I copied the title from OMG! Ubuntu!, whose coverage[0] I enjoyed more but thought that the crowd might be more interested in the original announcement.
That guy's channel is great if you're in the market for a handheld or SFF PC for emulation or PC gaming. He does in-depth reviews like this of pretty much all of them that come out.
The hardware looks impressive but it worries me that the first photo is basically just showing off a bunch of emulators. Why not show off more legitimate ways of playing games on it? I personally have never used steam big picture mode but it feels like it would be a good fit.
At $80, and likely an ARM processor, emulators have a larger game library. Wine doesn't work on ARM, and there are relatively few open-source games that stand out.
I’ve never tried Odroid but Steamlink, even on a Pi4 is not without flaws. Pi3B+ wired has been mostly unsatisfactory for me and Pi Zero W/Pi3 wireless have been nearly inoperable.
Have you had a different experience? If so- what have I been doing so wrong? I’d love to get it to work on a Pi.
I used a USB AC-wifi dongle on my Odroid-Go Advance, and the performance/latency was about the same as my genuine SteamLink on a gigabit wired connection. The main problem with the Odroid-Go Advance was the screen resolution and size making most UIs unreadable or a chore to use. The screen resolution increase on the Super might help with that though; I plan on getting one once they release, so I guess I'll find out.
Screen resolution problems make a lot of sense. I’ve built a few Raspberry Pi gameboys lately with a 3.5” 640x480 screen and they look great but text is _tough_.
Actually, it only works on Raspberry Pi or Android, not other Linux ARM systems. I've been frustrated by how closed off it is because I'd like to use it on my PineBook Pro.
You'll be delighted to hear that that's not entirely true - there is a Linux x86-on-ARM emulator Box86 [1] that allows you to run Wine apps [2]. While your expectations should be realistic, it's made to defer as much as possible to platform native implementations so there's a bunch of things you can run!
I couldn’t find the exact specs in the post, but it’s most likely unable to run Steam because of the processor in use. If you’re not familiar the screen shots are of a very popular emulation front-end called Emulation Station.
Related, a few years back I got in the hobby of building Raspberry Pi (Zero, 3, and 4) into Gameboy (original gen 1) shells. Economies of scale sure are nice, because even the raw materials for building one cost me more than $80.
EDIT: I found the specs (or someone quoting specs) and it looks like it is comparable to Raspberry Pi Zero and does not have wireless. That would make things like Steamlink a non-starter.
I am pretty sure it is not comparable to the RPI zero. The SoC this is based on is Rockchip rk3326. Dual core A35 @ 1GHz each, g31 (bifrost) GPU. RPI zero uses the older arm11 cores.
> Why not show off more legitimate ways of playing games on it?
While emulation gets a bad rap because of rampant piracy involved with it for most people, it's the piracy that makes it illegitimate and not emulation itself. There's nothing about emulation that requires piracy - e.g. Nintendo Switch Online has NES and SNES emulation without piracy. You can also dump cartridges [1] or buy legal ROMs [2] to play on this Odroid [3].
I understand the confusion, but please do be careful to speak about piracy when you mean to speak about piracy. Emulation is a technically interesting exercise that allows for the preservation and transformation of old video games.
[3]: You might argue: "but few people actually do this". And you'd be right. Piracy for old game systems is just far more convenient. But that still makes piracy piracy and emulation emulation.
An excellent video on this subject from YouTube commenter Nerrel, who also highlights Sega's decision to sell legal ROMs through Steam: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yj9Gk84jRiE
And related from the same author, is the effect that the emulation modding/patching community has on how we view low effort re-releases such as the recent 3D All Stars: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0d82ZJ4sd4
The other aspect is that emulation makes for defined expectations.
I think this is the appeal of modern home-brew. There's established constraints and conventions from the platform.
Saying "you can run SNES games on it" frames the product well. I'm not expecting to run games which need full keyboard/mouse or RTX3080 calibre graphics, but I do expect a good experience with little pixel-art graphics and a D-pad plus four buttons.
I agree— I have a PowKiddy RGB10 (knockoff of the previous generation, Odroid Go Advance), and it's wildly capable hardware, but the only native ports are either games that have been open sourced (Quake, Doom series) or have modern SDL recreations. Even running DOSBox is dubious because so much software of that era (even stuff like point and click adventures) just assumed a keyboard would be present for occasional but critically-needed use such as inputting the name of your save file. It wasn't until Steam Big Picture that there was any serious expectation of PC games being solely controllable from a gamepad. Basically you're stuck making up per-title keyboard mappings, and that sucks.
Anyway, the marketplace issue is a bootstrapping problem. None of the companies making these are set up to support an ecosystem of legitimate software delivery, and now the culture that's built up around them treats the availability of thousands of classic game ROMs as being part of the value proposition. So even if you were to try to start, it would be a challenge to break out of that and persuade owners of them not to pirate your lovingly ported indie games when they can play the entire SNES, Genesis, and GBA libraries for "free".
One final barrier is that although some do, many of these devices don't include internal wifi, I assume due to certification hassles. Instead a USB host port is included into which you plug a compact dongle. So this further complicates any delivery/DRM schemes, if you have to provide a system image with support for many possible wireless dongles, and perhaps some kind of offline-transfer scheme for those without a dongle or who don't want to use one.
All in all, it's a tough nut to crack; I'm not surprised no one has tried. The closest thing is probably Panic's Playdate, and they went with their own hardware, with much-reduced specs and a gimmicky crank, but at least having end-to-end control.
To be fair, Hardkernel is actually really good about making their products hackable and making what they do open.
This model grew out of the original GO, based on ESP32. Look at how they've left GPIO accessible, offered a mini keyboard (no longer visible on the site) to slot into the GO and provided loads of examples and project ideas [1].
That makes sense when you're stretching the limits of very modest hardware. The difference is that the SoC powering the Advanced and this new variant is powerful enough for Linux distributions.
So I'd say the spirit is in the right place - they're not just smashing out cheap crap preloaded with copyrighted material. But this is their most "finished" gaming specific product, so they're not much point showing other things it is capable of. Are there really much in the way of legitimate Linux games which can be demonstrated to run on the hardware?
In a nostolgic way, it reminds me of my Playstation Portable I had. This was before I could afford a smart phone, and I was able to run homebrew on it.
I actually really miss that. Aside from playing games, I could check email, use a web browser, play music, basically most things you would want to do with a smart phone. I also was in school that was blanketed with WiFi, so I effectively never lost access to the internet with it.
I remember my first introduction to the hacking scene was installing custom firmware on the PSP. It allowed over clocking the processor to 333mhz which made god of war run smoothly
Maybe I should buy one again. I sold that one (I think I made money on it too...) When I got a smart phone because I could do everything that the PSP could do on a smartphone. But...I do miss having it.
I guess in the strictest dictionary definition, this is a console that could play games, but is a general purpose computing device really what we colloquially call a "game console"?
I mean, hardware-wise, aren't most recent consoles general purpose computing devices, with game-optimized hardware controls anyway? For example, the Switch is a modified Nvidia tablet chip.
The Switch is a game console not because of the form factor or because of any particular piece of hardware. It's a game console because I can just take it out of the box, put a game cartridge in and start playing. It's not a BOM thing, it's a UX thing.
Exactly. There's more to a game console (or any computer) than its hardware. And further, a Switch is not a general purpose computer because the system, both hardware and software, is designed to be locked into certain uses.
Eh, it's splitting hairs. Is the Pippin a game console? Is the CD-I? Is the OUYA? Is a PS2 still a game console if you boot Linux? Is a Gameboy with the Workboy keyboard still a game console?
All consoles are at the end of the day general-purpose computers. You're just arbitrarily locked out of using the machine you bought and paid for to run whatever you like.
Unfortunately mainline support on this hardware seems to be lagging. I guess it is less important because of the limited use case of the device, but it is lame that getting modern mesa (which does support the GPU!) running would be a PITA.
A number of devices in this category seem to have popped up recently. I picked up an RG351P a few weeks ago, which I'm guessing is similar to this device. It really is a lot of fun playing around with it, and it's hackable like a Raspberry Pi.
I just bought a retroid and I like it. The hardware feels nice to hold and buttons works well. The software is just android 6, but I ready it can be upgraded to android 8. It comes with an app that, if you install, it runs an app on startup w/ many emulators and roms loaded. Its a bit underpowered for playstation but it could run games. It has a good community too
It's Chinese to security may be a concern, but you can run offline.
I've played with a Raspberry Pi running RetroPie emulator that emulates most (all?) of the above. I could add batteries, a small display, build in controllers ... but you would have the Odroid essentially.
The 3DS (especially if you can pick up a used one) is actually an excellent choice for access to almost all of Nintendo's handheld library after installing the custom firmware hack. DS and 3DS games are supported via cartridges and the rest can be found by installing the .cia files. I haven't tried NES and SNES games, but it runs GBA and GB games great.
The 3DS is an excellent choice due to it’s hackability and pretty decent processor(s). However, OP also asked for a replaceable battery. I’m assuming that means something like AA like the OG Gameboy had. Does anything come that way anymore?
No, I don't think single use batteries have been on handheld consoles since the OG GBA :-) But the 3DS/XL's Li-ion battery is pretty easy to replace with a screwdriver.
IDK about DS, but a classic PSP (1000/2000/3000) with a modded firmware handles the others just fine, along with PSP/PS1 games. Think I might have played n64 on mine?
Poor N64 support for the most part, buggy audio and frame drops... almost beat SM64 on it but there were a bunch of caveats, would rather play on something else for N64..
For that list of systems, the Nintendo New 2/3DS models are probably the best choice. They require some softmodding [1], but after that can natively play DS [2] and GBA [3] [4]. The New 3DS also has great emulators available for NES, SNES and Game Boy [5], and has native ports of a few Nintendo 64 games. Being mass market devices, their build quality and QA are much superior to cheap Chinese devices or DIY Korean ones, and they're also widely and cheaply available on the second hand market in most western countries.
[3]: Using "Virtual Console injects", see: https://3ds.eiphax.tech/nsui . Virtual Console injects for the other systems on your list will also work, they will then run in Nintendo's own emulators for those systems.
[4]: Just be sure to hold start/select when launching DS or GBA games to avoid bad quality upscaling and run them at pixel accurate native resolution.
I got the rg280v because it's incredibly portable. I'm not sure about the battery life because I never want to play for more than a few hours at a time, but I haven't had problems. I would expect, though, that they're all built for you to go in with solder if you want to replace a battery.
https://maya.land/rg280v/
It's not quite what you're asking for, but I looked into something like that for a while and didn't really find any I liked and wanted to carry around with me, so I ended up just installing retroarch on my phone and bringing along an 8bitdo sn30 controller.
I don't have a high end phone or anything but it's capable of playing everything up to the DS pretty well. I even got metroid prime to boot up on dolphin...though the framerate was far too low to play.
The sn30's pretty light and easy to carry around and feels pretty darn close to an actual snes controller. Battery life's pretty decent too.
DS Lite, with something like a SuperCard [0] (or whatever is being sold these days).
DS Lite directly supports both DS and GBA cartridges, has great battery life, and its battery can be easily replaced. And I love its form factor, folds nicely compact.
A micro SD card mounted in the SuperCard can be loaded with good emulators for NES, SNES, GB, Sega, and probably others. It's plug-and-play, no hacking of the DS Lite necessary.
I have an older Bitt Boy in GB-like shell and it works quite well, it struggles a little with SNES. The battery is swappable but you'll get few hours out of it. Charges from micro USB.
Even at $100 more, i'd love to see one of these as a mobile device with a pop-out keyboard and Wifi/SIM slot. I think that's what's been missing in the open phone community. Something decently priced and decently designed.
> we’re well on our way to build the keyboard prototype. [...] We have also finally been given a time-frame for delivery from the design-house and factory; as things stand today, the PinePhone keyboard should be available in April this year. [...] For the time being, I leave you with render of the keys and a suggested keyboard layout. Please let us know what you think in the comments section
75 comments
[ 1.5 ms ] story [ 149 ms ] thread[0] https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2020/12/odroid-go-super-ubuntu-h...
Have you had a different experience? If so- what have I been doing so wrong? I’d love to get it to work on a Pi.
You'll be delighted to hear that that's not entirely true - there is a Linux x86-on-ARM emulator Box86 [1] that allows you to run Wine apps [2]. While your expectations should be realistic, it's made to defer as much as possible to platform native implementations so there's a bunch of things you can run!
[1]: https://github.com/ptitSeb/box86
[2]: e.g. here's Warcraft 3 on a Raspberry Pi 4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85bfzDSWHNQ
Related, a few years back I got in the hobby of building Raspberry Pi (Zero, 3, and 4) into Gameboy (original gen 1) shells. Economies of scale sure are nice, because even the raw materials for building one cost me more than $80.
EDIT: I found the specs (or someone quoting specs) and it looks like it is comparable to Raspberry Pi Zero and does not have wireless. That would make things like Steamlink a non-starter.
While emulation gets a bad rap because of rampant piracy involved with it for most people, it's the piracy that makes it illegitimate and not emulation itself. There's nothing about emulation that requires piracy - e.g. Nintendo Switch Online has NES and SNES emulation without piracy. You can also dump cartridges [1] or buy legal ROMs [2] to play on this Odroid [3].
I understand the confusion, but please do be careful to speak about piracy when you mean to speak about piracy. Emulation is a technically interesting exercise that allows for the preservation and transformation of old video games.
[1]: https://www.retrode.org/about/
[2]: e.g. https://lesateliersphv.ca/en/extracting-roms-from-sega-mega-...
[3]: You might argue: "but few people actually do this". And you'd be right. Piracy for old game systems is just far more convenient. But that still makes piracy piracy and emulation emulation.
And related from the same author, is the effect that the emulation modding/patching community has on how we view low effort re-releases such as the recent 3D All Stars: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0d82ZJ4sd4
I think this is the appeal of modern home-brew. There's established constraints and conventions from the platform.
Saying "you can run SNES games on it" frames the product well. I'm not expecting to run games which need full keyboard/mouse or RTX3080 calibre graphics, but I do expect a good experience with little pixel-art graphics and a D-pad plus four buttons.
Anyway, the marketplace issue is a bootstrapping problem. None of the companies making these are set up to support an ecosystem of legitimate software delivery, and now the culture that's built up around them treats the availability of thousands of classic game ROMs as being part of the value proposition. So even if you were to try to start, it would be a challenge to break out of that and persuade owners of them not to pirate your lovingly ported indie games when they can play the entire SNES, Genesis, and GBA libraries for "free".
One final barrier is that although some do, many of these devices don't include internal wifi, I assume due to certification hassles. Instead a USB host port is included into which you plug a compact dongle. So this further complicates any delivery/DRM schemes, if you have to provide a system image with support for many possible wireless dongles, and perhaps some kind of offline-transfer scheme for those without a dongle or who don't want to use one.
All in all, it's a tough nut to crack; I'm not surprised no one has tried. The closest thing is probably Panic's Playdate, and they went with their own hardware, with much-reduced specs and a gimmicky crank, but at least having end-to-end control.
This model grew out of the original GO, based on ESP32. Look at how they've left GPIO accessible, offered a mini keyboard (no longer visible on the site) to slot into the GO and provided loads of examples and project ideas [1].
That makes sense when you're stretching the limits of very modest hardware. The difference is that the SoC powering the Advanced and this new variant is powerful enough for Linux distributions.
So I'd say the spirit is in the right place - they're not just smashing out cheap crap preloaded with copyrighted material. But this is their most "finished" gaming specific product, so they're not much point showing other things it is capable of. Are there really much in the way of legitimate Linux games which can be demonstrated to run on the hardware?
[1] https://www.hardkernel.com/shop/odroid-go/
I actually really miss that. Aside from playing games, I could check email, use a web browser, play music, basically most things you would want to do with a smart phone. I also was in school that was blanketed with WiFi, so I effectively never lost access to the internet with it.
After all, we don't call our PCs game consoles...
All consoles are at the end of the day general-purpose computers. You're just arbitrarily locked out of using the machine you bought and paid for to run whatever you like.
The ability to get to the Linux core is a pretty cool deal, this would make a great controller for robotics rather than using people's phones.
What would be the best way to get notified about Odroid's release? Besides monitoring their forums.
In the end, I just fall victim to no time for emulation, though picking up a Vita would be nice...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GP2X
Can someone recommend a hand held console that runs NES/SNES/GB/GBA/DS games and has a good battery life or maybe even a replaceable battery?
I always get ads for such consoles, but the reviews are all bad.
I remember Goldeneye always seemed to be a problem on them
1: https://cdn.slashgear.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/8bitdo-...
https://www.reddit.com/r/SBCGaming/
It's Chinese to security may be a concern, but you can run offline.
https://www.goretroid.com/
I've played with a Raspberry Pi running RetroPie emulator that emulates most (all?) of the above. I could add batteries, a small display, build in controllers ... but you would have the Odroid essentially.
Or this? https://www.tomshardware.com/news/piboy-cm4x-srx-compute-mod...
Seems like the 350P also has a lower screen resolution.
Are these things usable for multiplayer?
Do you think the 351 models are a better investment, they have more power, but also a wider screen which doesn't help with older games, I'd guess.
I'm pretty sure you can replace the battery on (most? all?) 3DS models. At least on my New 3DS it's user serviceable.
Has a replaceable battery, too.
Perfect for GBA games though!
[1]: https://3ds.hacks.guide
[2]: Directly from the cartridge slot or using Twilight Menu https://github.com/DS-Homebrew/TWiLightMenu
[3]: Using "Virtual Console injects", see: https://3ds.eiphax.tech/nsui . Virtual Console injects for the other systems on your list will also work, they will then run in Nintendo's own emulators for those systems.
[4]: Just be sure to hold start/select when launching DS or GBA games to avoid bad quality upscaling and run them at pixel accurate native resolution.
[5]: bubble2k16's emulators can play pretty much anything on >New< 3DS models, use mGBA for Game Boy: https://wiki.gbatemp.net/wiki/List_of_3DS_homebrew_emulators
I don't have a high end phone or anything but it's capable of playing everything up to the DS pretty well. I even got metroid prime to boot up on dolphin...though the framerate was far too low to play.
The sn30's pretty light and easy to carry around and feels pretty darn close to an actual snes controller. Battery life's pretty decent too.
DS Lite directly supports both DS and GBA cartridges, has great battery life, and its battery can be easily replaced. And I love its form factor, folds nicely compact.
A micro SD card mounted in the SuperCard can be loaded with good emulators for NES, SNES, GB, Sega, and probably others. It's plug-and-play, no hacking of the DS Lite necessary.
[0] http://www.eng.supercard.sc
https://bittboy.com/
Retroarch and Citra
Xbox wireless controller
Optionally this holder: https://www.amazon.com/PowerA-Moga-Mobile-Gaming-Wireless-Co...
I use a setup like this and can play everything perfectly pretty much
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/raspberry-pi-playstation-2...
https://www.pine64.org/2021/01/15/january-update-happy-new-g...