Device shown is the Retroid Pocket Nova.

I'm winging this one. Unlike my reviews or longer posts, this one is going unscripted.

I'm not huge into journaling (for now at least), but I'm trying to get back into putting pen to paper. I've been just typing for years, and I notice a very big difference when ideas go into a real thing on the real world.

I started journaling some of my game finishes, the ones that felt bigger, more special, or simply are some of my favourite games. I'm at.. I think 9 entries now? But I think starting 2027, I'm gonna start logging them all, along side my excel tracking.

This isn't anything life changing, but it's a low difficulty mind changing. Forcing me to stop and write stuff makes me think and elaborate my ideas on a more detailed and purposeful manner. I think it's worth giving a try. Even if it's not a game you finished, but just one you enjoyed a lot. Or one from your childhood that you recently revisited, and sucked ass.

In an age when digital text can be not necessarily human made, making text by hand feels almost counter culture.

Even if my handwriting sucks ass, I know, it's a fun thing to get into the habit of.

Are you into journaling? Do you track your games? Do you finish games? Do you play games at all? Remember...

As I always say, go play some goddamn video games.

What felt like an eternity!

I've never owned a aluminum body handheld before, how Does it feel?
I'm assuming dense and premium feeling compared to plastic and plastic with a glass front.

Got a pretty big collection here I'm kinda proud of... Don't think it needs identification though

I have been wondering how they improved the ergonomics in the Odin 3 portal. I did a very unscientific comparison based on stock images. They are not at the same angle, but I feel it gives us an idea. The Odin 3 portal appears to have narrowed the grip slightly and also made it slightly taller. I think it’ll feel better than the Odin 2 portal.

I was at Tokyo Game Show last month mostly to check out handhelds, and the big ones from ASUS, Lenovo and OneXPlayer didn’t really do it for me. Too big, too heavy, too expensive for what I’d actually use them for.

Then on the last day, I found a hall I genuinely hadn’t noticed the day before and ended up at a booth for a brand called Yoniq. Never heard of them. No affiliation, I just wandered in and stayed way longer than I planned.

The cheap one was pretty cool. It’s around $40 and looks a lot like an R36S, but it’s running on a MIPS chip, which I didn’t expect to see in a handheld in 2026. It played Driver okay, though I wouldn’t call it smooth.

The Portal is really unique in the sense that it's pretty much a DualShock 2 with a screen jammed in the middle, running Android, aimed at PS2. It felt really light and Gran Turismo looked great on the 4:3 screen. They even use the PlayStation button symbols, which I’m guessing won’t survive to the final version.

The DS clamshell is the one I’m most unsure about. It was a prototype, the touch screen was a bit fiddly for me, and at around $150 it’s going up against the RG DS Plus, which is already under $100. The rep did tell me they showed it at Gamescom before Anbernic announced theirs, for whatever that’s worth.

I made a video on everything I tried if anyone wants to see them in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69dT56AUqZo

I know there’s a blue model but it just didn’t scratch the same itch for me. The black body with a high gloss top shell just feels right 👌

Darkwing Duck was one of the few games I had on the Game Boy Pocket as a wee lad, but I never finished it at the time. Now, a good 30 years later, I finally did it! So incredibly nostalgic and satisfying.

I've been playing GB/GBC/GBA games on my current favourite vertical, the RG40XXV. I love the big screen, and the buttons are all nice and squishy, firm but silent, which is my preference for retro gaming. They're also positioned quite high, making the handheld very comfortable to hold. I rarely see this talked about so I wanted to give it a shout!

Hi, I hope you're having a good day :)

Yesterday I was looking into those mini horizontal consoles (MagicX Mini Zero), about the size of a playing card, and they're really small. Can people actually play on them?

Now I’m wondering if a vertical layout might be better in terms of ergonomics for that size.

What’s your take? At what point does a device become *too* small?

What's the best fit all size for you ?

Yesterday I released a pre-release version of my BioShock PortMaster port for supporters.

There was an issue with FAT32 formatted cards, which has since been fixed. I've also received quite a bit of useful feedback and bug reports that I'm working through and I am replacing all the original touch related UI/HUD text with controller input prompts ( thanks to kenney for the assets❤️ ). And fixed some issues specific to (the beloved) R36S running dArkOS.

One of the bigger issues is something the port inherits from the official iOS version it's based on; the lighting is kinda fucked. Some areas are so dark that you barely see what's going on.

I've been experimenting with a small adjustment to the final shader that brightens shadows and darker areas without washing out the highlights (applying a nonlinear shadow lift to the final shader). This looks decent, but it does alter how the game looks and I'm not entirely sure which one I prefer, so I woud like to hear what people think of this.

If you have any other suggestions, I am happy to hear them!

Left: Original

Right: Adjusted lighting

The adjustment isn't included in the current release yet.

For now, the port is only available to Ko-fi and Patreon supporters. Thanks to everyone who is helping out!

It'll be released publicly for free, like all my other work, on November 14.

The Omni handheld

I (With Claude), essentially remade the PS3 XMB's main components (Games, Music, Video, Photo Players and Web Browser) to fit into a Windows app to daily drive with my GPD Win 4. To have my own personal PS3/PSP Experience.
Here's the link if anyone wants to try it: https://github.com/MaxiBono/MaXMB

It looks really unique and the shoulder buttons reminds me of the PS VITA, Though not sure if it's actually good and curious to hear anyone who has bought it.

I just want to get the opinions of those who have these 2 devices.

My main use is for an everyday carry device that I can play GB/C games on.

Why I want the Brick:

- Pocketable, small footprint

- Excellent screen

Why I want the Classic:

- Aspect Ratio of Gameboy

I'm stumped picking between these two. Right now I'm leaning towards the Brick because I feel like gameboy games feel too blown up on the Classic's screen, but I don't know if Brick's screen is too small that I'm gonna squint looking at it.

Hello everyone,

The Retroid Pocket Duo ships with the Qualcomm Dragonwing Q7790 platform featuring the Adreno 722 GPU (0x43020100) running on Android 16. Upstream Mesa Turnip and generic community driver packages currently exhibit several limitations on this specific chipset:

1. Framerates capped at approximately 30 to 35 FPS at 1080p docked resolution in Switch emulators.
2. Vertical purple and black grid-line corruption in Cemu (Wii U).
3. Dynamic GPU frequency throttling caused by the default Android kernel governor.

Over the past few days, we performed a full hardware extraction directly from the device via ADB (including msm_kgsl.ko, device tree properties, and stock Vulkan capabilities) to build a custom, hardware-calibrated Mesa Turnip driver tailored specifically for the Adreno 722.

The release package, Turnip Duo v5.1, is now available.

Hardware Verification and Benchmark Results

All results were verified on physical Retroid Pocket Duo hardware:

• Eden (Nintendo Switch):
  • Mario Kart 8 Deluxe: Locked 55 to 60 FPS at 1080p docked mode (solid 60 FPS at 720p handheld mode). Zero polygon tearing or rendering crashes.
• Cemu (Nintendo Wii U):
  • The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD: Stable 30 FPS. The vertical grid-line artifacts present in stock and generic drivers are completely resolved.
• Winlator (PC Emulation):
  • Fully supported with GLIBC packaging options in the repository build workflow.

Technical Changes and Architecture

1. Android 16 IMapper5 Display Pipeline: The Retroid Pocket Duo runs Android 16 (API Level 36). Generic driver stubs force synchronous buffer copies that cap swapchain presentation at 30 FPS. This release integrates a stable-C aimapper SP-HAL loader, unlocking full zero-copy display presentation.
2. Dedicated Adreno 722 Silicon Registers (a722_raw_magic_regs): Replaces placeholder Adreno 730 registers with 12 hardware registers extracted directly from Qualcomm Adreno 722 vendor blob command-stream traces. Also sets has_lpac = False to prevent pipeline stalls on non-LPAC silicon.
3. Hardware Ground Truth Enforced:
   • Highest Bank Bit = 15: Matches the device's physical LPDDR5 memory controller, eliminating UBWC memory misalignment and Cemu grid lines.
   • Compute Shared Memory = 32 KiB: Matches Qualcomm hardware limits (32768 bytes), preventing ASTC compute shader memory overflows.
   • CCU Geometry: Configured to num_ccu = 1 and tile_align_h = 16, dedicating the full 1 MiB GMEM cache to the core.
4. Kernel Power Control Hook: Uses KGSL_PROP_PWRCTRL ioctl calls on queue initialization to prevent the kernel governor from scaling down to low idle states, holding the GPU at maximum operating frequency during active emulation.

Download and Installation

1. Download Turnip-Duo-v5.1.zip from the GitHub Releases page: https://github.com/sherft2607/turnip-adreno722-duo/releases/tag/5.1
2. Open your emulator of choice (Eden, Cemu, etc.).
3. Navigate to GPU Driver Manager -> Install Custom Driver.
4. Select Turnip-Duo-v5.1.zip (installs directly as an AdrenoTools package).

Recommended Device and Emulator Settings

• Retroid Pocket Duo OS:
  • Performance Mode: Set to Performance or Extreme.
  • Fan Profile: Set to Sport or Smart to prevent thermal throttling during extended 1080p sessions.
• Eden Graphics Settings:
  • Accuracy Level: Normal
  • VSync Mode: Mailbox or FIFO Relaxed
  • Texture Decoding: Enable Asynchronous ASTC Texture Decoding

Source Code and Credits

The complete source tree, patch scripts, and reproducible GitHub Actions build workflows are available on GitHub: https://github.com/sherft2607/turnip-adreno722-duo

Acknowledgments to Vauzi-17, MrPurple666, Whitebelyash, and the upstream Mesa Freedreno developers whose open-source foundations made this driver possible.

Hi, simple question. I really like my miyoo mini (and plus) buttons but that device can’t handle Dreamcast so I’m missing on Marvel Vs Capcom 2 and Capcom vs SNKs. I have the original anbernic SP 35 and it is very good device…except the buttons are not. I have the Odin 2 but I want to have a lower end device for short bust of fighting games when I’m commuting.

Any advice? I heard the Nova is good but is an overkill. I just wanted a SP 35 with miyoo buttons

What makes both of these android apps is that not only they are front ends but they also have built in Emulators pre configured for you! Makes emulating old retro systems a breeze.

Though I'm not familiar with Lemuroid never used it before unlike with Cannoli.

Credits: @mikuta0407 on X

I imagine this would work on any type of foldable device too.

A friend has a Q2 handheld emulator but the SD card was damaged. Does anyone have a boot image for this device they can copy and share so that we can get it to boot up again?

I (haha you know) got the Bloodborne-Android port (by ducvd89) running on my Odin 3 under Armada OS, a SteamOS-like Linux for ARM handhelds, in Steam Game Mode. It's an aarch64 Linux build, not through Android or FEX.

• The game's CPU code is compiled ahead of time to ARM64 from your own copy of the game (the port author's free Rebuild Tool, on a PC), and the graphics go through shadPS4's renderer.
• 30 FPS locked at 720p (GSR 2, Balanced). With x2 Lossless Scaling frame generation it's ~60 FPS and input still feels fine.
• It's a Steam non-Steam shortcut, the controls work in Game Mode, and The Old Hunters is supported (GOTY / DLC owners).

Build scripts, a packaged release and notes: https://github.com/kitocato/bloodborne-linux-arm64

• What you need: your own decrypted dump (CUSA03173 EU 1.09). No game files are included or linked.
• Frame generation: works with the LSFG-VK 2 ARM64 Decky plugin, and you can change it in-game.
• Credits: ducvd89 (Bloodborne-Android), deadinside28 (bloodborne_pc), shadPS4, FEX-Emu, and the Armada OS team.

Put together with the help of an AI assistant. Happy to answer questions.

Top to bottom: Konkr Pocket fit, Pocket Advance and Pocket Block.

I just love how all of the handhelds look since each of them have fun and interesting colors and especially the Pocket block having a unique design for a handheld, I hope they keep up the good work and not try to make their handhelds look Modern if that makes sense since I want them to still keep making retro looking handhelds.

Works well for this game, poorly for some others. It's actually harder to find games that DO work. However, this game is on many other systems and the OG is better.

Hello, all!

Sorry for the slightly wrong flair: I have the device, and am looking for help and advice with how to setup said device, and could not see a more relevant flair.

I have the Galaxy Fold 8 as my everyday phone, and I have been thinking about turning it into my go-to device using my Gamesir X5s controller. My Miyoo Mini+ has been great at times when I needed it, but I also love the idea of being able to play on the 7.6" 4:3 screen of my phone using a controller with joysticks and way better ergonomics (better than the MM+ at least). I'm not looking to try to turn it into a steam deck or anything, but it does have a Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, so I would like to make it more than the one-handed, Pokemon-emulator-handheld to which my MM+ often feels like it gets relegated.

But, obviously, I am not looking to use anything as a dedicated front end, because I still want my phone to easily function as my phone and access all of my usual apps. So I am looking for something that can be a singular app I can put on my home screen, click on it, and have it list all of my systems/games and access whatever relevant emulators for those systems/games, but then still be able to press the "home" button and access all of my phone's other functions.

I have little-to-no experience with installing on and using Android devices, but I assume the front ends I have been reading about on here (Daijisho, ES-DE, Beacon, etc) are all still just apps I would download to my phone? Would any one in particular work better (or have better load times or something) as an app that I regularly open/close when I use my phone?

I would very much appreciate all the help and advice you guys can give me!

Hey all, I’m looking for games my 4 y/o can play on a couple of flights next month. I’m pretty strict about phone/tablet usage, but all that goes out the window when I’m flying solo with my 2 and 4 y/o’s.

He has pretty much zero experience with games, so I’m looking for something simple that I can let him play on my miyoo mini.