GP2X Wiz emulator handheld review, what games do you wanna see?

[Leathco]

The GP2X Wiz is a handheld that emulates tons of older game systems and also has some ports of PC games and lots of homebrew. Pretty cool handheld with awesome Genesis and Sega CD compatibility! (32X is laggy though)

Part 1 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPNwq3p47eo
Part 2 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSdiLQ3C2tY
Part 3 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqBZiA60nvo
Part 4 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_UaQHGEEB0

Now I need you guys to help with part 5. Got a game you want reviewed (in emulation or a particular port you have seen or heard aboot?) Post in in this thread or over in the video comments and I'll put your wanted game in part 5!

[The Jackal]

What's the specs on this?

[Leathco]

What's the specs on this?

Specs are similar to the new Caanoo, decent for most 8 and 16 bit emulation, not so good for PS1 or N64 era (for those the only real choice is the Pandora, at $350 USD)

I go over detailed specs in part 1 of the review, but here's the basics:

Chipset: MagicEyes Pollux System-on-a-Chip
CPU: 533 MHz ARM9 (overclockable to 900 MHz) 3D Accelerator
NAND Flash Memory: 1 GB
RAM: SDRAM 64 MB
Operating System: GNU/Linux-based OS
Storage: SD Card (SDHC support)
Connection to PC: USB 2.0 High Speed
USB Host: USB 2.0
Power: Internal 2000mAh Lithium Polymer Battery (approx. 7 hours game/video playback)
Display: 320x240 2.8-inch (71 mm) AMOLED Touch Screen
Embedded Microphone
Physical size: 121 mm (4.8") wide, 61 mm (2.4") high, 18 mm (0.7") deep
Weight: 98 g (without battery), 136 g (with battery)
3D Acceleration
Chipset supports OpenGL ES 1.1
133M Texel/sec, 1.33M Polygon/sec.

The good news is since GPH is phasing out the Wiz for their new Caanoo, the price of the Wiz has dropped. Caanoo has almost identical specs (it has 128 megs of RAM instead of 64) with a bigger screen, but the software isn't as evolved yet. Honestly, I'm skipping the Caanoo and going with a Pandora when I get my tex money, but the Wiz is a good temporary handheld system that does well on the cheap.

[evildragon]

Yea not all of them are overclockable to 900mhz.. Mine only goes to 733 reliably.

I love my wiz and it's highly hacked up right now.. Does what I want

[Leathco]

Yea not all of them are overclockable to 900mhz.. Mine only goes to 733 reliably.

I love my wiz and it's highly hacked up right now.. Does what I want

Same, here, mine overclocks to 800, anything over (805 even) results in the emulator crashing in seconds. 800 is reliablle for hours though, go figure.

[The Jackal]

Specs are similar to the new Caanoo, decent for most 8 and 16 bit emulation, not so good for PS1 or N64 era (for those the only real choice is the Pandora, at $350 USD)

I go over detailed specs in part 1 of the review, but here's the basics:

Chipset: MagicEyes Pollux System-on-a-Chip
CPU: 533 MHz ARM9 (overclockable to 900 MHz) 3D Accelerator
NAND Flash Memory: 1 GB
RAM: SDRAM 64 MB
Operating System: GNU/Linux-based OS
Storage: SD Card (SDHC support)
Connection to PC: USB 2.0 High Speed
USB Host: USB 2.0
Power: Internal 2000mAh Lithium Polymer Battery (approx. 7 hours game/video playback)
Display: 320x240 2.8-inch (71 mm) AMOLED Touch Screen
Embedded Microphone
Physical size: 121 mm (4.8") wide, 61 mm (2.4") high, 18 mm (0.7") deep
Weight: 98 g (without battery), 136 g (with battery)
3D Acceleration
Chipset supports OpenGL ES 1.1
133M Texel/sec, 1.33M Polygon/sec.

The good news is since GPH is phasing out the Wiz for their new Caanoo, the price of the Wiz has dropped. Caanoo has almost identical specs (it has 128 megs of RAM instead of 64) with a bigger screen, but the software isn't as evolved yet. Honestly, I'm skipping the Caanoo and going with a Pandora when I get my tex money, but the Wiz is a good temporary handheld system that does well on the cheap.

So it's pretty much a slightly cut-down Xbox 1 (same RAM, about the same CPU speed) in handheld form,right? Looks quite nice. Bet they're hard to get hold, though...(?)

[Leathco]

Not really. I got scammed when I got mine over from gp2xstore.com though, they sent me a defective unit and wouldnt fix or replace it, but GPH repaired it for free for me (had to ship it to korea for them to fix though)

Pretty sure play-asia.com has em for sale. Tons of other shops sell em when you google it, but I'd claim play-asia.com or thinkgeek.com would prolly be the most reputable sellers.

Also the original XBox had a more powerful processor than the wiz, since it used a different type of processor. Two 533 MHZ processors are not the same and often have huge performance differences. The ARM series of CPUs alone have huge differences at similar clock speeds, the Pandoras CPU beats the hell out of the Wiz CPU, even though they are close to the same clock speed.

[The Jackal]

Not really. I got scammed when I got mine over from gp2xstore.com though, they sent me a defective unit and wouldnt fix or replace it, but GPH repaired it for free for me (had to ship it to korea for them to fix though)

Pretty sure play-asia.com has em for sale. Tons of other shops sell em when you google it, but I'd claim play-asia.com or thinkgeek.com would prolly be the most reputable sellers.

Cheers, I look into buying one in the new year. Might come in handy when I'm waiting for the bus..!

[Leathco]

Cheers, I look into buying one in the new year. Might come in handy when I'm waiting for the bus..!

No prob. If you are interested in an open source handheld there's actually lots to choose from.

The Dingoo A-320 and A-330 are pretty identical, have the lowest specs, but also very cheap, can be found for about 75 bucks.

And GP2X Wiz just ended production, and can be found from 100 to 120 bucks. It has a nice software library though!

The GP2X Caanoo is the new product hot off the lines, not much of an upgrade from the Wiz in my opinion. Can be had for 150 bucks.

Finally there's the Pandora, only available at open-pandora.org and only for preorder. Its NOT vaporware, they have shipped over a thousand units, but have over 5000 people waiting on units as well, so if you preorder it could be awhile before you get yours. I am ordering towards the end of February, and dont expect mine to actually come in until the end of summer. Its also 350 bucks for the unit itself, with no accessories. The system specs are a beast on this thing though (it can actually run a full version of Ubuntu linux as its primary OS if you wanna replace its custom kernal.)

[Chilly Willy]

Also the original XBox had a more powerful processor than the wiz, since it used a different type of processor. Two 533 MHZ processors are not the same and often have huge performance differences.

Uh - no. The XBox used a 733 MHz Pentium 3. The Pentium 3 series doesn't hold a candle to the ARM9 for efficiency: at the same clock rate, the ARM9 blows the P3 out of the water. The 200 extra MHz of the XBox default clock rate doesn't equal out the performance - I'd still bet on the ARM9 to win.

[Leathco]

Uh - no. The XBox used a 733 MHz Pentium 3. The Pentium 3 series doesn't hold a candle to the ARM9 for efficiency: at the same clock rate, the ARM9 blows the P3 out of the water. The 200 extra MHz of the XBox default clock rate doesn't equal out the performance - I'd still bet on the ARM9 to win.

Hmm, for some reason I thought the original XBox used a 533.

But original XBox emulators blow away the wiz on the upper end, being able to emulat Killer Instinct 1 and 2, as well as most Neo Geo games, as well as most PS1 and N64 games (PS1 on Wiz is choppy with sound disabled, and N64 flat out hasn't happened). Is it just the coding of the emulator, or the hardware?

[The Jackal]

@Leathco: Thanks for the info. Rep comin' your way, bud.

@Chilly: I'm still pretty much a novice when it comes to processors, so how much faster is ARM9 to the Xbox's Pentium 3?

I know the Xbox is nearly nine years old and it was a low-to-mid PC (around 2001) deguised as a console, so I know there's gonna to be a major gap; right?

[Leathco]

No prob Jackal. If you have any questions at all feel free to ask or PM me.

I'll be reviewing the Pandora when I get it in, it just will prolly be a while.

[Chilly Willy]

But original XBox emulators blow away the wiz on the upper end, being able to emulat Killer Instinct 1 and 2, as well as most Neo Geo games, as well as most PS1 and N64 games (PS1 on Wiz is choppy with sound disabled, and N64 flat out hasn't happened). Is it just the coding of the emulator, or the hardware?

Most PC based emulators (which is what the XBox is - a PC) have been around long enough that nearly every time-consuming portion of the emulators have highly optimized assembly available. Different routines have been done for different levels of the x86, taking advantage of everything up through the latest SSE architecture.

If you check the GP2X emulators, they'll have some ARM assembly as well, but it's not as extensive, and not had nearly as long for devs to optimize it like the PC side. So these emulators probably will improve as the ARM becomes more popular.

Part of this could also be the amount of help the GPU provides. Many emulators for Windows use DirectX to help accelerate certain aspect of the display. The emulators on the GP2X may or may not do this. It's another area where the emulators might also improve as they become more mature.

I'm still pretty much a novice when it comes to processors, so how much faster is ARM9 to the Xbox*s Pentium 3?

As anyone familiar with the topic would say, that's hard to say exactly as they are very different processors. The ARM is a RISC chip with all the pros and cons associated, while the P3 is a CISC chip with different pros and cons. If one went strictly by BogoMips, the P3 is twice as fast for the same clock rate, having an index of 5.6 vs 2.8 for the ARM9. BogoMips is currently based on decrementing a register, so if all your program did was decrement a register, the P3 is clearly faster.

However, BogoMips doesn't really measure anything other than the clock rate. If you know the number of BogoMips you score and the index of the CPU, you can calculate back to find the clock rate. If you want to accurately bench a CPU, the tasks need to be more complex. If you look at Dhrystones (a much more comprehensive test of integer performance), the ARM9 scores about 2.5 Dhrystone MIPS/MHz while the P3 scores about 1.8.

Remember that raw CPU performance also isn't enough to rate the entire system - there's also things like RAM throughput... how fast can the memory supply data to the CPU or write data from the CPU. That's probably the reason Leathco saw a difference between the Pandora and the Whiz.

[Leathco]

Ah OK. Thanks for the explanation. I knew Pandora can handle certain neo geo arcade games that Wiz couldnt due to the fact that the entire game has to be loaded into RAM with the emulator, and if there's not enough room, the game won't load.