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GCW Zero - new retrogaming open source handheld!
- Thread starter Vitacat
- Start date
SnakeSlashRO
Banned
Look at all these new lovely backers. I'm really excited about this!
thekonamicode
Member
Over $9000 pledged today alone! Looks like yesterdays announcement of memory and storage upgrades has resonated with people.
KodeAndGame
Member
So as far as we can tell, SNES and GBA are mostly playable right? From what I've seen there's an occassional sound problem and some hiccups here and there but usually still quite playable.
Follow up question... Does this handheld have the best SNES and GBA emulation in the handheld realm? You know, outside of a DS and GBA for GBA.
Follow up question... Does this handheld have the best SNES and GBA emulation in the handheld realm? You know, outside of a DS and GBA for GBA.
zephervack
Member
Thats what I have been reading in this thread, I went from "but I have a PSP" to "damn I really want this so I dont have to suffer through shitty emulation speed"
Still, I wish the unit had more buttons and another stick, I love mapping stuff like Savestate, loadstate, rapid fire, etc etc to extra buttons.
Im still on the fence about backing, it is very tempting, if they release an update with something like this I might just back it.
KodeAndGame
Member
Yeah all the complaints about controls are pretty legit I think. Maybe if I emu devs allow me to bind some btn combos to save/load sate
SnakeSlashRO
Banned
To be completely honest, I am pretty sure the emu's have button combos for emulation features. A lot of hand held emulators use these. Secondly most of the emulators shown are in early stages, most things will probably be fixed even before it launches.
Phat Michael
Banned
yep. I have a dingoo already. plays somethings well and others terribly. not sure why this is worth upgrading too.
From video's it seems better than my old caanoo at least. Some snes games were pretty poor on it and quite a few GBA games suffered from slowdown or sound errors. The Pandora is probably better but it's also like 600 euro.
SnakeSlashRO
Banned
Much more compatibility, 16GB on board memory and 512MB Ram for emulation ranging from older PC titles and just about every console under the Dreamcast/PS2/Xbox/GameCube Era. So that means it will be able to handle even PS1 and N64 if you wanted ( dispute the lack of buttons, excluding the second analog stick on PS1 since most games didn't need a second stick)
Overall I think this has an advantage over the default choice in most peoples minds (PSP's) the 3DS and Vita (only the psp part of the vita is) are not hacked yet and probably won't be for a long time.
Also this device isn't all about emulation, I think the best part is that its truly open source so the potential is going to be huge if there is a large community, and everyone in the community seems ready and willing to back this device.
Android devices are pretty good at emulation but theres still a number of issues, some covered in the last few pages... and also most devices don't have buttons so you would have to use a wireless controller or some other thing... I mean the less devices the better IMO. Also this baby has HDMI out!
KodeAndGame
Member
Alright, you guys convinced me - I finally backed it after evaluating for some time. Can't wait!!
KojiKnight
Member
I just don't get it... This type of device baffles me in it's existence... Even super low end android devices (~$99 range) can already do everything this device is offering and more, and add a bluetooth controller and you'll be more than on-par (many many many thousands of times more android devices than dingus based ones, which means better and more varied support).
Its all been talked about on previous pages. The TL;DR of it all is that this is made for emulation, and phones are not.
The fact that you think a phone with a BT controller is as good or better shows that you're not the target market. Move on, the Zero isn't for you.
In other news, the GCW Zero was covered on slashdot today:
http://games.slashdot.org/story/13/...urce-gaming-handheld-project-wants-your-money
zephervack
Member
I think in the previous pages someone explained that Android has Audio lag or something like that, this device is aimed at people looking for 1:1 emulation, no sound lag, no input lag, no upscaling graphics, no frameskip, etc etc,
Holy heck.
Anyway, has there been any evidence that this thing can play patched ROMs OK?
I would be interested in things like English-patched Super Famicom games like DQ I/II/III, Bahamut Lagoon, Live-A-Live, etc.
Patched ROMs are almost never a problem with emulators in my experience. You could join the GCW IRC channel ("#GCW is open to the public it's on irc.freenode.org or irc.freenode.net") or post on their Dingoonity board to try and directly ask people who have one already.
KS at about $71,000 now! I think today will end up being the new record for pledges.
I can confirm that Pandora has excellent SNES, GBA and PSX emulation and the buttons to go with it. N64 is still very hit and miss (but that's because there's very few people capable of working on N64 emulation for ARM. All current N64 emulators on ARM devices are based on the work done by Ari64 who ported the Mupen64 recompiler to ARM using Pandora afaik).
A few demos of Emulators on Pandora:
GBA
PSX
Amiga
And there is even a Nintendo DS emulator for ARM (currently only fast enough for 2D games) in the works for Pandora by Exophase who originally developed the GBA emulator for ARM that has been ported everywhere else by now:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Ikb2i4ir8A#!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLXD-9AXq0A
http://boards.openpandora.org/index.php/topic/11333-drastic-nintendo-ds-emulator-teaser-video/
And yes, the Pandora is indeed expensive, but not quite as expensive as you say (note that Europeans automatically get VAT added to the displayed price):
https://www.dragonbox.de/en/27-main-consoles-and-upgrades
SnakeSlashRO
Banned
Dood. Fuck yeah.
Im glad we have this thread on neogaf and are helping convince people to back this awesome device! This weekend I plan on making some videos of other devices and how choppy the emulation can be compared to Nick's challenges on youtube where he is showing off his GCW-ZERO SE edition.
I literally have been sharing this kickstarter with everyone... starting to feel like I work for cutco or something lmao.
Also
Your generalizations have been addressed a while back... Also this baby can emulate snes starfox! like near perfectly! This device is offering true comparability (near perfect already), something most android devices cannot boast. Also we have buttons over here!
zephervack
Member
Holy hell, 600USD$, the GCW Zero seems very attractive all of the sudden, what does the pandora have over it?
thekonamicode
Member
More than $10,000 has already been pledged today! I think that slashdot article helped out big-time.
KodeAndGame
Member
Hopefully having such a big day will put it on more news sites.
Among other things a huge battery (10-12h battery life under full CPU use), wifi and bluetooth, fully powered USB host (meaning you can plug in GPS-devices, External Hard- and CD-drives, 3G modems, etc.), dual SD card slots, a qwerty keyboard, two analog nubs, 800x480 screen, a full desktop linux system and by now a really great open source software library:
http://repo.openpandora.org/
If you are only interested in emulation it's probably overkill. It's a portable mini-computer. But it does have really good emulators.
zephervack
Member
Amazing, so this is more like a ultra pocket linux laptop, can you run the Pandora's emus on the GCW? They are both ARM based right???
Im worried about all this fragmentation of devs pretty much doing the same thing.
Most of the emulators you find today on android and iOS devices had their development started on open handhelds like the Pandora and the GP2X (because at the time they allowed better debugging options than closed hardware like PSP). They are usually easily ported with a little effort by a competent coder to other ARM devices unless they use some device specific extensions like for example NEON which not necessarily all ARM implementations include.
My guess is that pretty much all the GCW emulators are based on the same old emulator code from the GP2X, Pandora and Dingoo communities. Most of it is open source.
It's very rare that someone will write a completely new emulator for a compatible new device, but it actually becomes more desirable to do so over time, since many of the hardcoded optimizations in the emulator code are made with older processors in mind. These optimizations may be simply unnecessary or even detrimental for performance on newer processors.
SnakeSlashRO
Banned
But at that price I'd rather buy a damn cheap gaming notebook... I mean I got my lenovo Y580 for like 700 a few months ago, and that can emulate gamecube/wii and ps2.
The thing is, can you fit that in your pocket?
That's the main draw there, I'm guessing. Not interested in the Pandora myself anyway, but I was about 6 years ago when it was first announced though!
DangerDave
Member
The screen resolution is way too low, even for emulating games. And the other thing that bothers me is the button layout. It's not xbox style with the A at the bottom, and it's not snes style with the x on top. Why would they do that?
SnakeSlashRO
Banned
Im assuming they were modeling it after the SNES... secondly, button mapping is hardly an issue when it comes to devices like this. You can change the buttons around as you wish... I mean unless its just the actual lettering on the device
? Can't help you if thats your issue.Also that resolution has been mentioned quite a bit, its actually perfect for N64 and under... I believe some PS1 games might have been a bit higher but overall thats like standard resolution for retro gaming... Also HDMI out is being worked on, might be able to upscale?
The resolution is ideal for most retro games and the fact that you care about button labels suggests you don't understand this device and it is not for you.
Ks at 73k!
SnakeSlashRO
Banned
Yeah, today is insane with backers. I haven't even made my second pledge yet. I was gonna wait for a slow day lol Should I do like a second account and pledge again? Or just increase it? I want two units lol.
Shalashaska161
Member
Not going to lie, definitely tempted by this. Are the emulators on this system proving to be better than the PSP ones, specifically the SNES one? I found the emu really lacking on the PSP.
Man u r serious! Pledge if u want two. My wife might also pledge if things slow down toward the end. Dunno if she will play it, but she does play some video games.
Definitely. Watch some of the videos, check links in the OP. It kills psp for snes emulation.
Relaxed Muscle
Member
Going by the videos SNES emulation is better than PSP already which is lacking on the PSP.
SnakeSlashRO
Banned
It annihilates the PSP in the SNES department. Also it should be able to emulate N64! Which is a huge plus for me. Also classic PC games...
I wonder if there is a linux port of Zelda Classic... or if someone could get that working on this baby. I hope the videos and the thread tempt you enough to back it!
There is Linux source code out there for it, so if a port hasn't already been done for Dingux, it is at least possible.
KS now ~$75,000! Best day yet.
Oh wow I didn't know Exophase was developing a ds emulator. Now that is something to keep an eye on.
gingerbeardman
Member
is there any news on whether or not folks outside the USA are going to be hit by large import charges? That will add 20%+ to the cost for me in the UK.
Try to get on IRC and go to #GCW on irc.freenode.org or irc.freenode.net. That way you can ask the actual devs, including Justin himself (AKA GCW).
gingerbeardman
Member
I've just backed it for $1 to get the updates and ask questions, as I don't use IRC.
Good idea, that should work. Also check the FAQ way at the bottom of the ks page, GCW regularly adds stuff there.
SnakeSlashRO
Banned
That Amiga emulator beeing so slow and innacurate pains me
I'll see in 10 days if I take the plunge or not, odds are I will though.
I just hope the Amiga emulator ends up great, and not just for A500 games but for A1200 games too!
All of the emus are very early, obviously. So chances are it will improve. Seemed ok to me in the video, but then I haven't owned an Amiga in many years, and never had the games in that demo video.
Sound off, crack intro lagged a lot, multiscroll was a slideshow, colors seemed off (could be due to the camera) and the game wasn't running at 50fps
The ST emulator too was lacking in Vroom, especially the sound effects.