A positive thread to combat all the negativity around here, tell us what you love about your gp2x. What you do use it for and what cool stuff you do with it.

Well it's been just over a year for me with the gp2x and these are my thoughts on it.

I personally love the joystick, I grew up with Atari 2600, Vic20, Amiga and arcade machines so joysticks are where its at for me. I find the joystick to be an improvement over the gp32 which I had problems hitting diagonals with until I did the paper mod.

I use it for mame, amiga, c64, atari 2600, megadrive, atari ST, gameboy and neogeo emulation most regularly. I also like to keep an eye on the experimental up and coming emulators such as PSX, GBA etc.. I also devote some space on the 2gig SD card to interpreters for Doom, Hexen, Another World, Flashback and the recent descent.

I love to follow the scene and try out the new homebrew that comes out, ports or original games its all good. I enjoy seeing devs push the hardware to its limit and am amazed by things like the recent OpenGL.

The devs we have are amazing, the way they help each other out and work with a spirit of co-operation rather than the one-upmanship many other scenes seem to have. If one dev figures out a cool hack it doesnt take long before any other dev can implement it into their project if they choose to do so.

I must admit I dont use the video or mp3 players much but when I have they have performed up to my expectations, maybe I have low standards but I have never re-encoded anything specifically for the gp2x the way I used to fot the gp32.

The awesome gmenux is a definate must have as it makes the whole experience so much better.

I like idling in the dev chan on efnet and reading about the interesting projects or technobable that goes on in there reminding me the scene is still thriving with active developement.

I am a bit of a hardcore handheld gamer so yes I do have other systems, and while I may go through periods of using other handhelds a bit more than the gp2x, I always have the gp2x to come back to and check out my favourites on. It has by far the most suitable combination for me. Controls + Screen size/Quality + Power for emulation and homebrew gaming. While other consoles may have better one or the other its my opinion the gp2x has the best combination.

Please keep this thread civil and try to only contribute positive things you like about it. There are plenty of other threads where you can point out what you don't like.

I love being able to play fullspeed neogeo and genesis, play all my videos without reencoding and play pictures and audio fairly well. I also like playing certain homebrew games and watching the progress of emulators. Most of all i just like being able to do what i want on a system and have thousands of games available to me on a 2gb sd card. I get bored of games quick so i can just play a new game every 15 minutes then watch a movie then listen to a few songs or read an ebook. Having a bunch of variety and not paying any money for it is great.

I too like the joystick. The machine has a lot of potential and appeals to the hacker in me. Also theres some very intelligent coders behind the scenes.

I like the community. Kindness goes a long way!

Ditto. The community is by far the greatest thing about the GP2x experience.

I love life..and my gp2x (gp32 too!)

I enjoy a bit of MAME every now and then, NeoGeo and Genesis too, but to be honest mostly I like the variety in the release scene .. Playing Descent was a real eye-opener, the surprise-release egoboo2x also rocked my socks, and generally there just seems to be a lot of different things you can do with the GP2X coming from different quarters.. not just emu's (though that is certainly provided in style), not just homebrew (some great surprises there), and not just plain ol' ports - but a lot of variety from all of these different areas.

I also really enjoy the dev scene .. some of the coolest guys I've met in the last year have been through #gp2xdev, no question about that. I wish we'd have a few "#gp2xdev"-cons/meetups in the near future, so we could have a bit of a code-a-thon weekend in real life or something, that seems to me to be the next logical step for such a vibrant scene.

Another big GP2X love is, plain and simple, "the potential" .. with such an open development environment, there is really no limit to what could happen with the GP2X next .. we've all been surprised by how much the 2nd CPU is getting use by some of the more keen developers, and there is nothing stopping us from getting more and more interesting things happening with it in the future. I have a lot of faith that there will be some nice surprises soon in this regard too, and I don't think that I could say that about any other handheld console - PSP releases aren't a big 'surprise', theres' really no big edgy technology push on its releases, same with NDS - but with the GP2X you really get a sense that every week could offer a new, big surprise, from some friendly coder or two .. that really rocks.

Gotta be the people/community.
Had dealings with GP2x.co.uk (Craig et "all"), several of the developers, other users and people just starting out with the unit.
They always have something good to say (OK, there are always gripes but nothing insurmountable )

Other than that, being able to program for it, make hardware and generally getting back into the whole homebrew thing has been a lot of fun
(New stand to show off soon!)

I could list a hundred things, but here's my top 3:

1. Listening to Commodore 64 SID files via Sidplay2x and Oldplay.
2. The scene/community. Reminds me of the old Amiga days. I love seeing homebrew games progress from an idea to beta version to finished product, seeing devs collaborate or add little fixes here and there with a great spirit of mutual achievement, being amazed when someone does the impossible, which seems to happen on a monthly basis.
3. Picking out a random game on a random system and just having pure, unadulterated fun for half an hour.

the homebrew, and seeing what people can do with the hardware. i end up playing hand-crafted efforts more than the emus (and i'm a huge emulator freak!) - so much good stuff. currently hooked on Hex-A-Hop and Max Ghostpix... and the Wind Water Puzzle Battles demo...

if i could only get started on learning Fenix myself...

There's many reasons, but here are some of the main ones:

1. The community is great, for the most part all the members here are awfully nice people.

2. The devs. which I suppose could be included with my number 1 reason, but anyways they are the biggest reason this community is still alive and will continue to be for a long time. A very special thanks to them all for all the hardwork and love they put into every project.

3. Homebrew and Emus, it's great having original fun content at the palm of my hands along with hundreds if not thousands of games I enjoyed during younger, simpler times.

Oh and I've had no problems with the "dreaded" stick.

I've been able to beat SMB 1,2,3 and Super Mario World without the stick hindering gameplay in any way.

Not to mention games like Sonic 1,2,3, Mutant League Hockey and others have also been just like I remember them on my Genesis/MD.

1- Running 8 and 16 bit console emulators anywhere, I will never get used/really like the nextgen consoles with their fancy 3d graphics, but a lack of good gameplay.. I also play a lot of old dos games, I love the dosbox port to the gp2x, I know newer dos games won't run, but playing duke nukem 1 or alley cat in the palm of my hands is like a dream
- Watching family guy in the bus.. (or a movie when I have to travel for a longer time)

2- The community, I don't post a lot, but I read. And the great devs of course, without them, the gp2x is pretty much useless.. I think it's unbelievable what people here can make for a limited machine like the GP2X.

3- trying new things and fiddling with this great piece of hardware

4- Recharging my batteries

There is no other scene like this one, you only have to venture into the PSP/Giz scenes to see how good we have it here.

When we went to the meet up in peterborough of Amiga/GP2x people it was excellent, everyone was really chilled, intelligent and cool.

And we all know there is a lot more to come

mame, neogeo, genesis, tilematch

changing & recharging AAs

1) I love Picodrive.
2) I love being able to play my favourite games of the past 20 years in bed/at work/in the car/on the bog!
3) I love the fact that I can play whilst 'watching' TV with my wife, without her getting pissed off like she used to when I sat @ my PC
4) I love people coming up to me and saying "What's that"? And then me boring them for 10 minutes...
5) I love the fact that my daughter's friend told his parents that he wants to sell the PSP they gave him for Xmas so he can buy one!
6) I love looking at it. No seriously, I do... Is that normal?
7) I love the fact that I have emulators on it that I haven't even tried yet because I'm so in love with the ones that I am already using!

Video playback, GMU and homebrew games. =D

Insert a little imagination, some code and you're set. =P

Do you know, deep down, so do I, it's great giving them the 'tour', although first time i did, the batteries died. The laughter, oh the laughter

The community along with the devs and the massive amount of software they pump out, and making my own games for it.

There's no beating that, period.

- Alex

I keep mine plugged in, and stored in my side-table drawer next to my bed. Every single night, unless I'm too drunk ( ), I break it out. If I'm not too sleepy I play a few quick games. After that I watch 15-40 minutes of video before bed (MST3K, buck Rogers, STTNG, One Piece). I really enjoy re-encoding the video for this, because it eliminates all choppiness and sync issues, and shrinks it right down to size, so I have a nice variety of programming on a single 1GB SD.

I bought this thing so I could do all this stuff in bed without bothering my wife. The laptop was bright and made a racket. The portable dvd also made a racket. This thing, being without fans or motors, is silent. The only thing she didn't like was the feverish button mashing when I played Tile Match.

I haven't even started on how awesome it is to have thousands of games (and hundreds of them pretty damn good) on the thing. And - excellent home brew - tile match, powermanga, sudoku etc

Mame, neogeo, linux, homebrew, community (on this board).
Not in any special order (apart from handheld mame).

EDIT: and potential!!

EDIT2:
Errr... dunno, I just thought I ought to comment on that and then thought I'd best not

EDIT3:
Sorry, been down the pub lunchtime and found that amusing as well...!

Ive been active in the psp and I will admit one thing, I hate about half the community at least. People complain to developers and yell at them because they didn't include certain features. They report devs if they don't send them roms etc. Thats one of the reasons I actually post on gp32x.com

I use my gp2x to play the games that I grew up playing. Those games got me interested in computers and I became an avid PC gamer. I'm now a Network and Systems Engineer and I credit my love of video games with my desire to learn about computers.

I was around 14 or 15 years old when I used to go over to my friends house who had an Amiga 500 and play all of those amazing games. I still can't believe I can now play all of those games in the palm of my hand!

I also love it that I can now play a Lynx that's better than my Lynx II! Better form factor and battery life in the gp2x for sure!

I also listen to podcasts in the efficient OGG format and I easily convert video podcasts to DiVX using "Super".

There are just so many emulators and things to try out on the gp2x for free! How can you not love that!?

I love my GP2X so much I take it to bed with me, irritates my wife though.

I use the e-book reader most, you can read in the dark and the buttons aren't as noisy as turning pages.

I enjoy devving for it too, something I haven't felt since I got a BBC model B 25 years ago.

I remember typing in the programs from the Welcome manual like it was yesterday. Except it was May 1983

Love the community. This board was the first (and last) I stayed longer than a week (except my own german gp2x board, which also has a similar, impressive and big community (over 800 members already )

I also love releases like Oldplay. Or homebrew games like the Carrot game (it's a fun game ) or Max Ghostpix... GP Ladykiller... the list is endles...
I like some of the emulators, however, I find homebrew to be much cooler than emulators

I like telnetting into the gp2x and fiddling around with its Linux

Oh, and the Visual Novels are great

The GP32 and GP2x communities are about the only place you get an actual sense of community, despite being distributed across the entire globe. Its like the old BBS days but bigger, here A community is what gets you people like ED etc, and has people coming back for years at time.

Hugs-all-around to everyone, and gorramn it all if the gp32-related sites ever go down on us

jeff

I also love the Lynx emulation, is great.

I mostly love the 2x (and 32) for the talented and friendly devs and comunity.

I really only use mine for emulation of everything from 8bit upwards, and a bit of homebrew. I use it daily and do not have a bad word to say about the whole experience.



Edit: sorry Cheezer I cut your quote a bit short!

For the two days that I had my GP2X (it's being repaired right now, hopefully on it's way back), here's the things that I loved about it:

- Emulators were dead easy to use. No more fussing around setting up keys, just load up the emulator and go!
- Telnetting to the thing and hacking around on it was VERY easy to do from Linux. I've hacked around on a different embedded Linux system, and it was a bit of a pain in the ass to connect to your PC. The GP2X's ease-of-telnetting is going to make developing quite fun.
- The community. You guys are creative, support, and very well organized. You've got the file archive which the only place you'll ever need to go to get (legal) stuff, and you've got these fantastic forums. (Can't forget #gp2x/gp2x-dev either.)
- The GP2X is unrestricted, guilt-free fun. It's nice not having a company like Sony fighting your community all the time.

(Can you tell I'm excited to get my GP2X back?)

community, the open sourceness, playing games from yesteryear in my hand.

Especially very happy about playing AVP and DnD (from the CPS2).

Lastly the ability of my handheld having so much playability that most of my mates won't play with it - I mean in the sense that they'd just play with it morning noon and night.

I just like the quote:
"GP2X: Your misspent youth in a box."

I cant remember who originally said it though.

It pretty much sums things up.

1 : mame - having the classics on a handheld with very little trouble is worth the entrance fee alone.

2 : coding - I love writing games and not since the ST have I had the chance.

3 : video - the train from Glasgow goes twice the speed it used to.

*edit* speelling

What I like about it are emus obviously. I do like the HB and ports as well but my main use are the emus. I have never loaded a movie, MP3 or e-book on my GP2X. To me the form factor of the GP2X is perfect for emulation. Everything from the good sized ideal res QVGA screen to the button layout and digital controls to the shape is near perfect for emulation of older systems. While there were complaints about "build quality" from some for me it is fine. It doesn't need iPod or PSP slickness to be enjoyable. It is very ergonomic to hold and actually play. No-frills, no BS, no gimmicky widescreens or other nonsense. I actually find it much more comfortable than my PSP to play even with it's supposed better "build quality". I really wouldn't change much except maybe for a little quicker CPU and some work RAM for the second core, d-pad but that is a different topic. The GP2X may not be without flaws, but no handheld is perfect. Example: The PSP has a powerful CPU but also has ghosting screens (for many of us), weird aspect and a less then stellar d-pad. The DS has great games and decent hardware but for emus the screen is too low res and has low CPU speed and RAM. Nothing is "perfect". All around I still prefer the GP2X even with its flaws for what I use it mainly for.

Having all of the old systems capured like a time capsule in this small portable box is great. Sure I can get all of that on the PC but it isn't the same. It just seems way cooler to have all of that stuff on a tiny box that you can pull out any time anywhere, yes even "the bog" Booting up a Pentium PC to play Pac-man all stretched and filtered on my PC monitor just isn't the same. The GP2X is like a working reference book of gaming history in your hand. There are many books on the subject of the history of video games but nothing beats playing the real games. That is why to me all emus are important that can be done sucessfully with hardware constraints in mind. This means a Vectrex emu or Atari 2600 emu is important to me as well as SNES or NeoGeo.

The devs are great as well. I like how you can suggest things and many times they implement the suggestions (if they make sense of course). There is alot of great talent here. I hope to see it continue to grow. To them thanks for all of the hard work, hope it was/is fulfilling.

Skeezix said it somewhere and hopefully I won't butcher it too bad. He said it is not all about how many polys you can render or what kind of uber l337 hardware you have. It is about the fun of hacking around and making more with less. It is about eeking out something cool and sharing it, having fun doing it and the community having fun with it. Those are the things that many "hardware whores" seem to miss.

It's versatile, plain and simple.

One of the reasons I bought a GP2X is because my iPod is starting to die.

I was in the market for a new mp3 or video player, and I remembered back when I was here a year ago drooling over a GP2X. I thought to myself, sure, it doesn't have as good battery life, nor does it have the storage of an iPod. But hey, it plays DivX right out of the box, plays mp3s, and I get some games as well.

The fact that its built on linux, and has such an open dev environment, means we basically have a miniature computer in the palm of our hands. That's the other great thing, the interpereters mean for the first time we can play a few of those pc games like doom and duke.

I know its a bit of a stretch, but I consider the GP2X to potentially be the swiss army knife of gadgets that I own. It can do a little bit of everything and I like that.

Sure, the Zodiac has the touch screen giving it a little more potential and versatility, but its horrible battery life and flimsy AC Adapter design really killed it for me.

I bought the GP2X mainly for 8bit and 16bit emulation. Aside from the stick and incomplete SNES emulation, it has been very successful in my mind. I have spent the overwhelming majority of my time with it playing Genesis, NES and MAME. Just having a fullspeed, highly compatible NES emulator with an unscaled image seems to complete some portion of my childhood.

Heh, I actually ran a FIDONet BBS until January 2006 on my old Amiga

I love my GP2X.

I love playing games on the GP2X. Payback is great, the only problem I've had is with the direction of reverse handbrake turns. UQM is fun too, and I'm finally playing all the old Amiga and ST classics I didn't get to when I was a teenager. Freedroid is wonderful other than crashing when u complete it (may be fixed now, it's been a while). It's surprising how many old C64 games are actually still playable, and how many are playable without a proper keyboard, "Black Hawk" is still the best vertically scrolling shoot-em-up of all time.

I love coding abstract vapourware for my GP2X. The ARM is a wonderful CPU, it makes x86 look really ugly. ARM DDI0100E makes really good bedtime reading IMHO. Come to think of it, coding vapourware can probably be counted as a game, even if I am still stuck on level 1.

Other than the stick the GP2X is all I could hope for.

MAME
Genesis
NES
SNES
NeoGeo
GBC
ColecoVision
Atari 800/5200, 7800, 2600
NeoGeo Pocket Color
Intellivision
C64/128/PET

Yes, I'm an emulator fiend. Ever since I got NESticle running on an old Win95 machine, I was fascinated by the magic of playing games on a system other than the one they were originally made for.

... and I'll finally get to finish Kid Chameleon. Some day ...

Okay Telco, I started playing this damn game and got to about the third level. I was in a cave and turned into this skull dude which was cool. I went right and then up and then left until I reached this shaft which went up to the top... There's two little platforms there, but they don't seem to be enough to get me higher. Anyway, I turn into this stupid Knight and whenever he jumps on those platforms they are destroyed! How the heck do you get past that joint?

... Action button, ("C" by default) makes him climb walls ... climb up, then jump when you're high enough.

Where to being?

The archive is great - having everything in the one place. The forum is excellent - the longest one I have ever read (over a year now).

Making and distributing my own games, what a great feeling. Seeing what other people can do with the device - there a lot of talented people out there.

I enjoy

1) This forum - for the news, views, help, information and just generaly an interesting read. Most people seem fairly reasonable and intelligent too.

2) Nostalgia - Mainly through GP2Xpectrum, GameBoy, MAME and DrMD (more for Master System emulation than MD though)

3) Discovering new things - Didn't know much about SCUMM or Quake until I got my GP2X, and Tilematch had me and my girlfriend hooked for months.

4) That feeling that things are just going to get better too. Maybe SNES or GBA will be emulated fully, maybe Rlyeh will stun everyone with a suite of emus as he did on GP32.

I love the community, and it's been fun seeing it grow soo much from the GP32 days up to now. I also love the fact that anyone--even myself, who can barely write a "Hello World" program--is able to contribute to the community just by helping others understand the platform.

Of course, the console itself is very intriguing. I remember scoffing when I first heard about this wacky "Gamepark32" console that was supposed to compete with my Gameboy Advance. Then a couple years later, I wondered what became of it, and, boy, my first impression was WAY off (of course, it wasn't homebrew-friendly when I heard about it first). Being able to play thousands of classic game, cool homebrew, and multimedia is just plain awesome.

EDIT: Ah yes, and finally beating Ecco the Dolphin and Ecco II. Also, finally having the best baseball game ever, Super Baseball 2020, in portable form.

Thanks Telco Maybe I'll race you to the end...

WhizzBang, give AlexKidd2X a try for Master System emulation, it's great.

Yeah! Good thread.

Love:

1. Lightweight, feel and display of the GP2X
2. In combination with gmenu2x browsing and choosing games is very intuitive, easy and fast.
3. Great emulators, my favorites Vice/Frodo, OutcaST, MAME and Picodrive.
4. Some fantastic homebrew games and I also like homebrew that are still made for ST or C64 and will run on the emulators. I bought the GP2X primarely for emulation, but I play more homebrew than I expected. One of the many unexpected pleasures.
5. The open architecture of the GP2X. It gives the GP2X some kind of immortality and gives me the feeling I really own this device without being limited.
6. The future: I think there will happen a lot more great things for the GP2X. More great ports, more great homebrew. Also I think more hardware hacking projects will appear, especially when the GP2X will sell less and they will be less expensive. I see in a few years the GP2X having a small but very active community that will give the GP2X an even more cult status than it already has got.
7. Linux: I'm using it on my desktop and phone and love it. If it was possible I would install Linux on my coffee maker
8. The community: this board, the files archive and don't forget the great wiki. Love reading this forum and sharing the great stuff we can do with our toy and also reading what we could do. Above average reasonable people and not too much morons.
9. The Devs... They are the real hero's. They give their spare time to make a difference and deserve our appreciation. Even when I'm not gonna use a piece of software, I know every addition to the archive is valuable and makes my GP2X even more worthwhile having.
10. Myself: for buying a GP2X

God Lou, that really brought back a flood of memories!

I remember when NESticle came out and it was the first time I'd seen something emulated about perfectly with full speed! Then there was that whole scandal about Donald from "Damaged Cybernetics" who hacked into the guy who wrote it (Sardu of Bloodlust Software) and stole the source code and then Sardu was so mad he said he'd never update the emulator again. I remember when that same guy did a near perfect emulator for the Genesis (Genecyst) and that other one that ran Capcom games. He was like a one-man emulating wonder! This was back in the day when the only other near perfect emulators used to cost money (e.g. Marat Fayzullin and his stuff). Remember all that too?

I used to read "Zophar's Domain" daily back in 96/97 to read about the latest emulators for DOS/Windows, and now I do the same at gp32x for my gp2x and my gp32!

What's not to love? I like the fact that there's a device that fits in my pocket and allows me to: watch movies, listen to music, emulate sega master system/genesis/game gear, nintendo NES/SNES/GB/GBC/GBA, PSX, NEOGEO, NGP... well, practically all good consoles, emulate tons of old computers. All of this and it's open source! The GP2X community is the greatest group in gaming and there are new releases practically every day.

I can honestly say that the GP2X is, to date, my single greatest purchase ever. I constantly promote the GP2X to everyone I talk to.

Also, any time I wait in a line I no longer care how long the line is as long as I have my '2X.

1) Have to be the friendly people/communite
2) The developers for all the great emulators and apps
(in particular NeoGeo and the PCEngine emulators)
3) The fact you can fiddle with it, change things, re skin it, add bits, alter the interface.
Reminds me of the 80 when I started playing with these things
4) The fact its made by a small company and not a big corporate
5) gp32x.com

Porn on the picture viewer.


Aha, but I kid. I love the community. I love the feeling of doing something for the community, and the praise you get in return. Makes me feel special .

makes me feel different, I own something I dont see everyday so it makes me feel unique

i <3 everything about my 2x - cant say a bad word about it