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GP2X
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The GP2X is an open-source, Linux-based handheld video game console and media player created by GamePark Holdings of South Korea.
The GP2X is designed for homebrew developers as well as commercial developers. It is commonly used to run emulators for game consoles such as Neo Geo, Sega Genesis, Master System, Game Gear, Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, NES, PC-Engine/TurboGrafx-16, MAME and others.
ased on November 10, 2005 in South Korea, the GP2X was designed to play video and music, view photos, and play games.
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Encyclopedia
The GP2X is an open-source, Linux-based handheld video game console and media player created by GamePark Holdings of South Korea.
The GP2X is designed for homebrew developers as well as commercial developers. It is commonly used to run emulators for game consoles such as Neo Geo, Sega Genesis, Master System, Game Gear, Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, NES, PC-Engine/TurboGrafx-16, MAME and others.
Overview
Released on November 10, 2005 in South Korea, the GP2X was designed to play video and music, view photos, and play games. It had an open architecture (Linux based), allowing anybody to develop and run software. Also, there was the possibility for additional features (such as support for new media formats) to be added in the future due to the upgradeable firmware.
A popular use of the GP2X was to run emulators, which allow one to use ROM software from a video game cartridge of another system on the GP2X.
History
Shortly after the release of the GP32 in 2001, its maker GamePark began to design their next handheld. A disagreement within the company about the general direction of this system prompted many of the staff to leave and create their own company, GamePark Holdings, to produce a 2D-based handheld system which they saw as the sequel to the GP32.
GamePark Holdings spoke to previous GP32 distributors and developers to determine the specifications for the new machine and how it should be promoted. Meetings were held in Seoul, Korea, where the final design of the new console was agreed upon.
The first name of this console was the GPX2. However, it couldn't be used as a final name due to a possible trademark violation with the name of a Japanese printer, the GPX. A contest for a new name was announced on August 3, 2005. Around 1500 names were submitted in total. The winner of the competition was Matt Bakse who chose the title GP2X. For this he was awarded a free GP2X console, although delivery of his prize was rather delayed.
The GP2X has seen several minor hardware updates, most notably the changes from the First Edition to Normal Edition and the Normal Edition to the MK2. Also, a new version called the "F200" was released October 30, 2007 and features a touchscreen, among other changes.
As of October 16th, 2006, the GP2X had sold 30,000 units. On August 31, 2008, the CEO of Gamepark Holdings told German GP2X distributor Michael Mrozek (aka. EvilDragon) that 60,000 GP2X units had been sold.
On 26 August 2008, GamePark Holdings announced the successor to the GP2X, the "Wiz".
As of September 1, a version of the GP2X is still being sold in Korea by Vocamaster that is geared toward Koreans who wish to learn English. In fact, according to the official GP2X distributor for the UK, Craig Rothwell, most GP2X units sold to date have been sold through Vocamaster as English-learning tools.
Hardware
Specifications
- Chipset: MagicEyes MMSP2 MP2520F System-on-a-Chip
- CPU: 200MHz ARM920T host processor, 200MHz ARM940T programmable coprocessor
- NAND Flash ROM: 64 MB
- RAM: SDRAM 64 MB
- Operating System: GNU/Linux-based OS
- Storage: SD Card (Latest firmware supports SDHC)
- Connection to PC: USB 2.0 High Speed
- USB Host: USB 1.1
- Power: 2 × AA battery or via AC adapter
- Display: 320×240 3.5 inch, 65,536 colors TFT LCD
- TV output
- Physical size: 143.6 mm wide, 82.9 mm high, 27 mm (excl. joystick approx.) / 34 mm deep
- Weight: 161 g (without battery)
The ARM940T was used by GPH's implementation of Linux to control video processing. Using the 940T core in Linux for other tasks apart from video processing is difficult but possible. Accessing the hardware directly makes it easier to use both CPUs.
The F-200 version of the GP2X hardware replaced the joystick with a directional pad and adds a touch screen.
Expandability
The GP2X had an expansion "EXT" port on the base of the unit into which a range of special cables (for USB host, TV-out etc) or break out box could be plugged, allowing four USB devices to be connected to and used with the GP2X directly. The only thing limiting what can be used through this interface is the availability of drivers.
The connector used to expand the GP2X is hard to come by on its own but it is used with a few other devices. The Samsung e810/e730 and LG U8110/20/30/36/38 mobile telephone data cables, along with the official GP2X TV-Out adapter are suitable connectors.
This connector isn't proprietary; the specifications of this connector are fully open, encouraging home cable construction.
TV output
The GP2X also supported TV-out with a special cable that plugs into the EXT port. This allows videos that are normally scaled down to fit the GP2X's screen to be played at native resolution on a TV. It also lets software be displayed on the higher resolution TV rather than the screen. Not all software supports this natively, but 3rd party software exists that enables TV-out functionality in all applications. This is done by launching a background process.
Power
The GP2X requires 2 AA-sized batteries if not running from an external power supply. Due to the high current drain, standard alkaline batteries will not function for very long in the GP2X; NiMH or lithium batteries are recommended.
Battery life varies depending on the type of activity being performed and can last anywhere from 10 minutes (using alkaline batteries) to over 6 hours (using high-capacity NiMH batteries). When listening to music, power can be conserved by turning off the backlight and display.
The GP2X has a socket for an external power supply. It must be rated 3.3V DC at 1A with a standard center-grounded (negative center) connector. The power supply should be regulated, as voltage spikes can permanently damage the unit.
Storage
The GP2X's primary storage device is the Secure Digital card, which can be placed into a socket at the top of the unit. Older firmware only supported SD cards up to 4 GB in capacity. SD cards must be formatted as either FAT16, FAT32 (32 is more reliable), or ext2. The GP2X also has 64 MB of internal flash memory storage, of which 32MB can be used for user data.
From firmware release version 4.0 the GP2X F200 is capable of addressing the new SDHC standard and thus now works with SDHC cards up to 32GB in size.
Overclocking
The two ARM processors in the GP2X can be overclocked beyond their rated speed in software. The maximum speed one can reach through overclocking varies from system to system, with about 1 in 50 reaching over 300MHz (these are considered supergp2xs) and others barely reaching 240MHz (many systems can be overclocked beyond 240MHz with no problems. The highest they are advertised to overclock to is 266MHz.)
Multimedia support
Video
- Video formats: DivX 3/4/5, XviD (MPEG4)
- Audio formats: MP3 and Vorbis
- Container files: AVI and OGM (WMA and MPG via additional software)
- Maximum Resolution: 720*480 (scaled to 320x240 screen resolution using built in scaling chip)
- Captions: SMI, SRT
- Battery Life: 3.5 hours average, longer times possible with high capacity batteries and with use of the power saving modes within.
Audio
- Audio Formats: MP3, Ogg Vorbis (more with alternative players)
- Channels: Stereo
- Frequency Range: 20Hz - 20kHz
- Power output: 100mw
- Sample Resolution/Rate: 16bit/8-48 kHz
- Equalizer: includes "Normal", "Classic", "Rock", "Jazz", "Pop" presets
- Battery Life: ~6 hours (information given by manufacturer) with 2 x 2500mAh AA batteries.
Software
Because the tools required for development on the GP2X are freely available, there is a wealth of software available for the GP2X, much of which is free. Types of software available includes emulators, games, PDA applications and multimedia players.
Built-in software
The GP2X has several pieces of software built directly into the firmware. There is a version of MPlayer which is used to play music and video, an image viewer, an e-book reader (which can display the contents of standard text documents on-screen) and a utility to adjust the LCD update frequency to eliminate any flickering.
Other applications available (though not accessible directly through the menu) were a Samba server, for transferring files to the machine using the default Windows network file sharing protocol; an HTTP server, for providing web pages; an FTP server, a different way of transferring files; and telnet access allowing for direct command line access from outside the machine.
These servers operate over the included USB networking functionality, allowing one to connect the GP2X to a wider network through a PC. The new GP2X-F200 supports none of these network programs.
Version 3.0.0 of the firmware comes with 5 games pre-installed in the NAND memory. The games are Payback (demo), Noiz2sa, Flobopuyo, Supertux, and Vektar (freeware version). This firmware is currently shipped with new GP2Xs.
Emulators
There are many emulators available for the GP2X which allow you to run software from other systems on the GP2X. Many emulators will run most software perfectly and at the intended speed, but some others may have various issues (often to do with speed or sound). Popular emulators include GnGeo which emulates the Neo Geo; GNUboy2x, Game Boy and Game Boy Color emulators; MAME, an emulator of various arcade machines; DrMD, which emulates the Sega Master System, Game Gear and Mega Drive/Genesis; SquidgeSNES and PocketSNES, which emulate Super Nintendo games; and Picodrive, which emulates Mega Drive and also many popular Sega CD games; psx4all which emulates Sony Playstation games.
Games
Since the GP2X has a much smaller following than other handheld consoles, such as the Sony PSP or the Nintendo DS, there are very few commercial games available for it. At the time of writing, Vektar, Payback, Quartz˛, retrovirus RTS, Wind and Water: Puzzle Battles and Blazar have been released as commercial games for the GP2X, and the games Odonata and Elsewhere were released in October 2006 for Korean distribution only.
However, there are many ports of games from other platforms, mostly Linux, to the GP2X. Popular ports include Super Tux and Frozen Bubble as well as the Duke Nukem 3D, Quake, and Doom engines (which can run the original games if you own a copy with the correct data files). There are also hundreds of original freeware games such as Tile Match and Beat2x, made by GP2X programmers in their spare time.
Multimedia players
There are several unofficial multimedia players available for the GP2X, intended to support more formats than the built-in music and video players can handle. One such program is a port of FFPlay that allows you to play several RealMedia and Windows Media formats. Since the release of the MPlayer source code, several unofficial builds have been released for various purposes. One of these adds support for playing music in the AAC format.
PDA Applications
Two popular PDA desktop environments have been ported to the GP2X: Qtopia and GPE. Both contain a range of programs such as a web browser, word processor, etc. and can be controlled with either the GP2X controls or a USB mouse and keyboard connected through a USB cable attached to the EXT port.
Open source development
SDKs (software development kits) are freely and easily available for the GP2X allowing anybody with the required skills to write an application or game. Most SDKs are based around a gcc cross-compiler toolchain and SDL. SDL is available for many systems, allowing for cross-compatibility of code with other platforms such as Microsoft Windows and GNU/Linux.
A port of the Allegro game programming library is also available for the GP2X, as is a port of the Fenix game toolkit.
Other libraries under development include Minimal Library SDK, which allows for direct hardware access inside the GP2X Linux environment, and sdk2x a set of libraries and a program which allows you to leave Linux completely for total control of all the hardware with no operating system to interfere.
Currently in development is gpu940, a soft 3D renderer that can do many rendering types, including true perspective texture mapping/lighting. It utilizes the ARM940T CPU of the GP2X, and allows for the GP2X to run basic OpenGL functions. In January 2007, the renderer's OpenGL functions allowed for the 3D roleplaying game Egoboo to be ported to the GP2X at a playable speed, and a month later updated with increased speed and added lighting effects.
GP2X executables
GP2X executable files have one of two 3 letters file extensions. For games, the .gpe extension is used. These are listed in the Games section of the menu. Utilities have the extension .gpu, and appear in the Utilities section of the menu; in firmware 3.0.0 they appear along with the games.
Controversy
DRM
There was debate before launch over the implied inclusion of DRM in the GP2X. However, since release, the GP2X platform was shown to be clear of any form of DRM.
Copyright violations
The GP2X firmware uses a significant amount of GNU GPL code, including MPlayer for its media functions and the Linux kernel for its OS. The GPL requires for the release of the source code to users of the binary application (i.e. GP2X users); however, the source code was not initially released when the GP2X was released to consumers.
- February 18, 2006 - Kernel source for Firmware 1.4.0 released.
- July 5, 2006 - Modified MPlayer source code released.
- "U-Boot" bootloader source code released.
- Kernel source for Firmware 2.1 released.
See also
- GP32 - Predecessor device
- GP2X Wiz - Successor device
- Pandora
- List of other Linux-based, handheld gaming devices
External links
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