quote
It may work fine, but it seems a bit "hacky" to me, and seeing a visual confirmation of what button is being pressed, or where the stick is being moved, layered over game graphics is annoying.

If you are talking about virtual joysticks overlay, that can be turned off in every single emulator. People are quite aware, especially emulator developers, that people might wanna play games with external controllers.


Quote
I also firmly believe that any application which has to run under the Android OS will have more breathing room under Linux, due to the number of background processes, etc.

Perhaps on the phones, but these handhelds are build for gaming. There shouldn't be much processing going on in the background except for WiFi if activated. If games are running at full speed and frame-rates are stable rather than fluctuating then all is well, that's all it matters. I just wish people would turn on FPS counters when recording videos for YouTube so we would know how good, or bad, it actually is.


Quote
So that, in my mind, says good things about the prospects for a device like the GCW:Zero.  So long as it has good code, support , and a fast processor, it should be able to do better than Android given equal specs.  Of course the lack of any of those could cripple it, so all we can do is wait and see what happens.

Note that they don't have proper OpenGL drivers and so it's a question if they can use any graphic acceleration benefits from their GPU at all. I'd say if GCW can push, say Metal Slug to 100fps, then that Android above would run it over 150fps. I'll check later on YouTube if anyone bothered to perform any such benchmarks.
This user is driverman. Permanent probationary status contingent upon following forum rules of decorum. --- saint

RandyT

  • Trade Count: (+14)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 7014
  • Last login:Today at 01:59:43 pm
  • Friends don't let friends hack keyboards.
    • GroovyGameGear.com
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #131 on: January 27, 2013, 04:31:09 pm »
I couldn't find any 5 inch with 1.5GHz, I probably made a mistake. The smallest one with 1.5GHz seem to be 7 inch. Still, 1GHz should be quite enough. Format and size of this one seem close to PS Vita, you can see on YouTube how it (JXD S5110) runs N64, PS1 and other emulators. I fast-watched several videos and it all seems fine, also good reviews regarding build quality.

Well, this device isn't a 1gz machine, although some have been able to overclock it to that.  You should probably read this thread from start to finish to see what people have been doing with that unit to try to get some decent performance out of it.  Basically, everything I described as needing to be done with the Chinese tablets.  It's worth noting that the same individual who is so enamored by the GCW:Zero, and has been playtesting for them and posting the videos, also owns this and at least one other Android handheld.  He posts in that thread.

Quote
If you are talking about virtual joysticks overlay, that can be turned off in every single emulator. People are quite aware, especially emulator developers, that people might wanna play games with external controllers.

Fortunately, the emulators seem to be able to get rid of it, but most of the normal android games don't.  Either that, or the folks posting the videos don't know how.

Quote
Perhaps on the phones, but these handhelds are build for gaming. There shouldn't be much processing going on in the background except for WiFi if activated. If games are running at full speed and frame-rates are stable rather than fluctuating then all is well, that's all it matters. I just wish people would turn on FPS counters when recording videos for YouTube so we would know how good, or bad, it actually is.

I'd like to see that too.  Some of the videos I've seen definitely have frame skipping, and if they don't, are moving a good clip slower than they should.  One glaring example was Soul Blade, which I used to play quite a bit.  Audio stutter also seemed to be a common issue.

Quote
Note that they don't have proper OpenGL drivers and so it's a question if they can use any graphic acceleration benefits from their GPU at all. I'd say if GCW can push, say Metal Slug to 100fps, then that Android above would run it over 150fps. I'll check later on YouTube if anyone bothered to perform any such benchmarks.

It's worth noting that the Android devices coming out of China probably aren't using legit licensed OpenGL drivers either, but they still have them.  I'm not a lawyer, but the very expensive commercial license seems to be tied to distribution with hardware.  It seems like it could be made "available" without officially distributing it with the hardware.  There's probably an option to provide their own interface to the functions on the chip and port to them where necessary.   I'm no OpenGL systems programmer, so I don't fully understand the challenges they are facing in this regard.  But as you seem to, could you clarify exactly what the issue is with this?

opt2not

  • Trade Count: (+15)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 6173
  • Last login:April 02, 2024, 07:42:30 pm
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #132 on: January 27, 2013, 04:50:38 pm »
Stretch-goal #3 has been hit!  :applaud:
Good thing too, I didn't want to looking around for something to put this in while travelling.
Beats using a sock... :lol

tris_d

  • -driverman-
  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 51
  • Last login:February 24, 2013, 03:23:13 am
  • I want to build my own arcade controls!
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #133 on: January 27, 2013, 06:09:42 pm »
Well, this device isn't a 1gz machine, although some have been able to overclock it to that.  You should probably read this thread from start to finish to see what people have been doing with that unit to try to get some decent performance out of it. 

85 pages is a bit too much. I don't think they would advertise it falsely. So anyway, how fast is it then? Can you give more specific link to the source of that information?


Quote
Basically, everything I described as needing to be done with the Chinese tablets.  It's worth noting that the same individual who is so enamored by the GCW:Zero, and has been playtesting for them and posting the videos, also owns this and at least one other Android handheld.  He posts in that thread.

Videos and reviews on YouTube suggest otherwise. I didn't see anyone complaining about anything like that, just a few of them mentioned there are better emulators than the ones that come with the device.

See here for example:


It looks pretty good to me, I'd say those PS1 and N64 games run at least 30fps if not full speed.


Quote
Fortunately, the emulators seem to be able to get rid of it, but most of the normal android games don't.  Either that, or the folks posting the videos don't know how.

I'm not even counting Android games.


Quote
I'd like to see that too.  Some of the videos I've seen definitely have frame skipping, and if they don't, are moving a good clip slower than they should.  One glaring example was Soul Blade, which I used to play quite a bit.  Audio stutter also seemed to be a common issue.

I think that's all matter of installing the right emulator. Good emulator if runs properly on a given device should not stutter even if frame-rate drops below 10fps.


Quote
It's worth noting that the Android devices coming out of China probably aren't using legit licensed OpenGL drivers either, but they still have them.  I'm not a lawyer, but the very expensive commercial license seems to be tied to distribution with hardware.  It seems like it could be made "available" without officially distributing it with the hardware.  There's probably an option to provide their own interface to the functions on the chip and port to them where necessary.   I'm no OpenGL systems programmer, so I don't fully understand the challenges they are facing in this regard.  But as you seem to, could you clarify exactly what the issue is with this?

It's Operating System thing, or better to say "Windowing System". There are drivers for Android, but there are no drivers for Linux. Just like there are drivers for Windows and X11, but there are no drivers for DOS or Linux console on desktop computers, other than basic frame-buffer. The challenge is to make hardware do things without blueprints which are kept secret. On desktop computers it's ATI and Nvidia who write drivers for their hardware and specific Operating Systems they choose, no one else could. It was a big problem for desktop Linux whole last decade until ATI and Nvidia decided to start making X11 drivers few years ago.
« Last Edit: January 27, 2013, 06:14:31 pm by tris_d »
This user is driverman. Permanent probationary status contingent upon following forum rules of decorum. --- saint

RandyT

  • Trade Count: (+14)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 7014
  • Last login:Today at 01:59:43 pm
  • Friends don't let friends hack keyboards.
    • GroovyGameGear.com
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #134 on: January 27, 2013, 07:31:53 pm »
85 pages is a bit too much. I don't think they would advertise it falsely. So anyway, how fast is it then? Can you give more specific link to the source of that information?

I suffered through it on my quest for knowledge, so you can too  :D.  One of the folks in that thread said theirs was locked at 600mhz, and required a kernal hack to go beyond that.  And that's another interesting thing you see in the promotional materials.  Either they don't say, or you see a reseller stating 1ghz, probably because, if you are lucky, you will be able to overclock it to that for as long as it lasts at that speed.

Quote
Videos and reviews on YouTube suggest otherwise. I didn't see anyone complaining about anything like that, just a few of them mentioned there are better emulators than the ones that come with the device.

The video is a piece of promotional material.  You don't think they are going to show you the ones which don't work great, do you?  But yes, it's not bad, but there is still frame skipping happening on a few of those.

Quote
It's Operating System thing, or better to say "Windowing System". There are drivers for Android, but there are no drivers for Linux. Just like there are drivers for Windows and X11, but there are no drivers for DOS or Linux console on desktop computers, other than basic frame-buffer. The challenge is to make hardware do things without blueprints which are kept secret. On desktop computers it's ATI and Nvidia who write drivers for their hardware and specific Operating Systems they choose, no one else could. It was a big problem for desktop Linux whole last decade until ATI and Nvidia decided to start making X11 drivers few years ago.

Sounds like they need to write their own API for the hardware and then make the means of communication with the API publicly available.  I'm not sure what type of legalities are involved there, so that's up to them to figure out.  According to their blog, they currently have  3 people working on the implementation of OpenGL, in whatever form it ends up as.  It sounds like they are going to have some money to throw at the issue, so it doesn't seem insurmountable.

Something else which I thought was interesting;  I found a low-cost Android tablet which uses the same processor slated for the GCW:Zero.  It's worth a view.  The tablet is pushing around 384000 pixels as compared to the only 76800 which will be required for the smaller screen size of the Zero.  Even on the higher-resolution tablet, it seems to do a nice job.  If they do manage to get the kinks worked out on the 3D engine, it really doesn't seem like good N64 and PSX emulation will be an impossibility.  Here's the tablet video:

« Last Edit: January 27, 2013, 09:38:09 pm by RandyT »

tris_d

  • -driverman-
  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 51
  • Last login:February 24, 2013, 03:23:13 am
  • I want to build my own arcade controls!
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #135 on: January 28, 2013, 04:57:28 am »
I suffered through it on my quest for knowledge, so you can too  :D.  One of the folks in that thread said theirs was locked at 600mhz, and required a kernal hack to go beyond that.  And that's another interesting thing you see in the promotional materials.  Either they don't say, or you see a reseller stating 1ghz, probably because, if you are lucky, you will be able to overclock it to that for as long as it lasts at that speed.

I find that very strange, however even 600MHz with such powerful GPU could quite possibly still run PSX and N64 emulators at good frame-rates, while without proper GPU drivers GCW could have 2GHz CPU and still perform worse. For 3D console emulators, OpenGL drivers are very important. However if GCW's CPU is indeed faster it could outperform JDX on all the other 2D emulators, under condition there is no any screen scaling or anti-aliasing.


Quote
Sounds like they need to write their own API for the hardware and then make the means of communication with the API publicly available.  I'm not sure what type of legalities are involved there, so that's up to them to figure out.  According to their blog, they currently have  3 people working on the implementation of OpenGL, in whatever form it ends up as.  It sounds like they are going to have some money to throw at the issue, so it doesn't seem insurmountable.

API is OpenGL ES, what they need is low level drivers for their particular GPU. It's equivalent of writing Nvidia drivers for DOS supporting full specs DirectX 11. On the other hand, it's mainly important just for PSX and N64, for textures, scaling and anti-aliasing, so most other emulators should run just fine even without it.


Quote
Something else which I thought was interesting;  I found a low-cost Android tablet which uses the same processor slated for the GCW:Zero.  It's worth a view.  The tablet is pushing around 384000 pixels as compared to the only 76800 which will be required for the smaller screen size of the Zero.  Even on the higher-resolution tablet, it seems to do a nice job.  If they do manage to get the kinks worked out on the 3D engine, it really doesn't seem like good  and PSX emulation will be an impossibility.  Here's the tablet video:

It's similar to comparing emulators on DOS and Windows some 10 years ago. You could have good DOS emulators for all except N64 and PSX for which you need Windows because unlike DOS it has graphic drivers fully utilizing GPU. GCW is "DOS", it needs "Windows" for which drivers are already written, it needs Android.

I wouldn't expect they would be able to ever write drivers, I don't think it ever happened before. And so I don't think PSX and N64 emulators will ever run on GCW better than 30fps, possibly much worse, while in the same time from what I've seen so far I expect JXD S5110 runs PSX and N64 at least 30fps.
This user is driverman. Permanent probationary status contingent upon following forum rules of decorum. --- saint

tris_d

  • -driverman-
  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 51
  • Last login:February 24, 2013, 03:23:13 am
  • I want to build my own arcade controls!
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #136 on: January 28, 2013, 05:46:55 am »


Out Run apparently runs at 15-20fps on GCW, that's terrible. GP2X can do better I think.
This user is driverman. Permanent probationary status contingent upon following forum rules of decorum. --- saint

RandyT

  • Trade Count: (+14)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 7014
  • Last login:Today at 01:59:43 pm
  • Friends don't let friends hack keyboards.
    • GroovyGameGear.com
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #137 on: January 28, 2013, 02:06:59 pm »
I find that very strange, however even 600MHz with such powerful GPU could quite possibly still run PSX and N64 emulators at good frame-rates, while without proper GPU drivers GCW could have 2GHz CPU and still perform worse. For 3D console emulators, OpenGL drivers are very important. However if GCW's CPU is indeed faster it could outperform JDX on all the other 2D emulators, under condition there is no any screen scaling or anti-aliasing.

They pretty much stated that they are using as little scaling or anti-aliasing as possible.  It will be necessary with some, but very few.  But like you said, everything changes if they get the GPU going.

Quote
API is OpenGL ES, what they need is low level drivers for their particular GPU. It's equivalent of writing Nvidia drivers for DOS supporting full specs DirectX 11. On the other hand, it's mainly important just for PSX and N64, for textures, scaling and anti-aliasing, so most other emulators should run just fine even without it.

Well, that's a possibility.  If they can get enough information on how to talk to the chip (maybe not possible) they probably wouldn't need a full implementation. 

Quote
It's similar to comparing emulators on DOS and Windows some 10 years ago. You could have good DOS emulators for all except N64 and PSX for which you need Windows because unlike DOS it has graphic drivers fully utilizing GPU. GCW is "DOS", it needs "Windows" for which drivers are already written, it needs Android.

I wouldn't expect they would be able to ever write drivers, I don't think it ever happened before. And so I don't think PSX and N64 emulators will ever run on GCW better than 30fps, possibly much worse, while in the same time from what I've seen so far I expect JXD S5110 runs PSX and N64 at least 30fps.

The emulators in the early days always seemed to perform better under DOS, than in Windows on the same machine.  The same situation should apply here, when comparing to an emulator running under Linux and Android.  I understand that the issue is the OpenGL driver availability, but I get the feeling that it's further along than you might think.  Take a look at this post.  Ingenic looks to be on the job, perhaps at the behest of the GCW folks.  The files they linked to are no longer on the Ingenic site, so they were probably placed there for someone to have access to them, and removed when the links were discovered.  You'll note that it is a Linux folder with all of the OpenGl files in it for the Vivante GPU.  My guess is that if anyone has access to the information required to pull this off, it would be Ingenic.
« Last Edit: January 28, 2013, 03:02:43 pm by RandyT »

opt2not

  • Trade Count: (+15)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 6173
  • Last login:April 02, 2024, 07:42:30 pm
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #138 on: January 28, 2013, 05:51:29 pm »
< 1.5hrs to go, and we've hit our 4th stretch goal over 230K!  Great job everyone who backed this!
At first I was worried we'd barely hit the initial target, but as word got out, more and more people got excited about this and it really shows that people know that this device is going to be awesome!

...now to start coming up with my list of what to play...  :cheers:

tris_d

  • -driverman-
  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 51
  • Last login:February 24, 2013, 03:23:13 am
  • I want to build my own arcade controls!
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #139 on: January 28, 2013, 06:07:52 pm »
They pretty much stated that they are using as little scaling or anti-aliasing as possible.  It will be necessary with some, but very few.  But like you said, everything changes if they get the GPU going.

Many tried on PSX, PSP and PS3 for many years, and on desktop Linux for at least a decade, achieving at best some 30% of what it would be possible if ATI, Nvidia and Sony open sourced their drivers.


Quote
Well, that's a possibility.  If they can get enough information on how to talk to the chip (maybe not possible) they probably wouldn't need a full implementation. 

Unfortunately after seeing videos where SNES and Genesis emulators run at only 30-40fps it seems as if there is some hindrance in not using GPU properly. It's like GPU stands in a way as SNES on 30fps is very disappointing and worrying for 1GHz CPU. Doesn't seem right, at all.
 

Quote
The emulators in the early days always seemed to perform better under DOS, than in Windows on the same machine.  The same situation should apply here, when comparing to an emulator running under Linux and Android.

It's because until some point in time DOS could utilize video cards (VESA) just as well as Windows. Windows had some overhead and thus DOS could be faster. But all changed with 3D acceleration. Windows was so popular by the time no one provided DOS drivers anymore. And instead of to accelerate VESA it was abandoned to serve as some kind of fall-back or back-up functionality.

I'm afraid situation on mobile devices is different, I don't think there is even VESA on that GPU, they probably have nothing but some generic frame-buffer driver, and if that thing is slow it would not only hinder 3D emulators, it would impact all them, as unfortunately seems to be the case.


Quote
I understand that the issue is the OpenGL driver availability, but I get the feeling that it's further along than you might think.  Take a look at this post.  Ingenic looks to be on the job, perhaps at the behest of the GCW folks.  The files they linked to are no longer on the Ingenic site, so they were probably placed there for someone to have access to them, and removed when the links were discovered.  You'll note that it is a Linux folder with all of the OpenGl files in it for the Vivante GPU.  My guess is that if anyone has access to the information required to pull this off, it would be Ingenic.

For what device is that driver, some Android? If any Android device is using that particular Vivante GPU I think it would be easier to install complete Android ROM from some of those devices to GCW than to make just the video driver work on their system. People couldn't use Windows drivers to make Linux or DOS drivers, so I wouldn't hope much for anything like that. It sounds possible though, so maybe it's illegal.

It's also a question whether Ingenic or Vivante would even want GCW to have the drivers. Or maybe they just need to pay for them, I don't know. But I know Linux and homebrew on many consoles suffer the same problem for a while now, and with many people involved, yet without solution still.


By the way, I tested PSX emulator (FPse 0.10) on several 1GHz Android phones and they all could do Metal Gear Solid over 80fps. I played through whole 1st disc, with the damn touchscreen, even accelerometer. It took me some time and struggle but it was fun enough. It ran flawlessly. Great game.
« Last Edit: January 28, 2013, 06:19:24 pm by tris_d »
This user is driverman. Permanent probationary status contingent upon following forum rules of decorum. --- saint

tris_d

  • -driverman-
  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 51
  • Last login:February 24, 2013, 03:23:13 am
  • I want to build my own arcade controls!
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #140 on: January 28, 2013, 06:15:00 pm »
I meant to edit previous post, not reply to myself.
« Last Edit: January 28, 2013, 06:18:49 pm by tris_d »
This user is driverman. Permanent probationary status contingent upon following forum rules of decorum. --- saint

RandyT

  • Trade Count: (+14)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 7014
  • Last login:Today at 01:59:43 pm
  • Friends don't let friends hack keyboards.
    • GroovyGameGear.com
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #141 on: January 29, 2013, 12:27:31 am »
Many tried on PSX, PSP and PS3 for many years, and on desktop Linux for at least a decade, achieving at best some 30% of what it would be possible if ATI, Nvidia and Sony open sourced their drivers.

Actually, I was referring to scaling of 2D , not 3D.

Quote
Unfortunately after seeing videos where SNES and Genesis emulators run at only 30-40fps it seems as if there is some hindrance in not using GPU properly. It's like GPU stands in a way as SNES on 30fps is very disappointing and worrying for 1GHz CPU. Doesn't seem right, at all.

It doesn't really seem "wrong" at this stage of development either.  Based on what I have been seeing, the focus seems to be more on getting things working, than getting the most speed possible.  It's actually the natural order of development.  1) make it work 2) optimize it so it works faster.  I think what you are seeing at the moment is fairly stock emulation software from the Dingoo, which is being tweaked to fix some issues.  It's doubtful that any substantial code optimizations have been done yet.   Looking at how well Quake2 runs, without a GPU, should be a pretty good indicator as to what the device is capable of on the number crunching side of things.
 

Quote
It's because until some point in time DOS could utilize video cards (VESA) just as well as Windows. Windows had some overhead and thus DOS could be faster. But all changed with 3D acceleration. Windows was so popular by the time no one provided DOS drivers anymore. And instead of to accelerate VESA it was abandoned to serve as some kind of fall-back or back-up functionality.

I know that there were accelerated VESA cards.  2D, mostly for speeding up mundane tasks like Excel and Word displays, but they did exist.  In any event, 3D acceleration is only important once you start looking at 3D consoles and fancy graphics scaling.  When VESA was still in serious play, 3D was in it's infancy.  In the very early days, some 3D cards didn't even do video, rather worked in conjunction with the video card in the system.  In those days, you didn't play 3D games, what few there were, under Windows (and we had to walk 2 miles in the snow, uphill in both directions, to get to school :) )  Also, emulation, and gaming in general,  was done is DOS because it was the only way at the time to get the speed required.  Eventually it became a reality in Windows, and we were all so impressed ;).

Quote
I'm afraid situation on mobile devices is different, I don't think there is even VESA on that GPU, they probably have nothing but some generic frame-buffer driver, and if that thing is slow it would not only hinder 3D emulators, it would impact all them, as unfortunately seems to be the case.

That's probably all they really have at the moment, and if that is the case, it's doing pretty well compared to what a lesser device would do with the same hindrances.  I really think we need to see what happens with this unit.  It's not even officially available, and it's being compared to an OS on it's eleventyith version with mature GPU drivers, and hundreds of millions of users.  We should give it a chance to crawl before we expect it to run.

Quote
For what device is that driver, some Android? If any Android device is using that particular Vivante GPU I think it would be easier to install complete Android ROM from some of those devices to GCW than to make just the video driver work on their system. People couldn't use Windows drivers to make Linux or DOS drivers, so I wouldn't hope much for anything like that. It sounds possible though, so maybe it's illegal.

It's also a question whether Ingenic or Vivante would even want GCW to have the drivers. Or maybe they just need to pay for them, I don't know. But I know Linux and homebrew on many consoles suffer the same problem for a while now, and with many people involved, yet without solution still.

You'd be surprised at the difference a $150,000 check to a Chinese manufacturer could make.  I'm guessing the other folks didn't try that route yet ;).

But I think you missed the point of that link I posted.  The OpenGL files were in a Linux folder on the Ingenic FTP site.  Maybe it was an error, or maybe it's a work in progress. 

tris_d

  • -driverman-
  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 51
  • Last login:February 24, 2013, 03:23:13 am
  • I want to build my own arcade controls!
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #142 on: January 29, 2013, 06:47:31 am »
Actually, I was referring to scaling of 2D , not 3D.

Yes, 2D included. You need drivers for basics too, like plain video memory access, double buffering and vertical syncing. They don't seem to have direct access to even such basic functionality, otherwise SNES should perform way better.


Quote
It doesn't really seem "wrong" at this stage of development either.

Why do you think so, what are you comparing it with? I think graphics driver is the first thing they should have sorted out when developing gaming console, or look for some other platform with existing drivers. To me your optimism is kind of like hoping for DirectX drivers on DOS.


Quote
Based on what I have been seeing, the focus seems to be more on getting things working, than getting the most speed possible.  It's actually the natural order of development.  1) make it work 2) optimize it so it works faster.  I think what you are seeing at the moment is fairly stock emulation software from the Dingoo, which is being tweaked to fix some issues.  It's doubtful that any substantial code optimizations have been done yet.   Looking at how well Quake2 runs, without a GPU, should be a pretty good indicator as to what the device is capable of on the number crunching side of things.

Emulators are already optimized, they were previously on less powerful platforms, I think it's all about video drivers now. I'm afraid Quake port is false indicator as it uses 3D engine made and optimized for software rendering. I think it's no more demanding than SNES, so it too probably runs at around 30fps


Quote
I know that there were accelerated VESA cards.  2D, mostly for speeding up mundane tasks like Excel and Word displays, but they did exist.  In any event, 3D acceleration is only important once you start looking at 3D consoles and fancy graphics scaling.  When VESA was still in serious play, 3D was in it's infancy.

Forget N64 and PSX, GCW doesn't seem to even have direct access to video memory for basic 2D/pixels operations. I wonder if even empty screen without any CPU processing could be updated at 60fps. Has anyone done any proper benchmarks, are there any numbers?


Quote
That's probably all they really have at the moment, and if that is the case, it's doing pretty well compared to what a lesser device would do with the same hindrances.  I really think we need to see what happens with this unit.  It's not even officially available, and it's being compared to an OS on it's eleventyith version with mature GPU drivers, and hundreds of millions of users.  We should give it a chance to crawl before we expect it to run.

The point is why wait and hope if there is already better and cheaper handheld you could buy right now?


Quote
You'd be surprised at the difference a $150,000 check to a Chinese manufacturer could make.  I'm guessing the other folks didn't try that route yet ;).

Perhaps. But they don't even hint anywhere their intention is to ever have fully working drivers. They rather seem to be trying to justify the device is good without it. Maybe I missed it, have they made anywhere any more precise statements about what they hope would be the state of the video driver for actual release?


Quote
But I think you missed the point of that link I posted.  The OpenGL files were in a Linux folder on the Ingenic FTP site.  Maybe it was an error, or maybe it's a work in progress.

Android is Linux as well. Accelerated drivers are not written for kernels (usually), they are written for higher level GUI layer, like Windows, iOS, Xorg or Android. Anyway, what you pointed to seem like just some random people talking about some files specific to who knows what device. What GCW guys have to say about it? Did they make any statements about any of it other than that it's been worked on?
This user is driverman. Permanent probationary status contingent upon following forum rules of decorum. --- saint

RandyT

  • Trade Count: (+14)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 7014
  • Last login:Today at 01:59:43 pm
  • Friends don't let friends hack keyboards.
    • GroovyGameGear.com
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #143 on: January 29, 2013, 05:20:20 pm »
Yes, 2D included. You need drivers for basics too, like plain video memory access, double buffering and vertical syncing. They don't seem to have direct access to even such basic functionality, otherwise SNES should perform way better.

OpenDingux has recently implemented double buffering, which is likely already implemented in the demos, as it looked like it took only a very small change to use.  But I can't be sure that they did it yet.  Vertical syncing doesn't speed up anything.  It makes things look better, but usually at a cost to frame rates.

Quote
Why do you think so, what are you comparing it with? I think graphics driver is the first thing they should have sorted out when developing gaming console, or look for some other platform with existing drivers. To me your optimism is kind of like hoping for DirectX drivers on DOS.

I remember hoping I could play a handful of real, true-to-arcade games at home as well.  Now there are thousands.   I also remember the original Windows, IBM XT's, the first Android phone, etc...  Things like this take time and resources, which is why I believe this little idea wasn't a "panhandling" scheme as earlier suggested, rather an understanding by an individual of what it takes to follow through on a project of this magnitude.   Unless you believe that GCW will "take the money and run", then optimism is warranted.  They raised nearly a quarter million dollars, not from investors, but from interested consumers.  To not do everything possible to make this idea succeed would be to ignore a real opportunity.  The demand has been demonstrated, now they need only to meet it, and they have a good head start.


Quote
Emulators are already optimized, they were previously on less powerful platforms, I think it's all about video drivers now. I'm afraid Quake port is false indicator as it uses 3D engine made and optimized for software rendering. I think it's no more demanding than SNES, so it too probably runs at around 30fps

I was referring to QuakeII, and I don't have the frame rate information you apparently do.  Regardless, it's still chugging along nicely on the hardware, which is something I can't say for the PC I ran it on back in the day, until I added an expensive graphics card.

But there are plenty of examples which show that the emulators still need tweaking.  One of the videos showed two different, but technologically very similar first person games being played.  One had major problems, while the other was moving smoothly and was very playable.  Obviously, there is still work to do on them.

Quote
The point is why wait and hope if there is already better and cheaper handheld you could buy right now?

Part of the fun is helping to push something in the direction you would like it to go, rather than settling for "almost".  I can tell that you are an Android fan.  I am as well, to an extent, but you didn't even want to read the 85 page thread identifying and discussing how to overcome the issues with that unit. :)

Quote
Perhaps. But they don't even hint anywhere their intention is to ever have fully working drivers. They rather seem to be trying to justify the device is good without it.

You are just making stuff up now :).  Have you read the project blog on KickStarter?  From the 1/16/2013 entry;

"We are also working on the Open GL implementation we have a team of three dedicated developers working on it right now the driver is closed source but our hope is to very soon have an open source driver.

We are also working on USB 2.0 OTG but that is slow going. If you are a developer and interested in helping out the cause and have driver development experience in either USB or OpenGL, We could definitely use the assistance to implement these two features a lot quicker. If you are interested please contact me @ GCW@GCW-Zero.com"


It seems like the brunt of your condemnations revolve around the lack of an OpenGL driver.  Will you change your mind when they finish?

Quote
Android is Linux as well. Accelerated drivers are not written for kernels (usually), they are written for higher level GUI layer, like Windows, iOS, Xorg or Android. Anyway, what you pointed to seem like just some random people talking about some files specific to who knows what device. What GCW guys have to say about it? Did they make any statements about any of it other than that it's been worked on?

Ok, third time, it was in a LINUX folder on their site.  Android is layered over a supposedly now branched Linux Kernal, and I'm pretty sure they would have put Android files in an Android folder, not one labeled Linux, especially since, as you stated, OpenGL interacts with the Android layer, not the kernal.  But how does anyone know what that really was, other than an interesting reference to both Linux and OpenGL on the chip manufacturers site to indicate a possible link between the two where you stated none existed.

tris_d

  • -driverman-
  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 51
  • Last login:February 24, 2013, 03:23:13 am
  • I want to build my own arcade controls!
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #144 on: January 30, 2013, 09:08:15 am »
OpenDingux has recently implemented double buffering, which is likely already implemented in the demos, as it looked like it took only a very small change to use.  But I can't be sure that they did it yet.  Vertical syncing doesn't speed up anything.  It makes things look better, but usually at a cost to frame rates.

1GHz and SNES runs at 40fps. Could it be any worse?


Quote
I remember hoping I could play a handful of real, true-to-arcade games at home as well.  Now there are thousands.   I also remember the original Windows, IBM XT's, the first Android phone, etc...  Things like this take time and resources, which is why I believe this little idea wasn't a "panhandling" scheme as earlier suggested, rather an understanding by an individual of what it takes to follow through on a project of this magnitude.

That's not it. This is very specific case of Linux not having video drivers. Look at all the failed attempts in the last ten years and you will see there is no single reason to hope and all the reasons to doubt they could ever write their own.


Quote
Unless you believe that GCW will "take the money and run", then optimism is warranted.  They raised nearly a quarter million dollars, not from investors, but from interested consumers.  To not do everything possible to make this idea succeed would be to ignore a real opportunity.  The demand has been demonstrated, now they need only to meet it, and they have a good head start.

They'll take the money and run.


Quote
I was referring to QuakeII, and I don't have the frame rate information you apparently do.  Regardless, it's still chugging along nicely on the hardware, which is something I can't say for the PC I ran it on back in the day, until I added an expensive graphics card.

Yes, Quake II. It also runs on 200MHz GP2X. Small screen can speed up software render, and then Quake II is about demanding as SNES emulator. So Quake II on 30fps, or even 60fps, in no way suggests PSX or N64 will do any better than 10fps.


Quote
But there are plenty of examples which show that the emulators still need tweaking.  One of the videos showed two different, but technologically very similar first person games being played.  One had major problems, while the other was moving smoothly and was very playable.  Obviously, there is still work to do on them.

One thing is to tweak emulators and completely different thing to write a video driver. Considering the drama Linux had with video drivers in the last ten years, and all the failed attempts, statistically I'd say they have around 1% chance to ever write anything even barely resembling proper video driver, with at most 30% of possible performance. That's your best case scenario.


Quote
Part of the fun is helping to push something in the direction you would like it to go, rather than settling for "almost".  I can tell that you are an Android fan.  I am as well, to an extent, but you didn't even want to read the 85 page thread identifying and discussing how to overcome the issues with that unit. :)

Becasue my work revolves around OpenGL I like Android for the simple fact it comes with video drivers, but incidentally that's also pretty much all it matters when it comes to performance of gaming consoles. If there is ever next generation GCW it will run on Android. There is no other choice, it must be assimilated. Resistance is futile.

I went through at least two dozen pages of that thread and saw no one is complaining about any general performance, just specific problems relating to custom ROMs and particular emulators/games. It runs 2D emulators at full speed, out of the box, N64 and PSX seem to run pretty good as well. Compared to GCW that's like night and day.


Quote
You are just making stuff up now :).  Have you read the project blog on KickStarter?  From the 1/16/2013 entry;

"We are also working on the Open GL implementation we have a team of three dedicated developers working on it right now the driver is closed source but our hope is to very soon have an open source driver.

We are also working on USB 2.0 OTG but that is slow going. If you are a developer and interested in helping out the cause and have driver development experience in either USB or OpenGL, We could definitely use the assistance to implement these two features a lot quicker. If you are interested please contact me @ GCW@GCW-Zero.com"


What it says there is that they have no clue what to do about it. With GPU internal specs a driver could be written in a few weeks. They simply have no idea how that GPU works, how to use it. They need to reverse engineer it like MAME does with arcade PCBs, except GCW guys have most likely nowhere to even start with. I guess they are poking randomly around hoping to stumble onto something meaningful by trial and error. Give it up, assimilate.


Quote
It seems like the brunt of your condemnations revolve around the lack of an OpenGL driver.  Will you change your mind when they finish?

It's not just about OpenGL, it's complete video driver they are missing. Without it they don't have direct access to even most basic pixel and frame buffer operations, it's all interconnected and comes bundled together. Only hardware manufacturer could give them drivers, but it's highly likely even they don't have them, just like Nvidia doesn't have Linux console drivers for desktop computers. If they had proper drivers then performance should be similar to that Android tablet you pointed before, and only then it would be comparable to JXD, but as it is now it seems to score no more than even Caanoo or Dingoo.


Quote
Ok, third time, it was in a LINUX folder on their site. Android is layered over a supposedly now branched Linux Kernal, and I'm pretty sure they would have put Android files in an Android folder, not one labeled Linux, especially since, as you stated, OpenGL interacts with the Android layer, not the kernal.

Yes, Android drivers can easily end up in a folder named Linux. It's Linux toolchain, Linux SDK, Linux compilers... any of them could have categorized it as such at some level of their directory structure during development. In any case it's very random assumption whatever that was would be for console frame-buffer and of any use to GCW.
This user is driverman. Permanent probationary status contingent upon following forum rules of decorum. --- saint

RandyT

  • Trade Count: (+14)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 7014
  • Last login:Today at 01:59:43 pm
  • Friends don't let friends hack keyboards.
    • GroovyGameGear.com
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #145 on: January 30, 2013, 11:35:37 am »
I'm a bit naive at times, and it looks like this is one of them.  I had the impression we were having an honest discussion about possibilities, but it's now obvious to me that there is an agenda here, based on the fact that it's pretty clear that you found this thread on Google, and joined the forum solely to advocate for something you have vested interest in.

These processors and GPU's in tablets, handhelds, etc.. are simply advanced microcontrollers.  Someone who programs solely in high level languages, like C, Basic, Python, Perl, etc... would of course see things the way you see them.  To folks like this, no pre-existing high level libraries means no possibility of accessing features built into hardware.  Well, let me tell you that it doesn't work that way.  There are still programmers out there who code at the hardware level, and that's where these libraries originate.  There are high-level compilers for standard microcontrollers these days as well, but it is not uncommon for code which is timing sensitive, or performance oriented, or provides access to features for which there are no standard libraries, to be written in the native assembler.  At that level, functions and features of the hardware are directly accessible.  You state that they cannot do this, because there is no information available to do it.  I disagree that this is the case.  It does not at all seem unlikely to me that the core functions of the GPU are well known by Ingenic, and, of course, the GPU's creators, Vivante.

A little research into Vivante yields some valuable information.  First, while it has global headquarters located in California, it's obviously based in China.  The CEO's name is Wei-Jin Dai, and they have locations in Shanghai and Chengdu.  Their products are in many of the low-cost tablets and other devices originating in China, so there is obviously a strong alliance with chip manufacturers there.  What is more important is that they support OCP (no, not the one in Robocop.)  Here's the statement;

OCP
In 2008 Vivante became a member of the OCP International Partnership (OCP-IP). OCP-IP is a non-profit semiconductor industry consortium formed to administer the support, promotion and enhancement of the Open Core Protocol (OCP) specification. OCP is the only fully supported, openly licensed, complete interface socket for intellectual property (IP) cores. OCP addresses design, verification and testing issues common to IP core reuse in "plug-and-play" system-on-chip (SOC) products. Additional information is available at www.ocpip.org.   
 
I encourage you to read the white paper and provide your thoughts.  It appears to me that OCP is an open, unified interface which allows hardware developers access to core functionality of integrated components, while protecting IP.  As such, it is portable across multiple hardware platforms.  It looks to function in a similar, but more advanced, way to something like I2C, where there is a common communication methodology, regardless of the task the hardware on the other side of the communication protocol is designed to perform.  Membership and access to the documentation is free, even for commercial use, but requires paid membership to gain access to support and libraries. 

So your claims about IP and inaccessible hardware do not seem to be rooted in reality.  What the folks at GCW need to do, and are probably already doing, is write low level routines which provide whatever subset of the OpenGL protocol the system is likely to require.  This isn't something new, and projects like Mesa do something not so different for other hardware.  Their comment about their OpenGL implementation not being open source is telling.  It's likely that they are using a library for which they do not have, and cannot get the source code.  But regardless of the open-source status, this statement indicates that something is being implemented.

Based on the above, it's nowhere near as impossible, or even improbable, as you have claimed it to be.
« Last Edit: January 30, 2013, 01:51:27 pm by RandyT »

Malenko

  • KNEEL BEFORE ZODlenko!
  • Trade Count: (+58)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 14019
  • Last login:July 02, 2025, 09:03:11 pm
  • Have you played with my GingerBalls?
    • forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,142404.msg1475162.html
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #146 on: January 30, 2013, 12:43:07 pm »
I'm a bit naive at times, and it looks like this is one of them.  I had the impression we were having an honest discussion about possibilities, but it's now obvious to me that there is an agenda here, based on the fact that it's pretty clear that you found this thread on Google, and joined the forum solely to advocate for something you have vested interest in.

What gave that away, 26 posts all in this thread and nothing anywhere else on the forum? Can someone remind me how to unsubscribe from a thread again? I keep clicking new replies and all I ever see is this train wreck at the top.
If you're replying to a troll you are part of the problem.
I also need to follow this advice. Ignore or report, don't reply.

RandyT

  • Trade Count: (+14)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 7014
  • Last login:Today at 01:59:43 pm
  • Friends don't let friends hack keyboards.
    • GroovyGameGear.com
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #147 on: January 30, 2013, 01:20:42 pm »
What gave that away, 26 posts all in this thread and nothing anywhere else on the forum? Can someone remind me how to unsubscribe from a thread again? I keep clicking new replies and all I ever see is this train wreck at the top.

It's hard to tell sometimes, so I gave him the benefit of the doubt.  It could have been the first topic he saw and felt he had something to add.  But as time goes on, with no other interaction in other topics related to the forum, and his unwillingness to give that same benefit to anyone else, made it pretty clear.

I won't be wasting any more time with this one.  The cases have been made, and if the best anyone can come up with is "they are a ripoff company", with nothing to show which indicates this being the case, then all the discussion in the world won't change that belief.  GCW may or may not be, but there are no hard and fast indicators which show it to be true at this stage.

HaRuMaN

  • Supreme Solder King
  • Global Moderator
  • Trade Count: (+45)
  • Full Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 10328
  • Last login:July 14, 2025, 02:03:34 pm
  • boom
    • Arcade Madness
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #148 on: January 30, 2013, 01:42:06 pm »
Smells like driverman's latest incarnation...

yotsuya

  • Trade Count: (+21)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 19960
  • Last login:Yesterday at 10:00:30 pm
  • 2014 UCA Winner, 2014, 2015, 2016 ZapCon Winner
    • forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,137636.msg1420628.html
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #149 on: January 30, 2013, 02:18:41 pm »
The lack of DRAMA! and near Engrish make me doubt it's our friendly neighborhood Driverman.

Edit: I went back and actually READ some of this postings..... I owe HaRuMaN a Hamm's.  :cheers:
« Last Edit: January 30, 2013, 03:41:20 pm by yotsuya »
***Build what you dig, bro. Build what you dig.***

tris_d

  • -driverman-
  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 51
  • Last login:February 24, 2013, 03:23:13 am
  • I want to build my own arcade controls!
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #150 on: January 30, 2013, 02:31:27 pm »
I'm a bit naive at times, and it looks like this is one of them.  I had the impression we were having an honest discussion about possibilities, but it's now obvious to me that there is an agenda here, based on the fact that it's pretty clear that you found this thread on Google, and joined the forum solely to advocate for something you have vested interest in.

My attraction to this thread was about old vs. new MAME on today's mobile gaming platforms. I thought GCW could do what average 1GHz Android can, I expected they would at least have 2D hardware acceleration, but then I saw videos of Out Run at 15-20fps and SNES at 30-40fps.


Quote
These processors and GPU's in tablets, handhelds, etc.. are simply advanced microcontrollers.  Someone who programs solely in high level languages, like C, Basic, Python, Perl, etc... would of course see things the way you see them.  To folks like this, no pre-existing high level libraries means no possibility of accessing features built into hardware.  Well, let me tell you that it doesn't work that way.  There are still programmers out there who code at the hardware level, and that's where these libraries originate.  There are high-level compilers for standard microcontrollers these days as well, but it is not uncommon for timing sensitive, or performance oriented code, or access to features for which there are no standard libraries, to be written in the native assembler.  At that level, functions and features of the hardware are directly accessible.

Not for GPU. People have been trying hard to get accelerated drivers for Linux on many platforms, only for rare GPUs they managed to achieve something, which is at most 30% of their actual specs.


Quote
You state that they cannot do this, because there is no information available to do it.  I disagree that this is the case.  It does not at all seem unlikely to me that the core functions of the GPU are well known by Ingenic, and, of course, the GPU's creators, Vivante.

I said manufacturer is the only one who could help them, but if they don't release it to public then it's not 'available'.


Quote
A little research into Vivante yields some valuable information.  First, while it has global headquarters located in California, it's obviously based in China.  The CEO's name is Wei-Jin Dai, and they have locations in Shanghai and Chengdu.  Their products are in many of the low-cost tablets and other devices originating in China, so there is obviously a strong alliance with chip manufacturers there.  What is more important is that they support OCP (no, not the one in Robocop.)  Here's the statement;

OCP
In 2008 Vivante became a member of the OCP International Partnership (OCP-IP). OCP-IP is a non-profit semiconductor industry consortium formed to administer the support, promotion and enhancement of the Open Core Protocol (OCP) specification. OCP is the only fully supported, openly licensed, complete interface socket for intellectual property (IP) cores. OCP addresses design, verification and testing issues common to IP core reuse in "plug-and-play" system-on-chip (SOC) products. Additional information is available at www.ocpip.org.   

I encourage you to read the white paper and provide your thoughts.  It appears to me that OCP is an open, unified interface which allows hardware developers access to core functionality of integrated components, while protecting IP.  As such, it is portable across multiple hardware platforms.  It looks to function in a similar, but more advanced, way to something like I2C, where there is a common communication methodology, regardless of the task the hardware on the other side of the communication protocol is designed to perform.  Membership and access to the documentation is free, even for commercial use, but requires paid membership to gain access to support and libraries. 

I don't think "open" in their context means anything like "open source". So anyway, are you saying their GPU internal specs are available for download? Ok, show me the link. I think that's just some software framework they are selling.


Quote
So your claims about IP and inaccessible hardware do not seem to be rooted in reality.  What the folks at GCW need to do, and are probably already doing, is write low level routines which provide whatever subset of the OpenGL protocol the system is likely to require.

Do not seem to be rooted in reality? So how do I convince you?


Quote
This isn't something new, and projects like Mesa do something not so different for other hardware.

There you go. See what they have managed to accomplish in 10 years and you will realize there is little hope GCW could ever get even 30% out of their GPU, so most likely nothing.


Quote
Their comment about their OpenGL implementation not being open source is telling.  It's likely that they are using a library for which they do not have, and cannot get the source code.  But regardless of the open-source status, this statement indicates that something is being implemented.

They are mumbling, left you guessing instead of to say it straight: what, why, when and how. If they are writing the driver then they are the ones who decide whether it will be open source or not, yet they are referring to it as if it was someone else's  decision or consequence of some unforeseen but hopeful circumstances. I think their noses stretched a bit there. Mister Geppetto would be disappointed. 


Quote
Based on the above, it's nowhere near as impossible, or even improbable, as you have claimed it to be.

So I guess we place the bets now?
This user is driverman. Permanent probationary status contingent upon following forum rules of decorum. --- saint

opt2not

  • Trade Count: (+15)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 6173
  • Last login:April 02, 2024, 07:42:30 pm
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #151 on: January 30, 2013, 02:35:59 pm »
 :laugh2: NOBODY CARES.

RandyT

  • Trade Count: (+14)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 7014
  • Last login:Today at 01:59:43 pm
  • Friends don't let friends hack keyboards.
    • GroovyGameGear.com
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #152 on: January 30, 2013, 03:04:40 pm »
I think their noses stretched a bit there. Mister Geppetto would be disappointed. 

Smells like driverman's latest incarnation...

You nailed it.  He just gave himself away.  :)

opt2not

  • Trade Count: (+15)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 6173
  • Last login:April 02, 2024, 07:42:30 pm
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #153 on: January 30, 2013, 03:17:42 pm »
My attraction to this thread was about old vs. new MAME on today's mobile gaming platforms.
This too... I'm assuming he created an account because Haze weighed in on the discussion about the state of Mame on these devices.

Damn, I got sucked into reading driverman's verbal diarrhea again.  :banghead:

Haze

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1296
  • Last login:October 04, 2023, 08:30:02 am
  • I want to build my own arcade controls!
    • MAME Development Blog
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #154 on: January 30, 2013, 06:53:37 pm »
My attraction to this thread was about old vs. new MAME on today's mobile gaming platforms.
This too... I'm assuming he created an account because Haze weighed in on the discussion about the state of Mame on these devices.

Damn, I got sucked into reading driverman's verbal diarrhea again.  :banghead:

I thought it was rather obvious at the point he seemed to switch sides completely, from bashing MAME to bashing the device.

Moreso when he tried to register at MAMEWorld, then register a second account just to agree with what he had posted with the first account.

To his credit, most of it was somewhat coherent this time, and not absolutely incorrect like usual.


opt2not

  • Trade Count: (+15)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 6173
  • Last login:April 02, 2024, 07:42:30 pm
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #155 on: January 30, 2013, 07:00:58 pm »
To his credit, most of it was somewhat coherent this time, and not absolutely incorrect like usual.
That's what threw me off. <sigh> I'm getting slow in my old age...

Typefighter01

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 421
  • Last login:September 11, 2024, 09:13:06 pm
  • Back I guess...
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #156 on: January 30, 2013, 07:25:51 pm »
Hey LazyCat, if every member of BYOAC will agree that the best way to play retro arcade games is on our Andriod cell phones, using old versions of MAME and using the built in accelerometer as the controls, will you promise to leave us alone :dunno :tool:

yotsuya

  • Trade Count: (+21)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 19960
  • Last login:Yesterday at 10:00:30 pm
  • 2014 UCA Winner, 2014, 2015, 2016 ZapCon Winner
    • forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,137636.msg1420628.html
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #157 on: January 30, 2013, 07:48:22 pm »
Driverman knows he locked up 2012 Troll of the Year and must be trying to solidify his base for '13.
***Build what you dig, bro. Build what you dig.***

404

  • Trade Count: (+3)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1019
  • Last login:August 04, 2015, 10:19:10 pm
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #158 on: January 30, 2013, 07:58:13 pm »
in more related news, this elitist ---tallywhacker--- got his hands on the jxd s7300 and I'm not impressed with it either.  :lol

tris_d

  • -driverman-
  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 51
  • Last login:February 24, 2013, 03:23:13 am
  • I want to build my own arcade controls!
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #159 on: January 30, 2013, 08:06:08 pm »
in more related news, this elitist ---tallywhacker--- got his hands on the jxd s7300 and I'm not impressed with it either.  :lol

Can you tell us fps for PSX, N64, SNES... ?

MAME4droid, any glitching or sound crackling?
This user is driverman. Permanent probationary status contingent upon following forum rules of decorum. --- saint

tris_d

  • -driverman-
  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 51
  • Last login:February 24, 2013, 03:23:13 am
  • I want to build my own arcade controls!
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #160 on: January 30, 2013, 08:11:52 pm »
I thought it was rather obvious at the point he seemed to switch sides completely, from bashing MAME to bashing the device.

Moreso when he tried to register at MAMEWorld, then register a second account just to agree with what he had posted with the first account.

This user is driverman. Permanent probationary status contingent upon following forum rules of decorum. --- saint

tris_d

  • -driverman-
  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 51
  • Last login:February 24, 2013, 03:23:13 am
  • I want to build my own arcade controls!
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #161 on: January 30, 2013, 08:13:56 pm »
You nailed it.  He just gave himself away.  :)

This user is driverman. Permanent probationary status contingent upon following forum rules of decorum. --- saint

404

  • Trade Count: (+3)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1019
  • Last login:August 04, 2015, 10:19:10 pm
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #162 on: January 30, 2013, 08:35:06 pm »
in more related news, this elitist ---tallywhacker--- got his hands on the jxd s7300 and I'm not impressed with it either.  :lol

Can you tell us fps for PSX, N64, SNES... ?

MAME4droid, any glitching or sound crackling?

I'll try. Have to give it back soon.  ;D

404

  • Trade Count: (+3)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1019
  • Last login:August 04, 2015, 10:19:10 pm
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #163 on: January 30, 2013, 08:44:31 pm »
in more related news, this elitist ---tallywhacker--- got his hands on the jxd s7300 and I'm not impressed with it either.  :lol

Can you tell us fps for PSX, N64, SNES... ?

MAME4droid, any glitching or sound crackling?

psx runs fine with the one game i tested. n64 worked great too, haven't tested snes.

their pre-packaged version of mame4droid runs fine too. Unfortunately, the mame4droid from the play store did not want to scan the sd card for roms no matter what i tried.

As for android games, vice city, and jet set radio were arguably the two biggest games i tried which did not run at all. Setting up games to run using the controls wasn't that difficult but unfortunately the app used to set your control scheme for each game can cause games to crash or go back to the main menu making it very difficult to set them up properly.

Overall the twin sticks feel grainy and the setup involved to configure your controls on average is just overbearing, a bit worse than setting up a dingux emu that doesn't have a built in file selector.

tris_d

  • -driverman-
  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 51
  • Last login:February 24, 2013, 03:23:13 am
  • I want to build my own arcade controls!
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #164 on: January 31, 2013, 04:35:17 am »
psx runs fine with the one game i tested. n64 worked great too, haven't tested snes.

Ok, thanks. FPse PS1 emulator has option to print fps and disable frame limiter, so fps can go above 50/60. That's nice and quick benchmark for overall performance and you can check for eventual audio problems in the same time.


Quote
their pre-packaged version of mame4droid runs fine too. Unfortunately, the mame4droid from the play store did not want to scan the sd card for roms no matter what i tried.

It only scans one directory, either "/sdcard/ROMS/MAME4droid/roms" it uses by default, or you can point it to some other folder from the settings menu.

If you get a chance please try Donkey Kong and note if there are any sound issues.


Quote
As for android games, vice city, and jet set radio were arguably the two biggest games i tried which did not run at all. Setting up games to run using the controls wasn't that difficult but unfortunately the app used to set your control scheme for each game can cause games to crash or go back to the main menu making it very difficult to set them up properly.

Overall the twin sticks feel grainy and the setup involved to configure your controls on average is just overbearing, a bit worse than setting up a dingux emu that doesn't have a built in file selector.

That thing has 7 inch screen, is it not too big, heavy? Buttons hard? Screen bright and clear from many angles?
This user is driverman. Permanent probationary status contingent upon following forum rules of decorum. --- saint

404

  • Trade Count: (+3)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1019
  • Last login:August 04, 2015, 10:19:10 pm
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #165 on: January 31, 2013, 02:13:55 pm »
Ok, thanks. FPse PS1 emulator has option to print fps and disable frame limiter, so fps can go above 50/60. That's nice and quick benchmark for overall performance and you can check for eventual audio problems in the same time.

had to give it back. wasn't able to get any psone games in time. sorry



It only scans one directory, either "/sdcard/ROMS/MAME4droid/roms" it uses by default, or you can point it to some other folder from the settings menu.

If you get a chance please try Donkey Kong and note if there are any sound issues.

I had to mess around with the directories at least a dozen times in order to get this junk to read roms properly. Donkey kong is missing the jump sound .


That thing has 7 inch screen, is it not too big, heavy? Buttons hard? Screen bright and clear from many angles?

yes 7 inch screen. not too big, not heavy at all. buttons are fine, screen is bright from many angles.

My biggest gripes are the analog sticks (which one of them really isn't analog at all) feel rough and the setup is cumbersome at best.

BadMouth

  • Trade Count: (+6)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 9270
  • Last login:July 14, 2025, 01:30:54 pm
  • ...
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #166 on: January 31, 2013, 02:37:47 pm »
Donkey Kong is missing sounds because old versions of MAME used samples for those sounds instead of emulating them.
Either the samples are missing or the emulation wasn't ported properly and doesn't utilize them.

Funny, as I was running EEMAME on my old Symbian phone 7 or 8 years ago and this was an issue with Donkey Kong.
Kinda proves Haze's point about mobile ports of MAME not evolving at all.

opt2not

  • Trade Count: (+15)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 6173
  • Last login:April 02, 2024, 07:42:30 pm
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #167 on: January 31, 2013, 07:55:26 pm »
Mouse in Joy now works for the Zero.  Scumm emulator with mouse control using the analog stick.  :notworthy:





tris_d

  • -driverman-
  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 51
  • Last login:February 24, 2013, 03:23:13 am
  • I want to build my own arcade controls!
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #168 on: January 31, 2013, 09:47:44 pm »
My biggest gripes are the analog sticks (which one of them really isn't analog at all) feel rough and the setup is cumbersome at best.

Are you saying one of the sticks is 8-way digital? That should be better than analog for all but N64 and PSX emulators. Which one is, left or right one?

This user is driverman. Permanent probationary status contingent upon following forum rules of decorum. --- saint

tris_d

  • -driverman-
  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 51
  • Last login:February 24, 2013, 03:23:13 am
  • I want to build my own arcade controls!
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #169 on: January 31, 2013, 10:02:27 pm »
Donkey Kong is missing sounds because old versions of MAME used samples for those sounds instead of emulating them.
Either the samples are missing or the emulation wasn't ported properly and doesn't utilize them.

Funny, as I was running EEMAME on my old Symbian phone 7 or 8 years ago and this was an issue with Donkey Kong.
Kinda proves Haze's point about mobile ports of MAME not evolving at all.

MAME4all works with samples, you just need to have them. It's not a problem any more than having correct ROMs for recent or any given MAME build. It's something user has to sort out. And while quite possibly is indeed the greatest problem you can't really blame that on age of the build. Rather, blame more recent MAME builds for ever making any changes in ROM names and file structure, breaking backwards compatibility.
This user is driverman. Permanent probationary status contingent upon following forum rules of decorum. --- saint

404

  • Trade Count: (+3)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1019
  • Last login:August 04, 2015, 10:19:10 pm
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #170 on: February 01, 2013, 10:15:39 am »
Ok, thanks. FPse PS1 emulator has option to print fps and disable frame limiter, so fps can go above 50/60. That's nice and quick benchmark for overall performance and you can check for eventual audio problems in the same time.

Friend is about to finish up his review. Here is tekken 3 (Yoshimitsu vs King) running at 60fps. He noted that the fps never dropped below 58fps.

Donkey Kong is missing sounds because old versions of MAME used samples for those sounds instead of emulating them.
Either the samples are missing or the emulation wasn't ported properly and doesn't utilize them.

Funny, as I was running EEMAME on my old Symbian phone 7 or 8 years ago and this was an issue with Donkey Kong.
Kinda proves Haze's point about mobile ports of MAME not evolving at all.

Ah, good to know, this version of mame is way before my time. Have to agree with both you and haze on ancient builds such as these. The few tests i ran with this portable using mame4all felt like apples to oranges to what I'm currently running. There was always something that just didn't quite feel right.

404

  • Trade Count: (+3)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1019
  • Last login:August 04, 2015, 10:19:10 pm
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #171 on: February 02, 2013, 09:30:58 am »
well, my friend finished the review and gave me the tablet for free. tris_d or anyone else that may have some questions about the tablet, feel free to post them before i put this up for sale.  :lol

tris_d

  • -driverman-
  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 51
  • Last login:February 24, 2013, 03:23:13 am
  • I want to build my own arcade controls!
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #172 on: February 03, 2013, 04:45:26 am »
well, my friend finished the review and gave me the tablet for free. tris_d or anyone else that may have some questions about the tablet, feel free to post them before i put this up for sale.  :lol

If you would care I'd like to hear more detailed review of how MAME runs (frame rates), possibly via TV-out and with USB keyboard/mouse as well. See if there is any frame-skipping or sound glitches. For example, Donkey Kong should run at full speed, so note if you see auto frame-skip changes from 0, and if yes then also how often it does and how bad it looks. If you get samples for Donkey Kong you should also be able to hear when FPS gets unbalanced.

These glitches may not be obvious if not paying full attention, so you would need to actually play a game for at least few minutes while trying to mostly look at FPS counter and listening for sound glitches.
This user is driverman. Permanent probationary status contingent upon following forum rules of decorum. --- saint

kahlid74

  • Trade Count: (+1)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1366
  • Last login:January 01, 2021, 12:42:56 pm
  • Gaming for a better future!
    • GamersAnon
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #173 on: February 04, 2013, 10:15:19 am »
well, my friend finished the review and gave me the tablet for free. tris_d or anyone else that may have some questions about the tablet, feel free to post them before i put this up for sale.  :lol

If you would care I'd like to hear more detailed review of how MAME runs (frame rates), possibly via TV-out and with USB keyboard/mouse as well. See if there is any frame-skipping or sound glitches. For example, Donkey Kong should run at full speed, so note if you see auto frame-skip changes from 0, and if yes then also how often it does and how bad it looks. If you get samples for Donkey Kong you should also be able to hear when FPS gets unbalanced.

These glitches may not be obvious if not paying full attention, so you would need to actually play a game for at least few minutes while trying to mostly look at FPS counter and listening for sound glitches.

Do it in a different thread please, I'd like to get back to the original point of this one.

opt2not

  • Trade Count: (+15)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 6173
  • Last login:April 02, 2024, 07:42:30 pm
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #174 on: July 29, 2017, 05:55:58 pm »
Bumping this old thread.

I recently had a fresh install done on my GCW, but I'm unable to find the emulators I used to have.

I'm looking for Race v1.2.(Neo geo Pocket emulator) I seem to be only able to find v1.1.

Anyone here who owns the GCW Zero have this, and willing to send me v1.2? Would be much appreciated!

ark_ader

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 5645
  • Last login:March 02, 2019, 07:35:34 pm
  • I glow in the dark.
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #175 on: July 29, 2017, 09:09:55 pm »
Bumping this old thread.

I recently had a fresh install done on my GCW, but I'm unable to find the emulators I used to have.

I'm looking for Race v1.2.(Neo geo Pocket emulator) I seem to be only able to find v1.1.

Anyone here who owns the GCW Zero have this, and willing to send me v1.2? Would be much appreciated!

You didn't backup?  :dunno

Just for laughs, found it, since all Alekmaul's version links are dead.  But if you try hard enough you will find 1.0 and 1.2.  I guess the opk is the same as apk.

Rule5 stops me from posting the link.

I wish Saint fixed the stupid ads on this site.  :badmood:
« Last Edit: July 29, 2017, 09:33:33 pm by ark_ader »
If I had only one wish, it would be for three more wishes.

opt2not

  • Trade Count: (+15)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 6173
  • Last login:April 02, 2024, 07:42:30 pm
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #176 on: July 29, 2017, 11:33:16 pm »
Hmm, my google-fu seems to be off. I still can't find the opk of 1.2. The gcw doesn't execute apk's, and it looks like that format is for android? 

opt2not

  • Trade Count: (+15)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 6173
  • Last login:April 02, 2024, 07:42:30 pm
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #177 on: July 29, 2017, 11:51:22 pm »
Phew, I was able to get it now.  (again, sorry for the necro bump!)

lettuce

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1900
  • Last login:December 31, 2021, 01:46:10 pm
  • Make It So!
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #178 on: July 30, 2017, 02:19:21 pm »
Jees didnt know anyone still used this awful device, mines been sitting in my draw since ive got it. What with all these RPi Zero handheld porjects about now im not sure why you'd subject yourself to the GCW!??

Malenko

  • KNEEL BEFORE ZODlenko!
  • Trade Count: (+58)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 14019
  • Last login:July 02, 2025, 09:03:11 pm
  • Have you played with my GingerBalls?
    • forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,142404.msg1475162.html
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #179 on: July 30, 2017, 02:53:50 pm »
Jees didnt know anyone still used this awful device, mines been sitting in my draw since ive got it. What with all these RPi Zero handheld porjects about now im not sure why you'd subject yourself to the GCW!??

Can I have yours? I'll pay shipping and all that jazz
If you're replying to a troll you are part of the problem.
I also need to follow this advice. Ignore or report, don't reply.

markc74

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 827
  • Last login:Today at 06:08:32 pm
  • Flipping out
    • forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,137295.0.html
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #180 on: July 30, 2017, 07:01:53 pm »
I was one of the original kickstarters but gave up after endless delays. Got a refund and put it into a GPD XD. Awesome device.

Didn't the GCW have loads of firmware/joypad problems?

opt2not

  • Trade Count: (+15)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 6173
  • Last login:April 02, 2024, 07:42:30 pm
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #181 on: July 30, 2017, 07:37:58 pm »
Jees didnt know anyone still used this awful device, mines been sitting in my draw since ive got it. What with all these RPi Zero handheld porjects about now im not sure why you'd subject yourself to the GCW!??
I still use it, and I love it. It works for everything I need. you didn't like it? That's cool, can I have yours?

Malenko

  • KNEEL BEFORE ZODlenko!
  • Trade Count: (+58)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 14019
  • Last login:July 02, 2025, 09:03:11 pm
  • Have you played with my GingerBalls?
    • forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,142404.msg1475162.html
Re: Exciting looking emulation portable - GCW:Zero. Now kickstarted
« Reply #182 on: July 30, 2017, 08:36:23 pm »
already called dibs opt!
If you're replying to a troll you are part of the problem.
I also need to follow this advice. Ignore or report, don't reply.