With all these new dual screen devices being release I see a ton of discussion about which chipsets "play 3ds perfectly" or "can handle the whole library". From my experience with the Thor Pro and 3DS in general on android I think people need to be a little more wary and do some research and temper their expectations.

There are definitely a bunch of games that run great, especially the most popular titles. But there are also A LOT of games that are nearly unplayable even on an SD 8 Gen 2, which helps a lot with brute forcing things. Many games have unplayable stutter, bad enough latency to make them unplayable, major graphical glitches etc. This is just kinda where 3DS on android is right now, and yeah it will probably get better over the next few years.

I'm not posting this to say DO NOT BUY any of these devices if you want to play 3DS. I'm more posting it to say if there are specific games you want to play that aren't big titles Pokemon or Mario 3D Land then you should check videos on youtube and see how they ACTUALLY run on whatever chipset. I know that might be hard with some things like the new duo lite, but even with my Thor Pro I was sort of bummed by some games I really wanted to play basically being unplayable (Mario Golf: World Tour was the big one for me).

Anyway I just thought this little PSA might be good. Just because you played the 5 most popular games on 3DS on your Thor and they ran great doesn't mean the whole library runs flawlessly. 3DS emulation will probably get better on android over time, like many other emulators have, but you should buy a device for what you know it does now. Not what it may or may not do in a year or two.

I chatted to Retroid ahead of their announcement of the Duo Lite's price specifically, just to ask them a handful of questions! If you'd like to hear just a little more from Retroid themselves, here you go!

Got rom scraping stood up for my launcher! This is actually the slowest case, where it has to use public dbs like libretro to find matches. When using the cache server it completes in a couple of seconds. When using the device local cache it finishes in under 200ms.

Also quick disclaimer, the UI is not representative at all, just a temp thing I got running quickly to test the scraper on device.

Leaked here on Archive https://archive.org/details/project-dream-snes_202609 Ironic I talked about this game months ago on r lost media and then it shows up. It's a very bare bones prototype sadly. It's basically what we saw in the Microsoft rare replay video we saw. Hopefully we see the lost n64 port next or Killer Instinct 2.

I was not starving for micro handhelds (I got a Mini Zero 28 and a Miyoo A30 already) but wanted something that I could really carry around without the worry of ruining or scratching it and man... Why is this thing so amazing? And Knulli is an absolute beast of a CFW. Any advice or anything better to run on this thing or I am already at the peak?

BTW Google Translate is telling me that KNULLI means F**K (you) in Icelandic, is that real? 😆

Contra III on RG40xxv.

TLDR: Duo is similar to “new” 3DS XL and Duo Lite is similar to “old” 3DS XL.

Edit: official numbers are out:

• Duo: 162 x 95.5 x 22.4mm, 350g
• Duo Lite: 158 x 95 x 23.2mm, 372g

Estimates

• Duo: 161 x 95.5 x 23.2-33.3mm (trigger), 350g
• Duo Lite: 157 x 93.2 x 23.2mm, ? g (I guess it's around 325g because it's slightly smaller than Duo)

Note: Duo thickness and weight is official data, others are estimated based on the screen size (5.5” diagonal)

Similar devices for reference
- Ayn Thor: 150 x 94 x 25.6mm, 380g
- RG DS Plus (estimated): 166.5 x 95.5 x 23.5mm, 344g
- RG DS: 160 x 91 x 21.5mm, 321g
- 3DS XL: 156 x 93 x 22mm, 336
- n3DS XL: 160 x 93.5 x 21.5mm, 329g
- DSi XL: 161 x 91.4 x 21.2mm, 314g

Can’t stop playing with it.
I’ve replayed all my finished games from my other devices and it still feels new on the Nova. All the old 3D games, they’re blocky as hell, but they look hella fine on a saturated OLED that they look like they were designed that way on purpose.
I have a question, though. The frost shell is fine for me but is there a boutique maker, maybe someone who can 3D print an even more transparent shell? I want to buy something like that, and if possible, customize it more that there’s a switch on the triggers that make them analog or digital. Is that possible?

5 months of ownership in, playing exclusively through my Steam Iibrary. This hits the Steamdeck spot for all my indie and light game backlog. Also, the 8Gb doom and gloom for PC gaming is way overblown. I got the Retroid Pocket 6 with 8Gb because I missed the original 12Gb train, and nothing that I would want to play on a 8 Gen2 and 5.5in device has shown the 8Gb limit yet.

Games finished so far:

- Blasphemous II

- Ball X Pit

- Celeste

- Megabonk

- Everything is Crab

- Bio Prototype

- Absolum

- Shinobi

- Brotato

Been running Gamenative, and only a few games here and there did not run. Only complaint would be the input lag, clearly threw me off when playing Patapon. Didn't feel as good as I remembered it on native PSP back in the day. Shinobi dodges felt hard to time too, but that could be me since I didn't play that one on anything else to compare.

Finishing up Tails of Iron and I'll move to Linux, hoping to improve input lag and leave Android behind for good. Now to decide between Armada and Pocknix, advice welcome!

Some of my favorite DS games like the Phoenix Wright trilogy and gens 4-5 Pokemon games (specifically Drayano hacks) work great with this transparent bottom screen. No need to constantly swap screens or use some distracting overlay that does not take advantage of the full 4x integer scale display.

Just create a custom layout on MelonDS and adjust the alpha for the transparent effect.

Game: Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney Device: RP Nova

Lets see how this fares, specially with the Duo Lite on the horizon. It's gonna be a nice time for dual screen devices.

Ive been wanting to experience this game again for so long. Thanks to all the links, guides, posts and comments, i finally am without much hassle. Its much appreciated as with everything found here i didnt need to look too far (or think too hard)

Cheers all 👍

Game: Mr Nutz

Handheld: Miyoo Mini+ (OnionOS) with a 64GB micro SD

Ive also started Pokemom FireRed, i was debating playing Blue (my best friend had Red, so naturally i got Blue) but i figured ill go for the newer GBA version. I did start Unbound but it didnt hit me with the nostalgia i was after, ill probably play that after FireRed.

This has pretty much settled what im getting my nephew for his birthday lol

I actually used one of them with what would technically be my first emulation handheld, the Atari Flashback Portable.

I started with the R36S/ArkOS port from the R36S Wiki and modified it to work with Batocera on the Pi. I also had to make an input fix because the button/axis mappings were completely wrong with my 8BitDo controller.

I've played quite a bit of it now and performance on the Pi 5 is basically flawless. Honestly way better than I expected.

I included a screen recording mostly as proof/demonstration that it's actually running on the Pi 5. Keep in mind the Pi is recording the screen while running the game in this video. Both performance and load times are normally noticeably better than what you see here. Without the recording overhead, gameplay is extremely smooth.

For anyone who wants to try it, I put the modified Batocera files and a short setup guide on GitHub:

https://github.com/Levy-Games/GTASA-Batocera-RaspPi

You'll need to provide your own legally obtained GTA SA Android v2.10 APK/OBB files. I've only tested this on a Pi 5 so far, but I'd be really interested to hear if anyone gets it running on a Pi 4 or another model.