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GCW Zero - new retrogaming open source handheld!
- Thread starter Vitacat
- Start date
Noisepurge
Member
this thing like the Dingoo before it require some invested time to know how to operate it
its like using Linux! Especially as an early adopter. There will be some easier install kits later down the road. But even those require some file management.Marty Chinn
Member
Okay I'm starting to get the hang of this.
I got FBA up and running:
Good taste =) One of my favorite boards in my collection.
How the hell do you tag your partner in on this game??
Marty Chinn
Member
Move next to him, point towards him, and hit punch if I recall
And yet he doesn't answer things that people still want to know. He should give more details on how many he can ship a week, and give weekly shipping status on how many shipped. If he would give that type of transparency, people would feel a lot better to know how fast or slow things are moving and how they can extrapolate what it means to them.
zephervack
Member
HoneyBunch360
Member
Okay I'm starting to get the hang of this.
I got FBA up and running:
Sweet. I loved that game.
I backed the project on Jan 25th so I assume I'll be one of the last to receive the thing.
Which part?That last paragraph really boiled my blood.
thekonamicode
Member
I'm having trouble getting FBA running if anyone doesn't mind helping me out?
polyh3dron
Banned
Seriously, he's one or two posts away from flipping out and saying he knows the mayor of bostonThat last paragraph really boiled my blood.
dakeedskee
Banned
Stop the hating. I want this gizmo.
LOL good question.
polyh3dron
Banned
polyh3dron
Banned
Apparently this site called Ithic managed to get some units from Barwick before he finished fulfilling all the Kickstarter orders (which is pretty shady if you ask me)
http://ithic.com/en/20-gcw-zero
Here's what I did.
I took the file from d_smagin's post in this thread extracted it and put the contents of the zip file in a folder called "apps" on my Micro SD card.
I put the roms in the roms folder and from there on order to get FBA to run I had to go into explorer->SD Card->Apps->fbacapex.dge
Getting games to work it a little more challenging. Apparently the games require the arcade board bios to be in the zip file with the rom or something. Where MAME has a giant Bios folder with the Bios off all supported arcade boards in one location and just grabs the one it needs. I'm still working on figuring out on how to get everything correct. I'm still learning.
You would be too if you had to deal with shipping units back to China for the d-pad replacement on your own dime, and random
The amount of hate this guy is getting is really starting to irk me. He's not the best communicator, and yeah, that makes things seem shady, but he's gotten better at transparency as the project's progressed. There's been a bit of a lack of contingency planning, and I think he'll put a bit more padding into the budget and cost estimates on the next project. I haven't seen anything yet that tells me he's trying to pull any shenanigans.
Just wait until you get the Zero in your hands. It's actually really cool, and I'm glad Justin has been able to see his dream through.
And this is the biggest problem. People should be feeling that this is getting shady or angry with the way things have been handled.
If you have a bigger budget id recommend an Nvidia Shield. This thing is amazing for emulators, and the battery life is bananas.
I have one already lol. That's the main reason I was thinking I'd regret getting a GCW Zero.
I'd mainly use this as a much more portable emulator machine I can just throw around without worrying about it breaking/scratching, perhaps carry it in my pocket.
Shield doesn't fit in my pocket and I'd never throw it around as I'm afraid of even scratching/scuffing it
tensuke
Member
Not really that shady. Link (the guy who runs Ithic) is very respected in the OpenPandora community and he probably just got a resale deal with the GCW Zero guy, as he does with Pandora.
I have one already lol. That's the main reason I was thinking I'd regret getting a GCW Zero.
I'd mainly use this as a much morele emulate ator machine I can just throw around without worrying about it breaking/scratching, perhaps carry it in my pocket.
Shield doesn't fit in my pocket and I'd never throw it around as I'm afraid of even scratching/scuffing it
Oh shit I forgot you had one
yeah I had the same problem, couldn't bring myself to pay for the case but I was afraid of getting it scratched. First scuff from a 3 feet fall took care of that fear pretty fast..polyh3dron
Banned
It's not that shady for him to ship a bunch to Ithic before taking care of his backers?
I've been tempted by the Shield, but part of me wants to wait and see if it'll get another revision sometime soon.
tensuke
Member
Well they did ship GCWs and GCW SEs before the KS started, so they could be from that. But I looked on the GCW site and they say Ithic.com and Dragonbox.de (EvilDragon is also very respected) are official resellers, so my guess is they paid for a certain amount of units earlier on and got those units, or had a deal in place regardless. The KS would have been independent of that and was intended for a mass production run larger than anything they could finance themselves. I don't really follow the GCW project though so that's all speculation, but it's a similar project to the OpenPandora and it sounds like they're running into some of the same issues. I'm no stranger to delays, vague wording, and missing information, but I don't think anything's shady, just ill-coordinated and ill-communicated.
An alpha version of ReGBA has been released for testing purposes. There is also floating around a build for the Dingoo A320.
You can buy one cheaper from Thinkgeek next month. They have them for $150. He clearly ran out of money and needs to sell some to retailers to fund the rest of the Kickstarter.
Hopefully the motivation of making money will get him to be more productive. He clearly wasn't that motivated to ship kickstarter units since that group of people who helped him that one weekend managed to do finish like 700 units in a few hours, while it took him months to do 150.
Hopefully the motivation of making money will get him to be more productive. He clearly wasn't that motivated to ship kickstarter units since that group of people who helped him that one weekend managed to do finish like 700 units in a few hours, while it took him months to do 150.
zephervack
Member
Wait, so the consoles he is finishing are being sent to retailers instead of the KS Backers??!
That explains the last update where he remainds us that Kickstarter is not a store, Im going to call Visa and hope they can do a charge back. What a joke.
PaulExcellent
Member
I'm in the market for a portable emulator machine, and was interested on the GCW Zero, but it doesn't seem to be worth it at this point. Is there any other emulator device that works well?
Edit: That's not a PSP.
Edit: That's not a PSP.
My HTC One emulates everything up to N64 almost perfectly. SNES works without any frameskip. And touch controls? Hell no. I use a gametel gamepad that you can clip the phone onto, that turns it into a handheld.
Haven't got an HTC One? Newest Samsung mobile phone will do just as well.
I haven't done this yet-- let us know if it works.
I honestly don't know what is current and up to date. I know there are tons of Android handhelds with buttons(like the JXD systems), but I'm not up on those.
As for older stuff there is
Dingoo A320
GP2X
GP2X Wiz
Gamepark Caanoo
OpenPandora
Of those I think the Pandora is the only one still being made, the rest you will probably have to buy used. The Pandora is expensive as well. I think it's pushing $500.
As for older stuff there is
Dingoo A320
GP2X
GP2X Wiz
Gamepark Caanoo
OpenPandora
Of those I think the Pandora is the only one still being made, the rest you will probably have to buy used. The Pandora is expensive as well. I think it's pushing $500.
Again, I do have to recommend the latest android mobile plus a gamepad add-on. SNES9x EX runs like a fucking dream, with at most 1 frame of frameskip in Yoshi's Island. With a snap on gamepad, it's like a mini console:
Full speed GBC with John GBC. Full speed SNES with SNES9x EX. Fullspeed NES with nes.emu. fullspeed Neo Geo with neo.emu. fullspeed PS1 with ePXSE. Even a fucking brilliant DS emulator in DraStic. I could go on for every console - the range is superb.
And of course, it's a phone. Honestly, I was all for the GCW before, but now I can play DKC2 at full speed with real controls on my phone? Nah.
I understand. Hell, if you look back through the thread you can see I was a huge supporter of the GCW Zero.
But my point is, why spend £130 on an extra device when the item most likely already in your pocket can now do the same? I felt that there was no way mobiles could meet the performance of something like the GCW Zero in terms of emulation. Well, until I loaded up SNES9x EX on my girlfriend's HTC One and thought 'holy fucking shit"
Come next year, there will be a significant gap in performance too.
Apple's official controller support in iOS7 might bring some nice options for portable emulation. I was comparing RetroArch on iOS via my 4s to Android on a Nexus 7 and found currently it's much nicer on iOS. You get per core configs, custom system binds (fast forward, rewind, save state, ect) and there's less input lag even using a wireless controller compared to wired on Android. Squarepusher wants to add those features to Android and said the input lag may be due to the stock ROM of the Nexus 7 though.
Besides the input lag, the Nexus does run everything at fullspeed. My 4s can't handle VBA Next or special chip games in SNES9x Next. I'll be watching what Apple does with the next iPad Mini to see if that will meet my needs. I'd want stereo speakers in landscape orientation, a faster processor and retina display. And a nice officially supported wired or wireless controller. I'd have to wait for a jailbreak to use emulators on one though.
The Zero could still satisfy me. Someone did a test compile of RetroArch for it on dingoonity and found many of the less demanding cores work well. With optimization maybe Genesis Plus GX and Nestopia can run fullspeed too, but IDK about VBA or SNES9x Next. ReGBA seems to be taking good care of GBA emulation on it at least.
Besides the input lag, the Nexus does run everything at fullspeed. My 4s can't handle VBA Next or special chip games in SNES9x Next. I'll be watching what Apple does with the next iPad Mini to see if that will meet my needs. I'd want stereo speakers in landscape orientation, a faster processor and retina display. And a nice officially supported wired or wireless controller. I'd have to wait for a jailbreak to use emulators on one though.
The Zero could still satisfy me. Someone did a test compile of RetroArch for it on dingoonity and found many of the less demanding cores work well. With optimization maybe Genesis Plus GX and Nestopia can run fullspeed too, but IDK about VBA or SNES9x Next. ReGBA seems to be taking good care of GBA emulation on it at least.
zephervack
Member
Is that controller wireless? Did U have to root?
Wireless Bluetooth. No need to root, and on Android the emulators all work without any rooting too.
Hell, it even works on my PC. Same buttons as a SNES pad, even two triggers. Works on standard Android games too - Sonic 1 is great with it.
Cost twenty quid on amazon UK. But hell, it was damn worth it.
I might need to try it again in comparison to the free version of Sonic CD on the Play store. That native Android port felt fine, so it's a good one to test against. Even still, I think iOS is the better OS for gaming since it doesn't have any stutter sometimes from background processes and audio and video latency is better. Games tend to come out on iOS first and there's awesome stuff like Super Crate Box that have never come to Android too.
PaulExcellent
Member
Yeah, I was looking for a good emulation device that I could carry with me, like a normal handheld, just not a PSP or a DS since their emulation is "eh" in terms of GBA and SNES.
I have an emulator setup like that with my Galaxy Note 8.0, and is one of the methods I use to review my old games that are stored away, or in my other home. I was looking for a handheld because of my Galaxy S3's battery life. Still, I like that Bluetooth controller. How is it?
EDIT OF EDIT: Neogaf Mobile blows.
You're never going to find anything that runs better than Christian Whitehead/Taxman's Sonic CD and Sonic 1 ports. They aren't emulated - they're built from the ground up on his own engine. That's why they run in widescreen resolutions. Same for the PS3 and Steam versions.
You cannot compare them to emulators. There's no comparison.
It's superb. My only issues are that the L and R buttons are somewhat tricky to get hold of whilst the phone is snapped into the holder, but that's easily able to be worked around. The D-Pad is brilliant. Very, very responsive. I'd liken it to the Saturn pad. Buttons are fine, and it's comfortable to hold. Not ran out of battery yet, and it charges via a micro USB slot.
With my phone hooked up to a TV, it functions as a wireless controller. Instant console!
Here it is on UK amazon: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B006L2HBXA/
It's obviously missing analogues, but it was by far the best one in terms of reviews compared to ones with analogues. Worth the trade-off. The only negative reviews on that page are ones by people who obviously don't understand the limitations (won't work with android games designed purely for the touchscreen). Emulators all support it natively, and the app has a full remapping function on it. Hell, you can even use it as midi input if you really wanted to.
Why not? I'm just using it to compare the response time between pressing a button and something happening on screen. I figured Taxman's native port of Sonic CD on Android was a good way to test if the lag was because of my controller setup or because of the emulators. On PC, I've gotten it low enough with Hard Sync Frames 0 and running on my 120hz monitor that it's the same or better than the Steam version of Sonic CD (running at 60hz since it runs at 2x speed at 120hz).
I usually use Mega Man 3 to test first. If there is noticeable input lag, Mega Man's jumps feel "heavy" to me. So far I'd rank my tests from least "heavy" to most as:
Windows RetroArch with Hard Sync Frames 0 and DualShock, Saturn or NeoGeo Pad at 120hz > iOS RetroArch w/ iControlPad > Android RetroArch with Saturn Pad
I'd put Android SNES9x Ex with the Saturn pad between iOS and Android RetroArch based on tests with SMW.
The Neo Geo USB pad sadly doesn't respond at all in Android, btw
Thinkgeek requires a new production run. It's not as simple as you might think. Units will only be sold from gcw-zero.com when all SE and KS orders have been fulfilled.
Super Crate Box is on the Ouya store for free, you could always sideload it if you want, but yes iOS does tend to be better overall for gaming other than not having to jailbreak for emus.