jefftheworld
Offline
Toronto, Ontario, Canada

For the longest time I've avoided using software like Pulsar and LSDJ in emulation because the controls were just not right. I recently noticed that the price of the Nvidia Shield had come way down and decided to pick one up, mainly to play emulated games (even the PlayStation and N64 play very smoothly on this thing and the controller has a good feel and high build quality).

However, I tried out LSDJ on a whim and realized that this was a more eye-friendly way of using some of my favourite chip trackers on the go. This thing is a dream for LSDJ, Pulsar, NTRQ, PR8 and other controller-based software! Battery life is very, very good. It's got a massive 7350 mAh battery and it's 5" 1280 x 720 LCD looks great even in bright sunlight.

What I'm looking for now is other software that I could use with this thing. It allows you to create custom button maps (mapping touch events and gestures to the gamepad) so even if the software isn't gamepad enabled it might work, although obviously some stuff just isn't suited to this.

It also has HDMI out and can technically do 4k, so it might also be a good portable visuals machine. Since it's built on Android (4.4.2, currently) it's quite easily customized, even rooting is easy and Xposed runs fine. I've gotten MIDI input and output working on a basic level so any audio or visual software could potentially take advantage of that, as well.

I really wish that LGPT would be ported to Android, although I suppose emulation might allow me to run that, too. What music software - either native android or something I can emulate - do you recommend that is controller-friendly?

Last edited by jefftheworld (Jul 1, 2014 2:03 am)

BTS
Offline
Ohio

Nanoloop come to mind immediately.  It was originally designed for Gameboy and it could be really nice on the Shield.

You could emulate LGPT, it has a Windows version.

Milkytracker also has an Android and Windows version, so it could go either way.

egr
Offline
Abandoned on Fire

Have you tried PPSSPP emulator for piggy? It works on my Note 3, worth a shot!

jefftheworld
Offline
Toronto, Ontario, Canada

I tried Milkytracker but the interface was never really designed for a controller, even after mapping it out it's far too awkward to use. Running Piggy via PPSSPP is great, though. Pulsar, LSDJ and LGPT will probably satisfy my for a while. Chances are I'll still use the original hardware for playing back Pulsar and LSDJ but as a playform to write on this thing is a great alternative.

Beware
Offline

I'm soldering a USB controller to my Raspberry Pi and creating my own Shield.  It already has LGPT, a slew of great emulators, and Limelight to simulate most of what the Shield already is.

jefftheworld
Offline
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Beware wrote:

I'm soldering a USB controller to my Raspberry Pi and creating my own Shield.  It already has LGPT, a slew of great emulators, and Limelight to simulate most of what the Shield already is.

I've tried using Limelight with both a Raspi and Beaglebone black and it works to some degree but not nearly as well as the Tegra 4 and MIMO on the Shield does. That said, I didn't buy the Shield as a streaming device and I'm almost exclusively playing native games and local emulators. Half-Life 2, Jet Set Radio, San Andreas, Rochard, plus a slew of emulators. The screen looks great, the Tegra 4 is very powerful, the controller is very comfortable and well build and the battery life is unbeatable.

If you're looking to build a similar device on the cheap or as a project, more power to you. I did the same. However, for $200 the Shield is worth every penny. I was super skeptical when it first came out but after trying one out and hearing about the price drop, I realized it's totally worthwhile. I'm even running debian within a chroot which runs very well alongside Android


EDIT:

Some tips, if you want Limelight to stream with a low enough latency to play games you'll want to hook it up with 2×2 MIMO (2.4 GHz/5 GHz) wifi. In my experience the multi input/output wifi makes a very big difference. Otherwise you can use a wired connection, which works at least for the setup to ensure that you're able to optimize your configuration.

Last edited by jefftheworld (Jul 2, 2014 5:44 am)

DogTag
Offline
Murcia, Spain

This is somehow unrelated but here it goes: I tried playing Majora's Mask some time ago through emulation on a good android device, but you always got to a point where the game freeze... Has this issue been solved and N64 games are fully operative on any emulator?

starpause
Offline
San Francisco

i love my shield it's super yummy

BLEO
Offline
Geneva, NY
starpause wrote:

i love my shield it's super yummy

but not yummy enough to get LGPT running in PPSSPP! tongue

Come on Android port!!!

jefftheworld
Offline
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
DogTag wrote:

This is somehow unrelated but here it goes: I tried playing Majora's Mask some time ago through emulation on a good android device, but you always got to a point where the game freeze... Has this issue been solved and N64 games are fully operative on any emulator?

Haven't played Majora's Mask but most N64 games I've tried are working great. Playstation, N64, DS and PSP emulation all work well but have some games that don't function or have minor glitches. Anything older (SNES, C64, etc) works pretty much flawlessly.

Given the power of modern processors there's actually quite a lot of potential for newer systems to be emulated well but coders need to optimize their emulation cores for mobile processors and GPUs. Most emulators for PS2, Gamecube, etc are straight ports of ARM emulators and aren't heavily modified aside from a front-end GUI.


EDIT:

Running LGPT in a Debian chroot works extremely smoothly but it's an awkward solution and I'd prefer to try emulating a GP2X or PSP. I'll report back if I have a working solution. An Android port would be optimal, obviously.

Last edited by jefftheworld (Jul 2, 2014 11:49 pm)