Recent Handhelds - Follow-Ups
Feb. 2nd, 2024 08:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroThis is less a “state of the ecosystem” and more an update on various handhelds I posted about a few months ago.
I gave away the Data Frog SF2000, and I sold the M17 Retro Handheld on eBay to recover some of my investment.
RG35XX: Koriki OS (v1.03) - I had a lot of hiccups when I tried to update Koriki; the 1.02 version loaded after a bunch of fiddling but the Gamestation/Batocera version of the OS wouldn't shut down, and when I switched it to Simplemenu psp and ds no longer worked. Then I realized that version 1.03 was available. I tried updating to 1.03 but it wouldn't boot, so I wiped the card and tried again but my computer wouldn't read the SHARE partition. Eventually, I needed to wipe the SD card again, image it, format SHARE as fat32 and resize it (and assign a drive letter!), then boot it up, then bring it back to load games on. That all worked fine and I think it’s basically at a mildly-improved state from v1.01. The same issues with NeoGeo, Pokemini and Pico-8 persist (at least in Simplemenu); N64, PSP and DS run shockingly well given the device specs. The biggest addition is the ability to switch to Gamestation as the frontend from the “Ports and Apps” menu, if you prefer that. You can switch back to Simplemenu from the Ports section in Gamestation. This still could be improved by mapping box art; I’ll have to decide if I’m in the mood.
I briefly swapped back to the GarlicOS card, which is admittedly better for fast pick up and play. I checked: GarlicOS hasn’t received any updates since last April and I doubt it will see any more. I also have the r36s for doing the higher-end systems on the smaller screen (and with all the buttons), which may influence how I use the RG35XX. For the record, Black-Seraph has GarlicOS 2.0 out in alpha, but only for the RG35XX+, not the original RG35XX.
TRIMUI Smart Pro - I did eventually figure out how to change the RetroArch UI to rgui: I needed to save the configuration and manually restart RetroArch. I also figured out how to manually add cheats within the RetroArch UI on the fly, which is handy on several systems. While I haven’t done a full careful battery life check, this seems to get about 4 hours on average. The system gets warm while playing, which is unusual--especially for GBA, which shouldn’t be particularly intensive—but in theory the firmware update addresses that. I happen to really like this device for GBA because that uses most of the screen real estate. Upon further playtesting, DS and PSP games can be a bit janky, especially compared to a more powerful device like the Retroid Pocket 3; but that’s less noticeable after I installed the firmware update below.
My attempts to manually changes settings to add Game Gear (which already had the core installed, even!) were ineffective. (I also couldn’t get a new Best folder past a certain point—I can make it exist with custom cover art, but I can’t get it to recognize all the systems I want.) Fortunately, Trimui posted updated firmware that took forever to download but was easy to install. With the new firmware, Game Gear and Lynx work properly. They added a Pico-8 emulator, but it doesn’t recognize my games. There are also cores for Sega Saturn, Openbor, EasyRPG, and a new version of MAME; I haven’t done anything with them. And as noted, there are clearly performance tweaks, too. I highly recommend updating your firmware if you’ve got one of these or buy one.
R36S Game Console - I’ve generally been happy with this. It also gets 4-5 hours of battery life, depending on the systems you play. I figured out that if you manually add lynxboot.img to the bios folder, Lynx runs fine. Nobody seems to have found a way to make N64 run better, though, and while the hot thing is switching the firmware, I’m not actually seeing a benefit to doing so. My biggest complaints about the system are all hardware-based (@#% fake menu button), and the software does almost everything I want it to.
And all of that said, I’m actually spending the most time on my Retroid Pocket 3. It’s up to about 170 total hours (the largest total after the RG350) and is still getting plenty of use, particularly with KEMCO games.
I gave away the Data Frog SF2000, and I sold the M17 Retro Handheld on eBay to recover some of my investment.
RG35XX: Koriki OS (v1.03) - I had a lot of hiccups when I tried to update Koriki; the 1.02 version loaded after a bunch of fiddling but the Gamestation/Batocera version of the OS wouldn't shut down, and when I switched it to Simplemenu psp and ds no longer worked. Then I realized that version 1.03 was available. I tried updating to 1.03 but it wouldn't boot, so I wiped the card and tried again but my computer wouldn't read the SHARE partition. Eventually, I needed to wipe the SD card again, image it, format SHARE as fat32 and resize it (and assign a drive letter!), then boot it up, then bring it back to load games on. That all worked fine and I think it’s basically at a mildly-improved state from v1.01. The same issues with NeoGeo, Pokemini and Pico-8 persist (at least in Simplemenu); N64, PSP and DS run shockingly well given the device specs. The biggest addition is the ability to switch to Gamestation as the frontend from the “Ports and Apps” menu, if you prefer that. You can switch back to Simplemenu from the Ports section in Gamestation. This still could be improved by mapping box art; I’ll have to decide if I’m in the mood.
I briefly swapped back to the GarlicOS card, which is admittedly better for fast pick up and play. I checked: GarlicOS hasn’t received any updates since last April and I doubt it will see any more. I also have the r36s for doing the higher-end systems on the smaller screen (and with all the buttons), which may influence how I use the RG35XX. For the record, Black-Seraph has GarlicOS 2.0 out in alpha, but only for the RG35XX+, not the original RG35XX.
TRIMUI Smart Pro - I did eventually figure out how to change the RetroArch UI to rgui: I needed to save the configuration and manually restart RetroArch. I also figured out how to manually add cheats within the RetroArch UI on the fly, which is handy on several systems. While I haven’t done a full careful battery life check, this seems to get about 4 hours on average. The system gets warm while playing, which is unusual--especially for GBA, which shouldn’t be particularly intensive—but in theory the firmware update addresses that. I happen to really like this device for GBA because that uses most of the screen real estate. Upon further playtesting, DS and PSP games can be a bit janky, especially compared to a more powerful device like the Retroid Pocket 3; but that’s less noticeable after I installed the firmware update below.
My attempts to manually changes settings to add Game Gear (which already had the core installed, even!) were ineffective. (I also couldn’t get a new Best folder past a certain point—I can make it exist with custom cover art, but I can’t get it to recognize all the systems I want.) Fortunately, Trimui posted updated firmware that took forever to download but was easy to install. With the new firmware, Game Gear and Lynx work properly. They added a Pico-8 emulator, but it doesn’t recognize my games. There are also cores for Sega Saturn, Openbor, EasyRPG, and a new version of MAME; I haven’t done anything with them. And as noted, there are clearly performance tweaks, too. I highly recommend updating your firmware if you’ve got one of these or buy one.
R36S Game Console - I’ve generally been happy with this. It also gets 4-5 hours of battery life, depending on the systems you play. I figured out that if you manually add lynxboot.img to the bios folder, Lynx runs fine. Nobody seems to have found a way to make N64 run better, though, and while the hot thing is switching the firmware, I’m not actually seeing a benefit to doing so. My biggest complaints about the system are all hardware-based (@#% fake menu button), and the software does almost everything I want it to.
And all of that said, I’m actually spending the most time on my Retroid Pocket 3. It’s up to about 170 total hours (the largest total after the RG350) and is still getting plenty of use, particularly with KEMCO games.
