GCW Zero vs. PSP, Running SNES Star Fox

[Another World]

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The GCW Zero Kickstarter went live and what felt like moments later, the gaming community began to compare the GCW Zero to the Sony PSP. The PSP has not had much love the past few years, with many emulation projects left abandoned, and while users continue to rally towards supportive PSP emulation compatibility discussions, some fail to recognize that Dingux is actively updated as are its games, homebrew, and emulation projects.

Qbertaddict1, the GCW Zero's lead hardware tester, has released a video which compares the GCW Zero to the PSP while running a game most of us would love to accurately emulate on a handheld, Star Fox.

GBAtemp is in a unique position to discuss this video as our community contains many PSP users who have been emulating SNES games since the very beginning. Please watch the video and then let us know your thoughts. For more information on the CGW Zero be sure to check the links below.

GCW Zero Homepage
Kickstarter Page
Discussion at Dingoonity.org
YouTube Vids

 

[mbcrazed]

I can't wait for the GCW Zero to come out! It will totally be worth the money!

 

[stormwolf18]

not bad, what about n64 and psx ?

 

[donaldgx]

the video thumbnail hooked me to the video

interesting development on this GCW zero

 

[ComeTurismO]

I like the thumbnail
Interesting development

 

[The Catboy]

I saw something can actually emulate Star Fox and I got interested! If it can emulate Star Fox, maybe it can emulate Yoshi's Island!

 

[BORTZ]

not bad, what about n64 and psx ?

wait... I thought the PSP could virtualize most PS1 titles anyways?

 

[emigre]

wait... I thought the PSP could virtualize most PS1 titles anyways?

It does.

 

[Rydian]

And of course he uses the non-mecm version... but whatever, Star Fox runs bad on all of them anyways, which is likely why he chose it for a test!

And that is smooth. I hesitate the use the word "sexy" because that'd depend on the variety of software and added perks (cheats, save states, etc.), and he did a really quick show.

Well we've seen the power of the 16-bit era, now it's higher questions, and basics like price and the dreaded battery life.

 

[BORTZ]

It does.

That's what I thought...

 

[Rydian]

The concern was whether this system can do it.

 

[xist]

As Rydian mentioned, It's dreadful that the PSP emulators demonstrated are very outdated in terms of what we use today....Euphoria R2 rather than R4 or R5, TYL0.4.2 is ancient too. It's not exactly a fair comparison, despite showing that the GCW Zero performs well.

 

[Rydian]

To be fair Star Fox runs crappy on the new stuff anyways and the GCW is going to be a huge improvement...

But yeah, I don't know what it is with people and using outdated emulators.

 

[Ryupower]

from what I have tried, for SNES game on the PSP with the right setting for the game (using the right emulator version)
most game should run at a playable speed

 

[Rydian]

Yeah most games run fine, but "most games" still excludes some great ones, which is why this is exciting (and the lack of tweaking shit will be good too).

 

[Surkow]

The concern was whether this system can do it.

Yes, it is fast enough.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

I didn't expect it to run that well on the GCW. Pretty impressive.

 

[Rydian]

I didn't expect it to run that well on the GCW. Pretty impressive.

Well even though the PSP wipes the floor with the DS in terms of power, it's still dirt-old tech nowadays. No surprise some of the new things coming out can whip it.

 

[MarkDarkness]

I know this is what they can show right now in terms of development (OpenGL not being implemented and all), but really, in one way or another we can already play almost all the classics, that's the reality of it. Be it NDS, PSP, Android tablets, whatever...

N64 and PSX are really what would switch this project from "cool" to "unique and a freaking must-have". I understand the business reality of things, but I also understand what I miss and what I don't.

PS: A portable DOSBox that doesn't SUCK would change things up a lot for me, of course...

 

[RupeeClock]

I have a GP2X Caanoo, I loved it, but I didn't get the most out of it for it still lacked that extra processing power needed to run SNES games full speed.
That had a 533Mhz ARM(?) processor, overclockable to around 750mhz safely and then a bit more. If you wanted transparency in your SNES games then not much luck.
This GCW Zero appears to have a 1Ghz MIPS processor and it seems to be doing, well fantastically.
On top of just having a nicer looking design and form factor, with an actual d-pad for primary input, it has Gmenu2X as the primary front-end, this device does look really attractive to me, but I don't want to fall into the same trap of buying an open-source handheld I end up shelving after losing interest.
Though I'm more hopeful about this one, but if their kick starter doesn't go well then maybe nobody will get these. :\
I dunno man, I dunno. I'd love one but...