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The GP2X is an open-source, Linux-based handheld video game console and media player created and sold by GamePark Holdings of South Korea.

Overview

Released on November 10, 2005 in South Korea, the GP2X is designed to play video and music, view photos, and play games. It has an open architecture, allowing anybody to develop and run software. Also, there is 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 is for running emulators, which allow one to use software from 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 (including all but one GP32 engineer) 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. In contrast, GamePark is developing the XGP and GPKiDS systems.

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. Confusion with a potential second generation printer needed to be avoided, so a contest for a new name was announced on August 3, 2005. Around 1500 names were submitted in total, but further trademark issues prevented the registration of the top 15 names. Eventually, during discussions in Seoul with the UK distributor it was decided to simply reverse the last two characters of the original name to give the final GP2X.

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. The differences between editions are detailed on the GP2X wiki.

As of October 16th, 2006, the GP2X has sold 30000 units, and is expected that sales will reach to 50000 by Christmas. Due to the open nature of the console, several applications were made for it and has become a versatile device that may end up supplanting older game consoles which it emulates.

Hardware

Specifications

* Chipset: [http://www.mesdigital.com/english/Products/product_mmsp2.asp MagicEyes MMSP2] MP2520F System-on-a-Chip
* CPU: 200MHz [http://www.arm.com/products/CPUs/ARM920T.html ARM920T] host, 200MHz ARM940T
* NAND Flash ROM: 64 MB
* RAM: SDRAM 64 MB
* Operating System: Linux-based OS
* Storage: SD Card
* 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, 260,000 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)

Despite advertising and general blogosphere consensus to the contrary, the GP2X is not a dual-core device as far as the provided Linux OS is considered---it sees only the ARM920T.

Expandability

The GP2X has a proprietary EXT port on the base of the unit into which a special USB cable or break out box can be plugged, allowing for USB devices to be connected to and used on 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.

TV Output

The GP2X also supports TV-out with a special cable that plugs into the EXT port. This allows videos that are normally scaled down to fit the GP2Xs 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, but with a special application it is possible to enable 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 off mains power. Due to the high current drain, standard alkaline batteries will not function for very long in the GP2X so NiMH or Lithium batteries are recommended.
Battery life varies depending on the type of activity being performed on the console 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 source. If a main power supply is used, it must be rated 3.3V DC at 1A with a standard center grounded connector. The power supply must be regulated as voltage spikes will 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. The firmware currently supports SD cards up to 4 GB in capacity. SD cards must be formatted as either FAT16, FAT32 (FAT32 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.

Overclocking

The two ARM cores 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 some occasionally reaching over 300MHz and others barely reaching 240MHz (many systems can be overclocked beyond 240MHz with no problems). Some distributors have started to sell pre-tested GP2Xs, pricing them based on the maximum speed one can reach on that particular unit (though their testing is not guaranteed and has been proved not to be always correct due to the maximum speed possible is influenced by many factors including temperature and battery power).

Multimedia support

Video

* Video formats: DivX 3/4/5, XviD (MPEG4)
* Audio formats: MP3 and Vorbis
* Container files: AVI and OGM
* Maximum Resolution: 720*480
* Captions: SMI, SRT
* Battery Life: 4-5 hours average, longer times possible with high capacity batteries and with use of the power saving modes within.

Audio

* Audio Formats: MP3, Ogg Vorbis
* Channels: Stereo
* Frequency Range: 20Hz - 20kHz
* Power output: 100mA
* Sample Resolution/Rate: 16bit/8-48 kHz
* Equalizer: includes "Normal", "Classic", "Rock", "Jazz", "Pop" presets
* Battery Life: ~10 hours (information given by manufacturer: 2 x 2850mAh AA battery)

Software

Due to the fact that 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.
* [http://archive.gp2x.de/cgi-bin/cfiles.cgi archive.gp2x.de] - Provides downloads for most of the software available for the GP2X

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.

Also available in the firmware (though not accessible directly through the menu) is 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 finally, 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.

Emulators

There are many emulators available for the GP2X which allow you to run software from other systems on the GP2X as long as you possess a copy of the software you wish to run (generally in the form of a ROM dump). 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 Color emulator; MAME, an emulator of various arcade machines and DrMD, which emulates the Master System, Game Gear and Mega Drive.

* [http://wiki.gp2x.org/wiki/Software_Directory#Emulators List of Emulators] - a very complete list of emulators for the GP2X
* [http://wiki.gp2x.org/wiki/Emulation Emulation speculation] - Speculation on the ability for computer hardware to be emulated on GP2X.

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, only Vektar, Payback, Retrovirus RTS and Blazar have been released as commercial games for the GP2X, though other games such as Odonata are set to be released soon (exact dates not yet confirmed).

However, there are many ports of games from other platforms, mostly Linux, to the GP2X. Popular ports include Super Tux and 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 dozens of 'homebrew' games such as Tile Match and Beat2x, made by programmers at home 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 [http://archive.gp2x.de/cgi-bin/cfiles.cgi?0,0,0,0,6,1267 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. [http://archive.gp2x.de/cgi-bin/cfiles.cgi?0,0,0,0,6,1679 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 very good 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 [http://www.retrodev.info/forum/viewforum.php?f=26 Minimal Library SDK], which allows for direct hardware access inside the GP2X Linux environment, and [http://www.cobbleware.com/files/sdk2x_191205d.tar.gz 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.

GP2X Executables

GP2X executable files have one of two 3 letter 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.

Controversy

DRM

There has been debate [http://www.boingboing.net/2005/09/20/linuxbased_handheld_.html] over the inclusion of DRM in the GP2X. As yet, there's no information on how exactly this DRM restricts the rights of users. Gamepark Holdings has however stated [http://www.gpx2.com/support/support_sugest_view.asp?indexNo=1722&page=1&bunho=17&part=00] that DRM will be used only to restrict commercial games made for the system, and will not be used to restrict user-loaded content. Two possible protection schemes are locking software to operate only from the Secure Digital (SD) card on which it is shipped, or locking it to the unique hardware ID of a single GP2X unit.

However, it is possible to find the serial number of a device. This could be used in DRM technology.
[http://wiki.gp2x.org/wiki/I2C]

Copyright violations

The GP2X firmware utilizes 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 released when the GP2X was released to consumers.("[http://bjimba.blogspot.com/2006/01/gp2x-needs-gpl-lesson.html GP2X needs a GPL lesson]", Jim Russell, 10 January 2006)
* February 18, 2006 - Kernel source for [http://svn.gp2x.com/gp2x/tag/kernel/1.4.0/ Firmware 1.4.0] released.
* July 6, 2006 - Modified MPlayer source code released, however without significant bits to use the hardware Mpeg-4 decoder, and since that was statically linked into the MPlayer binary, currently it has been moved out to a precompiled closed source kernel module, a GPL violation in itself.
* The kernel source for [http://svn.gp2x.com/gp2x/tag/kernel/2.0.0/ Firmware 2.0] has also been released, however the i2c code had been removed, so a copyright violation is still present.
* Much of the uboot code is missing from what they have released.

This entry uses material from from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. Disclaimer.