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[t3nmilez]

Official Site: http://www.gp2xwiz.com

Brief history lesson, the GamePark32 was an old Korean handheld system that became popular outside of Korea because it was extremely easy to program for, although the official games made for it were nothing memorable. After a few revisions and some changes to the company, they created a successor system called the GP2X, made with open-source content in mind and running on Linux. After a few revisions, we're now at the next release, the Wiz! The Wiz kind of combines both of the old platforms, with easy homebrew options along with promising regular commercial game releases. The Wiz comes with lots of cool features including a touch screen and SDHC support, all for around $180 or so (if you're in Korea, you can score one for around $140). It has an awesome OLED screen, which means you can play this thing in direct sunlight and be able to see fine. It also has utility features, like a video/music player, flash player, PDA tools, and other cool things.

Full specs:

Chipset: MagicEyes Pollux System-on-a-Chip
CPU: 533MHz ARM9 3D Accelerator
NAND Flash Memory: 1 GB
RAM: SDRAM 64 MB
Operating System: GNU/Linux-based OS
Storage: SD Card (with 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: 320×240 2.8 inch AMOLED Touch Screen
Microphone Input
Physical size: 121 mm wide, 61 mm high, 18 mm deep
Weight: 98 g (without battery), 136 g (with battery)
3D Acceleration and TV Out
Chipset supports OpenGL ES 1.1
133M Texel/sec, 1.33M Polygon/sec.

The thing about these systems is that anyone can make software for it, and the Linux platform makes it easy to port various programs. There's a very hardcore dev community, making original software and porting other programs. There are tons of emulators for it. In addition, Gamepark has promised to release commercial software on a regular basis, with 10 titles to come out within a year, and much more after that. GP really wants this to be a real contender in Korea, and have been getting support from a lot of Korean developers to make official software for the system. Gamepark also wants to really make a push for a worldwide audience with the Wiz, and have said that they'll try very hard to make sure that the official games have English language versions.

The main community for open handheld development is located at: http://www.gp32x.com

You can download free programs, games, and emulators at http://archive.gp2xwiz.de/cgi-bin/cfiles.cgi

Obviously, with the system just releasing, many of these programs are just ports from GP2X versions without much optimization. With enough time, there's little question that the Wiz will have a large amount of free games and excellent emulators! Of course, if you want to try to produce something, the community would be more than happy to help you!

You can buy the Wiz from a variety of online stores, including Play Asia, where I got mine. Play Asia seems to be a good place to get it, but you'll have to wait a few weeks since the initial shipment sold out pretty fast. There are other online retailers that can sell the Wiz to different countries. http://www.gp2xstore.com/ is supposed to be pretty good.

I know that people love the homebrew options of the DS and PSP, so I really hope that you guys give the Wiz a good look! It gives you all the homebrew options you want without the need of battling the hardware company with firmware updates and hacking your system. I've been a big fan of Gamepark's systems and the things that have been produced for it. The community is extremely talented, and their vision for an open source handheld is definitely commendable!

 

[$h@d0w]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-33IdcH3Wb8

Early impressions.

 

[Esperado]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-33IdcH3Wb8

Early impressions.

Yeah, I actually got a Dingoo A320 after I heard about it from a thread on neogaf. It's only $85 on dealextreme with free shipping. It's actually a really nice device and it's community is growing at a good rate. Right now there's work on running linux on it and more emulators are being ported. ZodTTD, known for his iPhone emulators, is working on Mame right now and said that he *might* do a PS one emulator. The one big problem with the device is the Y+B firmware button issue. The easiest example is from Super Mario World. When holding Y to hold onto the shell in the first level to kill the line of turtles, jumping by pushing B makes Mario drop the shell. The buttons can be easily remapped, but it is a slight annoyance. Fortunately, Booboo (the dev working on getting Linux to run) confirmed that it is a software issue that will be fixed with Linux.

Here's a link to the pocket gamer review. There's also some video reviews on youtube for those who don't want to read.

http://www.pocketgamer.co.uk/r/Various/Dingoo+A-320/hardware_review.asp?c=12910

Here's some pictures I took of my Dingoo a while back.
http://i40.tinypic.com/33mmntg.jpg
http://i40.tinypic.com/fn65n8.jpg
http://i42.tinypic.com/28tygc2.jpg
http://i40.tinypic.com/25ewwsj.jpg
http://i39.tinypic.com/sdk4yg.jpg
http://i42.tinypic.com/9foflt.jpg
http://i39.tinypic.com/6dtipu.jpg

I'm just going to link them because I don't want to take away the intent of the thread. I'd make a separate Dingoo thread, but I think a single open source handheld thread is all that is needed.

 

[$h@d0w]

I was set on the Wiz but I ordered a Dingoo when I saw that the OLED screen wasn't as great as I thought it would be. Hearing impressions of the Wiz controls also pushed me towards the Dingoo.

 

[Adent]

I was thinking of getting one. Didn't they change the second d pad to buttons?

 

[Flek]

i want one ... loved my GP32 .. until the BLU died

 

[Hcoregamer00]

These open source consoles are intriguing, and the jump in specs that these small consoles have over the PSP and the DS for a very reasonable price is even more interesting.

 

[$h@d0w]

I was thinking of getting one. Didn't they change the second d pad to buttons?

Yes, they aren't linked any more. They are separate buttons.

 

[Adent]

I found a video of a guy playing Street Fighter on it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5TOwPl9t0E

 

[t3nmilez]

The Dingoo is pretty interesting but you're soon going to hit a wall with those specs, although I am impressed with the power it has. With the Wiz, you're getting more power and more functionality. It has a touchscreen, SDHC, media support, etc. As the video says, you can't really use the current emulators to gauge the power since they're just direct GP2X ports and are completely unoptimized. I have no doubt that the emulators made for the Wiz will be fantastic, along with game ports and original games. Plus, you're also getting professional commercial games released from Korea which should be pretty good (the current Gamepark developed games don't look like anything special, but some of the announced games look like they have potential). I haven't used a Dingoo, but by looking at media, it looks like it's built much more cheaply than the Wiz. The Wiz is a solid piece of hardware and feels very professional. The OLED screen is really nice, you notice the difference right away, the colors are really beautiful! It's very playable in the sun, at least from my experiences.

Really though, it's about what you want to do. If you just want a basic emulation machine, the Dingoo seems like a pretty good choice. If you want something more with the promise of better programs and good commercial games, the Wiz is the way to go!

 

[Lafazar]

There are currently three major options for open source (gaming) handhelds, separated by distinct price classes. I am getting all of them, so I try to be as unbiased as possible with the following list:

Dingoo A320:

85$
CPU: 400 MHz Ingenic JZ4732 (MIPS architecture)
RAM: 32MB
battery runtime: 7-8h
+extremely cheap
+good button-controls
+comes preloaded with emulators
+good media playback capabilities (audio: MP3,WMA APE, FLAC, video: RMVB, RM, AVI, WMV, FLV, MPEG, DAT, MP4, ASF)
+FM radio
+available now
-no touchscreen
-(currently) buggy software (B+Y-buttons cannot be pressed together)
-currently, only the NES emulator is fullspeed, GBA is very good, SNES has speed problems, Genesis has screen distortion, CPS1, CPS2 + NeoGeo are ok
-newer (black?) models seem to exhibit diagonal screen tearing (mine definitely does), this is a hardware flaw and can probably not be fixed without slowing down software (GP2X Wiz has a similar problem), but not all systems seem to be affected
-homebrew developer support in its infancy (but has great potential)
-unfamiliar & not well documented processor, makes writing assembler cores for emulation more difficult for developers

Neogaf threads:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=357382
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=362557

More information (blogs & forums):
http://www.dingoo-digital.com/
http://dingoo-scene.blogspot.com/
http://a320.freeforums.org/
http://www.gp32x.com/board/index.php?showforum=73

To buy:
http://www.gbax.com/a320.html
http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.20217
http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.23032

GP2X Wiz:

180$
CPU: 533MHz ARM9 3D Accelerator
RAM: 64MB
battery runtime: 5-6h
+ok button controls
+very bright OLED display (reportedly bright enough for playing outside in the shade)
+3D acceleration
+touchscreen
+USB host
+outstanding homebrew developer support (+lots of ports from available GP2X software)
+lots of very polished emulators + interpreters (i.e. scummvm) + homebrew games available (soon)
+great media playback software available (soon)
+available now (first units have been shipped from the factory)
-all systems exhibit diagonal screen tearing, this can hopefully be fixed in software, but then only at the cost of speed

Neogaf thread:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=361742

More information (blogs & forums):
http://www.gp32x.com/board/index.php?showforum=67

To buy:
http://www.gp2x.de/shop/product_inf...ucts_id/107?osCsid=03pohhs1j7d75aivpu9bhbfpm4
http://www.gbax.com/gp2x.html
http://www.play-asia.com/paOS-13-71-d1-49-en-15-gp2x+wiz-70-2z59.html

Open Pandora

330$
CPU: 600 MHz ARM Cortex-A8
RAM: 256MB
battery runtime: 8-10h (possibly 100h when just playing mp3s with screen turned off)
+great gaming controls (well, that's what they promise, at least)
+dual analog sticks
+full keyboard
+high resolution (800*480) touchscreen
+WiFi&Bluetooth
+USB host
+very powerful processor with advanced power managment (several times faster than Dingoo/wiz), this will be the most powerful device of this size for quite some time
+Powerful 3D acceleration (PowerVR SGX GPU)
+outstanding homebrew developer support
+fullspeed emulation of Playstation 1, SNES promised
-available in a few weeks/months (has been delayed lots of times, but now it looks like it will be released really soon)

Neogaf thread:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=337037

More information (blogs & forums):
http://openpandora.wordpress.com/
http://www.gp32x.com/board/index.php?showforum=61

Pandora can currently not be ordered. The developers want to release the first batch (4000 units) before accepting more orders. A few may be available from time to time (whenever someone cancels their preorder).
http://www.gp2x.de/shop/index.php/cPath/34?osCsid=03pohhs1j7d75aivpu9bhbfpm4
http://gbax.com/pandoraxxx.html
http://openpandora.org/

About processor speeds and emulation:

It is currently unclear how much faster the GP2X Wiz is compared to his predecessors GP2X F100/F200. Estimates range from 40% to 100%. Add to that that the speed increase could be eaten up by the compensation of the diagonal screen tearing and you notice that there is not much progress to the F100.

The Dingoo has surprisingly fast SNES emulation. If this speed is achieved without an assembler core (like the GP2X versions have), then the Dingoo might actually have the better processor than the Wiz. Unfortunately the source of the Dingoo emulator is not open at the moment, so this cannot be verified.

Also, the Dingoo processor is not well known to homebrew developers and not well documented, so writing optimized emulators for it might prove too difficult.

Edit: fixed some errors/inaccuracies pointed out by Esperado (see below).

 

[Esperado]

140% to 200% really?

Exophase has already said it's only about 50% faster and that's with optimization.
Also, I thought there is documentation on the processor on Ingenic's FTP. That's how A600 was able to get the overclocking application to work.

 

[Lafazar]

140% to 200% really?

Exophase has already said it's only about 50% faster and that's with optimization.
Also, I thought there is documentation on the processor on Ingenic's FTP. That's how A600 was able to get the overclocking application to work.

Sorry, what I meant was, if GP2X F100/F200 is at 100%, Wiz would be at 140%-200%. So 40%-100% faster like you said. I'll edit.

And you're right about the documentation as well. It's just a bit harder to find and understand, since it's a chinese custom chip intended for multimedia players. And most devs simply aren't as familiar with it as they are with ARM processors.

 

[$h@d0w]

Italian review of the Wiz:

http://www.gbarl.it/index.php?showtopic=61002

Google translate:
http://translate.google.com/transla...p?showtopic=61002&sl=it&tl=en&history_state0=

They tried a build of MAME and said that it could reach 700MHz overclocked.

 

[Piano]

Looks like I'll need to wait a year or so to see how all of these systems pan out...both the Dingoo and Wiz are currently riding on 'potential.' Who knows what potential will pan out.

I hope it's the Dingoo since it's $100 cheaper, and has normal buttons.

 

[Lafazar]

Looks like I'll need to wait a year or so to see how all of these systems pan out...both the Dingoo and Wiz are currently riding on 'potential.' Who knows what potential will pan out.

I hope it's the Dingoo since it's $100 cheaper, and has normal buttons.

I think all these sytems can coexist very nicely together. Thanks to their open source nature the same homebrew program can be compiled for all of them.

Emulators are a special case, since they require hardware-specific optimizations, which currently have been mainly focused on ARM processors, so that is one disadvantage of the Dingoo, but the sheer number of Dingoos that are currently sold every week (~10'000, source) should be able to tip the balance.

 

[blu]

Emulators are a special case, since they require hardware-specific optimizations, which currently have been mainly focused on ARM processors, so that is one disadvantage of the Dingoo, but the sheer number of Dingoos that are currently sold every week (~10'000, source) should be able to tip the balance.

dignoo should also be able to tap on the psp scene when it comes to cpu support.

apropos, first final-prototype-case-with-final-kbd pandora video was posted yesterday, but i'll post that in the right thread.

 

[Esperado]

Looks like I'll need to wait a year or so to see how all of these systems pan out...both the Dingoo and Wiz are currently riding on 'potential.' Who knows what potential will pan out.

I hope it's the Dingoo since it's $100 cheaper, and has normal buttons.

Honestly, it's only the Dingoo that is riding on "potential." With the Wiz you are getting a known quantity (at least on the software side). It already has a large amount of coders, and porting from the GP2X to the Wiz is supposedly very easy. I think the tougher part is optimization.

The reason I picked the Dingoo is that it really runs most of the stuff that I would play; GBA, NES, SNES, etc. run well enough for me. If the Dingoo never got updated or a scene was never created around it, I wouldn't mind because the device "as is" was worth it to me. Fortunately, it does look like a community is growing around it, and it has attracted coders. The real key to this device growing is whether or not Linux pans out. If it does we'll definitely be seeing a lot more software ported over.

 

[rollingstart]

I have a white Dingoo and I like it quite a bit. But honestly, the biggest reasons to get it over the more supported Wiz or Pandora is because it's about $100 cheaper. As said above, NES is perfect (or like 99%), GBA is near-perfect, the arcade ones (CPS1, 2 & NeoGeo) are mostly good. SNES emulator is one of those deals where games could run well if you turn off sound and some frame skip, but why bother. Genesis emulator is an enigma. It runs at a decent speed with sound, which sounds good, but when played on the Dingoo screen it has massive amounts of interlacing-like effects going on making it near unplayable. Odd thing is that when played through TV-out, it doesn't have this problem anymore. Again, for $85 it's a good deal. The conventional controller layout is also a big plus. I'd say it is more comfortable to use the Dingoo than it is to use the DS Lite or DSi.

The community for the device already has put out some other things. A NeoGeo Pocket emulator, a game gear/master system one and I think another one. There is also new firmware that lets you change the theme and overclock the device to make the games run more smooth. And there is Linux, but I'm pretty clueless about that stuff. There were talks about mame and other things getting improved, but as of yet there was nothing more than just talk.

 

[krae_man]

Me Wantee but GP2Xstore.com has some glitch that wont let you choose shipping options to Canada right now.

So far email support has been kind enough to say "yes we ship to Canada".

Doesnt help that I keep getting this error message at checkout: "There are no shipping options available for this address. Please try a different address or click here to contact the support department.":lol

 

[Gagaman]

Not too sure if I really want to upgrade yet, happy with my GP2X F-100 as it is, except for the stick on it that is, would rather have a proper d-pad.

 

[djtiesto]

For a small time before the release of the DS, I toyed around with purchasing the original GP32, mainly to play Dungeon and Guarder, Tomak: Save the Earth Again and... Astonisha Story

Wonder if the new GP2xWiz allows you to play old GP games on it.

 

[Lafazar]

Wonder if the new GP2xWiz allows you to play old GP games on it.

Unfortunately not. At least not natively. The author could recompile the program for the Wiz, though.

Even if he does, with comercial titles it is likely that you would have to buy the game a second time, GPH are setting up a store for Wiz software.

Perhaps someone will do a GP32 emulator for Wiz? This was definitely discussed on the GP32X board.

 

[$h@d0w]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YasTVQq5a0U

German CPS2 and SNES video.

Portable Mars Matrix looked pretty hot.

 

[bee]

hmmm anyone know the cheapest place to buy one of those dingoo's in the uk? that video links to a place that wants £80 but its only £54 at dealxtreme but they have piss poor shipping

 

[Esperado]

I think it's either DX or GBAX. DX sends them with markings like "gift" or "sample" to try and get past import fees, and GBAX has already payed all the fees. I wouldn't trust other sellers at the moment. There's a few sites that have cropped up recently who drop ship from Dealextreme.

 

[loosus]

Does having an OLED screen mean the Wiz has basically no motion blur and no viewpoint distortion?

 

[$h@d0w]

New unboxing and test HD video -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZ-2AvRKX8c

 

[$h@d0w]

hmmm anyone know the cheapest place to buy one of those dingoo's in the uk? that video links to a place that wants £80 but its only £54 at dealxtreme but they have piss poor shipping

http://www.dingoo.co.uk/ 75 GBP with shipping

I got mine from DealExtreme in 9 days (UK to HK)

Does having an OLED screen mean the Wiz has basically no motion blur and no viewpoint distortion?

Shouldn't have any blur and the viewing angle is excellent from what I've read. There's a screen tearing problem in some emulators at the moment though - this is hardware related but there are some software workarounds that have to be implemented.

 

[Esperado]

I would watch out for a site like Dingoo.co.uk. No offense, but it's generally a red flag when a site pops up selling a single item. Also, the owner of the site has made several posts on forums claiming to be a happy customer with the username "shistos", the same name from the directory of those pictures on the site. He also hasn't changed this. :lol All signs point to a startup drop shipping from dealextreme for a quick buck.

 

[Lafazar]

Great News: Newly hacked version of PocketSNES emulator is able to reach fullsped in most games with transparency layers (when overclocking Wiz to 800MHz):

http://www.gp32x.com/board/index.php?showtopic=48160
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4MO4mtRHHw

However, diagonal tearing is not yet fixed in this version. It's a minor problem, though.

Also: X-COM: UFO Defense runs pretty much perfectly now. Old video without music (music works in current version):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTHxPApPxbE
X-COM: UFO Defense - statically recompiled executable for GP2X (Original X-COM: UFO Defense version 1.4 required):
http://dl.openhandhelds.org/cgi-bin/wiz.cgi?0,0,0,0,29,10

 

[t3nmilez]

The Wiz has definitely grown quite a bit within the past month, with excellent support for PC Engine+CD, SNES, GBA, Finalburn Alpha, several revisions of emulators improving stability, and lots of good homebrew software! Heh, it's already outperformed the Dingoo quite a bit, I would say.

I still can't get over how beautiful the screen is, the OLED makes such a huge difference and the colors are amazing. I've been a very satisfied Wiz owner!

The next shipment should be arriving soon for those who are waiting to order.