Over the years, the homebrew scene has strived to really push the limits of respective consoles and propel them to new heights in terms of functionality. The power of homebrew developers is immense, large talented hobbyists have created vibrant communities boasting transferable knowledge leading to the likes of the award winning Xbox Media Center being created for the Xbox and masses of applications and emulators for the PSP and DS respectively, despite all this innovation across the board, there has been one thing that has remained constant – console manufacturers attempt to block the running of such developments due in part to possible fears of full scale piracy. Step in the GP2X personal entertainment player, manufactured in Seoul by Game Park holdings. A smart looking open-source hand-held console, with the only restriction attached being the creativity and innovation of homebrew developers across the world.
The GP2X-F100 is an open source Linux based hand held games console and media player. The GP2X is the successor to the GP32 boasting new and improved features. The GP2X has ultimately been designed for the homebrew and emulation scene, which on paper should be able to comfortably handle developments thrown at it, sporting a 240 mhz dual CPU core and 64mb of ram. Being open source and having a cult following gives us high hopes of future ports, the SDK is even freely available, so any one who wishes to start developing for the console can easily do so and without fear or breaking any copyrights.
The GP2X is not merely a one trick homebrew pony, right out of the box you are presented with some quality entertainment features, boasting instant playback of some of your favourite media entertainment files. This bad-boy boasts a series of versatile media players including support for movies, audio, photos, and e-books, the media players bundle are by no means lacking in features, the movie player supports DivX, Xvid and MPEG-4 files to name a few, the audio player supports MP3 and OGG files complete with full equalizers and adjustments, the image viewer is compatible with JPG, PNG, GIF, PCX and BMP files with lots of options such as zoom – even with no homebrew installed on the console, this product could quite easily stand alone as a portable media player.
Basic GP2X Specification
• 240 mhz Dual core 'ARM920T, ARM940T' is embedded in GP2X
• 64mb-ram
• 64mb- NAND internal memory
• SD card compatible
• 3.5” TFT LCD 320*240(QVGA screen)
• USB 2.0 compliant
• Linux operating system
• TV-out
• 1 Year manufacturers warranty
What's In The Box
The unit arrives in a well packaged iPod-esque style box, as seems to be the packaging style of choice these days. Slide the inner tray from out of the box to find the shiny new GP2X carefully wrapped inside. Inside you will also find a CD containing a user guide and they have also conveniently included a USB cable so you can get right down to business. The unit itself feels very light when you first pick it up but as that can be classed as a good thing, but to us it feels much better when you slip in the two AA batteries required. As far as looks go its quite modern and stylish, you wouldn’t be embarrassed to be seen with this.
The Lighter Way to Enjoy Handheld Homebrew…
Unless you are really into your consoles, you will most likely have never heard of the manufacturers of this device called ‘Game Park Holdings’ (GPH), sure you’ve seen and heard about the likes of Nintendo and Sony, but we couldn’t blame you for not hearing of the respective GPH. Via not being a major super power in relation to the mentioned companies, one would assume that physical hardware of this device couldn’t be in the same league as the respective two companies, on one hand this is apparent but in another it works to its advantage.
When you first lay your hands on the device, due to its light weight and more compact design on the PSP you should find it pretty comfortable. Your index fingers will delightfully wrap around the left and right shoulder buttons and your thumbs will be in reach within the respective buttons, and boy oh boy there are buttons! There are four main buttons classed as ‘YBXA’ which all have a wonderfully soft cushiony feel to them, the start and select buttons have a more plastic feel to them and located directly underneath. Over on the left of the GP2X, you have the volume button as well as the coupe de grace, that is known as the fully rotational thumb stick. Some may well be disappointed that the thumb stick does not have any form of solid grip, but you can purchase some accessories which will solve this problem for a few dollars.
Perhaps the must disappointing part of the physical hardware design is the power switch, don’t get us wrong it slides on and off with the push of a finger but it wouldn’t go a miss in some cheap knock off toy in the streets of your local trading market.
There is a slot for your SD cards on the top of the system and in parallel at the bottom is the connection for the TV out. The USB, power and headphones sockets are concealed behind rubber dust caps on the right and top of the console respectively. There is a strong element of quality with the included 3.5” TFT LCD screen, which really becomes apparent when watching movies.
Hit play to see a quick tour from the front to the back of the external GP2X design.
A small piece of advice is to be careful when removing the dust caps covering the sockets as they seem to be poorly attached and a lack of care could see them easily de-attached completely. All in all, the GP2X possesses a surprising good design, it does have a ‘plastic’ feel to it, but this also gives it a very light weight and provides extra comfort when holding the unit for long periods. Believe us when we say this, it is much more comfortable to hold and utilize in your hands the PSP is by FAR.
Ground Control To Major Tom: Commencing Countdown Engine’s On
Switch the unit on and 14 seconds later you are greeted with the menu screen, the boot time sounds longer than it really is! You are then presented with a very simple easy to navigate menu with recognisable icons. The skins are changeable so if you’re not a fan of the orange background, feel free to customise it to acclimatize it to your mood state.
Being a console which is really geared to portable media enthusiasts and homebrew fans, aside from the out of the box media functions offered, you will be thinking hmmm what can I do here as there are very few retail games actually available for it – but this is where the fun actually begins!
Start by creating the relevant folders on your SD card as recommended in the user guide, you can then begin your path to unlimited and unrestrained functionality. There is 64mb of internal memory but is taken up operating system only leaving you with 20mb to play with so an SD card will be essential! To start transferring files simply plug in the USB cable provided, select settings from the GP2X menu, then select USB and the memory you wish to transfer too. A window will automatically detect your device leaving you with the easy task of dragging and dropping your files to the GP2X. Transfer rates are specified at 480Mbps with the USB 2.0 protocol, so you wont have long to wait when jamming your GP2X with all sorts of homebrew and media files.
Function Over Load – Immense Possibilities Available!
1. Audio Playback
The mp3/ogg music player provided is simple to use and very similar to the look of that of the PSP. The included audio player boasts the majority of basic features you’d expect such as an equalizer, stereo and mono options, repeat and shuffle. There are two inbuilt speakers on the front of the system. There is a volume limiter to protect your ears, but this can be easily turned off so that you can turn the volume up higher. Don’t go expecting any Dolby surround sound here, the audio is good enough, it’s very sharp and clear without any real bass, but when you turn the volume up to the higher settings you may notice some distortions. All is not lost here as the distortion can be resolved via adjusting the equalizing settings.
Even with headphones plugged in, you will notice the same distortion on the highest volume settings but the equalizers can help to solve this. There is currently no way to create your own play list currently, the only way to try and mimic a play list option is for you to place all your music into a separate folder and play them from there.
2. Movie Playback
The movie player provided has support for XVID, DivX, MPEG4 and WMV formats. Select the video icon from the menu and find the movie you wish to watch. Pressing the Y button will bring up the control panel which will enable you among other things to rewind/forward, pause and select a different movie. It also remembers what point you were at in a movie if you stop it playing giving you the option of resuming later. In order to test out the movie playback function, I used an Xvid of one of my favourite Simpson’s episodes, there is absolutely no need to re-encode your movie formats, just drag and drop them and they will beautifully playback on the GP2X. The episode ran without any problems, crystal clear video quality and the ‘sharpness’ of the sound helped to add to a pleasurable entertainment experience. It comes with all the basic functions you’d expect from a media player such as fast forward, pause, rewind, stop and play.
Homer J is shocked! He can't believe how easily he got onto our GP2X Console...
Navigating through your video clips or film isn’t a problem either; all you do is nudge the joystick left or right and you can rewind or fast forward respectively to any part in your video – this concept is not overly sensitive either so you should be able to get to the desired part without too much stress! So now we can also put a tick in the movie playing box.
3. Photo/Comic Viewer
The photo viewer had more features than I had expected. Support is provided for JPG, GIF, BMP, PNG, PCX and a max resolution of 5 million pixels (Maximum size 2560 X 1920). Features on offer include zoom in/out, rotate, switch to the comic viewer mode which will help you fit a page to read on the screen, you can flick through your photos via the shoulder buttons.
You won’t be waiting long for your favourite snaps to show, the load time is instantaneous. As photo viewers go, I’m impressed!
4. Explorer
This is a great tool for moving/copying and deleting files natively on your GP2x, especially when you don’t have access to do it with your pc. I tried to figure out how to use this without the user guide but decided not to risk it; I didn’t want to delete any files that could affect the running of the GP2x. Once you know what buttons do exactly what, it works perfectly and you needn’t worry about ‘messing’ anything up as it even makes you confirm any potential delete, clearly stating which buttons to press to confirm. Copying and moving is just as easy with a warning message popping up if you’re about to overwrite a file.
5. E-book viewer
I wouldn’t call this an e-book viewer exactly; it’s a pretty bog standard basic text file reader. It only supports ASCII TXT files and a maximum file size supported of 1.4mb. Strictly speaking this is a no-frills feature but you can change the text/background colours and you can also save a bookmark so that you can easily find an important bit of information later on. The only real use I can foresee is to scan through a readme file. I can’t imagine the text viewer will get much out of you if any, but what the hey – better to have it included than not.
6. Utility Launcher
Not the most exciting feature but can be extremely useful none the less. There are many homebrew utilities available for GP2x. I found a calculator which I thought may be handy and also an auto-sleep utility for when you leave your GP2X unattended. A really cool utility I come across was something called ‘madplaygp2x’ which is a command line mp3 player that will allow you to run custom music in the background of some of your favourite games. There’s even one of those verbal text readers available for this thing, simply feed it your text and it say the words back out to you in an audio format. Being the young at mind individual that I am, I had minutes of fun getting this to say rude words and insults – as sad as it sounds, it was pretty damn fun! Did I say the utility launcher wasn’t exciting? Scrub that utilities can be just as fun too!
7.Emulation
With a dual core 240 MHz processor and 64mb of RAM, in theory the GP2X should be able to emulate many older systems with ease and maybe even more modern consoles such as the original Playstation. Homebrew developers have been hard at work creating a vast number of emulators for use on the GP2X, we had to scale down the number of emulators shown working in this review as we literally would’ve missed the end of the world cup finals in order to cover it all! Most of the emulators work great and are fully playable, the ones that don’t, you can see that there is room for fine tuning but the console could potentially handle these smoothly. What is incredible is that when you consider the GP2X has only been available for a short time, there can only be more to come! We’ll try the older systems first and leave the best till last!
Installation of emus – Easy as 1..2..3!
Installation of the emus really is as simple as 1…2…3. Nearly all follow these generic guidelines:
- Unzip the RAR file they came in and placing them in a folder on your SD card, couldn’t get much easier than that.
- Then in the majority of cases the norm amongst developers for the GP2X seems to be to create a subfolder in a folder called roms on the root of your SD card(unless otherwise told by the readme).For example for the spectrum emulator you would place your roms in the folder roms/spectrum at the root of your SD card.
Hit the play button! You will see how easy it is to navigate through the menu's and load up the Genesis emulator and load Sonic.
- Then when youre done with all the hardwork, all you do is go to the Game icon at the menu of your GP2X, find your emu select it and run a game!
Emulator: Spectrum
Browsing through the vast emulators I spotted the spectrum ZX emulator gp2xpectrum v1.0 for GP2X ported by Hermes. A sudden feeling of nostalgia got to me and I had to try it out! It was simple to install (see guidelines!) and in no time it was like having a Spectrum ZX in the palm of my hands. I selected a rom from the menu and it loaded instantly. The only difficulty I had was trying to remember what keys did what on the spectrum. The actual setting of the keys to the buttons on the GP2X is very simple. Pressing START whilst in the game brought up a keyboard where I could assign a key to a button on the GP2X.
After figuring out how to set the controls I was playing one of my favourite games of all time Horace Goes Skiing! I must admit Horace kept me entertained for an hour with his unorthodox skiing style and his blatant disregard for the green cross code.
This emu is complete with sound and worked flawlessly. You can even same game state by pressing select to bring up the configuration menu, you can even save the keyboard profile you have set, and if you don’t require the authentic spectrum experience you can change it to full screen. I must say I was really impressed with this emu, it’s a 10 out of 10 from me. But now I must move onto bigger and better things…….
Emulator: SNES
The best SNES emulator is SquidgeSNES by Squidge which is based on YoyoFRs GP32 SNES emu which was based on SNES9X. First I tried version 0.34 which was great but was a little slow and the sound quality was poor. I then tried using the version enhanced by REESY v0.35 Hack, which merely involves replacing the original “squidgesnes.gpe” file with the modified version. With this version however your ROMS must be in a compressed zip format, which is great anyway as it will save vital space on your memory card! This version offered improved smoothness and much much better sound. However it is still far from perfect, but the emulator is still being worked on.
On testing Mario the original version was slower and the sound quality was poor, but the speed was consistent throughout the game. With the REESY modified version the sound was much improved and so was the speed however I found that as a game became more graphics intensive i.e. more characters, scenery effect etc… that it would stutter. Less graphic intensive games such as Final Fantasy 5 worked perfectly but high graphics games such as Donkey Kong 3 were slower and stuttered often. The interface for squidgeSNES is a very professional scroll down menu complete with icons the background is in the style of the SNES system. Features include hardware scaling, save/load a game state.
Emulator: MegaDrive
The emulator being tested here was Dr MD v4.3 by Reesy. This was hands-down the best emu for the GP2X on test, just for its sheer emulation quality, you couldn’t ask for anything more. There are plenty of options on this emu, more than most of us need worry about. There is support for zipped roms, one rom per zip file though. No fancy menus just a simple list of options. Select your rom and it loads up instantly (if none show up don’t worry just select scan directory for roms!). First I tried the classic game Sonic The Hedgehog. Game speed, sound, and graphics were absolutely flawless, just incredible.
With the FIFA World Cup Tournament just round the corner, what better way could there be to entertain yourself during those half time breaks with a spot of FIFA 97 ?
I know what you’re thinking, but how does it do with more demanding Mega Drive games? Well I’ll tell you! It emulates them proficiently. Lion king, Fifa soccer 97, no problem! I couldn’t find a game that it couldn’t handle!
Emulator: MAME
The latest MAME version mamegp2x v2.3 by Franxis is the best MAME emulator around for the GP2X. This emu should be able to run 1024 roms. A list of some of the supported roms can be found here http://wiki.gp2x.org/wiki/MAME_GP2X . Well with support for neogeo and so many classic arcade games supported we couldn’t wait to try it out! Running MAME brings you to a blue screen with a list of the roms you have available to select. When you select a rom you are also presented with a list of option, most of which you can ignore. However the controller configuration is one which you may wish to use to assign the keys that are in the right position to suit your chosen game. The preset controls are stated in the readme file.
First I tried Robby the robot it was fast to load and worked perfectly. Nearly all of your older arcade favourites work without any problems and with complete sound, so you’ll have hours upon hours of fun reliving those childhood memories. Street Fighter 2 took a little longer to load (8 seconds).
It worked well with frame skip set to 2, however was a little sluggish but playable none the less. Advanced options allow you to rotate the screen display 90 degrees, which can be of great benefit when playing some titles as you will find that the buttons are in better positions. I’m sure many people will want the GP2X just to play on their old arcade favorites, with so many games to choose from I couldn’t put it down. Yet another great GP2X emu!
Emulator: Playstation
And now we move onto a real test of the GP2X’s capabilities, emulation of the much-loved original Playstation console. It couldn’t possibly emulate Playstation games could it? We tested the first and only (well I couldn’t find another) PSX emulator for the GP2X, GP2PSX v0.36 by ZodTTD.
After the relative simplicity of the other emus this one proved a little more of a challenge. To run this emu you will need a Playstation BIOS and of course you’ll have to rummage through your old Playstation games to find one to rip. It took a little time but if I can do it, anyone can! I decided on trying Dragon Drive, Panzer Bandit and Resident Evil. Being the big kid that I am I wanted to try the biggest and best one first, Resident Evil.
When you run GP2PSX you will find a list of available roms. When you select a rom be prepared for a little wait as it takes a little while to load. Well it started but it was barely running, I saw mainly black screens, but I managed to somehow get in the mansion after some time, but I couldn’t see the characters! All that waiting made me hungry so I looked for consolation at the bottom of a bucket of chicken!
I returned an hour later to find that this time I could move around the levels albeit extremely slowly(I have no idea why!), and in my excitement I forgot to equip a weapon and was promptly sucked dry by an opportunistic zombie.
After seeing “You Died” message I was back at the main menu, I found the opening video running at an ok speed but it was stuttering though, I even selected my character this time! I was able to walk around the mansion (very slowly), it was playable but only just.
So the lunch break seem to do it some good but I cant see you playing for long at those game speeds. I tried Dragon Drive next. I could hear the sound of the game play I just couldn’t see what was going on, all I could see was the speedometer, so I decided to move on again. Up next was Panzer Bandit a streets of rage style fighting game, it was the best running game I tried! It was very slow but I managed to get to the end of level boss! The PSX emulators developed for the GP2X are of course at a very early beta stage, they are by no means complete and while there is still much work to do here we believe that sooner or later full scale PSX emulation can be achieved on the GP2X. Currently it will recognize PSX rom files, it will load the cinematics and even initialize the environment of the game – all be it incredibly slow. This is only to be expected, just as Rome wasn’t made in a day, the Playstation wasn’t either and therefore is a complex system to emulate. We hold high hopes of smooth PSX game play on the GP2X.
8. Interpreters
Interpreters allow you to play games on your GP2X that weren’t designed for it by using the games data files (such as game levels). However you will need the original versions of the games to have the data files as of course these are not provided. There are many interpreters available here are a few of the more popular ones Quake1/2, Hexen, Duke Nukeem 3D, Exult, Rise of the Triad.
We decided to test the version of Quake by woogal, 2xquake002. Following the readme, all that was required for installation was extracting the folder to my SD card and placing the relevant files from my copy of Quake in the id1 folder. Select Game from the menu and find the folder you have placed quake and select it, it loads straight away!
On starting a new game I found the screen was too dark and I could barely hear the sound. However you can easily changed both by increasing the levels on Quakes options menu. The GP2X handles this game with ease it is exactly the same as the PC version complete with sound.
9. Homebrew Development
The GP2X is homebrew developer friendly; in fact you’re welcomed with open arms! The firmware is open source and you can download the source code from the official website www.gp2x.com. The GNU/Linux/Windows compiler and SDK are free. There is also a prebuilt developer package GP2Xdevkit which is freely available. If that isn’t enough you can always visit the GP2X developer wiki to get you started (GP2X.org). It is bursting with information and tutorials for developers and especially useful for all you amateur developers out there. There are many homebrew games available of varying quality. The homebrew games that kept me entertained the most were Solitaire2x v1.4 solitare obviously, tilematch-0.6 an addictive puzzle game similar to Nintendo DS Zoo Keeper and SuperTux a Mario style platformer. Even if you’re a novice at homebrew coding, with the GP2X you can create some really powerful files and share them with a an exciting and savvy community. The GP2X was designed for homebrew, you will not be fighting with GamePark Holdings to run homebrew on the console – in fact they will welcome you running unsigned code on the console with open arms! No mod required, no firmware hacks, just right out of the box you enter a new world where the only limitations to your console is what is developed for it by the community.
Looks Like The PSP & DS Have Some Indirect Competition!
GamePark Holdings may not possess the mainstream and illustrious history that Sony and in particular Nintendo have. To consider the GP2X as a replacement or incremental upgrade to your PSP or DS would be wrong as its targeting a relative niche within the market. With this being said, the sheer power and open-source concept of the product opens up a wealth of originality and longevity of the console which the PSP and DS can only dream of in their original form. We’re talking perfect emulation of retro consoles and perhaps first generation consoles such as the PSX and N64 in the near future, masses of neat little utilities and not to mention a fully featured portable media player playing back every popular image and movie format right out of the box. You will not need a mod, a firmware hack or anything of the sort, all you will need is this console and an SD memory card in order to be within reach of a huge array of functionality in your hands whenever and wherever you like. You will not have the likes of world renowned development houses such as Ubisoft and Electronic Arts pumping out titles for this console, but what you will have is a talented and exciting homebrew community pushing out innovative and exciting developments which are sure not to leave you feeling blue. There is even an inbuilt TV-Out for this console, so you can play all your video and emulation files on the big screen with no fuss and in great quality. The GP2X is by no means bureaucratically motivated and ultimately aims to please you, the end user.
Despite it's apparent complexity, it would take a real doofus to harm this console!
Despite all this talk of operating systems and various file formats, it really would be usable by virtually anyone who has a little know how and motivation, perhaps even you’re Grandma, as the menus are that intuitive! If you want to relive the good old days in the palm of your hands, complete with support for modern media technology such as no fuss audio and movie playback then the GP2X is right for you. To put it simply, a delightfully made and limitless hand-held console which fires on all cylinders!
Positives
• Great value
• Great quality throughout- well packaged, quality USB cable, User Guide CD
• Functions exactly as it should, an all in one portable.
• Good build quality
• Easy to navigate menu
• Perfect for homebrew and emulation (most of which are easy to install!)
• No need to re-encode your movie files
• Crystal clear LCD screen
• Range of accessories – including wrist strap, power supply, tv-out cable.
• Firmware Upgrades available from official website
• Linux running, open source – great for developers!
• High speed USB 2.0 compliant
• Already a large following of developers and enthusiasts
Negatives
• Poorer sound quality at high levels from the integrated speaker
• Functionality limited to the size of your SD card and homebrew developments
• Requires high quality rechargeable batteries & power supply is not included
• Lack of grip on Thumbstick
• Don’t expect many official games
• Unit feels overly light
