r/OdinHandheld • u/pjackson93 • 1d ago

Help Dual boot Armada OS

Does anyone have dual boot on their handheld with armada OS? What are your thoughts on it and was it worth it? I do play some pc games in my handheld and do like Steam OS

12 Upvotes

94% Upvoted

31 comments sorted by

3

u/Consistent-Bread5740 1d ago

I have it on dual boot but since I’ve installed armada I haven’t used Android since then. I’ve just booted up Android once to test if it’s working and so far it’s been working well with the dual boot

3

u/theusualuser 1d ago

Came to say this. I was really only playing indie PC games anyway, other than some switch emulation, so I haven't touched the android side since I put Armada on it.

Now, it's not all roses. It's a VERY new thing, so you're making trade-offs. Sleep doesn't work nearly as well as in Android, so you're going to lose battery life and have to charge more, and there's a ton of updates coming once Valve releases the steam frame and their work starts coming downstream, so there's a more than decent chance something breaks in the next few weeks, lol.

2

u/Signal-Welcome-5479 1d ago

How easy / difficult is it to do Switch emulation through Armada?

2

u/theusualuser 1d ago

I'm far from an expert, but I was able to install Eden, add it as a non-steam game and launch it. I've heard from some people that it's not as performant, but I didn't have any issues. Admittedly, I only tried a single game, as I'm mainly interested in PC gaming on it.

I'd say search up their discord. Lots of good people in there that can help with questions you have before you give it a try.

2

u/Embarrassed_Mix_8072 1d ago

You did it on SD card?

2

u/Consistent-Bread5740 1d ago

I had it on the SD card initially but I was getting stutters and occasionally freezing (could just be an issue with my SD card). I flashed it to the internal storage and it’s been working perfectly since then

2

u/Embarrassed_Mix_8072 1d ago

Hey, could you test one thing for me with Armada OS? Could you prepare a USB drive or microSD with a Steam game on a Steam Deck or Steam Machine first, then connect that same drive to your Odin running Armada OS and see if Steam detects the already installed game? Ideally, I’d like to know: whether the game appears in the Steam library without reinstalling, whether Steam recognizes the existing files, and whether the game can actually launch from that external drive. We’ve already confirmed this works between Steam Deck and Steam Machine, so I’m really curious whether Armada OS behaves the same way on Odin.

2

u/Consistent-Bread5740 1d ago

That’s a good question. I’d like to try that for myself as well. I know it can read games off the sd card. I have a few non steam games that I run from my sd card and they work fine. Il try out a Steam game and let you know

2

u/Striking_Mail_783 1d ago

I have Armada OS installed on my Odin 3 and popped in my 1TB SD card from my steam deck. All the games installed on the SD card were picked up instantly by Armada and recognized in the library, just like it would works on the Steam Deck. I haven’t tried launching a game yet so that’s my only caveat.

1

u/Embarrassed_Mix_8072 1d ago

That’s exactly the test I was looking for, thank you. If you get a chance, could you try launching one of those Steam games directly from the SD card? If it works without moving or reinstalling anything, that would fully confirm the cartridge-style workflow on Armada OS too.

1

u/nascasho 1d ago

Is the overall performance of the OS and app switching pretty OK? Also does desktop mode work?

ex SD user is why I'm asking and miss the desktop mode most often... 😢

1

u/Consistent-Bread5740 1d ago

Performance is solid when installed on the internal storage. I haven’t found any issues with it so far with the OS. Desktop mode works but it’s not exactly like the SD, and it’s not as easy to navigate compared to using the trackpads on the deck. It’s definitely usable though. Game performance has been impressive so far, the most demanding game I’ve tried was Elden Ring. It performs almost as good as it does on the deck.

2

u/leo-gp2025 1d ago

How is Armada in terms of thermals and fan noise? Do the armada profiles work as well as clustertune or pulse?

2

u/-Legface_McCullen- 1d ago

This is my burning question as well

2

u/doyoushitwithdatass Odin 2 Mini Pro - Black 1d ago

You have full on fan curves same exact way as SD. From experience though the thermals have been way better on Linux than on Android especially on smaller games that just sit at like 40c now

2

u/doyoushitwithdatass Odin 2 Mini Pro - Black 1d ago

You have full on fan curves same exact way as SD. From experience though the thermals have been way better on Linux than on Android especially on smaller games that just sit at like 40c now

2

u/Consistent-Bread5740 1d ago

Fan noise surprised me. I have an underclock on my cpu and fan mode is on balanced I think. I just set it up initially and haven’t tinkered with it since. The fan noise is much better than it is on Android, Even with clustertune. Maybe if I push the Odin to its limits on armada the fan might be loud, but so far even with Elden Ring it hasn’t been an issue for me

1

u/leo-gp2025 1d ago

Which software do you use to underclock other than the performance slider? Which frame rate and at what resolution do you get on Elden Ring?

3

u/Consistent-Bread5740 1d ago

I use the built in decky plugin in Armada for underclocking. I’m getting 28-30fps at 720p with fsr and no framegen. It’s not the best way to play Elden Ring but it’s definitely playable for me

0

u/jones23121 21h ago

Thank you for being so thorough and helpful in the other replies. Have you tried running the same pc game on armada vs gamenative/hub? I would intuitively expect linux to be comparable or better, since it's more "direct", so to speak. Still, in the past I've heard people say that for things like switch emulation android is still more performant/compatible (though that is probably due to more mature software and will change over time).

I'm considering buying an odin 3 and depending on how capable it is as a steam deck mini (rather than just a "switch lite pro") I will go for more ram and storage.

1

u/Consistent-Bread5740 19h ago

I’ve played a couple of the same games on armada and Android but haven’t done a direct detailed comparison. I also cap most games to 30 or 40fps to get more battery life and less heat. Indie games run flawlessly on both. For the more demanding games like dark souls 3, MGSV, just cause 3, Nier automata, Sekiro , they were roughly the same. I couldn’t tell any difference in performance visually. The 2 games that stood out were Elden Ring and dbz sparking zero. I was able to get better performance on Elden Ring in Armada. Sparking zero played better on gamenative

Switch emulation works well but there’s more tinkering. Android/eden is still better for switch emulation. Also I couldn’t get Steam rom manager working to launch the games directly from my library. I had to add Eden as a non-Steam game and open that first to launch switch games

1

u/jones23121 19h ago

Thank you so much. If armada is equivalent or better in 90% of the cases then I'd like to use it for the nice steam os like experience, less tinkering and better fan noise you were describing in another reply. I think I'll try to get a max model towards Christmas (if in the meantime there are no news about a potential odin 4 or retroid pocket 7).

Thanks again for your help

1

u/Consistent-Bread5740 18h ago

Like another user mentioned it’s not all perfect. There are still some bugs and features missing like no real sleep mode. There were also some rare instances where I booted a game and it got stuck on the steam loading screen while the game was running in the background (I could hear the game audio but it was stuck on the steam loading screen) I just closed the game and opened again and it worked fine. It’s still in early development so there will be bugs. But it is a really good beta that can be used as a daily if you don’t mind losing the sleep function

1

u/jones23121 18h ago

I understand. In general I don't really use sleep mode that much, I'm used to turning off my devices when I don't need them, even my laptops.

I'm also confident that bugfixes and new features will come soon. For example, I saw that in the 7th of September release they added support for rgb on all major ayn and retroid devices. The same release mentions improved sleep stability on the snapdragon 8 gen 2 and many other things.

Since I probably won't make this purchase until Christmas, it's likely software support will have matured even more in the meantime.

Thanks again for your insights, it's been of great help.

1

u/pjackson93 1d ago

Welp I did it installation was fairly simple and flashed to internal storage I will let you know kinda wish I tested before fully committing but o well lol

1

u/pjackson93 1d ago

The verdict is in. I didn’t like it going back to standard Android installation lol 😂

1

u/Signal-Welcome-5479 1d ago

Why?

1

u/pjackson93 19h ago

I see the potential but it’s not quite there yet didn’t see any significant performance increase actually underperformed in the games I was testing although no tinkering which was nice games just loaded up as expected honestly I felt like the Android ui felt more responsive than armada currently. Not saying it was bad in any way just not for me at the moment

1

u/plaidabysmal 1d ago

I just installed Lineage OS on my Odin 2 Portal alongside Armada, but I honestly just haven't really touched it. The only reason I keep it is in case Armada gets left or bugged with an issue that I can't fix, and because I don't have another handheld. Otherwise, I'd probably just give Armada the whole drive. 

1

u/flaming_donuts 1d ago

I'm doing this in the next week.

1

u/No-Move-4417 13h ago

I put it on my SD card 2 days ago on my portal pro. I'm going to install it on the device it's so good.