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GCW Zero - new retrogaming open source handheld!
- Thread starter Vitacat
- Start date
Cow Mengde
Banned
What's the screen resolution? Was considering getting a VITA for emulation once it hits the bargain bin, but with the pathetic battery life, probably won't do well for emulation. I'll probably get this instead.
Noisepurge
Member
"3.5 inch LCD with 320x240 pixels; 4:3 aspect ratio is ideal for retro gaming" -from their site
.Marty Chinn
Member
I finally decided to PM him and damn he's quick to reply. Almost too quick for someone who should be trying to ship these things like crazy. Of course the message wasn't too clear other than there was an issue with a fulfillment company. I had to reply back again asking if that meant mine didn't ship and if not what the ETA was. He just now responded that it will ship Monday or Tuesday and gave me a tracking number. It almost seems like you have to message him in order to get yours shipped sooner.
That's kind of the impressions I am getting as well.
Marty Chinn
Member
Did he also suddenly say yours is just about to ship?
No, he asked for further confirmation of my shipping address. He is going to say that on the next message
It almost feels like nothing is happening, but if you PM him directly, he gets right on top of sending out your system. But that can't be it...right?
Anyway, amazingly, unbelievably, astoundingly, when I track mine, it says it's out for delivery today. Holy shit!
Now to wait for the next phase of disappointment as the USPS fucks this up somehow or the package gets stolen!
Anyway, amazingly, unbelievably, astoundingly, when I track mine, it says it's out for delivery today. Holy shit!
Now to wait for the next phase of disappointment as the USPS fucks this up somehow or the package gets stolen!
You don't need anything else, it comes with all the needed cables. No microSD card so if you don't want to ftp to the internal card you'll need to supply your own. HDMI-out still hasn't been enabled either.
It actually came; still hard to believe. The included cloth case was dirty which makes me wonder if this had been used beyond just flashing, but the unit is in great shape. Feels kind of cheap and "homemade," which I guess makes sense.
Can't seem to get wireless working. Nothing seems to be detected.
Can't seem to get wireless working. Nothing seems to be detected.
You'll have to use FTP in order to get stuff on the internal memory.
And yeah, I think he is just sending systems to people who bitch.
I'm a bit disappointed with this thing. The d-pad sucks for fighting games (loaded it up with Neo-Geo and CPS games already); really hoping it just needs to be broken in, and while it's nice having Final Burn, a lot of stuff runs so poorly that it's just unplayable. I can't play games like Afterburner, Asura Buster, Martial Masters, and SF3 on this. It's barely better than the PSP.
Hope the support gets better, but there's really not much out there on the dingoocity forums.
Also really, really disappointed that TV-out isn't working.
OK, and that's fine...but then what is the point of having wireless?
Hope the support gets better, but there's really not much out there on the dingoocity forums.
Also really, really disappointed that TV-out isn't working.
OK, and that's fine...but then what is the point of having wireless?
I don't know. You can play eduke online and have death matches.
Edit: wait, did you download the wifi program?
http://www.gcw-zero.com/downloads
When I tried eduke, it crashed my system. This thing, man, this thing.
It was already on my system.
Don't know what to tell you, it worked on mine.You know eduke requires the original duke game right?
Have you gone to dingoonity and updated to the latest firmware?
P.S. thanks for reminding me to check for more stuff. Dosbox took some figuring out but I got Alleycat running on it whooo!
No, so that explains it!
Just tried updating and got an error. LOL.
EDIT: Now it went through. Thanks for the reminder.
You can use the shareware version if you don't want to buy it off of GOG.
There's a wiki with a pretty detailed quick start guide at: http://wiki.surkow.com/index.php/Quick_Start_Guide
Very helpful, thanks. This should be shipped, as instructions, with every unit.
POWERSPHERE
Member
Sounds like a guy who's never run a factory outlet or distribution company.
Blue Submarine No. 6
Member
Almost two weeks to the day after sending Justin a polite query regarding the status of my Zero via Kickstarter PM, I have received my GCW Zero...
I'm pretty pleased with the hardware quality... The overall feel of the system is pretty darned nice - much nicer than any other open source system I've owned to date (and I own most of them, including the GP32, GP2X and Dingoo A320)... I updated to the latest firmware and got GB/C, SNES and Genesis emu's up and running in no time, and I was playing Metal Gear Ghost Babel, Zelda DX, Earthbound, Super Castlevania IV, Batman and Castlevania Bloodlines without issue this afternoon...
Nice bit of gear. It took longer than expected, but I'm happy with the outcome... I'm looking forward to seeing what the development community come up with for it over time.
I'm pretty pleased with the hardware quality... The overall feel of the system is pretty darned nice - much nicer than any other open source system I've owned to date (and I own most of them, including the GP32, GP2X and Dingoo A320)... I updated to the latest firmware and got GB/C, SNES and Genesis emu's up and running in no time, and I was playing Metal Gear Ghost Babel, Zelda DX, Earthbound, Super Castlevania IV, Batman and Castlevania Bloodlines without issue this afternoon...
Nice bit of gear. It took longer than expected, but I'm happy with the outcome... I'm looking forward to seeing what the development community come up with for it over time.
Blue Submarine No. 6
Member
Well, I've spent a few more hours with the unit and here are some more observations, for better or worse... (proviso: opinions and all that...)
And that's about it for the first 24 hours or so with the unit. There's not much (if anything) you can do here but load EMUs and homebrew and play games, but it's looking pretty damned good on that front. Still, I'll admit that the system is not nearly as advanced on the software front as I'd thought it would be at this point - I would think Brightness settings for the screen would be one of the first things implemented, for instance. I hope it sees some concentrated development; getting some of the better EMUs optimized and compiled as OPKs (like Temper!) should be high on their priority list, but it's hard to tell what (if anything) is being worked on right now by perusing the forums. Solid hardware though; even in it's current state it's an impressive 8-bit & 16-bit handheld EMU system... I think the potential here is better than anything since Pandora, and despite the issues so far, it's arguably better managed and better hardware; if they get through the KS delivery issues and manage to push more units commercially, we're sure to see more and better software, but they do have some work to do yet...
- The D-pad and buttons work well but are a little spongy... there's a lot of travel in the buttons compared to the 3DS or Vita - more like the Neo-Geo X, but a little stiffer.
- The Select button is too close to the A/B/X/Y buttons, too easy to press while playing, especially in EMUs like Picodrive where it's used to open the emulation settings menu... I keep interrupting Revenge of Shinobi when things are getting crazy because the side of my thumb hits Select...
- FTPing into the system via WiFi to load and remove EMUs and ROMs is awesome... simple, clean, fast...
- There is no SLEEP function. I know, right...
- The OS interface is pretty sparse... I mean REALLY sparse... I can't even find a screen brightness setting anywhere. Most of the OS App interface functionality is pretty rudimentary.
- There is a nice collection of decent freeware games included on the system...
- Volume control is managed by holding the power button "up" and using UP/DOWN on the D-pad to control your volume... This means there's no requirement for a seperate, physical volume control, but you have to do it by ear; there's no visual indicator of a change.
- Most of the Dingoo EMUs seem to work, but only a few have been optimized for the GCW Zero as yet. I know it's early in the unit's life cycle, but I expected more EMUs set up to run specifically on the Zero by now; very few have a full screen mode, for instance...
- There is no quick start guide or help site URL provided with the unit, and it can be a pain finding even rudimentary information (I had to Google search how to control volume, for instance). I did stumble across this site eventually - http://wiki.surkow.com/Main_Page -and it's damned helpful.
- The G-sensor accelerometer hasn't been implemented in anything yet as far as I can tell - it certainly hasn't been patched into the Gameboy EMUs for use with stuff like Kirby's Tilt 'n Tumble...
And that's about it for the first 24 hours or so with the unit. There's not much (if anything) you can do here but load EMUs and homebrew and play games, but it's looking pretty damned good on that front. Still, I'll admit that the system is not nearly as advanced on the software front as I'd thought it would be at this point - I would think Brightness settings for the screen would be one of the first things implemented, for instance. I hope it sees some concentrated development; getting some of the better EMUs optimized and compiled as OPKs (like Temper!) should be high on their priority list, but it's hard to tell what (if anything) is being worked on right now by perusing the forums. Solid hardware though; even in it's current state it's an impressive 8-bit & 16-bit handheld EMU system... I think the potential here is better than anything since Pandora, and despite the issues so far, it's arguably better managed and better hardware; if they get through the KS delivery issues and manage to push more units commercially, we're sure to see more and better software, but they do have some work to do yet...
Brightness control is handled the same way as volume only you press left and right on the dpad.
I was waiting around for a Temper opk too but decided to eventually just install the non-opk version and it works flawlessly. You'll have to hunt down and rename the correct bios for CD games though.
I'm pretty happy with the state of emulation on my GCW-Zero already. NES/FDS, SNES, SMS/GG, GB/C, Genesis/CD, TG16/CD, MSX/2/+, GBA, NeoGeo, NGPC, CPS1/2 and System-16/Super Scaler are all almost entirely playable in various emulators already. And from what I've gathered PS1, WS/C, CPS3, F3 and 32X are all being worked on too. I hope to see N64 also but that seems a more remote possibility since no one's taken much interest.
Marty Chinn
Member
Can someone list the emulator to look out for for each of the respective platforms?
I'm using the following without any issues:
NES: FCE320
Genesis: PicoDrive
SNES: PocketSNES
All and much more available here.
https://docs.google.com/folderview?id=0B9EgGumkJaabSE9TaEdFbVVBSlU
When I first tried PocketSNES, I thought it sucked, as graphics were missing from every game I tried. Turns out there is a setting called "Show Transparencies" turned off by default. Why anyone would want graphics disabled by default is beyond me. Once I turned that on, no issues.
I really like the Zero so far. My only real complaint is the lack of a sleep mode. It's hard to use a handheld without one in 2013.
Sleep mode is a planned feature and will be comparable to sleep mode on the Dingoo A320. According to one of the main OpenDingux developers it could take a while because there is little chance it will work until all drivers are cleaned up.
NES: FCEUX 320, needs bios for FDS games
SNES: PocketSNES or SNES9x4d, I prefer the former in general but only the latter supports Super FX/SDD1/C4 chip games
SMS/GG: SMS SDL
GB/C: OhBoy
GBA: ReGBA
MD/CD: Picodrive, 1.91 supports SVP (playable) and 32X (unplayable), needs bios for CD games
MSX: openMSX, needs bios for disk games but open source C-bios included can run roms
NGPC: Race
NeoGeo: gngeo or Final Burn Alpha, both require bios zip but I've only used the former
CPS/2: Final Burn Alpha, supports CPS3 but it's unplayably slow
System-16 and Superscaler: FBA again
TG16/CD: temper, no .opk yet so you have to install the .dge, needs bios for CD games
Blue Submarine No. 6
Member
sörine;88364129 said:
I've got Temper working fine with my HuCard ROMs but I can't figure out why I can't get the CD-ROM files to work... It's funny too, because I basically just swiped the syscardX.bin bios files and my CD-ROM images from my GP2X, and they all run fine on that in an earlier version of Temper... bummer...
You need to make sure it's the V3.0 bios and you need to rename it "syscard3.bin". All CD-ROM2 family games should run except Altered Beast I think. CD format may matter too but I'm not sure. I have everything cue/bin.
Mega CD can be a pain too, especially since Picodrive now dropped MP3 support.
Blue Submarine No. 6
Member
ya.. that was it... it was a V3.0 bios, but the older version of Temper used "syscard3.pce" for the bios name... thxsörine;88375928 said:
ah... Gates of Thunder in the palm of my hand.... with a decent D-pad... bloody marvelous!
Marty Chinn
Member
Can someone tell me what the four gray dots on the back side of the unit is? Is it covering up screws?
Correct.
Yes, you can connect 2 (or more) GCW Zero devices together, but the game has to support this. Examples of games that support local and remote multiplayer are Descent 2, Quake 2 and Quake 3 Arena..
Marty Chinn
Member
Ah ok, I thought they were supposed to be feet to rest against a surface, but they're recessed inside the case and that owuldn't work.
Correct, but not impossible.
Noisepurge
Member
haha, got a reply regarding when my unit is going out, "Should go out for you this next week"
it's like they couldn't decide whether they want it gone this week or the next!
it's like they couldn't decide whether they want it gone this week or the next!