Mark Plays gp2x wiz

This video - 'part one the Wiz review prequel'
just contains some quick caps of games and emulators running. All emulators - except for the original gameboy and sadly the Vice emulator - run full speed zero frameskip.

The first part truly shows of the OLED screen in full splendor. The latter part of the movie was taped in a rather dark environment with the camera in Macro so there is actually a moire effect visible and the image is over exposed. Ah well just a quick 'Mark plays'...

Nintendo Nes - full speed
Nintendo Snes - full speed
Nitendo GBA - full speed
Sega Genesis/Megadrive - full speed
Sega Master System - full speed
Mame (incl Neogeo) - full speed in most games
CPS1 & 2 Emulation - full speed
Flash (not to fancy apps run full speed)
Quake - not optimized not using any 3D hardware yet
CBM Amiga - full speed

C64 Vice - stutters and has slow downs and at other times runs smooth - very irratic.

Btw all the games I show here are owned on original media.
More to come...

he screen is amazing. In daylight and in darkness it is very bright and clear. It has an enormous viewable angle. With a single colour solid fill on the screen you see a little grain which is normal in this type of screen. As the screen is relatively small the 320x240 resolution has a very small dotpitch making the screen very very crisp.
The emulators I've shown in the video are all running full speed - zero frameskips apart from the original gameboy emulator (lemonboy). It is very much like playing the real thing - speed wise - without any hiccups or other emulation weirdness sometimes experienced with emulators.

The Pandora won't feature an OLED screen but will offer a very high resolution and a bigger screeen size. Dotpitch wise it will be of comparable clarity. Viewing angle will be less and colors less bright but a great screen nevertheless. It is hard to speculate as I haven't seen the real Pandora yet. The Pandora will probably ship the end of this summer.

The beta version of the Wizz actually had two thumb pads but the final version has a regular left thumb pad and a similar thumb pad functioning as four separate buttons. The left thumb pad functions well, it is responsive and I have no problems hitting diagonals. I prefer it slightly over the DSLite thumb pad. The other 4 button thumb pad thing looks a bit iffy but actually is very usable. It actually is 4 separate buttons configures to look like another thumb pad. Two button action needed in games like Super Mario World etc are very easy to do - it really functions as four separate keys but with the added bonus that it can also function as a thumb pad. This whole controller thing really is far better than any other GPH/Gamepark console out there.

Of course it is odd that Amiga emulation is quite good and C64 emulation is iffy - I didn't have enough time to get Amiga gameplay in so I sort of made it into a teaser. But when demand is high enough I might do a second part showing c64, Atari ST, Amiga, CSP1, CSP2 and PSX emulation.

The hiccups in C64 emulation may have something to do with my unit having the latest firmware 1.1.0 on it whereas most software was developed with the 1.0.0 firmware in mind. This causes slight compatibility issues in a very few apps like Vice. But actually c64 emulation was problematic on the original gp2x as well with micro pauses etc. Frodo offers a smoother experience but has not been ported to the Wizz yet. As Vice is a complicated emulator it uses a lot of recourses and for some reason increasing the clock speed doesn't solve the hiccups. It seems to be a timing issue as sometimes the emulator is very smooth and then it stutters periodically. But perfect C64 emulation on a handheld has yet to be achieved....

It is a homebrew-fan's dream this console and emulation is rapidly getting there. Mind you it is not compatible with the original gp2x and binaries will not be cross compatible despite the many similarities. The original gp2x had a two cpu design featuring two ARM cpus with the secondary cpu suffering from a limited memory bottleneck. The gp2x only has one cpu but has a specialized 3D chip that is OpenGL compatible - no software apart from OpenGL demos is using that hardware acceleration yet. It has the same amount of RAM and also suffers a memory bottle neck problem. But devvers have already put out quite a few nice emulators circumventing those problems.

There is a screen update issue with a vsync diagonal line appearing because the frame buffer has some off-timings in the default setting. Homebrew / User- enthusiasts are already creating scripts to circumvent that as well. This truly is a device to watch as it is more powerful than the Sony PSP in a few ways.

It swallowed quite a few DivX avi files without any problems by the way.

Category:

Gaming

Tags:

• Mark plays
• armchair arcade
• gamepark
• wiz
• gp2x
• gp32
• pandora
• open pandora
• linux
• handheld
• console
• videogames
• retrogaming
• cps1
• cps2
• amiga
• c64
• sega
• nintendo
• atari st

[EvoProd]

can this bad boy play pc games like Yumme Nikki, Eversion, Don't Look Back, VVVVVV, Tower of Heaven, Cat Planet, Runman, etc?

[markvergeer]

@EvoProd There's a DOSBox version out for the system but don't expect stellar performances. Old CGA/EGA games work best. For Linux ports it usually helps to seek around or do your own port.

Flash games don't really work well.

[wbyyo]

buen video

[markvergeer]

@wbyyo Gracias. Hago lo que puedo.

[Zambaku]

Finaly a handheld that can handle DOS. Roguelikes here I come

[markvergeer]

@Zambaku DOSBox works well for quite a few games!

[blueskyzero9]

So how are the controls on this thing? Comfortable?

[EvoProd]

@markvergeer thanks for your reply :)

[markvergeer]

The Wiz has one draw-back, the diagonal framesync line that pops-up on some older software. Of course Gamepark put the screen rotated in the Wiz - they always do something stupid like that - so that software ported from devices with a well implemented framebuffer needs to be altered. Simple rotating routines will cause diagonal refresh lines - unless you do a proper vsync which is actually more a diagonal sync :P

As an end user nothing to worry about though :P

Need to update the video....

[markvergeer]

@Matrixman. The price is $330. Very few are available still from the first batch. It's way more expensive than a Wiz or an A320.

When I made the video a lot of the emulators were just out. Many of them have been replaced by full speed working versions. C64 emulation dramatically improved with new versions of Frodo & Vice. GB emulation is smooth as silk now. Genesis full frame PAL/NTSC as is Snes. Nes still is a little jerky but I'm sure another update will fix that.