Gp2x Wiz Mame Amiga Console Emulator

Posted on December 6, 2009 by Jamie Slaughter, with 17918 views

Time to re-live those old game classics on a modern day handheld, portable games console. What a fantastic Christmas gift this would make! (I've actually bought one for myb younger brother)

Normally this is the space where we would make some clever jokes and tell you why you might like to purchase this fine product. But in the case of this amazing GP2X Wiz pocket size gaming system we're cutting straight to the chase. If you are into retro gaming and have paid your rent this month you NEED to buy the GP2X Wiz now... like immediately... we're not joking. Because no where else will you find a handheld gaming system with emulators for so many game systems, computer platforms and consoles. Incredible MAME emulation allows you to run all your favorite arcade video game classics, even vector games. Amiga game emulation is rock solid. You can run Atari ST games, Commodore 64, NES, SNES, Gameboy, Gameboy Advance, NeoGeo, Flash Games and more too numerous to mention. Of course you'll need to find yourself some game roms... but we have a feeling that's no problem for you and Google.

The Wiz can do a host of other useful things besides gaming. It can play video files including MPEG4, Xvid and DIVX. You get a built in e-book reader, calendar, voice recorder... etc... you know the drill. 1GB of storage is built-in and you can expand on this with the SD (SDHC) card slot. The high-res touchscreen makes navigation easy and the gaming controls feature a d-pad on the left with buttons/d-pad on the right and two shoulder buttons on the top. It's plenty good for anything a retro game can dish out. There is an active development community for the GP2X Wiz and with a respectable ARM9 533MHz Processor overclockable to 800Mhz you've got plenty of power to play with if you're interested to write your own applications.

Important Note
The Wiz does not come with any emulator software or game roms pre-installed. Out of the box you can play some built in Flash games, but that's it. You'll need to download the freeware emulator for the console or computer system you want to emulate. Then you'll need to unzip the emulator software, and copy it to an SD card along with some game roms you've downloaded. Then start-up the Wiz, go into the "launcher" option and run the emulator. Inside the emulator you'll choose the rom you want to load and then the game can begin. Each emulator software interface is a bit different and most give you the option to overclock the Wiz to get the best performance. Remember you are running emulator software... most games work perfectly, but some may run slow or be glitchy. You may have to configure the controls to work well with the game you want to play. Documentation is not always the best, so you might need to put in a bit of effort to figure things out. If any of this scares you, then you may want to reconsider your purchase.

Here is a great site where you can download all the emulators available for the Wiz as well as other homebrew software. Please take a look at this before you buy.
http://dl.openhandhelds.org/cgi-bin/wiz.cgi


Product Features

* Pocket gaming system can emulate oodles of different old computer systems, arcade games and retro gaming consoles
* Emulation Software Available for: MAME (retro arcade games), Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore VIC20/64/128, Gameboy, Gameboy Advance, NES, SNES, Sega Genesis, NeoGeo and more
* Built-in support for Flash based games
* High-resolution OLED touchscreen with removable stylus
* Built in mic for voice recording
* Stereo Speakers
* Gaming controls feature a d-pad on the left with buttons/d-pad on the right and two shoulder buttons on the top
* Runs Linux
* Buit-in 2000mAh Lithium Polymer Battery runs the system for up to 7 hours
* Charges via USB

Specifications

* CPU - ARM9 533MHz (overclockable to 800MHz), H/W 3D Accelerator
* LCD - 71.12mm(2.8inch) QVGA OLED Touch Screen
* RAM - 64MB
* Built-in Storage - 1GB
* Expansion Port - SD/SDHC
* O/S - Linux
* USB - 2.0 High Speed
* Connecting Port - 24Pin (Other port supported)
* Battery - 2000mAh Lithium-ion Polymer
* Charging System - AC Power / USBPort
* Audio - Built-in Stereo Speakers and 3.5mm headphone jack
* Size - 121mm(w) x 61mm(h) x 18mm(d)
* Video Formats Supported - MPEG4, Xvid, DivxAVI
* Audio Formats Supported - OGG, WAV
* Video Resolution - Max480*272 30fps
* Bit Rate - Image: Max 2500kbps, Sound: Max 384kbps
* Subtitles - smi File
* Built in Flash Light 8.0 Support

You can pick up one of these brilliant consoles from the IWOOT Store.