# GCW Zero Meets Its Goal, supported games announced



## Another World (Jan 28, 2013)

The GCW Zero, the linux based gaming handheld, has reached its kickstarter funding goal. The GCW Zero was born from the ideas of Dingoo owners who wanted something more out of their handheld. The kickstarter campaign got off to a slow start, but has now almost doubled its original 130K goal. So the system will be produced, and released with some extras such as a carrying pouch and a mini-HDMI cable, but what else can we expect from this opensource gaming handheld? [prebreak]Continue reading...[/prebreak]

The GCW Zero has a strong following of developers who are not only familiar with Open Dingux, the system's Operating System, but who are also gamers themselves. These developers have been extremely busy porting original projects as well as 3rd party emulation. Below is a partial listing of what we should expect on launch day, and based on the track record of the Dingux community, it will only get better!

*Brief List of Expected Emulation*

Atari 800
Atari 7800
Atari Lynx
Atari ST
Arcade (MAME, MVS, CPS, FBA)
Game Boy Advance
Game Boy and Game Boy Color
Genesis and Sega CD
MSX
Nintendo Entertainment System
Super Nintendo
TurboGrafx-16 PC Engine
*Brief List of Expected Native Homebrew and Indy Games*

Astrolander
Biniax2
Blockrage
Cave Story
Descent 
Dink Smallwood
Doom
Duke Nukem 3D
Fields of Fresh (June 2013)
Heretic
Heroes
Hexen
PawByte Mafia (Chibifia) (July 2013)
Powder
Puzzletube
Quake
Rise of the Triad
SameGoo
ScummVM
Spout
Sqrxz3
Strife
Unnamed Monkey Game
Worship Vector
The 1st person shooter PC ports feature WIFI support, so you'll be able to enjoy multiplayer deathmatch games with PC and GCW Zero gamers all over the world. Doom engine ports will include Chocolate Doom and ReMooD. Developers have stressed how quickly PRBoom could be ported, which could mean the potential to enjoy hundreds of player made WAD files. Developers have also mentioned how easy it will be to port most Open Dingux games, applications, emulation, and Homebrew. In most cases only a simply recompile will be required for GCW Zero support.

The GCW Zero has gone from one mans dream into a legitimate fully functional gaming handheld. The kickstarter is almost at an end, with just a few hours left to pledge the $135 needed to grab yourself a console. Join the other 1,645 backers and get in on the ground floor, for the GCW Zero is going to set the standard of affordable community-driven open-source gaming devices.

 Kickstarter Campaign
 Yahoo News Press Release


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## Surkow (Jan 28, 2013)

I'd like to add that Duke Nukem 3D runs natively (it uses an Open Source engine reimplementation).

Two new stretch goals have been added: a screen protector and a 16GB micro SD card. The screen cover pledge has already been met (230k).

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gcw/gcw-zero-open-source-gaming-handheld/posts/394328

A little bit more than an hour is left before the Kickstarter project will end.

Edit: Descent, Doom, Duke3D, Heretic, Hexen, Quake, Rott, ScummVM and Strife are all native.


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## shoyrumaster11 (Jan 28, 2013)

Can't wait to buy a GCW Zero myself, actually! Seems like a nice console to do homebrews on. Will buy it for surez! Save me from trying to be involved with the mess known as the PSP Scene. As this little device contains everything I need to make homebrews outside of the DS Scene!


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## RupeeClock (Jan 28, 2013)

On top of the three previous stretch goals, two more were added and one has been met.
$230k gets screen protectors packed with each console, and $250k gets a 16gb class 10 microSD card bundled with each console.
Although these stretch goals were announced too close to the end of the kickstarter, so although the $230k goal was met, it's really unlikely that the $250k goal will be reached in the 50 minutes the drive has left.

Also, you can add Playstation to that list of expected emulators, the GCW Zero is more than capable.


To give you an idea, the GP2X Caanoo with its 533Mhz ARM9 processor, using PCSX ReARMed is capable of emulating many PSX titles at full speed.
The GCW Zero has a 1Ghz MIPS processor, on top of having processing power it also shares the same MIPS architecture as the PS1, and also N64.
This makes it VERY capable of emulating PS1 titles, and possibly N64 as well. It also has a dedicated GPU capable of OpenGL ES 2.0, so it is capable of 3D graphics as well.


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## DragorianSword (Jan 29, 2013)

Wow I think I'll actually might pick this up.
Seems to have a lot of potential.


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## VatoLoco (Jan 29, 2013)

very exciting indeed! can't wait to get my grubby hands on this =D
I see an oncoming  homebrew resurgence!


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## RupeeClock (Jan 29, 2013)

VatoLoco said:


> very exciting indeed! can't wait to get my grubby hands on this =D
> I see an oncoming  homebrew resurgence!


Yes, I'm a lot more hopeful for the GCW Zero, it looks like they are really working on this to avoid all of the mistakes of other retro gaming devices.
The hardware shouldn't be subpar and the software development environment should be pretty attractive, hopefully this will flourish unlike the GP2X Caanoo.


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## Another World (Jan 29, 2013)

if you guys see any .opk files released for the gcw zero, please feel free to mirror them to filetrip. i created a gcw zero section for us. =)

http://filetrip.net/others-downloads/gcw-zero/

-another world


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## RupeeClock (Jan 29, 2013)

Another World said:


> if you guys see any .opk files released for the gcw zero, please feel free to mirror them to filetrip. i created a gcw zero section for us. =)
> 
> http://filetrip.net/others-downloads/gcw-zero/
> 
> -another world


That's cool, but I think it's more likely that www.openhandhelds.org will become the file repository of choice for the GCW Zero.
It has been where most all files for the GP2X, Wiz and Caanoo were put, and also for the Dingoo A320 I believe.

I have to wonder how the GCW Zero community would view filetrip.net as they have automatic download links, you know the ones that run the installers.


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## Another World (Jan 29, 2013)

there are no automatic installations, it's an option for the end-user which benefits filetrip by helping to provide revenue to offset the server costs. i don't feel that it is asking to much when you consider everything you get for free (video streaming, personal uploads, image gallery, etc).

i've already been thanked by the ceo of gcw for providing another place to host files. if the 3rd party community embraces it, then great, if they don't, then i'll work with my team to keep it updated as often as possible. either way its a viable option.

-another world


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## dickfour (Jan 29, 2013)

I'm itching to get my SE.


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## RupeeClock (Jan 29, 2013)

Another World said:


> there are no automatic installations, its an option for the end-user which benefits filetrip by helping to provide revenue to offset the server costs. i don't feel that it is asking to much when you consider everything you get for free (video streaming, personal uploads, image gallery, etc).
> 
> i've already been thanked by the ceo of gcw for providing another place to host files. if the 3rd party community embraces it, then great, if they don't, then i'll work with my team to keep it updates as often as possible. either way its a viable option.
> 
> -another world


That's cool then, hopefully things go well for Filetrip hosting GCW Zero files.
My concern was how filetrip users would respond to GCW Zero file downloads being prompted by an .exe download.


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## Another World (Jan 29, 2013)

perhaps you haven't used the site since that update was changed? it no longer forces an .exe on the end-user. it provides a pop-up that offers two methods, the left button installs the automatic downloader, while the right button manually downloads the file the old way. 



> Filetrip Sponsored Download
> Please select your preferred download method by clicking either button above. By clicking the Automatic download button you will download our sponsored installer which downloads files from the Amazon Content Delivery Network. The Manual download button triggers a download from your browser, the file is sent from our servers in France. By downloading a file from FileTrip, you understand and accept our T&Cs



-another world


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## RupeeClock (Jan 29, 2013)

Another World said:


> perhaps you haven't used the site since that update was changed? it no longer forces an .exe on the end-user. it provides a pop-up that offers two methods, the left button installs the automatic downloader, while the right button manually downloads the file the old way.
> 
> 
> 
> -another world


I am aware of the change, the concern still remains with the presence of an automatic download at all.


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## The Real Jdbye (Jan 29, 2013)

RupeeClock said:


> On top of the three previous stretch goals, two more were added and one has been met.
> $230k gets screen protectors packed with each console, and $250k gets a 16gb class 10 microSD card bundled with each console.
> Although these stretch goals were announced too close to the end of the kickstarter, so although the $230k goal was met, it's really unlikely that the $250k goal will be reached in the 50 minutes the drive has left.
> 
> ...



But the problem is that the existing PSX/N64 emulators are for ARM CPUs so it would take a lot of time and dedication to port and optimize them, as well as introducing new bugs in the process.
Once done though it will be awesome. I might actually get one if it runs N64 games well (high compatibility, few graphical glitches and full speed)


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## RupeeClock (Jan 29, 2013)

The Real Jdbye said:


> But the problem is that the existing PSX/N64 emulators are for ARM CPUs so it would take a lot of time and dedication to port and optimize them, as well as introducing new bugs in the process.
> Once done though it will be awesome. I might actually get one if it runs N64 games well (high compatibility, few graphical glitches and full speed)


Ah, of course existing PSX or N64 emulators for similar ARM devices like the OpenPandora, are not going to be immediately portable to the GCW Zero running on a MIPS processor.

Did you watch the video though? They were in fact emulating Crash Bandicoot and Symphony of the Night on the GCW Zero, on a video from 9 months ago.
Chances are they ported over the PSX emulator that was developed for OpenDingux on the Dingoo A320, as seen in this video.


Anyhow, even though PS1 or N64 emulators may not exist for the GCW Zero at launch, the system is still more than capable thanks to the 1Ghz MIPS processor inside, boasting enough speed and the right architecture for the job.
It's easier to emulate a system when it is working on the same architecture after all, GCW Zero, PS1, N64, they're all MIPS.


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## Kouen Hasuki (Jan 29, 2013)

I've not been interested in this device just knowing that before you know it someone else will make a faster one then this thing will be obsolete but then someone will make an even faster one than that....


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## Satangel (Jan 29, 2013)

GG community, gg. Always nice to see such projects actually given a chance. Good for the community and the gamers, good stuff.


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## Rydian (Jan 29, 2013)

Unfortunately due to the *terrible* resolution choice, I'm not planning on getting this thing since it won't even display the SOM/SD3 text properly...


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## Kouen Hasuki (Jan 29, 2013)

Rydian said:


> Unfortunately due to the *terrible* resolution choice, I'm not planning on getting this thing since it won't even display the SOM/SD3 text properly...


 
Give it a few months there will be one that will top it


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## Rydian (Jan 29, 2013)

Kouen Hasuki said:


> Give it a few months there will be one that will top it


inb4 GCW One?


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## Kouen Hasuki (Jan 29, 2013)

Rydian said:


> inb4 GCW One?


 
GCW XL! Now with Dual Core CPU, Twice the Ram and Screen Resolution!


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## Veho (Jan 29, 2013)

Kouen Hasuki said:


> GCW XL! Now with Dual Core CPU, Twice the Ram and Screen Resolution!


VGA or nothing.


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## Kouen Hasuki (Jan 29, 2013)

Veho said:


> VGA or nothing.


1080P


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## heartgold (Jan 29, 2013)

Rydian said:


> Unfortunately due to the *terrible* resolution choice, I'm not planning on getting this thing since it won't even display the SOM/SD3 text properly...


PSVita could one day become the ultimate choice.


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## kristianity77 (Jan 29, 2013)

The resolution is a touch on the light side it has to be said.  But in all fairness, where you will succeed with emulating one console perfectly with 1:1 scaling, you will fail on another no matter what resolution is on the screen.

But having said that, 320x240 is the sweet spot for most systems and most of the games on them and handhelds like the GBA etc wont look horrendously small when scaled to 1:1 either


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## Rydian (Jan 29, 2013)

kristianity77 said:


> The resolution is a touch on the light side it has to be said.  But in all fairness, where you will succeed with emulating one console perfectly with 1:1 scaling, you will fail on another no matter what resolution is on the screen.
> 
> But having said that, 320x240 is the sweet spot for most systems and most of the games on them and handhelds like the GBA etc wont look horrendously small when scaled to 1:1 either


2:1 scaling at double the resolution (and the same size screen) will look the exact same as 1:1 on a half-resolution same-sized screen.

And this device is supposed to correct the mistakes of the earlier ones...


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## kristianity77 (Jan 29, 2013)

But wouldnt doubling the resolution in theory mean that emulating requires double the power? If thats the difference between emus hitting 60FPS or requiring frameskips then what should be the tradeoff?


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## Rydian (Jan 29, 2013)

kristianity77 said:


> But wouldnt doubling the resolution in theory mean that emulating requires double the power? If thats the difference between emus hitting 60FPS or requiring frameskips then what should be the tradeoff?


If the device was so weak that nearest-neighbor scaling with the GPU caused an emulation hit, then it wouldn't be worth anybody's time nowadays. 

320x240 was chosen for cost and complexity issues*, but ultimately it's going to hurt compatibility.


Emulators can scale with a GPU easily, even the PSP is capable of upscaling GBA and SNES games with no loss.  When the GCW Zero talks about additional CPU usage it's talking about things that would render at the full resolution in general, like the home screen and menus and such.


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## Foxi4 (Jan 29, 2013)

Right, so this packs...


Ingenic JZ4770 1GHz MIPS CPU
Vivante GC860 (444MHz according to base specs) GPU (OpenGL ES 2.0-Compatible)
512 MB DDR2 RAM
16 GB Internal Storage
miniUSB, because proprietary bullshit is nasty
Mini HDMI, WOOO!
Accelerometer
Rumble
b/g/n WiFi
Linux out-of-the-box
Hmm... [notbad.jpg]. This is actually a pretty cool homebrew machine alright - it's unlikely to be dethroned until the PSVita is hacked - nice work, guys! Now, I see the slider and I already know that the original PSP-Pain design is still all the rise, but hey - it's alright considering the size of this thing. That's a pretty cool handheld and it looks solid - I'm interested, definitely more so than in the Dingoo's.


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## RupeeClock (Jan 29, 2013)

Rydian said:


> Unfortunately due to the *terrible* resolution choice, I'm not planning on getting this thing since it won't even display the SOM/SD3 text properly...


SOM/SD3...you mean Secret of Mana, and Seiken Densetsu 3?
As far as I've seen in YouTube videos, these games appear to be playing fine, even as double-resolution SNES games.

Here is Secret of Mana (3:15 in)


And here is Seiken Densetsu 3 japanese unpatched (5:04 in)


These appear to be displaying and running normally with no obvious abnormalities, and text displaying properly, unlike say Secret of Mana on SNEmulDS.


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## Rydian (Jan 29, 2013)

Can't see if they're fucked up or not from those videos, gonna' wait for screenshots and such.

At best, it can just render it at the full resolution and then downscale it before output...


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## RupeeClock (Jan 29, 2013)

Rydian said:


> Can't see if they're fucked up or not from those videos, gonna' wait for screenshots and such.
> 
> At best, it can just render it at the full resolution and then downscale it before output...


Yeah, for exceptions like Secret of Mana, that one Jurassic Park game and a couple of others, I'm sure it can do that.
The chip's 1Ghz processor and 3D capable GPU should handle that no problem.


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## Rydian (Jan 29, 2013)

RupeeClock said:


> Yeah, for exceptions like Secret of Mana, that one Jurassic Park game and a couple of others, I'm sure it can do that.
> The chip's 1Ghz processor and 3D capable GPU should handle that no problem.


My concern is even with downscaling, it's likely going to look worse.  You can't shove 512px of data into 256px without loss, especially not when pixel fonts are involved.


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## Foxi4 (Jan 29, 2013)

Hey... now that I think about it... wasn't one of the reasons why the PSP didn't get a proper Linux port with a GUI because it ran on a MIPS processor? At the time, I think only CLinux could be ran on it, I haven't looked into it yet...

...PSP port of the OS, anyone? It has inferior specs, yeah, but it'd be still a cool thing to have on the system. 

Meh... probably impossible without the standard Memory Manager (PSP is missing the hardware feature AFAIK).


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## RupeeClock (Jan 29, 2013)

Rydian said:


> My concern is even with downscaling, it's likely going to look worse. You can't shove 512px of data into 256px without loss, especially not when pixel fonts are involved.


That is my concern for downscaled games as well. If you downscale with nearest neighbour resampling, you cut off pixels that'll make text hard to read.
If you downscale with some sort sampling like bilinear interpolation, the text can look fuzzy and in general, not so hot.

Still, I don't disagree with the choice to go with a 320x240 screen at all. The device is supposed to be a lower-end solution to the open handhelds scene.
The GP2X Caanoo floundered instead of flourishing, the Dingoo A320 is now considerably dated, and the OpenPandora is considerably expensive for what you might need it to do.
Yeah, it has a 320x240 screen in it. It also apparently will cost around $120-$140 to buy one. For the few games that get excluded as fitting perfectly onto the screen (some SNES, some MAME, some PSX, all N64 would be 1/2 scaled), it fits most everything else perfectly at either 1:1 or minor upscaling (NES, SNES, Sega Genesis, GBA, Neo Geo, many PSX, most all existing OpenDingux and GP2X software).

I definitely think that a future device should support a 640x480 screen though.
Assuming that a GCW Zero successor has a 640x480 screen and an Ingenic JZ4780 inside (the dual-core 1.5Ghz successor to the Ingenic JZ4770 inside the GCW Zero), then it should be easy to just run any previous GCW Zero software in a compatibility mode that upscales it 2x, preferably nearest neighbour.
And then such software can always be re-compiled to make full use of a VGA display as opposed to QVGA.
But that's the future, they have their reasons for picking a QVGA display for right now and I agree with them: an ideal sweetspot for retro emulation, less demand on the processor, and more affordable in mass production.


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## Rydian (Jan 29, 2013)

Foxi4 said:


> Hey... now that I think about it... wasn't one of the reasons why the PSP didn't get a proper Linux port with a GUI because it ran on a MIPS processor? At the time, I think only CLinux could be ran on it, I haven't looked into it yet...
> 
> ...PSP port of the OS, anyone? It has inferior specs, yeah, but it'd be still a cool thing to have on the system.
> 
> Meh... probably impossible without the standard Memory Manager (PSP is missing the hardware feature AFAIK).


Yeah the PSP needed a special linux branch due to the lack of hardware memory management, and while it was made, nobody gave a fuck.


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## Foxi4 (Jan 29, 2013)

Rydian said:


> Yeah the PSP needed a special linux branch due to the lack of hardware memory management, and while it was made, nobody gave a fuck.


People probably WOULD give a damn if a GUI was made for it. I mean, there's no reason why it wouldn't work well - the power is there, it's just the Memory Manager that's the issue here, and uCLinux does it via software methods... so...


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## fermio100 (Jan 29, 2013)

Kouen Hasuki said:


> GCW XL! Now with Dual Core CPU, Twice the Ram and Screen Resolution!


 
Sounds like something Apple would do... hehehehhehe


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## Foxi4 (Jan 29, 2013)

fermio100 said:


> Sounds like something Apple would do... hehehehhehe


No, no, no - Apple would just make it _"a bit longer"_ than the previous version - be fair.


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## fermio100 (Jan 29, 2013)

Foxi4 said:


> No, no, no - Apple would just make it _"a bit longer"_ than the previous version - be fair.


I'll tell you when mine arrive. I bought it because I love older arcade games (Black Tiger, Darius, Extermination, Galaga 88), Genesis and some SNES. I own a Dingoo and play it until today.


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## KazoWAR (Jan 29, 2013)

Here is SOM resized to 256x224. It does not look as bad as you make it out to be, sure it it not perfect, but its not bad either.


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## Foxi4 (Jan 29, 2013)

There's always the miniHDMI output - I'm sure the console displays things normally through that and only downscales graphics for the main screen.

Personally, I think that "low resolution" is only a factor when the screen is _physically big_ - what really matters is whether it's _densly populated or not_, and considering the dimensions of this thing, it probably is. Resolution alone won't show how the thing _"looks like"_ in real life, it doesn't make or break a system - you have to take the physical size of the screen into consideration.


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## Rydian (Jan 29, 2013)

KazoWAR said:


> Here is SOM resized to 256x224. It does not look as bad as you make it out to be, sure it it not perfect, but its not bad either.


The W, N, and M all look the same, and that's just a start. 

*I'd rather not play RPGs like I have to read Valwin's posts.*







It's been ages since anybody made a valwin typing reference, so...


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## Foxi4 (Jan 29, 2013)

Rydian said:


> *I'd rather not play RPGs like I have to read Valwin's posts. *It's been ages since anybody made a valwin typing reference, so...


This thing has more horsepower than the DS, maybe it could pull off an Un-Valwinator...?

*Un-ValwinatorZero*... I like the sound of that...


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## Another World (Jan 30, 2013)

rydian, you really would pass on this system because it has issues with 5-10 games? what about the thousands of other gaming experiences it will provide for you?

-another world


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## Hop2089 (Jan 30, 2013)

I like the fact that Cave's 1st generation board is supported on the GCW, Esp Ra.De ftw I wonder if it could do the 1st gen PGM stuff since the architecture is about the same, I'd love to play Espgaluda on GCW not to mention the ultimate torture of early Cave shmups Dodonpachi Dai-Ou-Jou.


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## Rydian (Jan 30, 2013)

Another World said:


> rydian, you really would pass on this system because it has issues with 5-10 games? what about the thousands of other gaming experiences it will provide for you?
> 
> -another world


If those 5-10 games are games I plan to play and the other games are games I will not, then yes.  As I would just use this for emulation and not the ports, it seems to be the case here.

I mean that's like asking if I'd break up with a girl just because she won't cuddle me, when there's tons of board games we can play together.   I care about the first thing a lot, but barely care about the second.

Going over various lists of games that use higher resolutions, a lot of them (not just SD3/SOM) are ones I played when I was younger and want to play again.  Lufia II, Kirby's Dream Land 3, DBZ Super Botoudenwtf 2/3, and possibly more*.  _These aren't just any random no-name games_, the Lufia series got continued on the DS and then 1/2 (forgot which) actually got a full-on remake, the DBZ fighting games are interesting for fans of the series, Kirby's Dream Land is a kirby game, Jurassic Park comes up because it's actually a (relatively) decent movie tie-in a lot of people had as kids... and not to mention the popularity of SoM/SD3.

*Not Jurassic Park, I never really liked it for some reason.

Hell, the authors of BSNES/Higan and ZSNES talked about filtering games back down to 256 width looking bad and needing to keep the final display at a higher resolution in this thread.
http://board.zsnes.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5493

And hey, remember that recommend I wrote about the BoFII retranslation, where the author came and commented too?
http://gbatemp.net/threads/gbatemp-recommends-revival-008.315188/
The retranslation adds in hi-res mode for the special effects.
http://board.zsnes.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=3217
And even he's commenting that outputting the final display at 256 pixels wide looks worse.

So it looks like I can add the Breath Of Fire II retranslation to the list of stuff I want to play that won't display properly...

This device is supposed to fix the mistakes of the previous chinese devices, but by cheaping out on the display, they're making the same type of mistake.  "It'll play less games properly, but it's cheaper".  Hey, does that sound familiar?

"Not including an SA-1 chip will make this SNES cart cheaper and only a few games won't run properly."
"Going with slower flash stroage will make this tablet cheaper and only a few games won't run properly."
"Not including RTS will make this GBA cart cheaper and only a few games won't run properly."
etc.


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## DominoBright (Jan 30, 2013)

I wonder if they tried those games on the SNES emulator.

Me personally, Star Fox and Shantae running really well has sold me on this device. I plan on selling my PSP Go once I can buy this.


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## Another World (Jan 30, 2013)

for everything the gcw gets right, i'm not about to argue its uselessness based on a handful of rpgs and their font on a lower resolution. its a tad upsetting that you would so easily write off everything positive about the system based on these games. i am genuinely confused how easy that was for you. how can you expect it to get everything right? higher res screens have already been used on the chinachip devices and they always had the same negative end result. the gcw picked a happy medium (res, aspect, size, manufacture, brightness, color, quality, etc) that addresses a large majority of the complaints, regardless of its ability to produce a 1:1 experience 100% of the time. i would ask for you to visit #gcw on freenode and talk with the developers. I have my suspicions that their choice of lcd is not directly related to cost.

-another world


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## Costello (Jan 30, 2013)

thanks for the updates AW, I am starting to get a little enthusiastic about this in spite of the low res screen
it's still higher-res than the NDS screen (or one thereof)
and because after all if this was openly designed for emulation purposes, we can expect good things from emulators
software wise I will wait to see if emulators live up to expectations, if that is the case I might consider acquiring one...


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## KingVamp (Jan 30, 2013)

While this sounds good, I going to wait a few years for the gap to cross over to the next gen ( as in dreamcast/ps2/gamecube/xbox) before I invest in a homebrew portable device.
Preferably clam design.


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## RupeeClock (Jan 30, 2013)

KingVamp said:


> While this sounds good, I going to wait a few years for the gap to cross over to the next gen ( as in dreamcast/ps2/gamecube/xbox) before I invest in a homebrew portable device.
> Preferably clam design.


The difference in processing power between the Dreamcast against the PS2 or Gamecube is pretty substantial actually.
Dreamcast was 200Mhz, Gamecube was 486Mhz, PS2 was 299Mhz.
Also to compare, the N64 was 93Mhz, the PSX was 33Mhz.

Where the GCW Zero with its 1Ghz MIPS processor and dedicated GPU, is more than capable of emulating PSX games and potentially N64 as well (due to the shared MIPS architecture of these two systems), the Dreamcast will be considerably tougher to emulate on such a device.
Somehow though, I wonder if Dreamcast emulation would be possible on the GCW Zero, even if not full speed.


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## Rydian (Jan 30, 2013)

Another World said:


> for everything the gcw gets right, i'm not about to argue its uselessness based on a handful of rpgs and their font on a lower resolution.


If it was a portable N64 that wouldn't play OoT or Super Mario 64 would things be different? 



Another World said:


> its a tad upsetting that you would so easily write off everything positive about the system based on these games.


I've said this is an interesting device, and was even vocally impressed by how it runs games like Star Fox.

However, now I've changed my mind and I've said I won't buy it because one of the flaws it has is a really big one where I'm concerned.  I will not buy this device, because they cheaped out on the resolution and that makes it unable to play a couple of my favorite games properly.  Games that I planned on playing on it.



Another World said:


> i am genuinely confused how easy that was for you.


It's about as easy as not buying a vacuum cleaner that only cleans carpets when your house has hardwood floors.

I want a product that will run specific games at playable quality.  This product will not do that.  Therefore I, myself, Rydian, George Gates, member #244492, do not plan to buy this product.

Just like I don't have a 3DS, and don't have any current plans to get one.  None of the existing games are games I want.  This may change in the future, but for now, no plans.



Another World said:


> how can you expect it to get everything right?


I can't, but just because issues are small in number doesn't mean they're small in effect. 

Just like the SNES emulator for the DSTwo.  It's the best there is on the DS, and in many places it plays Super Metroid properly... but in some areas it plays at single-digit framerates.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUWjVxAD9Q8
I still try to contribute to it's development via bug reports and testing, _but due to it's flaws, I choose not to use it myself._

In the case of the GCW Zero it's not just downloading and running some homebrew, it's a ~$140 purchase, and I'm not going to spend that just for curiosity.

Like, let's say I didn't know anything about the PS3, and wanted to buy one to play PS2 games on, only to find out that the models available now don't play PS2 titles.  Is it unreasonable for me to decide against purchasing it after learning that?



Another World said:


> higher res screens have already been used on the chinachip devices and they always had the same negative end result.


If a device can render internally at hi-res, then it should have no problem displaying hi-res.  Nearest-neighbor/2:1 scaling has been considered a free action even on mobile GPUs for years.  The PSP can even do it with it's GPU, and that's a 2004 GPU.  *Modern chips like the GCW Zero is using are much more powerful.*

The only time a higher resolution causes slowdown is when the higher resolution is what's being rendered internally/natively.  *This would not affect sprite/scanline-based emulators that scale up*.  This WOULD affect native homebrew that do resolution-dependant rendering (Descent, etc.), but going 320x240 over 640x480 is forced quality loss, while letting the games render at 320x240 scaled would let them run as fast as on a native 320x240 display, without hurting other software.



Another World said:


> the gcw picked a happy medium (res, aspect, size, manufacture, brightness, color, quality, etc) that addresses a large majority of the complaints, regardless of its ability to produce a 1:1 experience 100% of the time.


Hey now, don't mistake me for wanting cycle-accurate emulation or something.  I'm one of the people that wants to play games, _and unfortunately this problem gets in the way of actually playing the games_.



Another World said:


> i would ask for you to visit #gcw on freenode and talk with the developers. I have my suspicions that their choice of lcd is not directly related to cost.
> 
> -another world


_They mention cost each time_, even in the FAQ on the kickstarter page itself.

HOWEVER, it is possible they're simply not aware of these issues, since like I said they only happen when the actual output resolution is the same as the normal native even when the SNES is trying hi-res mode and most people run their emulators at a higher resolution output which allows all the pixels to fit... so sure, I'll hop on and ask them if they're aware of the issue and if they'd consider an LCD change to accommodate for it.


----------



## Another World (Jan 30, 2013)

you still haven't explained how you can write off an entire device based on a handful of games. that idea, in and of itself, is just ridiculous. take the blinders off for a second and look at what the device is, look at its community, look at the large amount of emulation, games, and applications ready to run on it, look at what is already available for it, and look at what is being developed for it. you are honestly telling me that you would not find a single shred of entertainment value in this device because it can't properly run a handful of rpgs? 

i'm trying really hard to understand your point of view but everything you are saying about gaming is so utterly confusing to me. your entire stance about gaming in this debate is based on your convoluted grasp of how gaming should be enjoyed. in these regards we are polar opposites. i'll always find the value in my games, regardless of how poorly they were designed, coded, ported, or supported. if i enjoy the experience then its worth playing. the zero is going to provide thousands of those experiences and i plan on enjoying every one.

-another world


----------



## Rydian (Jan 30, 2013)

Another World said:


> you still haven't explained how you can write off an entire device based on a handful of games.


Yes I have.

I was originally interested in the device when it showed the best handheld emulation I've seen based on the two or three titles that were shown.

However now that I know that a handful of titles I want to run will not work properly on the device due to hardware limits, I don't have any interest in buying the device.  These are hardware limits, so it's not something that will be fixed over time with software updates.  It'd take a hardware revision/change to allow it, meaning the currently-shown model won't do it.



Another World said:


> that idea, in and of itself, is just ridiculous.


Let's say there's a guy who sees the Final Fantasy 7 tech demo for the PS3, and plans to buy a PS3 with the hopes of being able to play an FF7 HD remake.  Then he finds out later that he won't be able to (since it was a tech demo and not an actual game), so he decides not to buy the PS3.

Is that ridiculous?



Another World said:


> take the blinders off for a second and look at what the device is, look at its community


What do you think this is, some kind of charity?  They're selling a device, a product, with a purpose.  I originally thought the product fit my needs, but now I found out it doesn't, so I don't want to buy it.

I don't know about you all, but I don't have enough disposable income to buy ~$140 products simply to support the devs and the idea behind them.  If I buy something, it's because I either need it, or plan to make use of it (likely for entertainment).



Another World said:


> look at the large amount of emulation, games, and applications ready to run on it, look at what is already available for it, and look at what is being developed for it. you are honestly telling me that you would not find a single shred of entertainment value in this device because it can't properly run a handful of rpgs?


What about this?
http://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/features/
A decently-designed laptop with a Core i7, optional SSD, GT650M option, and more, a very powerful machine.  Imagine the mobile gaming you could do on that GT650M, imagine how working with huge files and transfers and loading would be a breeze on the SSD, imagine how 8GB of 1600MHz DDR3 RAM would make high-resolution video editing not a chopfest... and there's actually some decent exclusive games and apps for OSX in addition to Steam having a port, OSX is also well-known for coming with some programming compilers/interpreters and IDEs available from-disc (or installed, I'm not up-to-date past 10.5)...

So you should buy it, _and I don't understand if you don't want to_. </sarcasm>



Another World said:


> i'm trying really hard to understand your point of view but everything you are saying about gaming is so utterly confusing to me. your entire stance about gaming in this debate is based on your convoluted grasp of how gaming should be enjoyed.


What?  I'm trying to be as clear as possible.

1 - I saw this product, and thought it would play the games I wanted to play.  At this point, I wanted the product.

2 - I learned that the product will not play many of the games I want to play.  Because of this, I lost interest in the product.



Another World said:


> in these regards we are polar opposites. i'll always find the value in my games, regardless of how poorly they were designed, coded, ported, or supported.


Let me present two situations.

1 - Cave Story for the PSP.  There's two graphical bugs with this port.  The first is that when some sprites walk "offscreen", they'll vanish before actually making it off the screen.  This only affects two or three cutscenes out of the entire game, and you're not even in control during that time.  The second bug is that with a few of the items, the last word or two will be cut off of the description.  Only a few items are affected and it's just flavor text.

Since the bugs do not impact gameplay, they're considered minor and easily forgotten.  This type of bug is fine to deal with.


2 - SNES emulation without hi-res or pseudo-hi-res display ability.















(Above images from Byuu's demonstration.)

(Below images from me, here.)









If the games display damaged text or have graphical bugs that obscured the viewable area, I would consider it unplayable, I would not want to deal with this.



Another World said:


> if i enjoy the experience then its worth playing.


And the opposite is true, right?  If I would not enjoy it, it's not worth playing, right?



Another World said:


> the zero is going to provide thousands of those experiences and i plan on enjoying every one.
> 
> -another world


Your love for homebrew exceeds my own.  I have some definite likes and favorites in the DS scene (Mind Maze, Red Temple, etc.), but if I get this device it'll be for portable emulation of the games that I want to play.





Hey, let's try something.

See this?






This is a vibrator.  You should buy it.


_"But I don't have any use for it."_
But you like electronics, so you should buy it.


_"I don't want to buy it because I won't use a vibrator."_
But you could, think of all the things you could do!


_"No, I won't buy it because I have no interest in using it."_
But what about the community of people backing it?  It's not just for raw sexual pleasure, it'll also help you let off steam and the concept is backed by several health and wellness committees.


_"I'm not going to purposely spend money on something I won't use."_
Take your blinders off, this is a good product!

The GCW Zero is one of the most powerful devices we've seen yet, it seems to have great software support (always been a fear with other devices), and is taking into account all sorts of people that want to use it, not just emulation enthusiasts.

But I will not buy it because I do not want it because it will not play the games I want to play properly.


----------



## Kouen Hasuki (Jan 30, 2013)

fermio100 said:


> Sounds like something Apple would do... hehehehhehe


 
I was more pulling a Pun at Nintendo


----------



## Rydian (Jan 30, 2013)

> (4:27:01 AM) senquack: yes
> (4:32:34 AM) Rydian: Is there anybody I could ask about the choice of a 320x240 display in the GCW Zero?  It'll greatly hamper SNES games that would want to display higher resolutions.  Was that not known at the time of the decision (as the majority of games don't use it), or was that known but considered an acceptable loss?
> (4:37:39 AM) senquack: argh
> (4:37:47 AM) senquack: there aren't hardly two or three games like that
> ...


Then I started naming the other games that use it in their problems, and they made it clear they didn't care (since all the other games run fine), so I dropped the subject since it seemed they've already been annoyed with the question a hundred times before.

Also, price being the reason?  Confirmed.
"Hard to come by" = More expensive.
"maintain 4:3 aspect ratio" = 640x480 is also 4:3, so he was commenting on why they went 320x240 opposed to widescreen like in phones and the PSP.
"keep prices down" = Obvious, price.
"4x the number of pixels to push" = I already talked about this, it's a potential concern for other things (they don't give you a render size choice), but not emulation.

Conscious design choice it is anyways, so I doubt there will be a later model that supports them... :\  That sucks.



EDIT: Don't get me wrong, I understand that they need to keep costs down (especially for new projects like this), but it's ironic that this device is supposed to fix the mistakes of the China-based ones, but does this anyways.


----------



## Kouen Hasuki (Jan 30, 2013)

Another World said:


> rydian, you really would pass on this system because it has issues with 5-10 games? what about the thousands of other gaming experiences it will provide for you?
> 
> -another world


 

TBH my view is similar to Rydain in knowing that this handheld will be forgotten soon enough when the next "Holy Grail" of emulation arrives with even better specs and better screen resolution or they make the next model up with beefier hardware.

I'm not sure why you couldnt see why some people would not want the device


----------



## Pleng (Jan 30, 2013)

Another World said:


> you still haven't explained how you can write off an entire device based on a handful of games. that idea, in and of itself, is just ridiculous.


 
He's not writing the system off, he's just saying he has no use for it.

Try and look at it in reverse. I bought a 3DS because of MarioKart 7, and Sonic Generations - and the promise of a new Animal Crossing. They were the only two games I cared about playing on it. If the games hadn't existed I wouldn't have bothered. Why should I buy a console for games that other people like, but I'd most likely end up playing with for 5 minutes before getting bored of?

I bough a Dreamcast, well past it's prime, specifically to Play Daytona and Saga Rally. It came with Sonic Adventure 1 & 2, Virtua Fighter and a couple of other games. Yes, I played Sonic Adventure 1 because it was there, but I wouldn't have bought the system for that game alone.

A system is only as good _for any individual person_ as the games he/she wants to play on them. I gave up on buying these systems, having had a GP2X, Dingoo and a Pandora, as once I'd completed my goal of finally completing Super Mario World and Link to The Past, all I ever did was end up booting up Sonic, or F-Zero and playing for 10 minutes until I got bored. Apart from the Pandora - but I had to get rid of that because I couldn't financially justify having it around when I needed a lot of other stuff. So this device would be no good _for me_. That's not to say it's not a good machine. That's not to say that the software available for it isn't top quality. It just means it has nothing that *I* want to play on it.


----------



## Rydian (Jan 30, 2013)

Nostalgiaaaa~

I ordered a used Dreamcast and an unopened copy of PSO Online Ver 2 like seven years ago or something just to play offline... and while I ended up getting and playing other games for it, PSO ver2 was what I clocked the most hours into, by far.

EDIT: Off-topic post is off-topic.


----------



## Another World (Jan 30, 2013)

> Is that ridiculous?



yes, 100%. buying a system for 1 game is completely ridiculous. especially when you consider the cost of modern systems, controllers, memory cards, cables, etc.



> also, price being the reason? Confirmed.



by someone not from the team? i actually know why they didn't include higher res and it wasn't money related.

i never once said YOU should buy it. what i said was your reasons for not wanting it do not make any sense to me. you are coming off, to me at least, as being incredibly negative about this device because you, personally, are upset it can't render the text on a handful of rpgs. writing off the entire thing, before you have even had an opportunity to use one, its an obtuse view. 

-another world


----------



## Rydian (Jan 30, 2013)

Another World said:


> yes, 100%. buying a system for 1 game is completely ridiculous.


There you go again, trying to dictate what I should and shouldn't buy for my own entertainment...



Another World said:


> by someone not from the team? i actually know why they didn't include higher res and it wasn't money related.


Sounded like they're related, what with having additional info, if not I would like to hear from the team, but Idunno' who's who, and since this seems intentional it's unlikely to change anyways (especially this late into development).



Another World said:


> either way, i'm done with this topic now. thank you for that. you are being incredibly negative about this device because you, personally, are upset it can't render the text on a handful of rpgs.


AW, _what in the world has your panties in such a wrinkle that you skimmed my posts so hard that you didn't even look at the images_?  It's not just RPG text.



Another World said:


> writing off the entire thing, before you have even had an opportunity to use one, its an obtuse view.
> 
> -another world


*Why would I buy a product that I already know won't do what I desire?*


----------



## Another World (Jan 30, 2013)

> There you go again, trying to dictate what I should and shouldn't buy for my own entertainment...



i am doing no such thing. its fine if you truly only game for the sake of a few emulated experiences. what i have issue with is writing off the entire system because of that reason. 



> Sounded like they're related, what with having additional info, if not I would like to hear from the team, but Idunno' who's who, and since this seems intentional it's unlikely to change anyways (especially this late into development).



perhaps you should check your facts before you quote them as such. the team is on the kickstarter



> AW, what in the world has your panties in such a wrinkle that you skimmed my posts so hard that you didn't even look at the images? It's not just RPG text.



your images only prove that you feel there is no reason to play ANY snes game if its not running on bsnes. i do not feel that way at all. i own a snes and i enjoy it. when i game on the go i don't expect a perfect experience, i expect to have fun. if the other 200 or so games i have with me work great, i'm having fun. for the few that don't i'll stick to other ways to enjoy them, be it actual hardware or emulation tweaked for their unique performance.

another world is my best example. it has changed across almost every platform it has been on. sometimes its slower, sometimes its harder, sometimes the graphics aren't as great, sometimes its hampered by crappy touch screen controls. no matter what i always enjoy it, even with the frustration that might come with hardware disappointment. but, i see now (and i mean after talking with you all this time, not this single topic), that you do not feel that way. if its not the way you assumed it would be then it isn't worth your time. please correct me if i'm not interpreting your comments correctly.

-another world


----------



## Rydian (Jan 30, 2013)

Another World said:


> i am doing no such thing. its find if you truly only game for the sake of a few emulated experiences. what i have issue is writing off the entire system because of that reason.


The other things didn't interest me in the first place, it's the emulation that did.  The other things are either functions I already have portably (video playing, music playing, web browsing), or ports of games that already play well on other systems (the few I'm somewhat familiar with, at least).



Another World said:


> perhaps you should check your facts before you quote them as such. the team is on the kickstarter


Hey now, *I went where you told me to go*...



Another World said:


> your images only prove that you feel there is no reason to play ANY snes game if its not running on bsnes.


_My_ images are from ZSNES/SNES9X (with different output settings).  In the original post I linked, I even noted the filtering option that SNES9x used that gave me a false impression at first when testing it out.  I don't even use BSNES to _play_ games.  I keep it around for exploration and testing.  For playing, I use SNES9x (general play) or ZSNES (quick screengrabs and hotkey-capable cheat search).




Another World said:


> if its not the way you assumed it would be then it isn't worth your time. please correct me if i'm not interpreting your comments correctly.
> 
> -another world


Still skimming, I see.



Rydian said:


> Hey, let's try something.
> 
> See this?
> 
> ...


----------



## Costello (Jan 30, 2013)

must... win... internet... argument...

seriously guys  one of you just give up already... you have different opinions and let's leave it at that


----------



## Another World (Jan 30, 2013)

i'm asking for confirmation so that i do not assume. assumptions are the mother of all fuck ups, rydian. stop going for the goat. the vibrator example is distasteful and completely unrelated to gaming and my reasons for questioning your emulation opinions and your reasons for not wanting the zero.



Costello said:


> must... win... internet... argument...
> 
> seriously guys  one of you just give up already... you have different opinions and let's leave it at that



done. sleep calls me.

-another world


----------



## Rydian (Jan 30, 2013)

I'm concerned that AW's _getting up my ass_ about me NOT wanting to buy a product.

I mean seriously, am I missing something important here?



Another World said:


> the vibrator example is distasteful and completely unrelated to gaming


And the PS3 example, and the Macbook Pro example?

Seriously, *what's gotten into you*?


----------



## Veho (Jan 30, 2013)

Another World said:


> the vibrator example is distasteful and completely unrelated to gaming and my reasons for questioning your emulation opinions and your reasons for not wanting the zero.


It's a stretch, but it's still pretty apt. It's a device that does stuff Rydian doesn't need, but can't do what Rydian wants it to do. Now his needs might be a bit special specific, but if the GCW doesn't meet them, he should be free to not be ecstatic about it / not buy it.


----------



## Prior22 (Jan 30, 2013)

I'm looking at the emulation listing and am really confused. For the same price one could buy a PSP, which emulates all the systems and handhelds on the list (plus the PSX). And I get a few dozen quality PSP exclusive games to play as well. So whats the incentive to purchase this (other than to support the homebrew community). I suppose one could hope for quality N64 emulation, but who knows how long it will take to have a large number of the most wanted N64 titles running well.

PS: quite frankly i don't think many people will go out and shell 130 dollars to have access to the indy titles. its one thing to shell out a few dollars for these titles on the iphone. but paying 130 dollars to get access to these types of games is a whole different ballgame.


----------



## Surkow (Jan 30, 2013)

@Prior22, this might be an interesting comparison for you. It gets a bit tiresome when people bring up the PSP.


----------



## Prior22 (Jan 30, 2013)

Surkow said:


> @Prior22, this might be an interesting comparison for you. It gets a bit tiresome when people bring up the PSP.


 
Alright so there's a few SNES titles, and possibly GBA titles, which run poorly on the PSP but smoothly on the GCW.  Is that enough to warrant spending 130 dollars (especially if you already have a PSP).  I'm sure Saturn emulation is out of the question, but until significant N64 progress is made I salute the developers for putting their time into a new piece of hardware but wouldn't seriously consider buying it.


----------



## Kouen Hasuki (Jan 30, 2013)

Surkow said:


> @Prior22, this might be an interesting comparison for you. It gets a bit tiresome when people bring up the PSP.


 
I was never impressed by that PR Stunt due to the fact frankly if you got a much more powerful unit it better emulate something better than a 6+ year old device xD


----------



## taydor_b (Jan 30, 2013)

I'm still going to play Secret of Mana on the Zero.  It looks like it runs well.  Besides the opening name your character menu, the words are going to look fine since they are not using the same size font.  I'm going to spend more time on the game slashing monster up and down instead of slightly misreading the occasional menu.  I've also played the game enough times that even if it were impossible to read something, I would most likely still know what it was.

Don't let something so little as this problem ruin a great game for you, Rydian.


----------



## gundalf (Jan 30, 2013)

Prior22 said:


> Alright so there's a few SNES titles, and possibly GBA titles, which run poorly on the PSP but smoothly on the GCW. Is that enough to warrant spending 130 dollars (especially if you already have a PSP). I'm sure Saturn emulation is out of the question, but until significant N64 progress is made I salute the developers for putting their time into a new piece of hardware but wouldn't seriously consider buying it.


 
I don't want to sound rude, but if money/price is an argument for you, then you are not the target audience.


----------



## Aeter (Jan 30, 2013)

I think many people don't realize that you can't expect perfection from a multipurpose emulation handheld whilst trying to keep it affordable for main public.
The part that makes this stand out in comparison with other devices like it, is mostly the software and support behind it.


----------



## Johnny on Flame (Jan 30, 2013)

Oh my god I can't play my games! They're unplayable without blending effects/unreadeable text!









Wait what? Oh, BTW, These are actual screenshots taken using fbgrab on the GCW Zero.
Give a chance for the device BEFORE you judge it.



And I'm pretty sure your vibrator can't render blending effects.


----------



## Another World (Jan 30, 2013)

@Prior22

one other thing you should take into consideration is the fact that the zero is being actively developed for. its backed by a community that basically made the dingoo popular. its a scene that became so popular that its now about the operating system and not the hardware. where as, the psp scene has slowed down to the point that we are not finding updates for emulation nor are we seeing new software released.

i love my psp, i've received a great deal of enjoyment out of it, but it doesn't do everything i want. i have also been extremely unsuccessful getting any program bugs addressed or updates like analog controls regressions fixed. developers have always had the same thing to say to me, that they have moved onto android and ios, or have lost interest in psp development.



> quite frankly i don't think many people will go out and shell 130 dollars to have access to the indy titles.



i agree completely. while the device is officially billed as a indy device, its supported by a community built upon emulation. there will be legitimate indy titles released for the zero, but the majority of owners are most probably going to be interested in emulation, just as you have suggested. 



> I'm concerned that AW's getting up my ass about me NOT wanting to buy a product.



what i typed was not designed as an attack on your personality and truly had nothing to do with you personally wanting or not wanting to buy the zero. my responses were intended to further a debate on the idea of not wanting something that does a thousand-and-1 things because 5 of them do not meet your expectations. i did not take it personally, i did not type out of emotion, nor did i purposely try to illicit an emotional response. it seems that you may have assumed, that i attempted to attack you as a person, for your unique beliefs. 

in all honesty, i was utterly flabbergasted to find out that you would not consider enjoying a zero based on your reasons, and that most probably played a part in the crafting of my sentences. i have always felt that you were more of an experimental gamer who spent time exploring unique games and experiences. after all our discussions and interactions, i had no idea that you would present such a defensive stance for your view. we will never see eye-to-eye on this, because to me the issues with the zero are extremely trivial. 

-another world


----------



## Johnny on Flame (Jan 30, 2013)

A few more screenshots.


----------



## DominoBright (Jan 31, 2013)

Um, not trying to knock the Zero since I intend on getting one based on what it CAN do, but the Japanese characters in that last screenshot look broken and aren't supposed to look like that in game.


----------



## Johnny on Flame (Jan 31, 2013)

Palom said:


> Um, not trying to knock the Zero since I intend on getting one based on what it CAN do, but the Japanese characters in that last screenshot look broken and aren't supposed to look like that in game.


 
It's a screen that appears ONCE during the game and can easily be read. There's not much to it either tbh.


----------



## Rydian (Jan 31, 2013)

taydor_b said:


> Don't let something so little as this problem ruin a great game for you, Rydian.


I know the only issue for SoM is the selection text which is why I only used it as an example once (since that's the only issue it has).



Johnny on Flame said:


> Oh my god I can't play my games! They're unplayable without blending effects/unreadeable text!


If the translucency is working then the emulator is rendering at the right internal resolution and then downscaling with a filter to approximate how the TV would display it.

That's fine for game that use it for this, _and it's good to know that the emulator actually DOES support it_.

However for things that would want to display the extra data (instead of blend it), it'll cause a problem.



Johnny on Flame said:


>


SoM's NPC text wasn't an issue.



Johnny on Flame said:


> Give a chance for the device BEFORE you judge it.


*I did*.
http://gbatemp.net/threads/gcw-zero-vs-psp-running-snes-star-fox.341178/

I would outline the timeline of how I got excited, then disappointed, but since I've posted it so often in this thread already I'm sick of it.



Johnny on Flame said:


> And I'm pretty sure your vibrator can't render blending effects.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphor



Another World said:


> my responses were intended to further a debate on the idea of not wanting something that does a thousand-and-1 things because 5 of them do not meet your expectations


And that's why I used the vibrator example.  I do not care about those other things so I will not buy the device for them, _just like I do not give a shit about a vibrator so I will not buy a vibrator for it's functions_.  Also the Vacuum example, and the PS3 example... the devices would be bought for a specific purpose, if the device doesn't meet that purpose it won't be bought.



Another World said:


> it seems that you may have assumed, that i attempted to attack you as a person, for your unique beliefs.


My "unique" beliefs?  Right, check out the comparison screenshots posted below.



Another World said:


> in all honesty, i was utterly flabbergasted to find out that you would not consider enjoying a zero based on your reasons


And that's why I tried using vibrators, the PS3, and a vacuum cleaner as examples of the whole "people will not buy products they don't think will do the job" idea.



Another World said:


> and that most probably played a part in the crafting of my sentences. i have always felt that you were more of an experimental gamer who spent time exploring unique games and experiences.


Everything _I'm_ interested in is a port or emulator for games that exist on another system.  I don't buy _potential_ entertainment.  I'm not one of those people that will go buy a device and then wait for the games to come out.  I used the 3DS as an example for this, I don't have a 3DS because nothing that's out for it interests me.



Another World said:


> after all our discussions and interactions, i had no idea that you would present such a defensive stance for your view.


I'm on the defense because you're on the attack.  You're not getting on anybody else except for me about this.



Another World said:


> we will never see eye-to-eye on this, because to me the issues with the zero are extremely trivial.
> 
> -another world


And I posted that the issues with the Cave Story port on the PSP are trivial as an example.



Johnny on Flame said:


> A few more screenshots.


SD3's NPC text issues in other emulators were cased by mode-switching on a screen, not hi-res things.  Zoom in on the text and you'll note that it's rendered at the right resolution.  The mode switch is used for the background gradient instead, IIRC (which doesn't suffer from any blending).



Johnny on Flame said:


>


Might as well show me a screenshot from Super Mario World, 'cause that's not a trouble spot. 



Johnny on Flame said:


>


As Palom said, look at the text.  It's missing pixels because it's rendering ~512 pixels of data and then trying to push it into a 256-wide space.

It's not just the text either, the graphics suffer too.  I scaled your image up 300% nearest-neighbor and just took a screenshot of what it looks like with proper output, and here's a comparison.






(Animated GIF, wait for it to load.)

Notice that the grass and the columns are noticeably degraded in the GCW Zero's screenshot, too.



Johnny on Flame said:


> It's a screen that appears ONCE during the game and can easily be read. There's not much to it either tbh.


Try using the game's menu screen...






(Again, animated GIF, wait for it to load.)

Not only is the background noticeably degraded in quality, but the text once again suffers.  Check out the "m" in "Amazoness" near the upper-right of the screen, the middle bar in the "m" is visually lost.


----------



## Another World (Jan 31, 2013)

rydian, you can stop now. you obviously have lost sight of this conversation. you are taking what I write, gathering your own meaning form it, and then attacking me. Please stop.

i never said your unique beliefs mean your take on this game. no, you assumed that. i was trying to be civil and give you some respect. 

i've no idea what the fuck your problem is. i try to explain how you misinterpreted what i wrote, and you attack me for that. then i explain how we lost sight of the debate, and you attack me for that. 

you could have easily replied stating that you do not see the value in thousands of other games, that you only enjoy a few games and if they aren't working correctly that you will not support the system. there was no need to be such a jerk about it. this entire conversation is just stupid at this point. it derailed the entire thread and the discussion. what did it prove? proved that we can't communicate.

-another world


----------



## Rydian (Jan 31, 2013)

Another World said:


> Rydian, you can stop now. You obviously have lost sight of this conversation.


_How?_  You seem so curious as to why I won't buy the device, _so I'm *visually showing* why I won't buy the device._



Another World said:


> You are taking what I write, gathering your own meaning form it, and then attacking me. Please stop.


And _I_ would have preferred you stop  getting on my ass for NOT wanting to buy a device, but that hasn't stopped you for two pages.  _Even other members have commented on it_.

*You keep on asking me what the problems are, so I keep showing you what the problems are.*  If you don't want the answers, don't ask the questions. 



Another World said:


> i never said your unique beliefs mean your take on this game. no, you assumed that.  i was trying to be civil and give you some respect.
> 
> -another world


Alright, then what _did_ that phrase mean?


EDIT: BBcode fail.


----------



## Johnny on Flame (Jan 31, 2013)

Rydian said:


> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphor
> And that's why I used the vibrator example. I do not care about those other things so I will not buy the device for them, _just like I do not give a shit about a vibrator so I will not buy a vibrator for it's functions_. Also the Vacuum example, and the PS3 example... the devices would be bought for a specific purpose, if the device doesn't meet that purpose it won't be bought.


WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH


----------



## Rydian (Jan 31, 2013)

Johnny on Flame said:


> WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH


I don't understand how it was supposed to be a joke since it's obvious that a vibrator has no graphical display at all, but okay.


----------



## Johnny on Flame (Jan 31, 2013)

Rydian said:


> I don't understand how it was supposed to be a _joke_ *since* it's obvious that *a vibrator has no graphical display at all*, but okay.


 
Anyways, I won't take this any further, I don't see this being fruitful for any of us, correct me if you will, but this sounds like nitpicking for me. We made a choice based on what we judged to be a good compromise, it's all over our FAQ the reasons why we made this choice.


----------



## Kouen Hasuki (Jan 31, 2013)

Johnny on Flame said:


> Anyways, I won't take this any further, I don't see this being fruitful for any of us, correct me if you will, but this sounds like nitpicking for me. We made a choice based on what we judged to be a good compromise, it's all over our FAQ the reasons why we made this choice.


 
Don't relight the fire bro, Rydain doesn't want the device as it will not emulate what he wants to play correctly, It doesn't matter the reason why GCW did what they did it wont change the fact that Rydain doesn't want it lol 

If you want it that's cool get it


----------



## Rydian (Jan 31, 2013)

Johnny on Flame said:


> Anyways, I won't take this any further, I don't see this being fruitful for any of us, correct me if you will, but this sounds like nitpicking for me. We made a choice based on what we judged to be a good compromise, it's all over our FAQ the reasons why we made this choice.


I know it's there.





Rydian said:


> _They mention cost each time_, even in the FAQ on the kickstarter page itself.


And the only reason that's _valid_ (for emulation) is cost.


Rydian said:


> If a device can render internally at hi-res, then it should have no problem displaying hi-res.  Nearest-neighbor/2:1 scaling has been considered a free action even on mobile GPUs for years.  The PSP can even do it with it's GPU, and that's a 2004 GPU.  *Modern chips like the GCW Zero is using are much more powerful.*
> 
> The only time a higher resolution causes slowdown is when the higher resolution is what's being rendered internally/natively.  *This would not affect sprite/scanline-based emulators that scale up*.  This WOULD affect native homebrew that do resolution-dependant rendering (Descent, etc.), but going 320x240 over 640x480 is forced quality loss, while letting the games render at 320x240 scaled would let them run as fast as on a native 320x240 display, without hurting other software.



You really should start reading, man, or you make these weird assumptions...

You know, just like you think I'm "nitpicking" even though the images I provided (contrasted to the ones _you_ provided off the device itself) _showed clear problems_.


----------



## Johnny on Flame (Jan 31, 2013)

Rydian said:


> I know it's there.And the only reason that's _valid_ (for emulation) is cost.
> 
> 
> You really should start reading, man, or you make these weird assumptions...
> ...



How is "cost" valid only for emulation? Only a handful games used /actual/ hi-res screen modes on the SNES, even the ones that used it can be played just fine. Also noteworthy is that most CRT screens didn't display an exactly crisp image in these resolutions. If you use a higher resolution, you push more data around, that has a RAM bandwidth cost, which is translated into more battery usage. (GPU scaling uses more battery, IPU scaling uses more battery, etc., and keep in mind that there's much more to emulation than just snes!) 

And how is that not nitpicking? you're finding minor issues to bash the product (It affects only a handful of titles/screens, and their actual effects towards gameplay are less than minor), not only that, you also provided dubious evidence about the emulation of the faux transparency effects employed by a few SNES titles.



Kouen Hasuki said:


> Don't relight the fire bro, Rydain doesn't want the device as it will not emulate what he wants to play correctly, It doesn't matter the reason why GCW did what they did it wont change the fact that Rydain doesn't want it lol
> 
> If you want it that's cool get it



I don't want to force anything down his throat- buying it or not is a personal choice I can respect, but the same way he's got the right to voice his opinions I have mine to reply, and *I will reply* if there's need to do so.

And I already own one myself, which I made use of in order to back my statements and provide counter-evidence.


----------



## Veho (Jan 31, 2013)

If I may hijack the thread for a bit; what are the system's capabilities outside of games and emulation? Media playback, web browser, support/clients for internet services (mail clients, IM, VoIP, Youtube, Flash support, etc. etc.), alternative OS? Are there any such apps ready or in development? What's the output resolution on the HDMI-out, is it full HD? Will apps be able to use the full HD (if available)? Does it support USB hubs? Has any of this been answered already and I overlooked it? 

Thank you.


----------



## Rydian (Jan 31, 2013)

Johnny on Flame said:


> How is "cost" valid only for emulation?


They listed multiple reasons, and of the reasons they listed, only "cost" is takes effect in emulation (since it changes the system's emulation capabilities on the whole in exchange for being cheaper).

If the translucency is Kirby's Dream Land 3 works, _then the emulator is already rendering at the full resolution internally_ and then downscaling it for output (more or less), so outputting the full resolution to begin with shouldn't be an issue.



Johnny on Flame said:


> Only a handful games used /actual/ hi-res screen modes on the SNES


And unfortunately most of those games are the ones I want to play.

Like I said earlier, if this was a portable N64 that wouldn't play OoT or Super Mario 64 properly I bet people would have a different outlook... _just because the games I care about aren't the games YOU care about, MY reasons for not buying the device are invalid?_



Johnny on Flame said:


> even the ones that used it can be played just fine.


I prefer to play games without messed-up text and missing special effects.  This is a reason I was looking for a portable emulation device to surpass my PSP in the first place, it's an older device with a low resolution and suffers many of the same issues (when the scaling's not being used).



Johnny on Flame said:


> Also noteworthy is that most CRT screens didn't display an exactly crisp image in these resolutions.


Not only is a bit of blurring preferable to entirely-missing pixels, but many games were developed with the blurring in mind (thus the recent popularity of things like CRT-style shaders for emulators on the PC where it's viable).

CRT shaders aren't really viable on portables anyways due to the screen being smaller anyways, I'm just pointing out there's efforts to recreate it.



Johnny on Flame said:


> If you use a higher resolution, you push more data around


_It's already doing the higher resolution internally_, it's just unable to display it due to the screen's limitation, which is why data goes missing.

It's not an issue with the device's software, it's an issue with the hardware, and it's not a power issue.  It's simply due to the screen resolution being too small to present everything that's being rendered.  This isn't something that can be fixed with a software update, it needs a hardware revision, which is why I'm not buying the Zero (with the presented specs).



Johnny on Flame said:


> that has a RAM bandwidth cost, which is translated into more battery usage.


No it's not.  All RAM is electrically powered all the time, and the difference between writing to "free" RAM and "used" RAM doesn't even exist on a physical level (which is what's behind technologies like superfetch).



Johnny on Flame said:


> (GPU scaling uses more battery,


If the GPU is downclocked by default (most likely is) and needs to be clocked higher in order to do it (depends on the total power of the GPU), then yes.  If not, then no.  Is the GPU used scalable on the device purposely (say, the clock rate able to be set via homebrew), or does it only change the GPU clock in reaction to it's rendering load?

I have a hard time believing something _as modern and powerful_ as the GCW Zero would need to clock higher in order to scale an image nearest-neighbor, especially since the PSP (much older and simpler hardware) can scale filtered and unfiltered using it's media engine (dedicated media decoder chip).

Does it turn most functions of the GPU off (akin to C sleep states) and just use framebuffer graphics when the GPU isn't needed or something?



Johnny on Flame said:


> IPU scaling uses more battery, etc.,


I doubt you're referring to the Invisible Pink Unicorn, was this a typo?



Johnny on Flame said:


> and keep in mind that there's much more to emulation than just snes!)


Which is why it's possible that they knew about this issue but deemed it a worthwhile sacrifice to make the device cheaper (and so appeal to people more easily, eat into less of their initial capital, etc.)



Johnny on Flame said:


> And how is that not nitpicking? you're finding minor issues










Johnny on Flame said:


> to bash the product


Bash?  I've stated multiple times the GCW Zero is impressively powerful, but I will not personally buy this device because it cheaps out on the screen and takes a hit on the emulation front because of it (which is ironic as this device was specifically designed to not repeat the mistakes of the Chinese devices, but this is one such mistake).



Johnny on Flame said:


> (It affects only a handful of titles/screens and their actual effects towards gameplay are less than minor)


Going from 1080p to 480p on a 360 game has a less-than-minor effect on the actual gameplay too, so are people wasting their time in specifically buying an HDTV since they can still _play_ the game at the lower quality? 



Johnny on Flame said:


> not only that, you also provided dubious evidence about the emulation of the faux transparency effects employed by a few SNES titles.


I wasn't aware that the emulator rendered at the higher resolution internally, so for games that don't attempt to display at that resolution (and count on the blur inherent in NTSC video) the special effects will work fine.  Obviously my stance there has changed, since I've mentioned multiple times that it's already doing it internally (as the screenshot showed).

However for the text example, I used a screenshot from a GCW to show the problem.


----------



## Johnny on Flame (Feb 1, 2013)

Rydian said:


> /huge post here/



I respect your decision, if this device has minor issues you're not willing to go through, then why fork cash on it? What I ask of you is to check the validity of your claims before you post them on a public board.

- RAM R/W is not as simple as you make it.
- In embedded platforms you *must* trim resource usage as much as possible. A 640x480 screen would require the vast majority of games and homebrew to be upscaled. Too much for battery usage.
- What does superfetch have to do with the case in topic? Afaik SUPERFETCH precaches commonly used assets into memory to speed up whatever uses these components.
- IPU stands for Image Processing Unit.
- Games using translucency uses the hi-res modes as a "blending buffer"- so in the end they're effectively "lo-res", think multiple layers on the same buffer. Outputting said games on 640x480 properly requires upscaling. (Emulation wizards feel free to correct me if I'm wrong in this one.)

> The vast majority of emulators won't use anything bigger than 320x240, and even the ones that does, only a few games make use of hi-res, *this is not a dedicated "Seiken Densetsu 3" emulator.* <


----------



## Rydian (Feb 1, 2013)

Johnny on Flame said:


> What I ask of you is to check the validity of your claims before you post them on a public board.


I didn't think that the emulator would render at the full resolution and then scale it down.

I thought it'd be like this... http://s4.postimage.org/uhnnxhv8d/256.png

Instead of taking this... http://s3.postimage.org/iwqtbm9sz/512.png And scaling it down.

I was obviously wrong on how it handles that, but I had no indication it'd do it in the first place.



Johnny on Flame said:


> - RAM R/W is not as simple as you make it.


Elaborate then. 



Johnny on Flame said:


> - In embedded platforms you *must* trim resource usage as much as possible. A 640x480 screen would require the vast majority of games and homebrew to be upscaled. Too much for battery usage.


How would it?  Current devices upscale nearest-neighbor all the time without a drain.



Johnny on Flame said:


> - What does superfetch have to do with the case in topic? Afaik SUPERFETCH precaches commonly used assets into memory to speed up whatever uses these components.


Yes, *and it can do that because extra RAM usage is not extra battery usage*.



Johnny on Flame said:


> - IPU stands for Image Processing Unit.


A standalone processor to do that opposed to running it on a CPU thread or with GPU instructions?  The specs don't mention it.



Johnny on Flame said:


> - Games using translucency uses the hi-res modes as a "blending buffer"- so in the end they're effectively "lo-res", think multiple layers on the same buffer. Outputting said games on 640x480 properly requires upscaling. (Emulation wizards feel free to correct me if I'm wrong in this one.)


Yup, but the pixel placement's the same as a game not using that, so it'd be scaled up anyways (as the scaling is done on the final composited frame without the translucency information as it's already been applied).



Johnny on Flame said:


> > The vast majority of emulators won't use anything bigger than 320x240, and even the ones that does, only a few games make use of hi-res, *this is not a dedicated "Seiken Densetsu 3" emulator.* <





Rydian said:


> This device is supposed to fix the mistakes of the previous chinese devices, but by cheaping out on the display, they're making the same type of mistake.  "It'll play less games properly, but it's cheaper".  Hey, does that sound familiar?
> 
> "Not including an SA-1 chip will make this SNES cart cheaper and only a few games won't run properly."
> "Going with slower flash stroage will make this tablet cheaper and only a few games won't run properly."
> "Not including RTS will make this GBA cart cheaper and only a few games won't run properly."etc.


----------



## Johnny on Flame (Feb 1, 2013)

Rydian said:


> /text/


 
It's not RAM usage itself- but the fact that you move four times more data every frame, and the fact that in most games you're required to do upscaling in order to fit. Did you even read what I wrote?
Also, I have internal documents on the JZ4770 soc and on the LCD Panel, The specs won't mention the IPU, but it's there.


----------



## Joe88 (Feb 1, 2013)

at this price I dont see the point when there are plenty of android phones/tablets which are way more powerful, bigger screens along with higher resolution, already developed emulators (up to N64 and PS1 and experimental PSP right now), and can be coupled with a controller of your choosing


----------



## Rydian (Feb 1, 2013)

Johnny on Flame said:


> It's not RAM usage itself- but the fact that you move four times more data every frame


_RAM's clock rate, once initialized, doesn't vary_.  As far as I know the only times RAM will vary it's clock are...

1 - When overclocking or underclocking is being done to a system that's using a processor/motherboard with a locked multiplier, so the front-side bus speed is what's increased instead.  In this type of situation the RAM's operating frequency is tied to the FSB as well, so it's clock rate will change too.

2 - When mixing sticks with different operating frequencies, the faster one will scale down to the lower one's speed.

*Both of these cases require a restart of the system, and neither are done in response to workload.*  When CPUs _do_ scale up or down due to workload (Intel's Speedstep, AMD's Cool'n'Quiet, thermal throttling, etc.), that's the CPU varying it's own clock rate (so the RAM isn't affected).



Johnny on Flame said:


> and the fact that in most games you're required to do upscaling in order to fit.


And that's just fine if it's a solid multiple.



Johnny on Flame said:


> Did you even read what I wrote?


Oh please, look who's talking...





Rydian said:


> If the device was so weak that nearest-neighbor scaling with the GPU caused an emulation hit, then it wouldn't be worth anybody's time nowadays.
> [...]
> Emulators can scale with a GPU easily, even the PSP is capable of upscaling GBA and SNES games with no loss.  When the GCW Zero talks about additional CPU usage it's talking about things that would render at the full resolution in general, like the home screen and menus and such.





Rydian said:


> If a device can render internally at hi-res, then it should have no problem displaying hi-res.  Nearest-neighbor/2:1 scaling has been considered a free action even on mobile GPUs for years.  The PSP can even do it with it's GPU, and that's a 2004 GPU.  *Modern chips like the GCW Zero is using are much more powerful.*


I've mentioned it multiple times nowadays, but since you don't listen to text (and pictures seem to be the only thing that gets through to you) here.

CPU usage, 1x.





CPU usage, 2x.





GPU usage, 1x.





GPU usage, 2x.





Note that these are taken with Process Explorer (a Microsoft utility) and reflect the usage of the emulator itself, not the combined system load.  The dips in the performance graphs are when I had the emulator unfocused to move windows around and junk (it's set to pause emulation then).



Johnny on Flame said:


> Also, I have internal documents on the JZ4770 soc and on the LCD Panel, The specs won't mention the IPU, but it's there.


I call bullshit.  If there is a dedicated IPU, you should be able to grab a picture of it (not necessarily from your own unit) because it'll be a separate chip on the board.  Otherwise "IPU" is just a name for one of the functions the GPU itself does.


----------



## Rydian (Feb 1, 2013)

Joe88 said:


> at this price I dont see the point when there are plenty of android phones/tablets which are way more powerful, bigger screens along with higher resolution, already developed emulators (up to N64 and PS1 and experimental PSP right now), and can be coupled with a controller of your choosing


1 - Phones often have way worse battery life (I'm talking about emulated use time, not standby time), reports from testers indicate 7-10 hours of use for this thing since it doesn't have things like GSM/CDMA/whatever antennae and a lot of background processes sucking up battery.

2 - Carrying around a phone and a controller is more hassle than carrying around on device.
2a - It's two separate objects.
2b - The two objects take up more combined space.
2c - It's two batteries to keep charged.

For portable emulation, this device looks much better than average smartphones.  Even ones with built-in keyboards don't have the right kind of button size/placements.


----------



## Veho (Feb 1, 2013)

Rydian said:


> 2 - Carrying around a phone and a controller is more hassle than carrying around on device.
> 2a - It's two separate objects.
> 2b - The two objects take up more combined space.
> 2c - It's two batteries to keep charged.


To be fair: 
2): you carry the phone around anyhow. So you're either carrying a phone and a controller, or a phone and a console. 
2a-c): see 2)


----------



## Arm73 (Feb 1, 2013)

I don't know, it seems that a few people here are making a big deal because of the 320x240 resolution.
I'm really fine with that, coming from lackluster handled emulation experiences ( the DS at 256x192 has to scale down most emulated systems and it's just not powerful enough, while on the other end the PSP has a weird resolution at 480 × 272 which is too big, but not quite big enough to render most systems at 2x, so you end up with a tiny square with huge black borders if you prefer 1:1 pixel mapping, or a blurry image upscaled to the nearest neighbor _still_ with black bars on the sides.....), to me it looks just perfect.

I'd rather have 98% of the games (I'm guessing here ) without any scaling, and the occasional Hi res game downscaled then the other way around....

Really, this handled looks incredible, I'm all for it.


----------



## Rydian (Feb 1, 2013)

Veho said:


> To be fair:
> 2): you carry the phone around anyhow. So you're either carrying a phone and a controller, or a phone and a console.
> 2a-c): see 2)


I'm a neanderthal and still haven't gotten a personal cell.

CAVEMEN ARE PPL 2



Arm73 said:


> I don't know, it seems that a few people here are making a big deal because of the 320x240 resolution.
> I'm really fine with that, coming from lackluster handled emulation experiences ( the DS at 256x192 has to scale down most emulated systems and it's just not powerful enough, while on the other end the PSP has a weird resolution at 480 × 272 which is too big, but not quite big enough to render most systems at 2x, so you end up with a tiny square with huge black borders if you prefer 1:1 pixel mapping, or a blurry image upscaled to the nearest neighbor _still_ with black bars on the sides.....), to me it looks just perfect.
> 
> I'd rather have 98% of the games (I'm guessing here ) without any scaling, and the occasional Hi res game downscaled then the other way around....
> ...


Well the PSP's emulation is worse than this, compatibility-wise.


----------



## Johnny on Flame (Feb 1, 2013)

Joe88 said:


> at this price I dont see the point when there are plenty of android phones/tablets which are way more powerful, bigger screens along with higher resolution, already developed emulators (up to N64 and PS1 and experimental PSP right now), and can be coupled with a controller of your choosing


 
The GCW Zero can easily be pocketed, unlike a PS3 controller or a tablet, with the bonus of your phone not running out of battery. Also we have a library of games that are either unavailable under android or badly ported.



Rydian said:


> /more text/


 
Desktops =/= Embedded Platforms, that's a bad comparison.
Unfortunally, I can't go into details about the IPU with you, non-disclosure agreement and all that. If you want to peek around there should be quite a few loose references on either our public source trees or on ingenic's. You assume loads of stuff you're pretty much wrong about. If you're going to call bullshit on me then how about you cite sources for all your assumptions.


TBH: It's simple, we made a choice based on what we think its better, it trims unecessary resource usage while maintaining the costs under budget and it also allows the vast majority of emulators and retro games to keep their native resolutions. Unfortunally, these three or four jrpgs will be affected. they're still playable, the only one that I can see to be actually affected to any considerable extent is Seiken Densetsu 3, but even in the case in question, these graphical issues will only take place in a few screens, the fun part of the thing (dialogs, etc, correct me if you will, long time I don't play these snes JRPGs) can still be read without ANY trouble. The pros outbalance the cons by an undeniable huge margin.


----------



## fermio100 (Feb 1, 2013)

Rydian said:


> If it was a portable N64 that wouldn't play OoT or Super Mario 64 would things be different?
> 
> I've said this is an interesting device, and was even vocally impressed by how it runs games like Star Fox.
> 
> ...


 
Great answere there! I bought myself one, but the games I want it plays, but I can see your point, perfectly.


----------



## Veho (Feb 2, 2013)

Meanwhile, my questions go unanswered. I don't know much about Dingux (I'm gonna go on a limb and assume all Dingux apps will work on the GCW Zero), so I have no idea what to expect. Also, to my knowledge, this is the first Dingux machine that has internet access (apart from being the most powerful yet). So what can it do with all that power?


----------



## Surkow (Feb 2, 2013)

@Veho, watch a few videos and check out the media page at wwwgcw-zero.com.

HDMI is still in development. Right now we focus on open source, homebrew and indie games while third party developers work on emulation.


----------



## Johnny on Flame (Feb 2, 2013)

Veho said:


> Meanwhile, my questions go unanswered. I don't know much about Dingux (I'm gonna go on a limb and assume all Dingux apps will work on the GCW Zero), so I have no idea what to expect. Also, to my knowledge, this is the first Dingux machine that has internet access (apart from being the most powerful yet). So what can it do with all that power?


 
Sorry, I overlooked your post- let's go back a bit.... aaaaand...


Veho said:


> If I may hijack the thread for a bit; what are the system's capabilities outside of games and emulation? Media playback, web browser, support/clients for internet services (mail clients, IM, VoIP, Youtube, Flash support, etc. etc.), alternative OS? Are there any such apps ready or in development? What's the output resolution on the HDMI-out, is it full HD? Will apps be able to use the full HD (if available)? Does it support USB hubs? Has any of this been answered already and I overlooked it?
> 
> Thank you.


 
- Media Playback: You can play videos and music on it. Nobody really experimented much, but there's more than enough hardware to decode most just fine. (take this with a grain of salt.)
- Web Browsing: Right now there's no application developed with this end, but I'd expect an experience of something like using the Nokia 5310 if there's a browser. (which means "usable" )
- There's no flash support and I doubt there'll be any sort of official flash developed for the device.
- USB Hubs will work in case they're powered. Unless they'll be no use.
- Most of these have been already answered either on FAQs, Kickstarter comments or on some other forum (I don't know if I'm allowed to do cross reference here.), but answering again is not much of a big deal


----------



## Rydian (Feb 2, 2013)

Johnny on Flame said:


> The GCW Zero can easily be pocketed


That's a good way of putting it, sorta' what I meant.



Johnny on Flame said:


> Desktops =/= Embedded Platforms, that's a bad comparison.


This device is using a subset of OpenGL (a more modern version of the standard than the PS3 had, even), is using a dedicated chip for acceleration of it's graphics (the CPU is 65nm, the GPU is 40nm, so separate packages, but I can't tell which is the GPU from the screenshots of the PCB I've found as the markings on the smaller ones are too small to read), and thus can do the same scaling/rendering basics as PCs.

The screenshots were to show that scaling via the GPU is not nearly as costly as you say.  Even though there's a recorded difference between 1:1 and double the size, it's less than 0.75% utilization of my desktop GPU... and CPU utilization was not affected, meaning emulation would not take a performance hit.  Other things that would take a hit can opt to render at the lower resolution and look the same as they would on the 320x240 screen (since the DPI would be unchanged assuming the screen's physical size is unchanged).



Johnny on Flame said:


> Unfortunally, I can't go into details about the IPU with you, non-disclosure agreement and all that.


_Oh please_, there's PCB images, and they have the names of the chips used on the official site, that's just a cop-out.   Your post is the only mention I can find of an "IPU" even existing (the concept/term doesn't even show up elsewhere).

If you heard it from people who worked with the development, then it was being used as a term for either _a library_ (software component), or a name for a job the CPU/GPU was handling.



Johnny on Flame said:


> If you want to peek around there should be quite a few loose references on either our public source trees or on ingenic's.


A quick trawl through the driver and firmware folders of the linux folder found no mention of a "IPU", if that's the right place to look?



Johnny on Flame said:


> You assume loads of stuff you're pretty much wrong about. If you're going to call bullshit on me then how about you cite sources for all your assumptions.


*You do know that underlined text with a different color indicates a link, right?*

















And as for the performance things I took screenshots to try to make it clear, since the only references you'll find online of people asking "Is it computationally-expensive to scale output in OpenGL" are when they're entirely beginners, and so it's posted on stackoverflow and development forums, not the most official resources (and with responses generally geared towards the user's small project).

Here's some more sources for things I've said.

CPUs often come with locked multipliers...
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/M/multiplier_lock.html
And raising the FSB speed is the alternative...
http://www.overclockersclub.com/pages/overclock_faq/
Changing the FSB changes RAM clock too...
http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=640601
And in order for the RAM clock to change, a restart is needed.
http://lifehacker.com/5580998/a-beginners-guide-to-overclocking-your-intel-processor ("The Process", end of para. 1)

Also embedded systems need a restart for an overclock too, so inb4 another "that's PCs it doesn't count".
http://htpcbuild.com/htpc-software/raspberry-pi-openelec/openelec-overclocking/

Also, the spec sheet for the GPU doesn't seem to mention the ability to modify it's own clock rate, unless "battery-saving innovations" includes that, but automatic underclocking and sleep states certainly aren't Vivante innovation (and would affect battery life so if so they'd probably list it specifically for a plus).

So as far as I see there's doubt that power draw increases with GPU load at all.

Also just in case, inb4 "some of your sources mention android", Android uses the Linux kernel and it uses OpenGL ES.




Johnny on Flame said:


> The pros outbalance the cons by an undeniable huge margin.


Any pro other than cost _for emulation_ has not been verified, and is quite unlikely to exist.  I've called it into question using comparisons with existing devices (like the PSP) and with benchmarks on the PC multiple times (even linking you to the software I used).



Veho said:


> Meanwhile, my questions go unanswered. I don't know much about Dingux (I'm gonna go on a limb and assume all Dingux apps will work on the GCW Zero), so I have no idea what to expect. Also, to my knowledge, this is the first Dingux machine that has internet access (apart from being the most powerful yet). So what can it do with all that power?


The GPU they list says it's capable of 1080p on the spec/ad sheet, at least.  Vato and AW know more about the software capabilities.



Johnny on Flame said:


> or on some other forum (I don't know if I'm allowed to do cross reference here.)


Oh don't worry about that, as long as the links don't contain ROMs or other illegal materials it's fine to reference/link other forums for info (and part of the expectation for the User-Submitted News section as an example).


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## Joe88 (Feb 2, 2013)

Johnny on Flame said:


> The GCW Zero can easily be pocketed, unlike a PS3 controller or a tablet, with the bonus of your phone not running out of battery. Also we have a library of games that are either unavailable under android or badly ported.


Moga & gametel controllers fit in your pocket thats why I said a controller of your choosing not just a ps3 controller (though personally I use a ps2 controller with a usb adapter on my tablet)
battery life is more or less the same on this device with most phones, just bring the charger if you find it going down to quickly (I hope somebody isnt gaming 7 hours+ in one day though on these devices)
and library of games? except for descent, the rest are terrible looking indie games and the others are available already on android


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## Johnny on Flame (Feb 2, 2013)

Rydian said:


> /text/


 
These macros and definitions are directly taken from Ingenics sources, read through em'.
I know what these "*underlined text with a different color indicates"*, lets talk about these:
- Superfetch has NOTHING to do with the case in point. It's just a way of pre-caching certain assets into RAM.
- CRT post processing shaders have NOTHING to do with this case in point, the other one is not talking about text either, rather how the game's graphics were designed to look like when played on the CRT screens.

If there's doubt whether your GPU is using more power during load, try lauching furmark and taking a peek on the temperatures. Heat happens on circuits where there's energy being lost.



Joe88 said:


> Moga & gametel controllers fit in your pocket thats why I said a controller of your choosing not just a ps3 controller (though personally I use a ps2 controller with a usb adapter on my tablet)
> battery life is more or less the same on this device with most phones, just bring the charger if you find it going down to quickly (I hope somebody isnt gaming 7 hours+ in one day though on these devices)
> and library of games? except for descent, the rest are terrible looking indie games and the others are available already on android


 
My phone barely survives through a normal day here, 3G + Web Browsing + Music, occasional GPS when it's necessary. If I add bluetooth and gaming here my phone won't last.

And about games, Quake I and II with proper controlls, Hexen II, Cavestory, FRONTIER Elite II, Chocolate Doom (full doom series as vanilla as it goes), Eduke32, Shadow Warrior, Rise of the Triad, just to name a few.


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## Rydian (Feb 2, 2013)

Johnny on Flame said:


> These macros and definitions are directly taken from Ingenics sources, read through em'.


Quick CTRL+F...

2873: #define LCD_IPUR	(LCD_BASE + 0x11C) /* LCD IPU Restart Register */
[...]
3109: /* IPU Restart Register */
3110: #define LCD_IPUR_IPUREN (1 << 31) /* IPU restart function enable*/
3111: #define LCD_IPUR_IPURMASK (0xFFFFFF) /* IPU restart value mask*/

So that's LCD hardware control?  I googled for some of the registers and comments, and found that this header file for the CPU (jz4770.h, the one you linked) shares some things with other projects... but _unlike the GCW Zero_, the other projects actually look like thet use the IPU/OSD for things, while the repository you linked just sets up initialization for it because it's just a bootloader.

_And it's just a bootloader for boards in general using a certain chipset, it's not even part of the GCW project._

Do you have any actual info on the "IPU" _as it pertains to the hardware of the GCW Zero_ and what it's used for and junk?  It looks like it's used to move image data around (I'm seeing comparisons to using it versus DMA in embedded camera systems), but the GCW Zero has a dedicated GPU for manipulation.



Johnny on Flame said:


> I know what these "*underlined text with a different color indicates"*, lets talk about these:
> - Superfetch has NOTHING to do with the case in point. It's just a way of pre-caching certain assets into RAM.


I never said that the device uses it, I was using the existence of Superfetch as an easy way to disprove your idea that more RAM usage equals worse battery life.  All RAM is powered all the time, and writing to "full" and "empty" RAM is the same physical process.



Johnny on Flame said:


> - CRT post processing shaders have NOTHING to do with this case in point, the other one is not talking about text either, rather how the game's graphics were designed to look like when played on the CRT screens.


I mentioned the CRT post-processing shaders to show that...
1 - Games will rely on detail outside of the normal 256x224 grid, (SD3 was squeezing the extra resolution to the 8:3 aspect ratio to give "half-pixels" of extra data which is why those modes only render properly at higher resolutions), but also color blending and such.
2 - I'm not the only person who cares about the less-than-a-normal-pixel minute details.  Insert "THEY CALLED ME MAD!" gif here if you want.



Johnny on Flame said:


> If there's doubt whether your GPU is using more power during load, try lauching furmark and taking a peek on the temperatures. Heat happens on circuits where there's energy being lost.


My previous GPU got up to ~110C with furmark when I was confirming the cooling system wasn't working properly, I'm well-aware that running at a higher clock rate sucks more juice.

But we're talking <0.75% utilization with my original test.

By the way, I decided to use GPU-Z to see if that was my GPU clocked to full.  Turns out it wasn't.






It's a Radeon HD 5770, core clock of 850MHz.  So the 0.55% increase was of the ~157MHz.

*So that's 0.1% utilization of my GPU to scale an SNES game 2:1 nearest-neighbor.*
The GCW Zero is not nearly that weak.

*Also, the clock rate didn't increase, so neither did heat or power drain.*



Johnny on Flame said:


> My phone barely survives through a normal day here, 3G + Web Browsing + Music, occasional GPS when it's necessary. If I add bluetooth and gaming here my phone won't last.


Agreed.  Cells have high-powered antennae and multiple additional chips to deal with, in addition to required background services.


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## Joe88 (Feb 2, 2013)

I dont know about most people but I keep my data com down and turn it on only when I need it, the actual cell phone com stays on 24/7 unless its in a spotty area then I have it set to enter airplane mode, same for wi-fi always off unless I need to use it, gps is always off unless some app is forcing it, bluetooth off unless I am using it
all of these things save a ton of battery

quakes 1 & 2 would be nice with gamepad support, right now we only have quake 3 with gamepad support
we have hexen 2 pocket edition, cavestrory (unofficial port), doom GLES (along with heretic GLES), there is a duke nukem 3d which is "ok" not the greatest but its there, as far the the last 2 something I have been forgetting is we have dosbox turbo to play a ton old dos game out there so even if there is no official android port of it out there
and of course the whole entire android library of games and apps

imo this device would have been better priced at about $75, it seems is just gonna be another one of those all-in-1 emulating devices where its gets released, people buy them then support disappears soon after, then another company pops up touting they have an even better device


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## Surkow (Feb 2, 2013)

Joe88 said:


> [...]
> 
> imo this device would have been better priced at about $75, it seems is just gonna be another one of those all-in-1 emulating devices where its gets released, people buy them then support disappears soon after, then another company pops up touting they have an even better device


 
I think you are misunderstanding something. This device has been made to remedy the lack of support. It has been developed by the community, unlike most Chinese hardware. Educate yourself before spouting nonsense.


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## Johnny on Flame (Feb 2, 2013)

Rydian said:


> IPU/Bootloader


 
Uh, what? That's our official bootloader. "pcercuei" a.k.a Paul Cercueil is part of the development team.
Like I said, I do have internal documents but NDA limits what I can talk about, what I can tell you that the IPU is used for some generic image processing, like image scaling and colour-depth conversions.



Rydian said:


> SUPERFETCH


 
Neither did I say anything about using it on the device, what I said however is that it has nothing to do with this case. I do know that RAM is kept on, but that has nothing to do with RAM bandwidth.



Rydian said:


> Scaling


 
- Nereast neighbor is bad.
- Once more, this device is not a SNES Emulator, it's aimed at homebrew/indie titles, emulation just happens to be a subset of homebrew.



Rydian said:


> Temperatures


 
Well, I already presented you the sources for my claims, different uses and loads produces different energy drains. You might wanna go ahead and test it if you have the means for doing so. A good example is how furmark is known for trashing defective mosfets due to the ridiculous ammount power draw it does during benchmarking due to the nature of the algorithms they use to stress the GPU.



Joe88 said:


> I dont know about most people but I keep my data com down and turn it on only when I need it, the actual cell phone com stays on 24/7 unless its in a spotty area then I have it set to enter airplane mode, same for wi-fi always off unless I need to use it, gps is always off unless some app is forcing it, bluetooth off unless I am using it
> all of these things save a ton of battery
> 
> quakes 1 & 2 would be nice with gamepad support, right now we only have quake 3 with gamepad support
> ...


 
I can't keep data down, I bought this phone exactly because I need data on polling emails and such all the time.

Hexen II was deleted from the store (and from what I heard had a not really good control scheme), that "official" DN3D port is attrocious and Doom GLES is not vanilla. (I'm part of the small audience that loves the original doom, + you don't have STRIFE on Android).

And your remark is a little ofensive, you shouldn't be talking about people when you have no idea who they are and what they are doing/planning.


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## Rydian (Feb 3, 2013)

Johnny on Flame said:


> Uh, what? That's our official bootloader. "pcercuei" a.k.a Paul Cercueil is part of the development team.


Good to know, but the bootloader only shows initialization of it in relation to the LCD, not what it'd be used for in this case.



Johnny on Flame said:


> Like I said, I do have internal documents but NDA limits what I can talk about, what I can tell you that the IPU is used for some generic image processing, like image scaling and colour-depth conversions.


From what I see it's logic related to the LCD and it's display, hardware deinterlacing was mentioned in passing... but _I only saw it used for such things in cases where there was no dedicated GPU_ to take care of it, and the GCW Zero has one.



Johnny on Flame said:


> Neither did I say anything about using it on the device, what I said however is that it has nothing to do with this case. I do know that RAM is kept on, but that has nothing to do with RAM bandwidth.


You said that more RAM usage equals more battery usage.  RAM's bandwidth is a function of it's operational frequency, which, as far as I know, will not change while the system is running, and all RAM is powered.



Johnny on Flame said:


> - Nereast neighbor is bad.


*Nearest-neighbor double-size resolution on the same-size screen will have the same DPI in the same dimensions and thus look exactly the same*.

http://members.ping.de/~sven/dpi.html
320x240 3.5" is 114.29 DPI.
640x480 3.5" is 228.57 DPI, but double-size nearest-neighbor scaling means only half the DPI is visible as _what would be an individual pixel on the original screen is displayed in clumps of four_, and 228.57 / 2 = 114.285.

So things that would render at ~320x240 (or similar like SNES/NES/Genesis) will display the same on 320x240 as they would scaled up on 640x480.

And, of course, the proportions will remain the same.  The visible image (in relation to the whole screen) will not grow or shrink.











Scale either the first image up nearest-neighbor or the second image down nearest-neighbor and, minus the text (I re-rendered it for readability since it was vector-based unlike the raster background), it'll look the same.  Even those crappy hand-drawn arrows will scale up and down with no loss (since those are raster).



Johnny on Flame said:


> - Once more, this device is not a SNES Emulator, it's aimed at homebrew/indie titles, emulation just happens to be a subset of homebrew.


Emulation is my main goal, and the reason I considered this device in the first place.  I have a PSP and the emulation is worse, and I have a tablet but it lacks hardware controls... this kind of device looks like it would solve both of those issues and it does for speed and controls, but unfortunately the low resolution is a downside I don't want to deal with.



Johnny on Flame said:


> Well, I already presented you the sources for my claims, different uses and loads produces different energy drains.  You might wanna go ahead and test it if you have the means for doing so. A good example is how furmark is known for trashing defective mosfets due to the ridiculous ammount power draw it does during benchmarking due to the nature of the algorithms they use to stress the GPU.


Are you back to just skimming again?

I did test it, and *the clock rate did NOT increase*, which means there was not an increase to the power draw.  Not only did the clock rate not increase, but the usage was just 0.1% of the GPU's total power (and 0.55% of the downclocked power), which means it was quite a bit from needing to raise the clock.



Johnny on Flame said:


> I can't keep data down, I bought this phone exactly because I need data on polling emails and such all the time.


Yeah, a lot of people use their phones for work and so need constant notifications of e-mail.  I worked in the tech department of my college for a little bit and status e-mails about issues and device outages were critical, and we needed to be able to get them within minutes of them being sent.  A connection issue between the two sites could mean that a compressed-video class would be cut off, and that can't wait.


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## alexei_gp (Feb 3, 2013)

Hi i backed the gcw zero and im glad to have a powerful handheld.The reason for buying the gcw zero is to play some old fps,gba and supernes.For me it doesn matter if doesnt have a good resolution the gcw zero i will play gba and supernes in perfect conditions.


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## Rydian (Feb 3, 2013)

alexei_gp said:


> For me it doesn matter if doesnt have a good resolution the gcw zero i will play gba and supernes in perfect conditions.


Most games yes, some games no (and _because of_ the resolution).
I posted comparison images a few pages back.

I mean it's likely games you don't give a shit about, just commenting that it's not perfect condition.


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## conner (Feb 3, 2013)

If I had doom on this would it be able to run mods 

Or play custom maps


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## alexei_gp (Feb 4, 2013)

Rydian said:


> Most games yes, some games no (and _because of_ the resolution).
> I posted comparison images a few pages back.
> 
> I mean it's likely games you don't give a shit about, just commenting that it's not perfect condition.


Maybe not perfect but you can still play it very well and im agreed with you i dont give a shit about the screen of the gcw zero, its not important to me only matters  to play gba,snes and fps.Its good to play snes on a tiny screen im saying this normally because on the jxd s7300 playing snes have big pixels on the screen and i dont want to play it with those big pixels they are ugly for me.


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## Rydian (Feb 4, 2013)

conner said:


> If I had doom on this would it be able to run mods
> 
> Or play custom maps


Well it's got a rework of the engine running and custom maps and such are generally just resource pack replacement, so I assume so?


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## Johnny on Flame (Feb 4, 2013)

Rydian said:


> pagestretch


 
Flowing bits via circuits has its own costs- It is true frequencies have a take on power draw, since generating oscilation ("clock generation") has its costs, but that's not the only player in the field, different instructions executed needs more power to be flown through the circuitry in order to power the many different capacitators present in logic gates.


conner said:


> If I had doom on this would it be able to run mods
> 
> Or play custom maps


 
There are manymany doom engines out there, one of them is PrBOOM, which plays most of the popular wads. Right now we're using the good ol' Chocolate Doom engine, which is as vanilla as it goes and plays a range of first-party packs and games.
Porting PrBoom should be a matter of ten minutes or something. Maybe I'll give it a shot once I have time in hands.


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## Rydian (Feb 4, 2013)

Johnny on Flame said:


> Flowing bits via circuits has its own costs- It is true frequencies have a take on power draw, since generating oscilation ("clock generation") has its costs, but that's not the only player in the field, different instructions executed needs more power to be flown through the circuitry in order to power the many different capacitators present in logic gates.


Well then the device shouldn't run any video files since that'd be more of a power draw than just audio, etc.

BTW, videos played that aren't the exact resolution will be scaled, right? 

Better take the scaling functions out of the video players to save on battery life!


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## Johnny on Flame (Feb 4, 2013)

Rydian said:


> Well then the device shouldn't run any video files since that'd be more of a power draw than just audio, etc.
> 
> BTW, videos played that aren't the exact resolution will be scaled, right?
> 
> Better take the scaling functions out of the video players to save on battery life!


 
I don't think you need video playback with resolutions bigger than 320x240 when you're on the go [with the gcw]. Pre-encoding does wonders! However if the user wants to do playback of higher resolution media then he'll have to deal with resource-intensive stuff.


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## Rydian (Feb 4, 2013)

Johnny on Flame said:


> I don't think you need video playback with resolutions bigger than 320x240 when you're on the go [with the gcw]. Pre-encoding does wonders! However if the user wants to do playback of higher resolution media then he'll have to deal with resource-intensive stuff.


Didn't specify higher, lower will do it as well and need scaling.

Or, presumably, any resolution that's not 320 horizontal and/or 240 vertical...


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## theweirdn8 (Nov 3, 2013)

Those PawByte deadlines have been postponed.


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