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Dear GP2X.letter subscribers!
Welcome to the first issue of our newsletter that will provide you
with a roundup of all the important GP2X news every few weeks as well
as special issues on special occasions.
The first consoles have finally been shipped to people's homes. This
issue we have the first homebrew releases, news about commercial
games and more.
The GP2X.letter team.
Content of this issue:
Commercial Games: News & Releases <#commercial> Homebrew: News &
Releases <#homebrew> Press: Reviews & Articles <#press> Other stuff
(First batch arrives, Others to ship before end of november) <#other>
Multimedia Content <#multimedia> Interview: Skeezix <#interview>
Commercial Games
Int13 support the GP2X
French developer Int13 originally intended to port their games to
the GP32 but never got around to it. Now they will be porting them to
the GP2X instead. It is still unknown which games will be ported and
when they will be released.
http://www.int13.net <http://www.int13.net/>
Homebrew
Quake, Quake II, Hexen, SNES emulator and LinesX released!
When you get your GP2X in the next days you can actually use it to
play games right away! The SNES emulator by NK is still unoptimized
and Woogal's Quake II is running at around 6 FPS with full detail but
Quake 1 is already quite playable at around 11 FPS. There should be
room for optimizations in the future. Korean developer PotA has
released the puzzle game LinesX. The goal in the game is to get five
colors in a row. Also by NK, there is a Hexen port available.
SNES Emu:
http://archive.gp2x.de/cgi-bin/cfiles.cgi?0,0,0,0,5,856
Quake:
http://archive.gp2x.de/cgi-bin/cfiles.cgi?0,0,0,0,20,855
Quake II:
http://archive.gp2x.de/cgi-bin/cfiles.cgi?0,0,0,0,20,857
LinesX:
http://archive.gp2x.de/cgi-bin/cfiles.cgi?0,0,0,0,25,863
Hexen:
http://archive.gp2x.de/cgi-bin/cfiles.cgi?0,0,0,0,20,865
GP2X Skin Changer released
While waiting for your GP2X, you can now prepare the first
customization of your system. The GP2X skin changer lets you change
all the backgrounds and edit every picture used in the launcher.
http://archive.gp2x.de/cgi-bin/cfiles.cgi?0,0,0,0,8,861
Lots more games and emulators already in development
Duke Nukem 3D already runs on the GP2X, ports of Puck2099's GP Lady
Killer and Woogal's Lacuna are in development as well as ports of
other classic PC games like Elite or Descent.
On the emulator side there are efforts to get AtariST, Amiga,
PCEngine and C64 running on the GP2X as well as pretty much every
other system out there.
To keep informed about the latest developments, visit the Works In
Progress page of the GP2X Dev Wiki:
http://wiki.gp2x.org/wiki/Works_In_Progress
GP2X File Archive ready for usage
The GP32 file archive was a very important place collecting all the
free software released for the GP32. Now the GP2X has gotten the
same. There are not many things, yet, but rest assured that it will
grow quickly. This is a website that you should bookmark.
http://archive.gp2x.de/cgi-bin/cfiles.cgi
Press
Gandy interviews Sweetfish about his upcoming GP2X game
"What’s the general premise of the game?"
"Sweetfish: Well, it's a wannabe-oldschool action puzzle in the style
of PuyoPuyo and Tetris. But instead of blocks slowly falling down, the
main object is to "push" the blocks into the playgrid from below."
http://gandysampras.blogeasy.com/article.view.run?articleID=105376
Other stuff
First consoles arrive at people's homes
The first consoles have finally arrived and have been shipped out to
people in Korea and the UK. Everyone who ordered from GP2X.de or
GP32Z.com should get them at the beginning of next week. Reactions
have so far been generally positive, apart from a number of minor
problems (more about that below).
Other preorders to ship before November ends
For everyone not getting a unit from the first batch, there is no
reason to worry: All preorders should be shipped before the month
ends. The same is still true for all orders placed now but there
might be a rush before Christmas so order now if you still want to
get it in time!
A list of retailers is available here:
http://wiki.gp2x.org/wiki/Where_to_Buy%3F
Don't forget to check the shipping costs to where ever you are!
Known issues and how to deal with them
Like every other piece of hardware out there, the GP2X has been
released with a few bugs and problems. Most of these are software
based and will be corrected in a future firmware upgrade. Here are
some of the more serious known problems along with possible
solutions:
Problem: Joystick does not report directions like it should.
Solution: Screw the joystick in counterclockwise direction to make
it a little more loose.
Problem: Batteries do not last as long as they should.
Solution: Make sure the contacts are clean. Move your batteries in
the GP2X for them to make better contact. The battery life will be
improved in future firmware upgrades.
Problem: Sound does not come out of the headphones properly.
Solution: Make sure your headphones are completely plugged in. In
some cases it seems to be difficult to plug them in completely.
Problem: GP2X does not boot.
Solution: Turning it off and on again should fix the problem in most
cases.
http://www.gp32x.com/board/index.php?showtopic=22017
Multimedia Content to get you started
According to Gamepark Holdings' English website, out of the box the
GP2X will be capable of playing back movies in MPEG 4, Dvix
3.11,4x,5x, and higher, as well as XVID. It will support a maximum
resolution of 720 x 480 and a maximum frame rate of 30 frames per
second. It will also support MP3 and OGG for audio and pictures in
JPG, BMP, PCX, GIF, and PNG formats.
To get you started we have compiled a small list of legal movies and
music worth downloading that should run on the GP2X.
Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning
Great Star Trek Parody. Get the XviD version! Note that there seem to
be some problems with XviD playback at the moment that should be
corrected in a firmware update, soon.
http://www-fi3.starwreck.com/download.php
Machinae Supremacy
http://www.machinaesupremacy.com/
Trash80
http://www.trash80.net/mp3s/
Got a good movie in a GP2X friendly format to share or found some
good music free for download? Use the "submit news" link at the
bottom of http://gp2x.info/news!
Interview: Skeezix
Each issue we will ask a developer of the GP2X scene to answer our
little list of six question. This time we asked Jeff
“Skeezix” Mitchell who recently got a GP2X donated to him
by community members:
Who are you?
Damned if I know
Some Canuck* who has too much retro-electronics
in his basement, from arcade cabinets to mountains of Atari gear.
Folks might recognize my main website/blog that houses most of my
shareware and freeware projects (GP32 and soon GP2x of course, Palm
OS, Pocket PC, Sony PSP, Windows, Mac OSX, Linux and the BSDs) -
http://www.codejedi.com
* Canuck: see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canuck - it doesn't mean
"jackass" as some would suggest
How long have you been doing this?
Too long, or not long enough, depending on how much support mail
I've answered that day
I'm 33 (sigh) these days, and have been
coding since I was a wee tot on the Commodore Vic-20 and
theres-abouts; I sold my first shareware around 1988 or so for the
Atari ST, and have been professionally coding for various platforms
since the early 1990s (and oddly enough, still coding on the Atari ST
once in awhile.)
What is your favourite game of all time?
Ouch, thats a tough one of course, so I'll give a few; for retro I'd
have to say Dungeon Master (Atari ST) amd Wizardry 7 (DOS) off the
top of my head (unforgettible to me), though how do you factor in
Civilization since it was around back in the day and still today?
(Civ I through Civ IV rule my world, alongside Alpha Centauri.) More
modern I'd say Wizardry 8 (PC) and Half Life 2 come to mind as true
favourites. There's a lot in-between of course.
What are you working on for the GP2X?
Another long list; Atari ST is of course my pet project, so there
will be CaSTaway/gp2x right up front, though I expect to also bundle
in STonX and Hatari under the same hood.. and perhaps my own Atari ST
emulator. (It's a non-graphical TOS-only emu that's for running ST
text applications like BBSes
I'm also working on a Retrocade port
- MAME wasn't the first nor fastest arcade emu around so on small
devices Retrocade coudl fill a nice tasty niche. I may bring along my
XCade for old times sake, but with MAME and Retrocade around its not
as necessary. I've done a preliminary port of Descent as well, so
when I get a device we'll see how that goes. For new projects, I
built a new tile-brick puzzler engine (Manticore*) for gp2x that I've
just released on other platforms (Pocket PC, Palm OS, Windows, Linux)
for testing sake (while waiting for the gp2x, might as well release
it
I've got a musician and artist on board so hopefully Manticore
will start to look and sound sharper
Let's see.. what else - if no
one tackles other Atari 8 bit machines (Atari 800, 2600 etc) then
maybe I'll just turn CaSTaway into a big fat Atari-Everything
emulator, who knows? So off the top of my head, it's CaSTaway,
Manticore, Retrocade and Descent on my plate right now.
* Manticore is http://www.codejedi.com/manticore
What do you want to see most on the GP2X?
Well, Quake 3 is too much to ask, so I'm looking for a good pollished
long lived emulation and retro and homebrew platform; the Sony PSP is
a pretty sweet machine, but with Sony out to kill homebrew at every
stop its just not a viable platform despite it's mass appeal. (Mass
appeal you say? Yes - we want the masses to rememeber they too can
_create_!) Remember when we were all kids and BASIC and Logo were
around for homebrewing? Thats what I want to see.. simple but
reasonably powerful platforms for peopel to screw with and create
things. The XGameStation and other projects are doing very cool
things, and I love to see people homebrewing on retro machines (see
Atari Age for actually buying new Atari 2600 games!), but I expect
the gp2x to fill the homebrew niche for many of us. Mobiles are
inherently cool, and with Unix/Linux being built by developers it's
always been very dev friendly - so the gp2x will get some wider
audience due to the Linux influence, and it's coded with SDL (cross
platform and easy to use) so we've really got a shot.
Hell, I've always been big on community involvement - the GP32
community built up quite an amazing Atari ST games database for
CaSTaway.. a project which has proven useful to other ST emulators as
well. Although my Zot scripting system failed to appeal, the whole
modding scene could grow more and more on the gp2x.. Fenix should
come along, and I expect the OrR's of the world will keep making new
levels for everything, and people will forever make new characters
for SmashGP variants.. and don't let's get into BoR Mods. With the
gp2x I expect we'll see some Quake mods or engine derivations, so
coudl be good times.
Aside from loftier goals, I of course just want a good Atari ST
platform
Sure, a good fast SNES emulator would be nice since I
missed a lot of the SNES and Genesis years. We already know Reesy
will bring DrMD along for Genesis. So I'm pretty well covered. (OKay,
bring it on - ST, Amiga, SNES, Genesis, Commies (C64, Vic20, etc),
Atari 8bitters, Neo Geo, TG16, PC XT, etc etc.. we want it all in our
hand.)
So as always, my interests are mostly in development; to me, the fun
is in building the game, not playing. Yes, I know, I need to slow
down and play sometime
No Linux or no coffee?
I don't care for coffee; food should be hot, and drinks should be
cold. It's all cola for me, baby.
--
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