Joined in 2023 
82 
63 About this deal
That is quite the list, and whenever any of us see GameCube, PS2, and Wii, it’s hard not to get excited. It is the turn of Mupen64Plus with Body Harvest running on it. We tried various first and third party games and did not have any issues at all with frame drops or performance in general. Everything should work great! DeSmuME- Castlevania Portrait of Ruin Personnally I’m really hyped about this device, I’d rather trust GPD (I’ve owned a bunch of their devices and I had the XD then XD+ be my daily driver for years) and buy the XP than trust Ayn and their Odin, that could very well be pure vaporware.
For owners of the GPD XP, the GPD XP Plus doesn’t seem worth the upgrade. There isn’t enough that’s new here to justify it. But for people coming in new, well, there’s the Ayn Loki or the Aya Neo Air, and for those looking to save, there’s the Evercade Exp. Many people will be buying the GPD XD 2 to play old games, but it will also have WiFi connectivity so that you can hook up to the web to play Fortnite and PUBG. To be honest though, the XD Plus didn’t do this very well, which was again down to the OS not pulling its weight. Of course, how engineers work within the framework of the tech is often a deciding factor in performance. So while the XP could feasibly be stronger, whether it will is still guesswork and we need to see more of it in action before passing judgement.
Please Note
Given that, it looks as though the GPD XP isn’t really designed with emulation in mind. Rather for native Android gaming and in particular FPS and MOBA type games. It’s a shame, even a 16:9 screen could have helped to bridge the disparity between these two gaming worlds. However, if you’re part of the target demographic then this form factor is probably quite enticing. GPD XP SPECS It might even be able to act as a power bank for other USB-C devices too – now that would be something. WiFi Capabilities A good example of this is the PSP running N64 games. That shouldn’t be possible from a hardware point of view, yet thanks to some very clever engineering, it is. Conversely, just because something has the means doesn’t mean it’ll be utilised fully. It’s a case of wait and see, as always. At first glance, the GPD XP looks a lot like a mobile phone slotted into a snug fitting controller. The superfluous hole punch front facing camera certainly adds to that aesthetic, as does that crazy wide LCD. We know that the LCD is 6.81″, and looking at some phones with the same size screen it seems likely to be a 20:9 aspect ratio. Not all games machines make good emulation machines, and we already know that Android MOBA gamers are one of the target demographics for this handheld. For games such as those, having a wider screen is perhaps very beneficial, allowing a wider view of the action around you.
The GPD XP’s most novel feature is perhaps the modularity of the controller. As rumoured last year, the controller on the right hand side is detachable, and the reason for this seems to be for better support of MOBA style games. MOBAs are apparently often played using the touchscreen on the right side for camera controls. The modular slimline controller allows easy reach to the screen, as well as providing five additional action buttons. Alternatively, a blanking plate allows full use of the right side of the screen including any on screen buttons. Thank you to The Phawx for the explanation, I am old and haven’t a clue. Well, the GPD XP Plus features a more powerful flagship MediaTek Dimensity 1200 chip under the hood, compared to the MediaTek Helio G95 found on yesteryear’s model. The SoC is said to provide a better gaming experience as it comes in an octa-core configuration, 4 Cortex A78 high-performance cores + 4×A55 efficient cores, powered by ARM’s Mali-G77 MC9 GPU and with speedy 4266Mbps LPDDR4x memory. In addition, the Dimensity 1200 features the MediaTek HyperEngine 3.0 which enhances the gaming performance to 2.5 times more than the flagship Snapdragon 845 chip.What is actually possible? Quite a lot. This doesn’t feel like the usual case where companies list every console while knowing full well there’s no way it runs everything. The GPD XP, however, does seem like it’s in this ballpark. We tried the Xbox Cloud Gaming beta for Android and it works great with high end games such as Forza Horizon 5. You do need a subscription to Xbox Game Pass to use this. It essentially lets you stream games from the Microsoft servers to your GPD XP Plus gaming handheld. We had no problems with the streaming quality or drops in WiFi speed, especially with the router being around 15 metres across the office. It all works great! Screen Mapping Software We’re big fans of the shape of the console and it emulates many games perfectly, giving retro gaming fans a chance to relive some of their favourite titles at home and on the go. But, having said that, there were and still are some major firmware issues, and the Android software the console uses is now way outdated. The successor to GPD’s XD Plus has been a long time in the making. For a while there it seemed GPD had moved on to new pastures with their Windows based mini laptops and gaming devices. But here we are, the handheld once rumoured to be the XD2 has been officially announced, and will be known as the GPD XP. MODULARITY AND CONTROLS
If the OS stays current and the gameplay smooth, then this will be an absolute beauty to play. The original XD Plus came with MT8176+PowerVR Hexa-core processor, 4GB RAM and 32Gb Storage, which twinned with the right OS would make for the kind of super-smooth play that dreams are made of. We think that we might see the RAM increased to 8GB as stated above if the info we have is true and the storage increased to at least 64GB for holding all of your favourite titles. Console Emulation Other improvements include support for 30W fast charging and LPDDR-4266 memory. The new model also has a USB Type-C port that supports video out at up to 4K resolutions at 60 Hz or 1080p at up to 168 Hz if you want to hook the handheld up to an external display. The right controller section of the console can be snapped out and replaced. That’s the hook, essentially. The GPD XD 2 needs to deliver where the previous consoles fell short of the mark, bringing smooth emulation of games like Ocarina of Time and the other best N64 games to life with ease. Button Layout Included with the XP are two different controller options. One is a controller that mirrors the left side of the console, and the other, a MOBA-focused design featuring numbered buttons.
It couldn’t quite emulate all of the consoles that it boasted on the menu selection screen, and the build quality didn’t instil the same level of faith that you get when whipping out your 3DS and cruising through your best Nintendo 3DS games. Pro Evo 2010 on the other hand runs just fine and is extremely playable. We did try some other games and it’s definitely a mix of what works and doesn’t. Some of this is down to the emulator compatibility and performance, and some is simply the XP Plus is not powerful enough. Citra Emulator Citra emulator Genshin Impact does require screen mapping to play the game with the gamepad. There are plenty of buttons for the gameplay, but you will need to use the touchscreen for the menus and maps for example. The start of the game is a bit quiet for action, but everything seems to be running very smoothly, and it also looks amazing on the display. Final Thoughts Horizon Chase is another game that has built in support for gamepads. The game blazes along at a great frame rate and I did not have any issues at all. Genshin Impact Genshin Impact Mobile with controller support Now time for some Dual Screen action with DeSmuME running Castlevania Portrait of Ruin. We did notice one or two minor drops in games now and again, but definitely nothing that would affect your playing of the game. Vertical orientation is also playable
So, when we received a secret tip-off about the GPD XD 2, it grabbed our attention and hooked us in like nerdy-trout. The short version: The XP Plus is a more powerful version of the GPD XP. Whether that extra power is worth it, will be up for owners to decide. GPD XP Plus Release Date Gran Turismo 3 initially starts off a bit laggy when there are a lot of cars on screen, but once things settle down it’s mostly running at full speed. With some settings tweaks you can probably get it running a bit smoother overall. One of the main problems that the GPD XD 2 needs to overcome is the firmware it uses to play the vast catalogue of games available to it. But unless this is all an early April fools joke, GPD appear to want to keep the XP product line alive. They’ve just announced a new revision, now called the GPD XP Plus. If you were GPD, what changes would you make to the product? A normal width screen perhaps? Removal of that hole punch camera in the bottom left of the LCD? Get rid of the superfluous modular controllers? Maybe even a return to the clamshell design that so many people have begged them for. Changing any of the things that the internet said were weird and wrong about the product would be a great start.A lot of the specs here are going to sound like another language for most. The long and short of it is it’s comparable with the AYN Odin, and in some departments, beats the Odin.
Related:
Great Deal 
New Comment