Need Useful Links for Portable Emulation

[migo]

I see now that migo already mentioned it, and that there is a vocal minority in the gp32x community who don't like the 'pandora' and want to call it "a piece of shit" before its even in production.

I think I am the Pandora's target audience, it looks like the perfect answer for my needs. I am super excited

=Jubal=

The reason it's being called a POS is because the designers haven't given much thought to anything but the internal hardware. You can tell just by looking at the keyboard that it's going to be horrible, and it's evident they don't have the first clue about keyboard design by the fact that they designed something so utterly bad. Lack of spacing and completely flat keys are the big one. Unless they do a HUGE overhaul you won't be able to enjoy your keyboard based games on it.

GP2X F200 won't drop in price in response to the Pandora, as the Pandora is made by part of the GP2X community, not actually Game Park Holdings.

Just keep that in mind when you're getting excited about the Pandora. I was getting pretty excited when I heard about it, until they released the mockups. Even if they fix the spacing and don't have it so flat, there's still a problem with it being staggered. They're also not looking at the angled or mirrored half rainbow design that's coming into a lot of the UMPCs. Basically the extent of thought they put into the keyboard is that they're going to have one. They haven't given any thought to the ergonomics of it.

The analog stick layout they at least have given some thought to, but their arguments around it would only be valid if the keyboard were actually good. Analog stick layout where the keyboard is would be much better, and given the number of steps they'd need to make to improve the keyboard, they really would be better off leaving it completely out.

They had the potential to make it very good by leaving a couple of the features out, but they've tried to cram everything they possibly could in. A design similar to the Zodiac with a snap on keyboard that also acts as a protective case would have worked a fair bit better.

Anyway, if you're going to be excited about it, go ahead, just make sure to keep that in mind, otherwise you might find yourself in for quite a surprise.

[Jubal]

I agree I wish it had the "mirrored half rainbow design that's coming into a lot of the UMPCs" keyboard design. the pics that are out there are just renders somebody did off of the paper mockup that was being passed around, right? seems they still have the ability to give it a bit more design than a flat brick, but its true they don't appear to be too concerned with that aspect.

I am still open to other options as well. I just spent some time trying to familiarize myself with the whole DS lite emulation scene.

the M3 Real looks fantastic for DS and GBA "emulation", plug and play couldn't be simpler. but I am a bit amazed at the lack of development of decent retro emulation on the DS. Genesis emulators still don't even have sound. the hardware should be able to handle it fine... it looks like its just a lack of development community attention. lack of genesis emulation is a bit of a deal breaker for me if I am getting a machine for portable emu

the GP2X really does look good, and will handle snes/genesis with a little overclocking. unfortunately it looks like it impacts the battery life / play time.

I will admit I don't know alot about the PSP scene. I am intimidated by the difficulty of keeping the mod up to date.

the possibility of being able to run everything from PS1/N64 all the way back to Commodore 64 games on the pandora got me very excited. ofcource its really all just talk at this point, there is no public demonstration of a working prototype or whatever. battery life may be unreasonable short or some other prob.

have I missed any good options? does anybody have a recommendation on a portable device that includes a keyboard for old comp emu and a d pad/ gamepad setup with enough processing power to be able to run genesis/snes games correctly?

[Ivo]

I don't know if that is a viable option for you or not, but there are very tiny laptops (probably have a specific name other than that).

They are quite a bit larger (and pricier) than the other options you consider, but they are actually real computers with all the extra advantages that has (or not), namely that emulators are very well developed on them, and although the controls beyond the keyboard are not right there, you can probably find a suitable gamepad for it.

And you're pretty sure to have good deal of choice on particular model (and brand) as there is a market for those things, so you can select based on price, battery life, ergonomics and so on whichever suits you more.

[GSZX1337]

The best and by far easiest to use cart for DS emulation/roms is the R4DS. That is literally plug and play. The only thing you need to get it working is a micro SD card. but they can be bought for about £5 for 1GB or about £12 for 2GB these days. Plus the R4DS is only £35. The fatlib has been released for the r4ds quite a while ago so lots of homebrew has been updated to be patched to work on the r4ds. Plus all roms work without needing for patching unlike supercards etc. Plus it's a slot-1 solution which means theres a standard cartdridge and thats it (no gba slot flash adaptors).

If you're going use the ds for emu/roms i couldn't recomend it highly enough.

There's a new flash cart out there called the M3 Real. This is the best thing out there right now. Here's two reviews that give great coverage over it (hey, they convinced me to buy it).

[Niode]

What is homebrew support like for the m3 real though? Most homebrew now supports r4ds. The rumble adaptor seems pretty cool to have included in the bundle but the r4ds supports slot-2 flash and rumble so I can't see how it's better? What is the price of the m3real compared to r4ds?

[Niode]

I don't know if that is a viable option for you or not, but there are very tiny laptops (probably have a specific name other than that).

They are quite a bit larger (and pricier) than the other options you consider, but they are actually real computers with all the extra advantages that has (or not), namely that emulators are very well developed on them, and although the controls beyond the keyboard are not right there, you can probably find a suitable gamepad for it.

And you're pretty sure to have good deal of choice on particular model (and brand) as there is a market for those things, so you can select based on price, battery life, ergonomics and so on whichever suits you more.

Do you mean a UMPC? (ultra mobile pc) They're very expensive right now as they're fairly new.

[GSZX1337]

What is homebrew support like for the m3 real though? Most homebrew now supports r4ds. The rumble adaptor seems pretty cool to have included in the bundle but the r4ds supports slot-2 flash and rumble so I can't see how it's better? What is the price of the m3real compared to r4ds?

Well, I haven't gotten the M3 Real yet (the site I ordered it through is a oke when it comes to Holiday demand) but according to the review:
"Homebrew compatibility is very good with the M3 DS Real. There is a DLDI driver for the card that supports both read and write & patch homebrew with DLDI patch automatically."

The price for an R4 by its lonesome is the same as the price for an M3 Real with it's RAM/Rumble pack.
GBA NDS gave the R4 a 9.2 and the M3 Real a 9.6. The M3 has better download play compatibility than the R4 (every game tested worked with the M3R). The R4 (as far as I've seen) doesn't support HC Micro SD cards whereas the M3 does. Also from what I've seen, I don't think that it would be worth it to buy an M3 Real if you already have the R4.

[Ivo]

Do you mean a UMPC? (ultra mobile pc) They're very expensive right now as they're fairly new.

From pics I found of UMPCs, I wasn't thinking of that radical. Those are REALLY mobile.

I was thinking of Subnotebooks, which have been around certainly for a while. Wikipedia seems to have distinct articles (the laptop categories they have are, in order of small to big goes: UMPC, subnotebook or ultraportable, thin&light, mainstream and lastly the desktop replacements.

So basically the one bigger than the UMPC was what I meant.

Ivo.

[racketboy]

Do you mean a UMPC? (ultra mobile pc) They're very expensive right now as they're fairly new.

From pics I found of UMPCs, I wasn't thinking of that radical. Those are REALLY mobile.

I was thinking of Subnotebooks, which have been around certainly for a while. Wikipedia seems to have distinct articles (the laptop categories they have are, in order of small to big goes: UMPC, subnotebook or ultraportable, thin&light, mainstream and lastly the desktop replacements.

So basically the one bigger than the UMPC was what I meant.

Ivo.

Check into the Asus Eee PC.
I'm planning on getting one this summer for my birthday

[Jubal]

Do you mean a UMPC? (ultra mobile pc) They're very expensive right now as they're fairly new.

From pics I found of UMPCs, I wasn't thinking of that radical. Those are REALLY mobile.

I was thinking of Subnotebooks, which have been around certainly for a while. Wikipedia seems to have distinct articles (the laptop categories they have are, in order of small to big goes: UMPC, subnotebook or ultraportable, thin&light, mainstream and lastly the desktop replacements.

So basically the one bigger than the UMPC was what I meant.

Ivo.

Check into the Asus Eee PC.
I'm planning on getting one this summer for my birthday

I have had my eye on the eee pc as well, price point is good too... I just want an eee pc with built in game controls =) dont want to have to lug around a usb gamepad

subnotebooks are great. and I like the concept of not having the weight of dvd and standard hdd.