First off, since I’ve not blogged for a while about anything Game Dev related, I thought I’d mention why.

Myself and Tom Bampton have been working on a fun side project since late last year which we’re wanting to keep under wraps a little longer, however, there’s a ton of material to blog about once we’re far enough along to make it worth discussing. Also I’ve been working on Shelled 2 which I can’t really say anything about other than it’s coming along very nicely

GP2X Competitor

Anyhow, a few things have recently caught my eye that I felt were blog worthy. The first is a semi rumor, possibly vaporwear but interesting enough to hope it isn’t. There’s a pretty lengthy thread going on over at the GP32x.com forums regarding a new handheld device under development. The reason I’m saying this might be vaporwear is it’s not clear WHO that company is, only that several prominent gp2x community members who were very active in the development of software for and/or the distribution of the actual gp2x hardware, appear to have a reasonable amount of input into the new device.

I’ve not really talked about the GP2X much since buying one way back, but it’s a great little device and quite fun to program, well worth the price compared to any other handheld currently on the market.

That’s not to say it’s perfect. It’s not. For example the joystick is a little awkward to use and the lack of d-pad support makes some games awkward to play. The volume control is software based and inconsistent, even on the lowest setting it’s way too loud for my tastes when using headphones, the setting one step lower is mute.

Still, when you consider this device is first and foremost a media player, which it does very well I might add, it’s not a bad piece of hardware and the community has worked wonders turning it into a reasonable gaming handheld.

It would however, have been nice to have better hardware support aimed at gaming and this is where the new device sounds to be a step up, with 3d acceleration, higher res screen, touch screen, more memory and wifi. All of which will increase the possible capabilities well beyond that of the GP2X which already has great emulator support and homebrew capabilities.

That said, I already have a GP2X that I’m more than happy with, the new device could just be a joke (or never make it into production) and there’s another gadget that has caught my attention more that the possible GP2X successor has.

OpenMoko

I’m not really into mobile phones, the last phone I bought was a nokia 3210 although I’ve since upgraded via a hand-me-down from my brother to a newer nokia. Even so, I very rarely use it. That may be set to change with the pending release of the Phase 2 device from the OpenMoko project.

Currently you can buy the Neo1973 (GTA01 rev.) phone which has been designed specifically for the OpenMoko project. Now the idea of fully Open Source mobile phone is very very interesting, however it’s the phase 2 hardware (GTA02 rev.) that interests me even more.

Adds to the Phase 1 phone:
* 2D/3D-Graphics-Accelerator
* 2 Accelerometers (model and number is uncertain)
* Faster CPU - S3C2442/400
* WiFi: Atheros AR6K (see also [4])

The possibilities for development on this from low level hardware hacking and coding through to end applications and games is mouth watering, at least for a programming/hardware geek

The fact that the current version on sale has the disclaimer:

What you CAN NOT expect yet
* reliable means of making phone calls, esp. not from the UI
* reliable means of sending/receiving SMS, esp. not from the UI

and the list goes on… would make most people think twice about buying a “phone” that can’t really be used to make calls yet. But I’m sure any geeks reading this will find that only adds to the attraction.

The Phase2 hardware with it’s higher res screen would make a great replacement for my current phone and Palm Tungsten C, which I use for reading ebooks and appointments. Given that it’s totally open source you can bet someone will develop most of the common apps and any that are missing will make for a good project to work on. Roll on October….

I guess the title of this post gives the game away, I’ve bought a GP2X For those who want the short review it’s amazing…

Before we get to the long drawn out first impressions, I wanted to mention that a community game contest has just begun, starting August 1st with the entry deadline 11th December, head over to www.psymastr.com/gp2x/ for more information.

It’s certainly nice to see a community contest with reasonable rules, unlike the official GPH contest where the idea behind the contest may be genuine but the way it comes across leaves much to be desired. There are too many grey areas in the rules such as whether a losing entry that GPH do not wish to go commercial with can still be self published. I imagine this is totally down to the translation rather than ulterior motives since GPH are a korean company, however the grey areas are enough to put many off entering the official contest. Instead, we’ve got a community contest to enter

Anyhow, onto the review.

Games

Aside from emulators a number of homebrew games are available including ports of Doom and Quake. But, for me, the killer app is a port of Scummvm which allows you to run all those classic point and click adventure games. With beneath a steel sky, flight of the amazon queen and lure of the temptress all freely available from the original developers theres not excuse to not give them a go

There’s also a port of Spout, a simple yet strangly addictive game. You control a little ship in a similar way to asteroids with left/right rotation and thrust only. The aim is to progress as high up the screen as you can without colliding with any terrain, with the twist that your jet spout can be used to destroy terrain and provide a clear path. Very addictive. Grab the GP2X version from the gp2x archive there’s also a windows version on although I’ve not tried it.

Flashing

My GP2X came with the latest 2.0 firmware preflashed, but I like to know the details. From what I’ve seen/read so far, the GP2X has a boot loader known as “UBoot” which loads the kernel image. Stored in NAND memory is the 32meg linux filesystem as well as a 32meg “yaffs” filesystem. Since this is an open source handheld, the source for these can be obtained from the GamePark Holdings svn server.

I’ve also downloaded the latest pre built 2.0 firmware, this will come in handy when my experimentation goes awry and it stops booting The firmware zip contains a uboot image as well as kernel, filesystem and other images.

Flashing the UBoot is a little dodgy, since a bad flash will render the GP2X unbootable and un-recoverable outside of interfacing via JTag (which I don’t have). However, if the gp2xboot.img (UBoot) is not present on the SD card, the GP2X will not try to flash the UBoot continuing on to flash the rest of the files, so regardless of whether the rest of the flash succeeds or not (or if you mess up the filesystem by other means), the gp2x will still boot far enough to attempt another flash. In short, avoid messing with the UBoot part of NAND memory and things will be fine.

Boot Sound Mod

I know this isn’t anything new, it’s also a very simple mod but since the firmware zip contained a wav file which is the boot up sound, it seemed to be a logical first customisation. Besides, it’s a good test to demonstrate that my SD card is compatible with the firmware update process.

Loading the file into Audacity shows it to be a ~2.7 seconds long, stereo file. I’ve mixed the standard sound with a Buffy the vampire slayer “Grrrr Arrrrg” end credits Mutant Enemy sound. Exported as a 16bit pcm file the size should be 233bytes exactly the same as the original gp2xsound.wav (any different and the firmware update won’t pickup the file)

Flashing, is simple, place the gp2xsound.wav in the root of the SD card and boot the GP2X with select/start held down. For the record, I used a Fat32 formatted, 1GB SandDisk SD card which despite wiki information to the contary worked fine for firmware updating and general usage.

Development

I can’t have any kind of computer device without trying to dev on it and the GP2X is no exception. What’s great about this however is how easy it is to get up and running.

Enabling USB networking and samba server on the GP2X allows access to the root filesystem. There’s a samba client app available on the gp2x archive site, which allows the GP2X to mount an external samba share, such as the gp2x folder on my development machine.

Development can be done on my PC with the resulting cross compiled gpe file accessable on the gp2x thanks to the mounted samba share. Thus testing the newly built app is as simple as connecting via telnet, killing the existing gp2x menu and running the app. This avoids having to transfer any files onto the SD card during development.

[code]
killall gp2xmenu
cd /mnt/devshare/
./testapp.gpe
[/code]

The result been testapp running on the GP2X with any debug output displayed in the telnet window You can even remote control the running app via the telnet window using keys such as U,J,K,I for up/down/left/right.

The full process is documented in much more detail on the GP2X wiki

Currently I’ve got VS2005 setup with two separate projects in a single solution, the first been a standard windows project setup to link in SDL. The second project uses the custom build rules feature to build using the arm-linux-gcc toolchain to cross compile for the Arm architecture used by the GP2X. (available as a part of devkitpro).

The Future

One thing I’m looking forward to getting my hands on is the retail version of the breakout box which exposes amongst other goodies the host mode USB port. Been able to plug an external powered USB hdd into this would be great for streaming films/music especially on holiday ( 40gig iRiver anyone? )

Plus having JTag access would remove the fear of playing with the UBoot, not that I’ve any reason to.

Having done a little more reading on the GP2X (GamePark Holdings) I thought I’d check out how the XGP (GamePark) was coming along and came across three videos of the prototype in action on youtube.

From what I’ve been hearing the XGP may still under go further changes before shipping, which with an estimated release date of November makes me wonder if we’ll see further delays. I’d be interested in hearing what the changes are though and how they affect the specs.

I’m in two minds whether to plump for a GP2X which is available now, has a solid community behind it as well as a good set of emulators and homebrew games available. Or, hold out in the hopes the XGP does ship on time (assuming it ships at all) and lives up to its promise. From the brief amount of reading I’ve done, here’s my current pro/con list (of course my pro/cons may differ from yours based on what you want out of the system).

The GP2X VS the XGP

XGP Pros:

• 3d hardware - Aside from anything, it’ll be interesting for homebrew development
  
• Wifi
  
• 16:9 resolution, wide-screen movies
  

XGP Cons:

• More expensive than the GP2X.
  
• 16:9 Resolution of 480×272, not really suited 10+ year old games with mainly 4:3 aspect
  
• Single processor ARM920T, GP2X has an ARM920T and ARM940T
  
• Not truly open, although an SDK will be available, GP2X appears to be more open overall.
  
• Not available yet. November estimate.
  

Both a pro and a con is the addition of an analogue stick on the XGP. Whilst useful for new commercial games and homebrew games a digital stick imho would be preferable for emulators.

Several people think of the XGP as the successor to the GP2X (albeit made by different companies) newer and better in all regards, however, from my pov both devices have their own strengths and weaknesses, so the choice is not a simple one.

On the one hand the GP2X makes for a good emulator platform, on the other hand the XGP has 3d support which would be nice to have available for homebrew on a hand-held and may help improve psx/snes emulators but then the res/joystick isn’t as suitable and I’m still questioning how open the XGP will be aside from allowing homebrew via an SDK.

I imagine the decision will be a whole lot simpler once the XGP finally ships and we get our hands on concrete information/specs. The question is will I still be on the look out for a hand-held by then or will I be busy playing/developing for the GP2X

If you’re interested in emulators check out pdroms.de for a number of public domain roms

I’ve been reading up on the GP2X a very interesting console from a homebrew point of view, why? Here’s a quote

It’s open. You want to develop your own games for the GP2X? Go right ahead. The SDK is included with the system free. Not since the days of the Amiga has a system been so easy to develop for, commercially and for fun

Not many consoles/handhelds that can claim that. The specs ain’t half bad either

Yes that’s right, this hand-held can connect to the TV, console style. Watch your DivX movies on the TV. Play emulated classics on the TV. Try big screen Quake. Or just play them all on the GP2X’s large 320*240 backlit screen. You get the best of both worlds.

It runs the free Linux operating system. This means a whole world of Games, Utilities and Emulators are at your disposal. Quake, Doom, SNES, Megadrive, MAME, Media players and Applications to name just a few.

It’s powerful - Two 200mhz CPU’s with 64meg of RAM, custom graphics hardware and decoding chips. Takes SD cards and has 64M of NAND memory. Plenty to play with.

For £125 the price isn’t that steep either. So far I’ve only read about two commercial games been available, but then most people will probably be buying this for movies, homebrew and emulator use. Still it’s encouraging to see commercial games, hopefully they’ll be a success and bring in more developers.

Been able to transfer movies over without having to re-encode for a specific format is certainly a big boost compared to the PSP. The only things it’s lacking in is 3d hardware support. The XGP (made by the GP2X’s rival company gamepark, or is it gamepark holdings?) is rumoured to have 3d hardware support included, however its not shipping till the back end of the year and I’ve yet to see any full specs to compare against the GP2X in terms of raw power and openness.

Having read that the GP2X’s developers split from gamepark (holdings?) the makers of the GP32 over concerns of openness makes me wonder whether it will be or not. I can’t see it having as much of an impact as the GP2X if it isn’t open, which would then place it in direct competition with the Nintendo DS and PSP.

Craig over at gp2x.co.uk has recently posted a new review of the GP2X and I have to admit it really sounds like a fun hand-held (although I love retro games so it isn’t hard to sell me on the idea).

On a separate note, for all the ball dropping Sony has done recently, at least they’ve made WPA available in newer firmware. Nintendo however appear to be a little more stubborn, that is if the word of a moderator on the Nintendo forums can be taken at face value

We have no plans for WPA at this time.

If your concerned about WEP, turn your computers are OFF after you’ve switch to WEP for the DS. I don’t care if The Lone Gunmen are parked outside your door with a van full of equipment trying to bust in your computer files, they can’t do it if your computers are off. And, yes, your wireless router will still work if your computer is off. Um, unless it’s plugged into the same power strip and you power the whole strip off.

If that’s not an option for you, you may want to get the Nintendo USB WiFi Connector, as it works ONLY with the Nintendo DS, and you can leave your other WiFi router with WPA.

NOTE: The reason the Nintendo DS is compatible with WEP, and not WPA, is that we found WEP to be the most prevalent standard for securing wi-fi connections.

WEP is obviously going to be more prevalent, it has been around for longer, but that doesn’t change the fact that it is also extremely flawed. I’ve not used WEP on my wireless network for some time now, in fact the only reason I delayed switching to WPA for so long was due to waiting on US Robotics to release a firmware upgrade for their wireless gaming adapter that my XBox runs off.

I’m not saying WPA is foolproof either, but at least it does offer a reasonable amount of protection. Hopefully Nintendo will change their minds on this and release a firmware upgrade (assuming the hardware is capable of coping with WPA?), either way I hope the new Nintendo console supports WPA.

As far as I’m concerned,the DS may as well not have wireless support if it remains as WEP only, there is no way I’m allowing WEP access to my network (although it’s a mute point anyway since I’ll probably get a GP2X eventually rather than a DS Hey I like old games and homebrew and favour openness over proprietary systems any day.