| Pi |
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Allergic to life
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Tablet for gaming and emulators?
#302460 - 01/12/13 10:53 PM
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I want to buy something for my nephew for gaming. At first I thought of a Nintendo 3DS, although I'm unsure of the capabilities of it in terms of homebrew emulators that I could put in it for the boy. Any ideas there?
Then I thought of an android tablet that he could put for better uses than just gaming. I saw a cheap tablet designed for gaming (that's it, with some pads and buttons besides the tactile screen) with 8gb and a Cortex A9 ARM Mali400 3D aceleration hardware, 512Mb DDR3 with HDMI output. Is that enough for the android-able emulators out there?
What about a mini Ipad? Is that going overboard? How is it for gaming/emulators? Or should I go with the original thought of a 3DS XL?
Thanks for any answers.
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Wound up, can't sleep, can't do anything right, little honey / Oh, since I set my eyes on you. / I tell you the truth.
I can't get it right / Get it right / Since I met you...
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| R. Belmont |
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Cuckoo for IGAvania
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Re: Tablet for gaming and emulators?
[Re: Pi]
#302469 - 01/13/13 05:26 AM
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None of those are ideal for emulators:
- On Android, you really want Android 4.2 or later on a tablet plus a good CPU, and that basically means either the Nexus 7 or Nexus 10 rather than a Chinese no-name like you're describing.
- On iOS, you need to jailbreak to run emulators, but the regular game selection is probably the best of all the devices. Not a huge deal most of the time, although a few legit games/apps don't work properly on jailbroken devices.
- The 3DS currently hasn't been cracked for homebrew, and if/when it finally is it has a very slow CPU (284 MHz ARM11, thanks to MG for reminding me). The first-party game selection is terrific though, of course.
Like I said in the other thread, the big question in this space now is how Nvidia's "Shield" will be priced. It will be the king of mobile emulation devices if it's $249 or less, and highly capable but harder to recommend above that.
Edited by R. Belmont (01/13/13 05:31 AM)
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| Dullaron |
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Diablo III - Dunard #1884
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Don't get a iPad or iPod.
[Re: Pi]
#302480 - 01/13/13 09:26 AM
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Jailbreak only way to play on the emulators. Jailbreak sucks anyway.
Unless you want Arcade type of apps that doesn't require ROM's and Jailbreak. But the good ones cost money.
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W11 Home 64-bit + Nobara OS / AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT / AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 8-Core 3.59 GHz / RAM 64 GB
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italie |
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MAME owes italie many thank yous, hah
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Re: Tablet for gaming and emulators?
[Re: R. Belmont]
#302495 - 01/13/13 04:39 PM
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> None of those are ideal for emulators:
>
> - On Android, you really want Android 4.2 or later on a tablet plus a good CPU, and
> that basically means either the Nexus 7 or Nexus 10 rather than a Chinese no-name
> like you're describing.
Christ, OMAP 5 already? Having a hard time keeping up with the rate these processors are being churned out.
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| mesk |
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@ the arcade
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Re: Tablet for gaming and emulators?
[Re: italie]
#302504 - 01/13/13 07:22 PM
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Grab a PiPo smart S1 or S3.Its a little speed demon.It has a Rockchip rk3066 1.6ghz dual core processor paired with a Mali 400 quad core gpu & 1gb DDR3 ram.
Ships with Android 4.1.1 (Jelly Bean) and is easily rooted and flashed to newer firmware.It also scores higher then the Asus Transformer & a few other well known tablets on Quadrant benchmark.If you dont want to go to that $220 price range (Nexus 7)and only want to spend about $119,you cant go wrong with this one.
Runs all games ive tried on it.Im playing GTA Vice City,Beach Buggy Blast,Dead Space,Dead Trigger,Justice League,Dark Knight,Amazing Spiderman and more.It also runs MAME4Droid Reloaded(the good one,based on 0.139) without a hitch.For emulators im running,Atari,Nes,Snes,TG-16,Genesis,Gameboy,GBC,Gameboy Advance & N64.Still havent tried PS-1,but im assuming they will run as well.My friend just bought a 7" ipad($349.99).He was pretty disappointed to find out not only couldnt he install a sd card,he also couldnt even go to the Poland Springs website and pay his bill on it since they dont support flash. 
Oh yeah you can also hook a 360 controller to it.It has to be wireless and you have to have a xbox 360 wireless receiver,but it works.One warning,it does not come with a AC wall charger(just like the Kindle Fire HD),it comes with a usb cable that can be used to charge it through a PC,and if you buy a usb wall charger,($5.99,ebay) you can use the included wire with it.Its a usb on one side,with a small pin on the other side.
Edited by mesk (01/13/13 07:57 PM)
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Re: Tablet for gaming and emulators?
[Re: Pi]
#303111 - 01/23/13 02:40 PM
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I don't have a tablet yet but if I buy one, I will buy the Ipad Mini 2, it should be released in March.
It has retina display and A6 processor (quad-core).
I've seen a couple of video running Mame4Ios and IFba and they run pretty well, and they use pretty recent version of mame too... Demon Front is running perfect on an Ipad 1.
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| R. Belmont |
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Cuckoo for IGAvania
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Re: Tablet for gaming and emulators?
[Re: kevenz]
#303125 - 01/23/13 06:55 PM
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> I've seen a couple of video running Mame4Ios and IFba and they run pretty well, and
> they use pretty recent version of mame too...
Nope. MAME4IOS is the usual depressing MAME4All 0.36 version. A5X and A6-based iDevices can run modern MAME just fine (and their GPUs would enjoy the eventual GL port of the HLSL filters), but nobody's done that port. The only mobile modern MAME is MAME4Droid Reloaded, which runs 0.139 pretty nicely on Tegra 3 (and should be amazing on Tegra 4 and Exynos 5 devices).
Also, I'm kind of entertained at your certainty on those specs for the Mini 2 given there haven't even been leaks out of China about it yet.
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Re: Tablet for gaming and emulators?
[Re: R. Belmont]
#303199 - 01/25/13 12:42 AM
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Sure the specs aren't 100% confirmed but it should be pretty obvious.
http://code.google.com/p/imame4all/
MAME4iOS Reloaded 1.1. Upgraded to MAME 0.139u1. Added 4/3, pixel video aspects (now works MAME menu aspect ratio selector), improved iPad touch control layout, improved ROM manager, Added emulated resolution selector to improve artwork rendering, added configuration input menus, added missing options like frameskip
Ipad 3 running IFba 0.5
MAME4iOS 1.3 running on iPad 4
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Re: Tablet for gaming and emulators?
[Re: Pi]
#303206 - 01/25/13 04:34 AM
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I'm hoping for the Nvidia Shield, or something like it, to work out really nicely for emulators and such.
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| R. Belmont |
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Cuckoo for IGAvania
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Re: Tablet for gaming and emulators?
[Re: kevenz]
#303232 - 01/25/13 05:56 PM
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> Sure the specs aren't 100% confirmed but it should be pretty obvious.
>
> http://code.google.com/p/imame4all/
>
> MAME4iOS Reloaded 1.1. Upgraded to MAME 0.139u1.
Glad to hear he reversed himself, he told me there wasn't going to be a reloaded for iOS. Now if he could just step those up to 0.148 
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Re: Tablet for gaming and emulators?
[Re: R. Belmont]
#303289 - 01/26/13 01:40 PM
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He actually changed that back in April or so, so we're coming up on about a year. Believe me, I'm about as happy about this as you guys are-- dealing with older, less accurate ROM dumps and less accurate emulation is a pain for the users too.
With any luck, maybe we can actually see the end of MAME4ALL in the next few years (well, after the Raspberry Pi is superseded..)
Then again, with FBA being the new "go-to" for low-end hardware these days, maybe M4A is going away sooner rather than later?
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| R. Belmont |
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Cuckoo for IGAvania
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Re: Tablet for gaming and emulators?
[Re: Firehawke]
#303299 - 01/26/13 05:58 PM
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> Then again, with FBA being the new "go-to" for low-end hardware these days, maybe M4A
> is going away sooner rather than later?
That would be really nice. Even the GCW-Zero should be able to run classic games on the modern code, although I wish it was 300-500 MHz faster. (I backed it anyway on KS, portable M1 and Audio Overload FTW).
Related: we found a "magic fast box" or two in the code this week. Many drivers will be between 2 and 9 times faster starting in u1 and continuing on, which will be huge for lower-end hardware. Watch SVN for "tagmap" commits. (Most of them are for MESS right now since it got audited first, but there are several MAME drivers that could benefit a lot according to the stats Tafoid just ran).
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Re: Tablet for gaming and emulators?
[Re: R. Belmont]
#303301 - 01/26/13 06:46 PM
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> Related: we found a "magic fast box" or two in the code this week. Many drivers will
> be between 2 and 9 times faster starting in u1 and continuing on, which will be huge
> for lower-end hardware. Watch SVN for "tagmap" commits. (Most of them are for MESS
> right now since it got audited first, but there are several MAME drivers that could
> benefit a lot according to the stats Tafoid just ran).
I hope someone (you? or Haze?) will make a detailed blog post on how this was noticed/discovered, how it works, possibly with some before/after benchmark porn. I can't speak for other people, but this the kind of thing that I find really interesting from a software development perspective.
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GroovyMAME support forum on BYOAC
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Re: Tablet for gaming and emulators?
[Re: R. Belmont]
#303325 - 01/27/13 05:45 AM
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The specs on that handheld are underwhelming. "By gamers for gamers" my ass-- you're certainly not going to get Saturn on that thing, so no portable SoTN w/ Maria..
PCEngine should be workable should a decent frontend for Mednafen appear, so at least there's Dracula X and the three Gradius titles on PCE.
Sorry, I'm in a bit of a Konami kick again.. I just picked up Gradius Collection a second time (imported on UMD way back before there was any hope of a US release) for my Vita.
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Try checking the MAME manual at http://docs.mamedev.org
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| R. Belmont |
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Cuckoo for IGAvania
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Re: Tablet for gaming and emulators?
[Re: Firehawke]
#303349 - 01/27/13 05:07 PM
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> The specs on that handheld are underwhelming. "By gamers for gamers" my ass-- you're
> certainly not going to get Saturn on that thing, so no portable SoTN w/ Maria..
Agreed, it's a direct clone of a reference board the chip maker offers and they clearly had no further ambition. The low resolution screen especially hurts - it means e.g. CPS-1/2 games will be downscaled and missing pixels.
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Re: Tablet for gaming and emulators?
[Re: Pi]
#303427 - 01/29/13 01:55 AM
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I just gave a try to Mame4ios 1.3 on my iphone 4 and it's slow as hell... I tried R-Type.
you really need the A6X chip in order to achieve decent speed... mine is A4 and I can't get 80% with auto-frameskip.
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Re: Tablet for gaming and emulators?
[Re: kevenz]
#312626 - 08/09/13 05:52 AM
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bumping this old thread
I feel that sony xperia tablet z is best for emulators, powerful snapdragon s4 krait pro quad core at 1.5ghz cpu, 2 gb ram, ps3 joypad ( though dual shock does not work) compatible natively, ie, no lag and decent controls.
MHL for tv output ( no confirmation if CEC compatible with MHL sony im750 though, ie, control tablet with tv remote like xperia phones), 16/32 gb built in and up to 64gb sd card, making it large capacity for movies and games
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Re: Tablet for gaming and emulators?
[Re: imparanoic]
#312658 - 08/10/13 03:27 AM
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Has anyone tried the nvidea shield yet?
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Re: Tablet for gaming and emulators?
[Re: jmurjr]
#312659 - 08/10/13 04:36 AM
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Shield is apparently good.
[Re: jmurjr]
#312661 - 08/10/13 06:14 AM
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The opinion of the RetroArch staff seems to be that the Shield is the best Android device, period. He's got a thread talking about some of the serious issues he's found doing emulators on Android. Unavoidable latency, hiccuping audio, and so forth.
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Try checking the MAME manual at http://docs.mamedev.org
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Re: Tablet for gaming and emulators?
[Re: krick]
#312770 - 08/13/13 05:20 AM
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> > Has anyone tried the nvidea shield yet?
>
>
> Is that anything like the Dalkon Sheild?
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalkon_Shield
can nvidea shield ( also expensive, however, it's powerful) or ouya ( cheap but limited) survive with ps vita, tablets and phones with joypad support?
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| Dullaron |
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Diablo III - Dunard #1884
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Re: Tablet for gaming and emulators?
[Re: imparanoic]
#312776 - 08/13/13 06:44 AM
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> > > Has anyone tried the nvidea shield yet?
> >
> >
> > Is that anything like the Dalkon Sheild?
> >
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalkon_Shield
>
> can nvidea shield ( also expensive, however, it's powerful) or ouya ( cheap but
> limited) survive with ps vita, tablets and phones with joypad support?
I will give Nvidia Shield two to three years on the market. They probably will move to something else that is much better after this no longer in making.
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W11 Home 64-bit + Nobara OS / AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT / AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 8-Core 3.59 GHz / RAM 64 GB
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Re: Tablet for gaming and emulators?
[Re: Dullaron]
#312784 - 08/13/13 12:43 PM
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Shield specs are actually really good for an ARM product. The Ouya is toast, no two ways about it. Underspecced hardware for when it was *announced*, much less the entire year later when it came out.
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| R. Belmont |
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Cuckoo for IGAvania
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Re: Tablet for gaming and emulators?
[Re: imparanoic]
#312796 - 08/13/13 03:51 PM
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> can nvidea shield ( also expensive, however, it's powerful) or ouya ( cheap but
> limited) survive with ps vita, tablets and phones with joypad support?
I have a Shield. It's not going to replace my iPhone or iPad, but for the specific use case of an open platform where you can legally run emulators, indie games, and the occasional AAA with real controls it's a definite win. The sticks, d-pad, and buttons all feel terrific - equal to or better than the 360/PS3 (the d-pad is better than both of those systems), and far beyond the "slider" analog sticks on the PSP. Yes, it's expensive, but it's miles ahead of Pandora or Ouya or Dingoo on CPU and GPU performance and you should start to see higher-quality and more accurate emulators on it than you do on the slower systems.
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