Why no separate forum for the GP32?

[Azure]

I was just wondering, yoyo, why do you have forums for the Zodiac and Palm but not one for the GP32?

BTW, for OS9XGP, would it help at all if you got rid of the intro and all the fancy graphics and everything? I could do without them if it would make more ram available or leave you more space for transparencies and whatnot.

[yoyofr]

hmm, because I don't have so much time.
I plan to release an updated version of os9xgp on gp32 with blu+ support, so an entry in the forum should appear at that time.

[Azure]

Is that the only change that will be in the next version?

[DaveC]

Azure said:

Is that the only change that will be in the next version?

Go have a look at Zodiacgamer. It looks like Yoyo has completely fallen in love with the Zodiac and is porting alot of GP32 stuff to that like Quake and Doom. I can see why there is not much time for GP32 stuff anymore.

[Arahail]

Maybe yoyo could port GPDoom back to GPDoom, shouldn't take so much work and aren't you trying to sell your GP32 BLU+? Seems to me like you're trying to guilt yoyo into doing GP32 stuff, why not just let him do what he wants to do, this is done in their free time. If you really like the stuff on the Zodiac, get a Zodiac, if you don't, then you know you have it better already. The plain fact is that there are not many zodiac developers out there, yoyo, squidge, and skeezix are the only ones bringing GP32 stuff to the Zodiac. Guyfawkes runs the zodiacgamer boards, and he doesn't program for the Zodiac, so I really have no idea what the complaint is about. Do you want a re-port of quake back like you said in zodiacgamer? even when it was just a direct port of the GP32 with a higher resolution and hardware smoothing.....
Point is, let yoyo do what he please, because he is the man!

[Azure]

You have to look at things holistically to understand where we are coming from. Yoyo brought great relief to us when Intellecto released his final version of SNES9xGP, which was one of the greatest disappointments ever. Yoyo's new emulator was absolutely amazing, especially since it was only version 0.2. This got everybody excited that we might actually get good snes emulation. Well, at this point, people were already speculating that Yoyo might lose interest in the GP now that he has a more powerful handheld. Well, that's what happend. He started to spend less and less time with the GP and more and more time with the Zodiac. It was very hard to see all the constant updates that he posted on his Zodiac emulators. He was updating his emulators REALLY quickly, while it took him 9 months to get the next version of OS9XGP out, which only ended up being a beta and wasn't as great as expected. Well, that happend like 6 months ago, and since then all we have been told by Yoyo is that he hasn't abandoned the Gp32 scene, which, in my opinion, doesn't mean much. He seems to have gained more interest in the Palm and Zodiac scenes than the GP32 scene, which just makes many of us pissed off because he completly abandoned us with a half complete emulator and left for what is considered by some to be the GP's rival, the Zodiac. And then Yoyo makes an update and says that he's still working on OS9XGP, that he's working on adding BLU+ support...whoopty doo! How about some constructive updates on OS9XGP, like speed increases and not something like BLU+ support...

[Arahail]

Do you want some cheese with that whine? You're in no position to complain about anything. Did you pay for the emulator? No, it was completely free, and I can't believe I just read this crap about how the beta was disappointing. When the GP32 users come to the Zodiac forums bragging about how great their community is, and how supportive they are of their developers and how grateful also, I can see now that it is total nonsense. It's like a gang, everyone are friends until someone wants to leave the gang, and then everyone beat up the guy who tries to leave. You're even complaining about BLU support. If I was a developer I would tell you "whoopty doo!" you won't see any more stuff from me, cya, I'm abandoning you. If you want to see more stuff on the GP32, spend your own time learning how to code and code it, instead of complaining about it. If yoyo wanted to ask about bug report or something, I can see that, but you're complaining about BLU support as being not good enough, you want and almost demanding speed increases. This is just ridiculous.

[Azure]

Do you own a Zodiac or something?

Just take a look at how much time Yoyo spends on the Zodiac/Palm and how much he spends on the GP. I think I (Along with others) am perfectly justified in my complaining that he's not spending much work on the GP32. We finally get this great snes emu being worked on by the great coder that made the amazing ljgp32, and then he suddenly wins the GP32's rival console and starts to spend most, if not all, of his time on the Zodiac instead of the GP32. Then he says that he's still working on the GP32, he's going to add BLU+ support. YAY! BLU+ support! ::)BLU+ support is a minor update compared to what he's doing with his Zodiac/Palm works. I think we have every right to be complaining about this.

And about myself coding my own snes emulator - It's just like with a president. If the president doesn't meet your expectations, what should you do? Run for president, something you may not be able to do? Or should you just voice your opinion and tell the president how you feel? I think number 2 is a much more better option. Not everyone has the time to learn how to code (Especially not me), Yoyo is already a coder and is used to coding it.

[Tinnus]

Azure said:

Just take a look at how much time Yoyo spends on the Zodiac/Palm and how much he spends on the GP. I think I (Along with others) am perfectly justified in my complaining that he's not spending much work on the GP32. We finally get this great snes emu being worked on by the great coder that made the amazing ljgp32, and then he suddenly wins the GP32's rival console and starts to spend most, if not all, of his time on the Zodiac instead of the GP32. Then he says that he's still working on the GP32, he's going to add BLU+ support. YAY! BLU+ support! ::)BLU+ support is a minor update compared to what he's doing with his Zodiac/Palm works. I think we have every right to be complaining about this.

Do you think you're right in "complaining"? Dude, you don't have any right to complain. Yoyo did some HUGE favors to the GP32 community completely FREE and you should thank him for what he's done so far instead of complaining about anything. I understand that you may be somewhat sad about him going off the GP32 scene, but that's it. The most you could do is talk to him politely like "Hello yoyo, I was just wondering if you are still interested in the GP32 or has given up on it. Any response is appreciated.". But no, you're talking like you have paid him or something and he hasn't delivered what he promised. He didn't even (from what I know) left broken promises. It isn't his type at all.

Azure said:

And about myself coding my own snes emulator - It's just like with a president. If the president doesn't meet your expectations, what should you do? Run for president, something you may not be able to do? Or should you just voice your opinion and tell the president how you feel? I think number 2 is a much more better option. Not everyone has the time to learn how to code (Especially not me), Yoyo is already a coder and is used to coding it.

"Voice your opinion" is something, "complaining" is a completely different level. The big difference here is that you elected your president to govern you, and do what he said he'd do for the people. Yoyo is doing all of this because he likes to share his works and make us happier. Maybe it'd be better for him not to make anything public, and vanish from the community. At least he wouldn't have to read things like that.

Thank you once more yoyo, for all you've done, are doing, and will do for all the communities (Zodiac, PalmOS, GP32, whatever you feel like).

[Arahail]

Is yoyo required to do anything for the GP32? Nope, sorry buddy, despite you feeling that you have a right to complain, you don't.
The analogy between the job of the President and what yoyo does is a very poor one that I can't believe anyone would use. The President gets paid for what he does, as well as achieving something many people desire, to be in the history books, and more likely more money deals after the Presidency. yoyo gets no money for what he codes, you could donate if you want to, but no annual pay like the President. I vote you to program your own emulator, if you don't I'm going to complain to you every day, does that seem reasonable to you? You finally get anything at all is because of yoyo, if he didn't feel like doing anything in the first place, you get nothing at all. So if you dont like it, dont use it and leave. yoyo is not hired by you like the president is hired by the public, so unless you want to give yoyo a monthly check that he desires, I would say you should just keep your mouth shut. It is ridiculous enough that you have the nerve to complain, but to say you have the right to complain about free products just pisses me off. Go complain to ryleh that he hasn't finish up yoyo's port of the snes emulator or made better games or made better genesis emulator or something. The SNES emulator source is available on this website, go complain to see developers and tell them to finish it up, I want to read the response to it. I want to see you do that on the GP32 boards also and you getting your head smacked. If you dont want to spend the time to code, then quit your complaining and stop playing with your GP32. If you stop playing with it, you'll have more time to learn how to code. So it is not a matter of whether you have the time, is a matter of whether you want to take the time. Since you dont want to, you decided to come complaining to someone who was nice enough to spare the time in coding up something for everyone to enjoy for free. yoyo winning the Zodiac is just that, he could have choose to code for it or not, and even if he didn't, he could of not code for the GP32 also, what are you going to do? I actually feel much better about the Zodiac community now after seeing what a GP32 user is really like. I remember when people at zodiacgamer wanted to get more developers aboard like ryleh, people got together enough money to get him his second Zodiac for maybe multiplayer. Then he wanted Codewarrior too and the people again raise up the money and got him codewarrior. At the end, ryleh made nothing for the Zodiac, but there was no complain on the boards at all. Although, I think getting another Zodiac for yoyo would of been better if people wanted multiplayer and most people would probably agree. But yoyo didn't tell us if he needed anything, and if he did or wants to now we would get it for him too. At the time, we didn't know ryleh already had one before we raise the money for the zodiac though. Although, none of us regret it, we still think ryleh is a cool guy who has done a lot for the community even if it was for the GP32. You gave nothing to yoyo but you feel like you have the rights to complain, sad. I dont want to come off sounding too much of a jerk, but I really think you're the one being the jerk here in what you are saying. Maybe you're a kid, I dont know. zodiacgamers did have a bunch of 12-17 year olds for awhile who did what you did, but never actually thought they had the rights to complain, they do what kids do, they just complain without knowing much. Atleast they change however, they no longer do that after learning their mistakes and learn where the things are coming from.

[DaveC]

We all need to chill I think.

Azure, no use b!tch!ng about things it is not going to change it. Forget SNES on the GP32, it ain't going to happen. You may as well sell it now, I heard you mention on GP32X that all you wanted is SNES and don't care about anything else. Might as well dump your GP32 and buy a PSP as that would be the only portable capable of "perfect" SNES emulation.

I am as dissapointed as any that Yoyo has abandoned the GP32, but there is nothing that can be done, sad, but oh well.

@ Arahail, you telling me to "let him do what he wants to" and "trying to guilt him into doing stuff on the GP32" is ridiculous. Let him do what he wants? I have no control over what he does, so that is not an issue. And I am not trying to guilt anyone into anything. I am just saying that I am bummed about it that is all, I think I am entitled to an opinion.

I sold a BLU that I had as a spare, because it had a bad pixel. I also had a Zodiac 2 and sold that. It happens.

And yes I am dissapointed that none of the stuff ported ever makes it back to the GP32 with the speedups, bug fixes etc. It would just be nice for a change if something was given back once in awhile instead of always just take, take, take. Without the GP32 to take code and port from everyone at ZG would still be whining about when NWN is comming, and how the PSP will kill the Zodiac. And that is it, I am dissapointed that is all.

And to judge the whole GP32 community because one of them comes here and complains? That is silly too.

Nothing will change so we all might as well just stop flamming.

[yoyofr]

wow, it's getting hot here

you know, I still plan to do some stuff for the gp32, it's just I don't have so much time to spend on coding for free (I've got a job & a real life too ^=^)
perhaps I should get the blu+ I want to get for so long ... It's true that my old standard gp32 unit seems a bit dark compared to zodiac/gba sp/nds...
there's also the fact that since I release ljgp32 & os9xgp I haven't seen anyone else taking the sourcecode and try to change/optimize it a bit. it's a bit disappointing. Look at the zodiac/palm community : a short while after ljp release, tinnus added some nice filter for the gp module & got his own version to compile.
that's something good for motivation.

DaveC, you're wrong about the port. It's true that the quake port is coming from gp32 for a part, but it's less advanced that the existing one (I didn't found the sourcecode on the web, but it's true I didn't mailed the author yet).
The Doom port is a new one, since once again no sourcecode was available. I don't understand why people which are working on free stuff do not want to release the sourcecode. I had to start with the one from idsoftware (linuxdoom).

[Arahail]

DaveC, can you name all the programs that was ported from GP32 to the Zodiac that has speed ups? Squidge already told you that Quake wasn't an improvement over the GP32 one at zodiacgamer, and he ask you to name the things you wanted to see ported back to the GP32, and you couldn't give him a list. If you expect a 480x320 resolution version of quake......well....anyways, yoyo said he ported Doom from other sources because GP32 developers don't include the source, well that was just extra work for him I think. So now I'm even wondering what was ported from the GP32 to the Zodiac, besides LJP, and partly Quake.
Well anyways, I dont want to heat things up, but you should really give a list of the things you're talking about.

[DaveC]

yoyofr said:

wow, it's getting hot here

you know, I still plan to do some stuff for the gp32, it's just I don't have so much time to spend on coding for free (I've got a job & a real life too ^=^)
perhaps I should get the blu+ I want to get for so long ... It's true that my old standard gp32 unit seems a bit dark compared to zodiac/gba sp/nds...
there's also the fact that since I release ljgp32 & os9xgp I haven't seen anyone else taking the sourcecode and try to change/optimize it a bit. it's a bit disappointing. Look at the zodiac/palm community : a short while after ljp release, tinnus added some nice filter for the gp module & got his own version to compile.
that's something good for motivation.

DaveC, you're wrong about the port. It's true that the quake port is coming from gp32 for a part, but it's less advanced that the existing one (I didn't found the sourcecode on the web, but it's true I didn't mailed the author yet).
The Doom port is a new one, since once again no sourcecode was available. I don't understand why people which are working on free stuff do not want to release the sourcecode. I had to start with the one from idsoftware (linuxdoom).

Hi Yoyo,

I do agree that the NLU GP32 is dark, I have an old one laying around but I don't use it anymore since I got the BLU. The screen on the BLU is much nicer than a GBA-SP, is bigger and higher resolution than a DS, and is just under the Zodiac in screen size. I had a Zodiac and it had it's advantages, I still think the GP32 is worthwhile though. I for one prefer the digital controls and the feel of the buttons on the GP32 over the Zodiac for emulation, seems more comfortable to play. That is just me though, everyone has their preference, that is fine.

You are not the only one dissapointed that your GP32 projects weren't picked up by anyone. But the sad fact is there is probably not anyone left that could continue them. As you know yourself, many have left for the Zodiac or just stopped coding completely. I suppose it is just a result of the GP32 community being relatively small compared to Palm. This is one reason many GP32 owners get a bit worked up when someone such as youself leaves. There just aren't that many in the scene, when a person of your talent leaves it is a huge blow. It is not like there are 3 more coders to take your place like in the Palm community.

Also I read that you have no time, then a day later I see Quake, Hexen, Doom up from you! That is pretty impressive. I suppose what you mean though is that you don't have time for doing multiple systems and must concentrate on one, like Palm etc. That makes sense as jumping around between OSs SDKs etc would waste alot of time and get confusing, so ok, I understand.

Also I have no problem with porting to the Palm from the GP32. I just thought it would be nice if the GP32 would benefit from this by having some of the ports going to the GP32 as well if even for new stuff like Hexen etc. In a perfect world stuff would go back and forth, the Zodiac would get quake from the GP32 and the GP32 would get hexen from the Zodiac, everyone is happy. I just see everything going to the Zodiac, new or GP32 ports, and never the other way.

Is porting to the GP32 from Palm hard? Are ports like Hexen too reliant on Palm OS functions? I would think that doing that on the GP32 would be a bit easier since you don't have to worry about "playing nice" with Palm OS. With the GP32 you don't need to worry about your app crashing someones PDA and wiping everything out in memory. I don't know though as I am no programmer.

Anyway I admire your and any coders work, I could never do it. Thanks for what you give all of us in the world.

[yoyofr]

Porting doom or hexen to gp32 can be done, for sure.
But it will require to rewrite all the input/sound handling & optimize memory management (palm device have often more free ram). For example, on my doom & hexen ports, I'm using about 8-10MB of dynamic ram & a few more MB of feature ram for sound.
The best way would be for me to enhanced my little framework to support gp32. Right now it's too much tied to palmos, but it can be done. Afterall a few months ago I was only developping for zodiac & now it's zodiac & palmos 5. So perhaps I'll end with a zodiac/palmos 5/gp32 framework...