Best Retro Handheld

Caporegime
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Im running this on my plus, boot time is a little slow and Dreamcast is garbage due to no Flycast Xtreme core but apart from that it's great.
MuOS is much snappier at booting and loading, but still not a patch on Garlic 1.4.9 on the OG RG35XX.
MuOS takes 7 seconds to boot on mine, where as Batocera is 27 secs!

Big difference, but being a total noob to all this retro handheld stuff 27 does not feel like a lot to me!

It's got the installation instruction on the github page - pretty easy, just flash the card, boot then take it out and copy your bios and roms to it.
Even has built in scraper for art.

I could only get this to work by creating an account on screenscraper. The other 3 "free" options barely scrape 5% of my library, whereas screenscraper gets 100%.

Did you use the same method?


rp2000
 
Soldato
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First impressions of the RGB30 are very positive, plastic is okay feeling, bit cheap but have to remember the price point.

A grippier or textured back would have been nice, or ideally a bit of shape so it sat better in the hand.

If I'd paid around 90 quid which it was originally selling for then I'd have expected a bit better but I only paid about £65.

The buttons, d-pad and sticks all seem good, not sure about the shoulder buttons, bit clicky and don't think they'd be that comfortable with extended use but haven't played much that needed them yet, will give Mario Kart Super Circuit (GBA) a proper go and see as that'll be a decent test.

More comfortable for me than the RG35XX and software out of the box is a million times better than what Anbernic supplied (I have Garlic OS on it now), this is running JELOS (Emulation Station) which is really nice, the wifi didn't work at the start as you need to enable it and back out of the menu which isn't obvious, even then it still didn't show any available networks but after a reboot was fine and connected and was able to update the system OTA.

The screen is very nice, I've not changed anything and it really pops, the screenshot below doesn't look great (dark room, camera phone) but in reality it's very impressive for 16-bit and lower stuff as that's all I've tried so far, Tetris in the default mode looked pin sharp and really enjoyable to play.

I followed the guide from Russ of Retro Game Corps and downloaded the fork of JELOS called ROCKNIX since JELOS isn't getting any future updates. Had a quick go of that and the second slot SD card just worked as I kinda expected.

Will investigate aspect ratios and scaling tomorrow as I need to put the kids to bed darnit!

 
Caporegime
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MuOS takes 7 seconds to boot on mine, where as Batocera is 27 secs!

Big difference, but being a total noob to all this retro handheld stuff 27 does not feel like a lot to me!



I could only get this to work by creating an account on screenscraper. The other 3 "free" options barely scrape 5% of my library, whereas screenscraper gets 100%.

Did you use the same method?


rp2000

How long did it take for you to scrape your library? (I know this is almost a "how long is a piece of string question!")
 
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Associate
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Garlic is the best :)

iBDesLmh.jpg
What theme are you running, looks good.
 
Caporegime
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Location
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How long did it take for you to scrape your library? (I know this is almost a "how long is a piece of string question!")
About 20 mins for 232 items. No fan-art, videos and other crap. Just 2d box art and title screens iirc.

Edit: I just have the free account so that is why the scraping speed is slower, I think.
Settings I used:
aIXzAkE.jpeg



rp2000
 
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Soldato
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MuOS takes 7 seconds to boot on mine, where as Batocera is 27 secs!

Big difference, but being a total noob to all this retro handheld stuff 27 does not feel like a lot to me!



I could only get this to work by creating an account on screenscraper. The other 3 "free" options barely scrape 5% of my library, whereas screenscraper gets 100%.

Did you use the same method?


rp2000
Yeh, just the free ones. My library isnt huge but I just left it to scrape, didnt take too long.
 
Soldato
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Left it to scrape overnight, but it seems Screenscraper doesn't have PS1 or Mega Drive games, not sure why those are empty.

edit - hit the daily cap limit for free account!
I just signed up for their Patreon, I haven't hit the limit but it's so good it's worth £1 a month to support them.
 
Caporegime
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Wish i was in a Ramen Shop Counter
Okay, finished scraping! Took a while!

But some systems do not work at all....I have the bios...I literally copy them from my Miyoo Mini's Bios folder across.

It goes into the Share Drive /bios folder right? Not with the games folder.

Also, can you have too many cores? or is there a way to get the console to point it to the core you want?

Edit - PSX started to work after reboot....weird! (though it still says it is missing cores though) Dreamcast refuses to work though, i have the right cores...
 
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Associate
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I broke a load of arcade games on my 35xx Garlic install and no idea how.

Need to reverse some steps, but currently absolutely hooked of Symphony of the Night.

My other half has been playing the GBC port of Links Awakening, we still have her original GB and copy of this game which she hasn’t played since she was a kid.
 
Caporegime
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Okay, finished scraping! Took a while!

But some systems do not work at all....I have the bios...I literally copy them from my Miyoo Mini's Bios folder across.

It goes into the Share Drive /bios folder right? Not with the games folder.

Also, can you have too many cores? or is there a way to get the console to point it to the core you want?

Edit - PSX started to work after reboot....weird! (though it still says it is missing cores though) Dreamcast refuses to work though, i have the right cores...

Ill try DC on mine in a bit.
Edit. I got confused. DC is Gen 6, it will never work! Maybe Saturn (Gen 5) might.

You can force the core a particular content uses by holding down "B" when selecting the content. From that menu "Advanced Game Options" > "Emulator" change Auto to teh core of your choice. For PSX 4 options. PCSX rearmed gets picked for most stuff in my experience and performs very well, solid 60fps.

In the core options once the game starts you can check the BIOS by entering quick menu>information and then it will look like below.
You can also disable the BIOS checks in the options as it will just use the emulated hle BIOS. However, getting the right BIOS definitely helps. With the hle I got a couple of glitches in SF3 Alpha when using enhanced video mode. Once I got the right BIOS files that disappeared.

dqhPjxr.jpeg


Anyway, actually came to the thread to post this:

lMvYUuZ.jpeg

I know it's not supposed to be used like this, but still :D

Edit: Bluetooth edition:
QcXyrfY.jpg



rp2000
 
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Caporegime
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I definitely have the correct bios...like there are 3 for Dreamcast, all 3 are in the bios folder but Bios check says 2 of them are missing.....weird!
I got DC to work anyway. Performance is not 60fps out of the box for Daytona USA 2. SFA3 is OK, but it's 2D. Sega Rally crashes. Crazy Taxi is choppy.
I got a libreto BIOS pack and the ones from that I tried work fine on both my desktop and rg35xxh installs of batocera.

I'm gonna try Saturn next as thats Gen 5 so should be solid performance, has Daytona as well!


rp2000
 
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Caporegime
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Crazy Taxi won’t even load for me….i don’t know what I’m doing wrong
You have to force the "Libretro FlycastVL" core. When set to auto it uses "Flycast" which seems to crash most of the content.

Not worth it anyway, like I said performance was choppy, jumping between 30-60 fps.

Edit: Some of these things are mentioned, and might be fixed later:

Edit: Tried DC on the stock Anbernic firmware. performance almost identically bad, makes sense as they both use the same core. Not many options in the core to improve things either.
Saturn is uplayable on batocera, worse than DC performance. Takes so long to load that you think it's crashed, and when/if it does load its sub 20 fps for Daytona. Didn't bother trying anything else.


rp2000
 
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Associate
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I got DC to work anyway. Performance is not 60fps out of the box for Daytona USA 2. SFA3 is OK, but it's 2D. Sega Rally crashes. Crazy Taxi is choppy.
I got a libreto BIOS pack and the ones from that I tried work fine on both my desktop and rg35xxh installs of batocera.

I'm gonna try Saturn next as thats Gen 5 so should be solid performance, has Daytona as well!


rp2000
Be interested to hear how the Saturn emulation is.
 
Caporegime
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Be interested to hear how the Saturn emulation is.
You missed my edit:

Saturn is uplayable on batocera, worse than DC performance. Takes so long to load that you think it's crashed, and when/if it does load its sub 20 fps for Daytona. Didn't bother trying anything else.


rp2000
 
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