A month of owning a JXD S7300.

[ssgk]

I'm going to create a light-hearted thread of owning the S7300 for a month, randomly cataloging the first month of ownership, starting today. This may help others in the future, and is meant to be informative.

Day 1
Finally received my JXD from Pandawill. Rather intrigued at the company logo of Pandawill on their tap that used for packing. Regardless, I'm pretty stoked to get this thing running. To my delight, the device came charged (75%) and I was off and running. The power button is located on the left side and you hold it for 2-3 seconds to get it turned on. There is a post screen which will open to the menu after ten seconds, seems long but no biggie. First thing, it is initially setup for a Chinese dialect (unsure which dialect) this annoyed me at first until noticing a on-screen icon in the upper right hand corner which switched to a different background, yet all the same buttons/icons in English (crisis averted!) when inside the settings I ensured it was set to English (which it already was). Still no idea yet how to change the initial menu/GUI to display only English, I continue to hit that same icon in the upper right hand corner to switch to my native language even today (working on day 3). Upon startup I ran through the initial icons. It is pre-built with a slew of media apps (YouTube, google chrome, etc.) which I applaud though doubt I myself will get much use out of (would rather be gaming then using it for anything else, all that space is going to be strictly for games both internal and external (SD Cards). It does come preloaded with an N64 emulator (no game preloaded), a Sega Master System (first Sega console for those who don't know it's real name, with A Sonic game preloaded), a Famicon emulator (the originial Nintendo with Double Dragon preloaded), Mame Emulator (with Cadillacs and Dinosaurs preloaded) and some Android specific games (which I personally have no interest in, this is my nostalgia emulator, maybe not for you but definitely all I'm going to use this for). Each emulator that had a game pre-loaded does have the buttons already mapped for you which you can change at your leisure (I cared not, yet anyways).

Day 2
Went straight to Google Play (built in icon on the menu), after a setup of a gmail account and linking a credit card for purchasing I bee-lined straight to the search function and tried to download EPSXE (highest rated PSX/PS1 emulator), no dice..... Seems there is a problem with my password (F***!!!), worse yet whenever trying to reset my password from the device it goes to a dead link. Double checking my password with another device (iPhone) I discover the password I thought I entered was correct, back to the S7300. Damn Italian Internet in my place is shit (one of many joys of being an American in a foreign country....), after 6PM local time every one in the nation must get online because I am unable to maintain a stable connection, regardless of what device I am using (except my phone which runs on a different network obviously). Gonna turn this thing off and take it into work and bogart some free wifi to tomorrow during lunch. Biggest reason for me buying this was to run PSX/PS1roms to my hearts content (or at least until the wife unit tells me to stop). I'm hoping its just my dorked up Internet connection, more to follow.

[ssgk]

Day 4: definitely an issue with my Internet at home. Logged into google play this morning and purchased EPSXE, can't wait to crack it open and try it out

[ssgk]

Day 6
Local store did not carry any SD Cards larger then 32GB, so I picked up a SanDisk Micro SD, Class 10 in 32GB. PRO-TIP: When you insert the SD Card, allow it to first mount (I prefer the word "format," but whatever) the SD card before doing anything else. I locked mine up three times trying to instantly connect the S7300 to my PC to jump right into dumping roms inside of it. Also, don't do anything else either, I was downloading an SNES emulator at the time (fun fact, google play does have the ability to auto-resume downloads) which probably annoyed the system even more in my anxiousness. It may not have had any supporting ramifications but I figure its best to err on the side of caution. Anyways, I have a new SD Card primed and ready to go. I spent $60 and ordered a 64GB card as well which hopefully will arrive in three weeks, gonna confirm for you all if a 64GB SanDisk micros SD card can in fact be used on this system (hoping someone else is keeping their fingers crossed as much as I am....) when it arrives. If I'm feeling froggy I may dump an extra $100 and get a larger 128GB card and go full retard (yeah I know, you're never supposed to go full retard, but I like to push things to the limit, Texas highway patrol have me enough speeding tickets to prove that.....).

Further gameplay:
With EPSXE, when you first download it, the buttons will be auto mapped as virtual buttons (on screen, not the physical/hard buttons you'd expect). There is a simple fix for this as well, I'll post that as well for future reference for those of you who like me prefer physical buttons (for the force feedback) instead of the virtual buttons. Tony Hawks Pro Skater 1 played flawlessly as did Final Fantasy Chronicles. On the preloaded GBA emulator my version of a few Castlevania roms played flawlessly as well. Tomorrow I will test out how my game save files worked out (or didn't). I'm still tooling around with an SNES emulator and still setting up this new SD Card (the 32GB one), so I'll leave this posting at that. Quick mention, the circular knobs on the device seem a little gimmicky, not sure how else to describe it. They move as they should yet also spin, don't know if this was some predetermined feature in case someone wanted to play Ikari Warriors on Mame (for those of you who remember that arcade game) or if they just do it through some mechanical dark magic for no good reason other then to annoy me....

Last Note:
USB Charging sucks, like really bad. I took the wife out for dinner and we were gone for roughly 3 1/2 hours. In that time it went from 17% battery life to 58% battery life. Food for thought if you were hoping for quick charging like those nifty lighting connectors present any any current ios device. However, I have tested that you can play and charge at the same time.

[ssgk]

Slight annoyance I have come across: Whenever plugging in the device to my PC, it goes to the "Touch the button below if you want to copy files between your computer and your android's SD Card" Too bad that does not always work, if I plug the device it will slightly respond, however it will not go begin the connection (where windows recognizes the internal/external memory card, and if I try to go into settings, it will crash/lock up the whole S7300 entirely. Went through this three times, trying something different. Remove SD card from device, then restarting it. Okay, device is more responsive without SD card inside of it upon startup (is this not f****** weird to anyone else? Sure, use the S7300 to transport around your SD Card but don't you dare trying startup with it in, your system will be possessed by dark magic......), plugged the USB cable in, hit the button as the S7300 device prompted me to, and I'm off and rolling again. Now back to my SD Card, the 8GB's of internal space is squat to my requirements. Damn, whenever I insert/mount the SD card now, my computer recognizes it strictly as the card itself and nothing else. In otherwords, my PC now recognizes that my SD card is a standalone (and somehow my S7300 is simply a carrier...). I mapped one game to the SD card and it works. Soo, here is my timeline to getting the device to work. 1 - remove any SD card that is inside of it, 2 - power up the device, 3 - go into settings, and then insert the SD Card, 4 - wait slightly under one minute for it wake up and get itself in order (with settings open, and clicking the storage tab you can physically view the S7300 booting and recognizing the device), 5 - enjoy life.

SIDE NOTE: This device is rather tempuramental, if you are writing data to the external SD Card, don't plan on doing much else. I tried writing files to the SD card then wanted to dump a few more tasty roms into the actual built in memory (the GBA, SNES ones specifically since those I'd rather have saved the machine at all times, they're small and take up minimal space, plus I want the SD card to be strictly for PSX roms). While it did not lockup/crash as I had experienced earlier (yayyyy....) it did get rather slow, like old people in walkers during a rainstorm in Thailand trying to complete a marathon slow...

Back to gameplay and setup
Since I run EPSXE on my PC I was able to copy the memory card/savestates, not sure if that is a EPSXE benefit or if the other PSX emulators out there also support the same .MCR filetypes for the memory card/savestates. I also dumped in the savestates from my GBA emulator on PC (I use Visual Boy Advance on my PC, not here to judge anyone else's emulator preferences, I just went with what worked for me with minimal setup and play time.) which are in .SAV and .SGM files. Got my fingers crossed that these savestates will work on all three systems/emulators (GBA, SNES, PSX). Save games do work for both GBA, SNES, and PSX, I found something else out that is rather annoying as well. Running PSX roms from the SD Card will slow them down horribly.... I'd say running Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 from the local/internal memory was running at 90-100% (only slowing and it was still very minimal at rare times was during large tricks where the entire map was zoomed out, such as doing a big trick off the side of a building). Meanwhile running THPS1 from the external it went downwards as bad as 60-70 which for me is a deal breaker entirely. A Class 10, 32GB card should not be destroying the quality of the rom running from it this bad. Back to the drawing board I guess, going to have to figure out how to tweak various settings (if even possible) to get PSX roms running at near perfection as they do when ran directly from the devices internal memory.

[ssgk]

EPSXE running roms from external SD Card update:
Even with turning down every possible function (one by one for testing purposes) the games still freeze temporarily, skip, and play horribly. I turned on the FPS to see how it rated and playing my same testing rom (THPS1) it went from 60/60 in the intro screen to as low as 23/60 then strangely upwards of 79/60 then back and forth. The frame skip made it too horrible to play. However, I want to try and see if a different emulator entirely may cure the problem. If a different emulator does not do the trick to make the roms more playable when ran from the external SD card then the problem "could," (I say "could," as it is still trial and error at this point) as this device is known to be fairly picky as to what make/model/size micro SD cards it prefers. I'm hoping it is something simple like the emulator (sadly, as EPSXE has never failed me on other platforms before) is the fix. More to follow.

[alanchow]

Epsxe works fine. See thread below for tests by myself and others.

jxds7300.proboards.com/thread/29/emulator-sony-playstation-epsxe

[ssgk]

Probably that garbage OS load the was included upon purchase. I did some research and updated to a different version entirely, waiting on my Internet to stop acting dumb so I can re-download EPSXE from google play to retry it out as I've been told the stock OS severely hinders performance. Can only hope that this is the fix that will truly make this purchase worthwhile, otherwise its back to waiting for PSX4ALL for IOS to finally get updated...

[crispy]

hey ssgk

I didn't have any problems with the memory card like u have
or any probs with connecting it to my pc but then again I put skelrom v3 on mine as soon as I got it
I remember play ikari warriors 3 in the arcades and spinning the joystick round to do multiple spinning round houses lol
I myself have got a 64gb mem card in and I have got it on a swap so it thinks that its my internal memory card
which is a must if you want lots of app etc to play with,
I agree it takes ages to charge
I just wish I could make the screen brighter, even at max brightness it still seems abit dul browsing and on the desktop

[ssgk]

Day 10

Even after changing out the OS for the supposedly superior one I have found games to still run at 90% functionality. Will try other games although neither of the two games I tried ran perfect (THPS 1&2). Memory card usage is becoming an issue, slightly. Too many PSX games relied entirely upon the first memory card slot and would not allow me to check/cross reference the games save file on a different (the 2nd) memory card. Finding myself constantly going back and forth with the memory card manager program moving save files back and forth and back and forth. Pretty much I have to decide which games (can't remember how many exactly however I'd say it was like 12), I'm going to play in advance to either create space or move the games respective save file over to memory card 1. However that could be a EPSXE issue and not necessarily a device issue. More to follow in a few days as I try it out further. I have a certification (S+) test to study for so I'll be out the loop for testing and reporting for a few days. Definitely going to try some other games (fighting games, racing games, RPG's) and do a comparison between playing them on the S7300 and playing them on a PC. Granted, emulators typically run off a single core regardless of the amount of cores your device actually has, and the PC version will probably run smoother just because its got the right amount of shove I do want to see what the FPS limits are between the two. I dunno, maybe I've been spoiled for too long with PC emulations and running on a portable gaming device (which honestly would be a nostalgia gamers dream) may never par up for a few more years I still have hopes the S7300 will do what I want it to and hold a candle in the PS1 emulation.

[doc]

you have yourself a subscriber to this thread my good sir!

[ssgk]

Day 11 (sort of)
Just had a 64GB Sandisk Class 10 SD Card mailed to me, going to format it then load it with roms and rate some other emulators and roms to see if my lag issues can be fixed. Will post later on how exactly I updated the firmware to an all English set instead of the stock bi-lingual (some dialect of Chinese, and English) from the manufacturer.

[ssgk]

Day 12

To my dismay I misplaced my SD Card somewhere in the house, however after numerous Ikea piece mealing I am pretty sure it's in this jungle of card board boxes that my wife's two kittens are enjoying more than me...

I tooled around some more with EPSXE, honestly I'm a little biased with EPSXE, as its my sole PSX/PS1 emulator for use for PC so you'll have to forgive me as this may appear a little one sides in its favor. As noted earlier I finally shoved some other games over to my 32GB card and went a playing. Here is a listing of what I have played for far with ratings:

Tekken 3 - plays flawlessly, even when going full retard with Eddie Gordon on his ultra combo and even the coveted "rodeo throw," nothing failed and the controls felt solid thorough my 20 minute button mashing tyraid.

Ehrgeiz - Hoping I'm not the only person who remembered this game as it was a complication of sorts between three different games in one (all selectable through the main menu) as an adventure RPG, a fighting game (with controls and fighting system similar to the Tekken series), and a small amount of mini games. Anyhoo, everything played well, although the mini games were slightly irritating mostly as the smaller buttons on the S7300 (in comparison to the original PSX controller) were not easily to use when doing A-B button mashing. Overall very playable with little if any lag at all.

Castlevania SOTN: a real treat for me to replay this game once more on a portable system (some of you would remember the PSP Castlevania game that would "unlock," the SOTN game after doing a series of tasks). The controls were solid as ever and fun with no game play.

Marvel VS Capcom: another fighting game with solid performance, no lag or control issues what so ever.

Pocket Fighter: a "kiddie version," supposedly dumbed down with the controls of street fighter. Again, solid gameplay however the much loved Hadou-Ken fireballs were slightly harder to accomplish. Not sure how as the PC version of the emulator ran easier, can mindlessly chalk it up to the controls however would like to blame it on my fat fingers more than the systems controls.

THPS 1&2: still giving me a few issues with slight lag but mostly when trying to pull off some trick impossible in real life due to physics and or loss of life/limb should you attempt said trick and fall upon your own neck after a 50 foot drop... Mostly seeing the lag right before the charectors land in which is stutters right before landing which makes me glad I never took to skateboarding much after trying IRL the made popular from "Back To The Future," Marty McFly move of grabbing onto moving vehicles as a kid which ended as me doing an epic tumbleweed impersonation much to the dismay of my parents....

It should be noted I ran all these roms off of the SD card and not off the local internal memory if anyone is curious. The touch screen menu of the system is still something of a slight learning curve as you have to precise at times when trying to get to the home screen however the system is very forgiving in that at the press of a few on screen menu buttons will take you right back to where you intended to be. Charging the device is still something of a bother as USB charging the device takes literal hours to complete, will have to research a direct AC power supply as USB charging would not necessarily be a deal breaker it will be a severe annoyence. One thing I have noticed is that playing the device while charging does slow down the charging of the device slower than what it already takes to charge it.

[ssgk]

Forgot to include how I updated the firmware, still tooling around with some USB N64 controllers I ordered for my arcade all-in-one emulator cabinet, will post this before tonight.

[ssgk]

Listed below are the instructions to which I was able to update the firmware to a much better version which runs faster and is strictly English.

First go to: alpine.nodeworks.org/NCCE_v1.1_googleplay.zip and download this zip file. (Copy and paste the link into your internet browser), this is how I got the update to work:

** All credit for this firmware goes soley the folks over at dingooity.org as listed on their site for helping me figure this out - "Damedus, Vektor, ratbuddy for sources, Anderxale for the initial hints, all the users believing in my project, special thanks to strider_mt2k for testings and help and very special thanks to Skelton for his kindness and insight! And to all the monkeys and unicorns who have lost sleep for the creation of this" Many many thanks to those folks for helping with this.

Once the firmware is downloaded to your computer:

1) I hold power and volume + for 20-30 seconds and I come upon a black screen with blue font (named Android system recovery) prompting me to make a choice.

reboot system now
apply update from ADB
apply update from EXT (which I select with the start button on the device, AFTER inserting the fresh SD Card with the files applied to it's root folder)
apply update from cache
wipe data/factory reset
wipe cache partition
wipe media partition

2) I come to the next screen where it asks to choose a package to install which are

patch_NCEE.zip
update_NCEE.zip (which I select with the start button on the device as before)

3) Next screen is all black with yellow font, telling me to install /sdcard, I press the start button once more and it begins the update (I believe), where the android logo appears in the middle of the screen
It tells me the following:
Finding update package...
Opening update package...
Verifying update package...
Installing update...

4) Next screen prompts me to reboot system now, which I do, all the while holding power and vol + once again I did in the first step

5) The screen shows me the android logo and a progress bar, although not prompting me to do anything at all yet, the progress bar moving gives me hope this is going to happen.

(roughly 2 minutes later I am greeting with a screen from the editors)

6) The next screen is the NCCE setup

7) I simply hit next as I have not the knowledge base to try SD swapping which leaves SD swap disabled.
I am prompted to apply the settings, which I do.

As I also do not have a preference yet to launchers, I simply hit next leaving the default Apex Launcher as such.
I am prompted to apply the settings, which I do.

9) Next screen asks what apps I want installed, having experience with some of the romsets I select Mame4droid (0.37b5) along with JXD Game Center for some learning.

10) all programs install and I'm prompted once more to reboot, crossing my fingers on this.


The process itself takes roughly 5-15 minutes total. From there you will off and running with a total updated firmware which runs oodles better then the stock firmware that came with the device. Cannot fathom working the device without the firmware update. It makes life so much easier when using the device.

[doc]

this is really good info! thanks for the tut man! keep em coming!