Just got this bad boy yesterday and I’m like a kid at Christmas! 😄 The delight I felt firing up my old love, Desert Strike… Goosebumps! Seriously impressed with this bit of kit, and I’m enjoying exploring the options as much as the many many games! The effort put in by the community with GarlicOS and the ROM packs is simply magnificent.
Yup, great device. Got one myself and promptly persueded a bunch of mates to do the same as I kept ranting about it. Was never really a handheld guy despite being a retro guy but I adore this and its used daily. GarlicOS just makes it even better.
I'm so out of the loop, this is blowing my mind. I'm looking at the site @FriendOfFalcons linked (https://anbernic.com/products/rg35xx), wow. Specs look pretty good, this emulator should easily run any PS1, GBA, Neo Geo game. Hahah what, Neo Geo? There's a blast from the past.
I can't find any info on what Linux distro it ships with, does this thing work out of the box or do you have to install the OS? I presume you supply the ROMs? Holy crap, and they have beefier handhelds that support later-gen platforms. This is awesome.
You can play it directly out of the box, but there are custom OS's out there that run things even better and add more features. You do supply the ROMs, but there are plenty of ROM packs out there too to make your life easier. I honestly recommend looking into RetroGameCorps on Youtube, he has some great content around these types of devices.
If you get the RG35XX specifically, I'd recommend this guide.
Ah ok, I should've figured there'd be custom OS's involved, that's awesome. Thx, I'll check out RetroGameCorps. And thanks for the starter guide link, looks super helpful.
I’m sorry if this goes against some instance/community rule and if so please just tell me - but where does one find reliable ROM packs? I only ever used EmuParadise back in the day (as I still do - but don’t tell anyone!)
The past few years I barely played games at all. It's only when I got my little device that I noticed how much I liked playing anywhere: On my couch, on my seat, in my bed or during travel.
Sure, a lot of retro games, especially from the SNES: Super Metroid, LoZ AlttP, the Mario All Stas Collection.
But also like GBA games like Pokémon RomHacks or Mario vs Donkey Kong.
But I also really enjoy playing some Portmaster games. I actually spent most of my time now playing Shovel Knight lol. But I also have fun that Sonic fan games are easily installed. I played a bit the Sonic fan game Sonic Robo Blast 2
The RG35XX is pretty great, nice color choice too! Looks like I need to update my GarlicOS, my games list is still centered with boxart in the background.
In order to do that you’ll need to first change your /CFW/skin/settings.json to have “text-alignment”: “left” and “text-margin”: 300 to shift your games list to the right. Next you’ll want to use a tool like Skraper to generate your images so it is transparency on the right where your games list is and put what you want to display on the left. You can use the image mixes provided from ebzero on Github or the 2 image mix with only the gameplay screenshot and box art that I’ve modified below and place the xml into the Mixes subdirectory of Skraper:
When you’ve decided what you want to use, find the Media Type option under the Media tab in Skraper and choose User Provided Mix and then you can select the custom xml file you want to use when running Skraper.
Both the RG35XX and the Miyoo mini are amazing devices for the price range, I greatly recomend watiching retro games corp video on them, basically they can run up to PS1 flawless and supports saves and save states, it’s the kinda of handheld you keep on yourself all the time to play when you’re bored or on a queue, not very comfortable for long play sessions. The RG os built like a tank and has real time clock for Pokémon games with a worse d pad, Miyoo don’t has the clock but has wifi for net play, OTA updates, better screen and dpad but tends to have some build quality issues.
I've been thinking about getting one of these mini handhelds, but I kinda want to hold out for something that could eventually run SteamOS. Deck is nice but I want something that fits in my pocket.
Despite the literal mountains of shit that has come out of China, they are capable of making some nice things.
The RG35XX hit the right spot of having “good enough” hardware at a low price. It’s been a smash success.
If you look at something like the RG353M, it costs more than twice as much as the RG35XX, is a little faster, but its design feels ultra premium like something Samsung or even Apple would make. It’s compact, metal, and has quite a bit of heft.
I got the Miyoo Mini Plus a few months ago, and I really love it. They’re really lovely devices for just whipping out for a quick game of Tetris, especially with the convenience of the game switcher and save states. I’ve been surprised by how usable it is, despite the small size.
Add comment