What games can you play on Palm Pilots?

[Anthony1]

I've noticed that Palm Pilot type devices with color screens have been dropping in price this Holiday season. I'm seeing alot of them at $199.99, and some of them even less than that.


Staples has a deal on a Sony Clie SJ22 for $119.98 after a rebate. It uses the Palm OS 4.1 operatiing system. It has a 320 x 220 transflective color display. The downside, is that it only has 16MB memory, but it does have an expansion slot for the memory stick, to increase that memory.

The Palm Tungsten E is $198.99. It has the Palm OS v5.2.1, and 32MB of built in Ram.

The Viewsonic V36 Pocket PC is $299.99, but it has a $100 rebate on it. So it also fits in the $199 and less category. This one uses the MS Pocket PC 2003 operating system. It's also got a built in digital camera, although of course it's a crappy digital camera. 32MB of Ram built in.

Anyways, I'm not trying to be a Staples sales rep or anything, but I remember when these devices used to cost $500 or $400. I also remember some guy playing a really cool version of Links on a Pocket PC. It looked pretty damn good to me.

What I was wondering though, is can you run any emulators on these? Can you play NES games? TG-16 games? Genny games? Anything?

Or am I better off keeping my $200, and waiting for Sony's new portable gaming machine.

That Sony Clie for $120 after rebate is a pretty damn good deal though. It seems to have the same color screen as the rest of them. Yet it's only $120. Not a bad deal at all, if it can play some cool games.

As for the GameBoy advance and the SP, I'm just not into them. The color screen is just a little bit too small for my tastes. I want a machine with a screen the size of a Palm Pilot.

[davidbrit2]

Well, I've got a Colecovision emulator that runs pretty well on my NX-60. There's an NES emulator too, but it's not free. The guy must have learned from Marat.

Just dig around these two sites and see what you come up with.
http://www.freewarepalm.com
http://www.palmgamingworld.com

[scooterb23]

I would also suggest digging around www.tucows.com for more Palm games...there are a lot of free ones that are great!!

A couple of my favorites are Drugwars and Ackwire (a great version of the board game Acquire).

[NoahsMyBro]

For a few months I've been enjoynig Space Trader on my 2mb Visor.

http://www.freewarepalm.com/games/spacetrader.shtml

[Tom61]

Pocket Pcs are the leader when it comes to emulation, but Palm is begining to catch up. Personally, I'd avoid Palm OS 4 devices, as they have slow processors, and the amount of software being made for them is going to drop rapidly.

I use a Dell Axim Pocket PC myself.

Emulators I have loaded:

PocketNESter - Nintendo http://www.jetech.org/ site seems to be down right now.

yamece - Game Boy classic/color, NES, SNES, PC Engine/Turbo Graphix(sp?) http://www.aximsite.com in the download - games section

Pocket SNES Bleeding Edge - SNES http://paqpark.nuclearfallout.net/projects/pocketsnes.php

Pocket VCS - Atari 2600 http://pocketvcs.emuunlim.com/

CEGG - Game Gear/Sega Master System http://www.geocities.com/bonelyfish/cegg.html

All of the above are free

Morphgear - Game Gear, SMS, NES, SNES, Genesis, Game Boy series including Advanced. http://www.morphgear.com/

This one is shareware, and you have to register the different modules. I hear that the SNES emulation is now faster than Pocket SNES Bleeding Edge, and that GameBoy Advance emulation is fairly speedy. I can't say for sure, as I'm still using an older version.

I have a few other emus loaded, but I don't use them. Pocket Genesis (never got working), PocketNES (PocketNESter works better), Pocket DOS (doesn't run Scorch :( )

Games:
GF Doom - a freeware port of the Doom engine, I use it to play the Doom II wad. http://home.freeuk.com/gamefreaks/pql/gfDoom.htm

Interstellar Flames - cool 3D space fighter game, very reminecent of Zaxxon http://www.xengames.com/

Pocket Slay - a turn based Hex strategy game http://www.windowsgames.co.uk/

Black Jack - free download from MS

Reversi - AKA Othello free download from MS

Patiences Gold - a pack of several Solitaire games. I'm hooked on Russian Solitaire right now. http://www.not-big-deal.com/

[Sph1nx]

What Tom61 siad. Pocket PC's atm have better capabilities for emulation... but Palm OS options are growing. Also MAXPC this month did a shootout and PocketPC won over Palm. But even with that in mind I intended to buy a Palm myself any day now.

[Anthony1]

Would the Viewsonic V36 Pocket PC unit be able to run any of these emulators?

Especially any type of Turbografx or Genesis or SNES emulation.

It retails for $299.99, but there is a $100 rebate right now.

[ianoid]

I got a Kyocera 7135 and all I play on it is Hearts. I'm happy that I could play more, but I'm developing some basic strategies to kick my family's ass when we have our next family trip.

There are so many freeware games, unless you have very high standards, the available stuff can be pretty overwhelming.

I think this phone is underpowered palmwise, but the market was pretty weak when I was buying during the summer. Now you can get pumping phone/pdas for the same price.

No matter, nothing beats the convenience of being tied to only one device. The Palm game market as far as we're concerned (classic/emulation) is only going to explode as the lowest palm standards get higher and higher, allowing us to play just about any classic system on the palms. Do the NES emulators work nicely on palms?

ian

[PongHit]

... I use a Dell Axim Pocket PC myself. Emulators I have loaded:
PocketNESter - Nintendo ...
yamece - Game Boy classic/color, NES, SNES, PC Engine/Turbo Graphix(sp?) ...
Pocket SNES Bleeding Edge ...
Pocket VCS ...
CEGG - Game Gear/Sega Master System ...
Morphgear - Game Gear, SMS, NES, SNES, Genesis, Game Boy series including Advanced.
...

Wow, I had no clue there were so many emu options for PocketPCs. What are the speeds like for these emus? Are the frame rates high enough to be playable?

Thanks,
-PongHit

[RetroYoungen]

A lot of the games on my emus are very playable, though a lot of VCS games I've had trouble actually running (I can't remember which ones). I've got PocketNES, PocketSNES, and PocketVCS, and for the most part they work perfectly. I'm running a Toshiba e355, and the little directional pad doesn't work to well for specific movement on games like Castlevania, but I can't still play a few rounds of Tetris, Earthbound, and Atari VCS Bowling.

I can't find the site now though, where I got the emus... it was some free pocket PC games site... they had a Coleco emu on there too.

[Tom61]

What are the speeds like for these emus? Are the frame rates high enough to be playable?


Especially any type of Turbografx or Genesis or SNES emulation.

Anything but SNES that I listed runs pretty much full speed (frame skip 1) on my 300MHz Dell Axim. On my friends 300MHz Axim, which has the newer faster running Windows Mobile 2003, I got about 80-85% speed with sound in SNES Bleeding Edge. Mine can only get 70% speed since I'm using the older PPC 2002 OS. (just FYI in case anyone was considering a used one) A 400MHz Pocket PC should get very good frame rates in SNES Bleeding Edge or Morphgear, but from what I hear you need to overclock to get full speed SNES or GBA emulation.

I never got any Genesis emus to work, and the only TG16 rom I have is the demo that came with yamece, so I can't comment on speed. Probably other Genesis emus out there, though. Genesis is probably about the same in emulation requirements to SNES.


Would the Viewsonic V36 Pocket PC unit be able to run any of these emulators?

With few exceptions, all Pocket PC software will run on any Pocket PC.


It retails for $299.99, but there is a $100 rebate right now.

Not too bad for retail. If you don't mind ordering online, you can get a PDA for cheaper (remember to factor in shipping though).


I can't find the site now though, where I got the emus... it was some free pocket PC games site... they had a Coleco emu on there too.

Pocket Coleco is by the same author as Pocket VCS, you can find it through the Pocket VCS site.

Is this the site you were talking about? http://www.pocketgamer.org/games/emulators/index.shtml

Oh yeah, it is very recommended you get a memory card, roms can eat up memory fast. Not mention you need space for MP3s, videos, and games. :)

[PongHit]

Cool... And these emus all have sound? How are the controlls for playing games? More or less comfortable than a GBA? Are there enough buttons for gaming (SNES for example)?

Thanks!

-PongHit

[Vroomfunkel]

I believe that Frontiers (David Braben's company) have released DarXide for the Palm - you pay to download it, but it is sure to be a lot cheaper than getting the 32X version, unless you get very very lucky!

Vroomfunkel

[RetroYoungen]

I can't find the site now though, where I got the emus... it was some free pocket PC games site... they had a Coleco emu on there too.

Pocket Coleco is by the same author as Pocket VCS, you can find it through the Pocket VCS site.

Is this the site you were talking about? http://www.pocketgamer.org/games/emulators/index.shtml

Oh yeah, it is very recommended you get a memory card, roms can eat up memory fast. Not mention you need space for MP3s, videos, and games. :)

Yeah, that was the site! LOL

It's got other great stuff on that site too, like some good free games and such. It's one of those games that helped teach me how to play Go (but not to get good at it :( ).

And I second to memory card, without one of those you could miss out on some quality game and music time!

[RetroYoungen]

Cool... And these emus all have sound? How are the controlls for playing games? More or less comfortable than a GBA? Are there enough buttons for gaming (SNES for example)?

Thanks!

-PongHit

At least on the Toshiba e355, the controls are a bit like a GBC setup. It's comfy, though I wish I had a real controller that I can hook up and play with for games like Joust and Kickle Cubicle.

As for sound, PocketNES has kind of garbled sound, like missing notes and sort of a static feel, and when you can ge it to work right, Pocket SNES has pretty smooth sound.

[Tom61]

Cool... And these emus all have sound?

Yes.


How are the controlls for playing games? More or less comfortable than a GBA? Are there enough buttons for gaming (SNES for example)?


Varies from Pocket PC to Pocket PC. Most don't have enough buttons for SNES, but Pocket SNES and alot of other emus have an 'on screen' game pad that you can use if the game your running needs all the buttons (most need 4 or less, and can easily be mapped to front buttons). Definately look at the comments about gaming on forums about the PPC you're looking at getting ( http://www.brighthand.com covers almost all of them ). Some (most notably Toshiba models) have 'button lag' which would be a major problem for gamming.

Buying a PDA soley for gaming probably isn't a good decision, it definately should be considered an 'extra feature'. I use my Axim for ebook reading, keeping a list of tasks I need to do, storing maps and directions to places I need to go to, and other stuff besides gaming. Card games are well suited to PDAs, though.

If you want a PDA primarilly for gaming, there are two that stand out: The Tapwave Zodiac and the Casio E-125.

The Tapwave Zodiac is a Palm OS 5 PDA, designed for gaming. Most of the emulation developement for Palm OS has been spurred by this device. Problem is this cost $299 online for the 32MB model.

The Casio E-125 is a Pocket PC 200 MIPS PDA, the layout of it's D-pad and buttons is well suited to gaming. The problem is that it's an older PDA and it's using a 'retired' processor. Most Emus out there still have Mips releases, so it isn't to big of a deal. However, this is not powerful enough for decent SNES emulation without overclocking, unfortunately, but will be able to run most other stuff fine. This seems to be the PDA developers use for a lot of emus and games. Also, this only has 3 buttons on the front. One large benifit of this PDA is that it can be found very cheap on ebay.


It's comfy, though I wish I had a real controller that I can hook up and play with for games like Joust and Kickle Cubicle.



External Game pads for Pocket PC:

Generic
Someone made a driver for the Gravis Stinger serial gamepad to have it work on most PPCs. You need the pad (about $5-10 on ebay), a serial cable for your PDA ($10-30), and a couple of adapters from Radio Shack (~$15). It has 8 buttons plus Start and Select. It doesn't work with the Dell Axim though. :(

HP iPaq models:

BenQ gamepad - snaps to the bottom of the IPaq (you'll need to modify it for the smaller iPaqs such as the 2215). has 4 buttons plus Start and Select on the front(might have a couple on the back). $40 last I checked.

Zeta Gamepad - connects to the iPaq sync port through a cable - has 6-10 buttons (can't remember exactly). Somewhat hard to get ahold of, usually imported from Taiwan.

Dell Axim:

None yet, but the Thumb Keyboard for it comes very close. I'm planning to hack a PSX through it.


I've seen at least one gamepad for Palm OS handhelds, but don't have details.

[Tom61]

Cool... And these emus all have sound?

Yes.


How are the controlls for playing games? More or less comfortable than a GBA? Are there enough buttons for gaming (SNES for example)?


Varies from Pocket PC to Pocket PC. Most don't have enough buttons for SNES, but Pocket SNES and alot of other emus have an 'on screen' game pad that you can use if the game your running needs all the buttons (most need 4 or less, and can easily be mapped to front buttons). Definately look at the comments about gaming on forums about the PPC you're looking at getting ( http://www.brighthand.com covers almost all of them ). Some (most notably Toshiba models) have 'button lag' which would be a major problem for gamming.

Buying a PDA soley for gaming probably isn't a good decision, it definately should be considered an 'extra feature'. I use my Axim for ebook reading, keeping a list of tasks I need to do, storing maps and directions to places I need to go to, and other stuff besides gaming. Card games are well suited to PDAs, though.

If you want a PDA primarilly for gaming, there are two that stand out: The Tapwave Zodiac and the Casio E-125.

The Tapwave Zodiac is a Palm OS 5 PDA, designed for gaming. Most of the emulation developement for Palm OS has been spurred by this device. Problem is this cost $299 online for the 32MB model.

The Casio E-125 is a Pocket PC 200 MIPS PDA, the layout of it's D-pad and buttons is well suited to gaming. The problem is that it's an older PDA and it's using a 'retired' processor. Most Emus out there still have Mips releases, so it isn't to big of a deal. However, this is not powerful enough for decent SNES emulation without overclocking, unfortunately, but will be able to run most other stuff fine. This seems to be the PDA developers use for a lot of emus and games. Also, this only has 3 buttons on the front. One large benifit of this PDA is that it can be found very cheap on ebay.


It's comfy, though I wish I had a real controller that I can hook up and play with for games like Joust and Kickle Cubicle.



External Game pads for Pocket PC:

Generic
Someone made a driver for the Gravis Stinger serial gamepad to have it work on most PPCs. You need the pad (about $5-10 on ebay), a serial cable for your PDA ($10-30), and a couple of adapters from Radio Shack (~$15). It has 8 buttons plus Start and Select. It doesn't work with the Dell Axim though. :(

HP iPaq models:

BenQ gamepad - snaps to the bottom of the IPaq (you'll need to modify it for the smaller iPaqs such as the 2215). has 4 buttons plus Start and Select on the front(might have a couple on the back). $40 last I checked.

Zeta Gamepad - connects to the iPaq sync port through a cable - has 6-10 buttons (can't remember exactly). Somewhat hard to get ahold of, usually imported from Taiwan.

Dell Axim:

None yet, but the Thumb Keyboard for it comes very close. I'm planning to hack a PSX through it.


I've seen at least one gamepad for Palm OS handhelds, but don't have details.

[Anonymous]

*Bump*

I checked out some of the sites listed above but couldn't find anything other than the Game Boy emulator for Palm.

Does anybody have any suggestions for PalmOS emulators?

[christianscott27]

i've got so many other things ahead of upgrading my PDA that i stick with my trusty 3 year old visor. i've downloaded a lot of games to it and most are somewhat lacking, usually in the control dept. mappy is good though. the one game that i've killed batteries with is Sim City, yes i know but its a damn fine game for the format. the game is basically what you had on the SNES version.

[NoahsMyBro]

SimCity on your Visor ??!! Tell me you have the 2mb model, please!

-- Steve

PS: Haven't seen you around much, since you gave up fighting the good fight over in the BZ. Good to see you back here.

[Tom61]

I checked out some of the sites listed above but couldn't find anything other than the Game Boy emulator for Palm.

Considering I posted nearly all the links, (for Pocket PC) I don't doubt that. Try doing a Google search for Palm emulator or Zodiac emulator.

Unfortunately, I'm now without a functional PDA (unless you count my Cybikos or key chain PDAs, which I don't). I took my Axim out of coat pocket after getting to my friend's place and noticed a nice large crack across the screen. X_x x_x

Screen and digiizer are dead. :( I think I got another one on the way with a bad motherboard, and I can transfer the screen from that one to this one and get it working again. (I hope) If this fails, it looks like I'm going be in the PDA market too.