Ultimate handheld emulation solution?

[MrBond]

I am getting interested in portable emulation.  
I'm looking to play NES/SNES/Genesis games on a handheld.

I did some preliminary research and turned up these:

*Gameboy Advance with NES emulation (using GBA Movie Player, flashcards, PocketNES...more info needed if someone has done this) Cheapest solution as prices will fall further once DS & PSP are released.  http://gbaemu.com/

*GP32 BLU: handheld that can play emus, open source consol, backlit screen 166/180MHZ CPU, 8 MB RAM, uses Smartmedia cards, mp3, movies...
2 shoulder buttons, 2 buttons on front, start, select, D-pad
$170 from http://www.lik-sang.com/info.php?category=126&products_id=4362&,  
http://www.gbax.com/new/gp32.html


*Zodiac: Palm that can play emus, but seems you have to buy them?  32 Meg or 128 MB RAM versions.  200MHZ ARM CPU.  mp3, movie.  480*320 backlit touch screen.  analog stick, 2 shoulder, 4 action front buttons, 4 additional (power, bluetooth, special, and home). Multiplayer via bluetooth.  Plays all palm stuff in addition to dedicated games and emus.  Uses SD cards.  More expensive ($300 and up)
http://www.tapwave.com/zodiac.html
http://www.gbax.com/new/zodiac.html


*Gizmondo: Not really sure, not released,  64 bit 3d gaming. Bluetooth. GPS. Camera, mp3, movie. Messaging. 2 shoulder buttons, 4 front, d-pad.  Lots more power (400MHz) smaller screen (2.8" TFT).  Probably expensive.  http://gizmondo.com/flash.asp


*Other?  Nintendo DS/PSP emu support possible/plausable?


Anyone who has succesfully emulated classic consols (NES/sega genesis/SNES/GBC) on a handheld please let me know how you did it and how much it costs.



...lol, I also found a "Treamcast", a transportable dreamcast!!...

http://www.lan-kwei.com/treamcastE/
http://www.gbax.com/treamcast.html

[Bgnome]

the gba also has some preliminary snes emulation available also.  but if you want something a little more robust, i have heard a lot of good stuff about the gp32.  the palm zodiac is a really expensive option, but at least that way, you will have a PDA instead of just a handheld console.

[crashwg]

The zodiac looks pretty good to me.  I'd buy it in a second if I could afford it.

One thing that draws me to that vs. the gizmondo is that the screen resolution is double!

BTW, can someone point me to a place where I can get a Palm OS emulator and also console/arcade emulators designed for Palm OS?

[clanggedin]

I have a Pocket PC that plays SNES, NES, T-GFX 16, GENESIS, MAME, GBA.

Check out Morphgear.com

You can get a 625mhz DELL Pocket PC that will play any game at full speed with full sound.

You can also play pocket Quake. You could out a 1gb SD card in it and have tons of room for roms. I saw a 1 gb SD card for about $100.

I bought my pocket pc specifically for emulation and it works great!

[crashwg]

Ok, I'm a total noob when it comes to PDAs and the like so please explain the following...

Palm OS, Pocket PC, Windows CE... are these all different OSes?  Can you use programs designed for one on another?

What exactly would I be able to do with the Zodiac and it's Motorola

[pointdablame]

PalmOS and PocketPC are 2 totally different operating systems.  CE was the predecessor to PocketPC and is still used in other applications besides PDAs.

Think of PalmOS and PPC the same way you would Mac/Windows.  Most, if not all, programs will only work on their respective OSes.  You cannon, for the most part, communicate across the OSes, and least not in a large fashion.  I believe you can transfer say... phone numbers, small information through IR, but not much else.

That chart is on Tapwave's site... of course the Zodiac looks to be the best.  IMHO, the Zodiac is a bit expensive and doesn't look like that good of a PDA.  It may serve as a decent game platform, but PalmOS is not exactly what I would call a great gaming platform.  Then again, emulations is probably decent on it.  Please note I have not used PalmOS in 2 years or so.

I would do what clanggedin suggested and look into one of Dell's new PDAs.  They are a really good deal pricewise, the 624mhz one is FAST, and you'll get a great PDA, not a gameboy that is trying to be a PDA.  PocketPC has, again IMHO, better software overall, and you'll be able to use quite a few emulators on it.

Again, I've been using PPC lately, and plan to get a Dell PDA once I get some money.  It is possible, and very likely honestly, that most of the emulators are also on PalmOS.  I prefer PPC but either will work really.  If it was my dollar though, I'd get a Dell or an Ipaq.

[crashwg]

I've read that with most PDAs you have to use either a fake directional pad or fake buttons to be able to control games and the like because they are incapable of two simultanious button presses or taps (mouse clicks)...

If you're wondering what is meant by "fake", I mean that there is a spot on the screen that you have to touch to simulate the dpad or buttons...

Therefore I ask this to all those with PDAs that have tried emulation...

How the heck do you control it while playing games?

[clanggedin]

The ASUS A716 allows simultaneous button presses. So do the other Asus PDAS, I have no problem playing games. Most of the newer Pocket PCs have fixed the button problem issue.

[MrBond]

1) Specifically, what Pocket PC would you recommend for emulation purposes?

2) What are the best emulators for these systems?


Anybody else try any of the other platforms (gba, gp32, zodiac) and have the lowdown on NES emulation?

[crashwg]

I've tried an NES emulator on a GBA EMULATOR (all caps just so no one gets cofused).

I was very pleased with the results and was/maybe still am planning on getting a blank GBA cart for mainly that use.

I actually bought my GBA with NES emulation in mind but have not had the spare cash to dish out on a blank GBA cart so I can't comment on how well it does on a real GBA, but when I put the emulator on an emulator on my PC everything seemed to work pretty well.  I don't recall any games that I wanted to play that wouldn't except Clu Clu Land, but that doesn't work on most emulators anyways.

A couple things you should watch out for though are that the aspect ratio on a gba is different than a tv so the NES emulator removes something like every 4th or 5th line or something to that effect.  It is mainly noticable when you're trying to read something, for example sometimes the letter "T" would appear to look like "l" because the horizontal part just happened to be on the line that is removed...  And another thing that has already been mentioned but I'll mention again is that the GBA carts aren't as big as they look.   When I was originally planning on NESing on GBA I figgured "oh yea, I'll be able to fit like a thousand NES gams on a 512mb cart and still have room to spare!"  ENTIRELY UNTRUE!  I don't remember the exact ammount that will fit, but I don't think you can even get 200 NES roms onto a 512mb cart...

I can't recall what the emulator was called, but I made a post a while back that has more information on what it was and what will fit on what and such... I'll go try and find it now.

Ok, I'm back...

Looking back on the posts I was referring to I guess there wasn't as much information posted as I thought but, I'm pretty sure the emulator was called pocketNES and I also got this chart which is pretty helpful in figuring out what will fit on a GBA cart.


PC MB (Bytes) | Zipped on PC  |M (Bits) on GBA
4 MB                ~2MB                    = 32M
8 MB                ~4MB                    = 64M
16 MB              ~8MB                    = 128M
32 MB              ~16MB                  = 256M
64 MB              ~32MB                  = 512M


And here's a qote that gives more info on aproximatly what you'll be able to fit on the cart along with NES roms

I agree with another post about pocket NES. It works perfectly. I've created for my self about 6 GBA "roms" each of which runs about 80-100 games.

Generally I can add one of my NES "roms", a music video (about 3-4 min long) and still cram about 5 GBA games onto the 512 XRom.

Go here for a ton of info....it you haven't already found this site:

http://www.gameboy-advance.net/

[MrBond]

Ok, at this point I'm thinking of buying a classic look GBA and using PocketNES.  A few reasons are pointing me in this direction.  
-One is price.  The gba retails around $75 and the price will drop after DS and PSP are released.  The 512Mb X-rom and linker is now selling for $99 at easybuy2000.com.  This puts the $300 zodiac and pocketPC's on the backburner.
-The classic look is excellent for emulating NES.  The fact that I will be playing NES on a nintendo portable system is appealing.
-It was built well- nintendo products always are.
-The CONTROLS are perfect...(the gp32 seems to have good controls as well, but the zodiac having a analog stick is bad for emulation...and as for pocket pc's, can anyone who actually uses one for emulation tell me how good the controls actually work?  I don't see it working very well at all as a gaming device)  It seems the PocketPC's are a bit expensive, unless someone points me to one with good controls for under $200.

Anyone have a gp32?  Does the screen size look a lot better?  There doesn't seem to be a stretching problem with it either.  I've heard it's not made as well though...anyone know for sure?

Another thought: I'm sure flash carts/media will appear for the DS, which will most likely emulate SNES flawlessly, and possibly some N64 titles, but that may take some time.  I probably will buy a DS anyway (haven't bought a handheld since GBC), so that is a factor as well...

[MrBond]

I just tried the pocketNES emulator on the GBA emulator and I was very pleased with the results.  
However, 2 things bother me:

I think the "GBA Rom Packer" wasn't working quite right though, because when I put like 20 NES game on, it would just start playing one of them without giving me the list to choose.  However, I did get it to work with less games.  Possible bad rom/naming issue?  I couldn't get the packer called "thingy" to work at all either.

The only other thing that may sway me to gp32 is the scaling mode...it's annoying to use unscaled most of the time, as you can't see the whole picture (although you can scroll up/down using L/R or even set it to follow your sprite), and scaled mode makes the game squished.  As far as I know gp32 does not need to be scaled due to the screen size...can someone verify this?

However, everything else was awesome.  I like the fact that in the menu it starts playing the game intro, so you have a visual preview.  The savestates are also a very cool idea, although they did crash sometimes (possibly because I'm emulating an emulator).  The speed up/ slo mo system is great.  Even has autofire.  Quite possibly the most intriguing feature is the ability to play multiplayer with other gba's, even if they don't have any game inserted!  (has to be 192kb or less, otherwise you both need the game).

[Arcadiac]

GP32:  I bought one thinking that it would be the solution to all the portable emu needs that I desired namely snes, genesis, nes and possibly tg-16.  So far the only decent emulation I have found for mine is the nes (NesterGP) and
tg-16 (GPEngine).  NesterGP will run pretty much anything you throw at it while PCEngine is a bit more choosy.  Both allow some adjustments to framerates etc.  PCEngine even allows you to overclock the GP32 from 133/155/166mhz, however trying the higher speeds on mine just causes it to click and crash.  Emulation for this gizmo is still slow, haven't yet found a decent genesis or snes emulator that will run at a decent rate with sound.  Forgot to mention that there is good SMS emulation so you can still get your Sega fix.  I still use my GBA and flash card much, much more than the GP32, but not for emulation  So, to condense this mess, use GP32 for NES, SMS and TG-16, the screen is a bit bigger than GBA, actually a bit brighter somehow, scaling is not necessary and now I believe you can order a backlit version and choose 166mhz for a little extra money.  And although the stick is a little different after years of d-pads on portables I prefer it.  It also fits my big paws better than the GBA-SP.  Durability is cool, nothing has gone wrong with mine yet.  Still looking at around $150-200? before the memory card.  Too bad the old Sega Nomad eats up 6 AAs an hour or I would use it for portable Genesis!  Good Luck whatever you choose! ARCADIAC!

[MrBond]

...Well, what I'm really interested in is having a portable NES, so the gp32 may due the trick if I find one in the price range...found one for $200 with 128SMC memory card...

However, I am leaning toward buying a Nintendo DS handheld (probably available before Christmas if they have any marketing skills!)  and using the available GBA port to play NES on a flash card with pocketNES as the emulator.  

These also leaves the door wide open for future upgrades...eventually we'll have emulation on the DS, in which case SNES and Genesis emulation are bound to happen.  I wouldn't bet on solid n64 emulation on DS, as it is comparable to having solid SNES emulation on GBA.

Any thoughts?


edit:  Also just realized this would enable NES play on gamecube through the GBA player...

[crashwg]

edit:  Also just realized this would enable NES play on gamecube through the GBA player...

You will get much better results + the ability to play two player games with a dreamcast and NesterDC.  And at about $30 for a dreamcast (if you can find one) + the cost of a blank disk, you'll be up and running as soon as you figure out how to setup NesterDC, which is pretty easy by the way!

[MrBond]

I've been on the lookout for a cheap dreamcast  

edit:  Also just realized this would enable NES play on gamecube through the GBA player...

You will get much better results + the ability to play two player games with a dreamcast and NesterDC.  And at about $30 for a dreamcast (if you can find one) + the cost of a blank disk, you'll be up and running as soon as you figure out how to setup NesterDC, which is pretty easy by the way!

[MrBond]

I am so glad that I chose to buy an x-rom from easybuy2000.com

[Otraotaku]

whered you say you got your flashcard from, i always see those things getting scarce...

also have/or  looked into the M3?

[ften]

http://www.lik-sang.com/info.php?category=6&products_id=3983&

Bought one of the GBAMP for my little sister for Christmas. It works pretty well when used with the PocketNES version that was created for it. Only real issue is it can't use roms over 200k. Although Movie Player Pocketnes gets around this enough to play Zelda and FF (256k roms) , FF3 (512k) is still too big.  E-read, movies, GB emulator and MP3s worked fine. For the price and ease of use it's a really good deal.

Pocketnes for GBAMP
http://www.pocketheaven.com/boards/viewtopic.php?t=2550

-FTen

[MrBond]

Flashcart: x-rom 512mb  available at www.easybuy2000.com

Yes I'm looking into getting an m3 because of the basicially unlimited supply of memory (just buy more sd or cf media cards), the better compatibility than the ndspatcher (see here: http://www.dualscene.net/djoen/ndspatcherlist/data.php), and the fact that it has a built in frontend for multiple nds and gba roms, and that it has several built in emulators.

For now though, I'm having fun with playing just 1 nds game at a time using my flashme'd DS with ndspatcher.

[Lilwolf]

I was really close to try and Ben Heckendorn a pc... but make it kinda bigger.  I was going to take a via epia board and a car powersupply to a dvd battery set... and put one of those 7" lilliput touchscreen in the front.

I figured with the motherboard at 45 degrees, I would be able to create some nice gribs on the sides.  Then add some IDE -> some solid state drives...  In the end you would have a kick ass little portable PC.  But it would cost a bit... especially if I had the case perfessionally cut.

[shodokan123]

i so want a treamcast... lol

play marvel vs capcom 2 with my arcade stick in my car duing long trips <3

[Otraotaku]

Flashcart: x-rom 512mb  available at www.easybuy2000.com

Yes I'm looking into getting an m3 because of the basicially unlimited supply of memory (just buy more sd or cf media cards), the better compatibility than the ndspatcher (see here: http://www.dualscene.net/djoen/ndspatcherlist/data.php), and the fact that it has a built in frontend for multiple nds and gba roms, and that it has several built in emulators.

For now though, I'm having fun with playing just 1 nds game at a time using my flashme'd DS with ndspatcher.

know where to find The M3's?

[ften]

Flashcart: x-rom 512mb

[MrBond]

I just ordered an m3 from http://www.divineo.cn/cgi-bin/div-cn/ds-m3cf.html
I went with the sd version since I have a sd card already for my cam

[daywane]

I would like to know how the m3 works out for you
will the 2 AA bateries last long enought to play a 2 hr movie?
I have a bunch of rechargables.

[RawisJericho]

I don't have a PSP, but I would assume that would be the best for handheld emulation. There is a thing called a GP32 you should look at as well.