R36S Handheld Linux Emulator Console

[Swholli]

Hey everyone, hasn't been a topic in the games section for a hot minute so I figured I'd share something cool. I got an R36S handheld early for Christmas and I've been having a blast messing around with it. It's basically like a smaller, dual-stick version of the RG35XX, and I've been testing out different emulators and seeing how far I can push it.

Here it is this morning running Emerald on the bus to work:



Screen is fantastic, backlit and clear. Form factor is great, I love how it really feels like you're holding a gameboy color. Even emulates PSP games without too much stutter, I was playing GTA Vice City Stories on it last night. I got the translucent purple cause my partner picked out the one that resembled my actual childhood gameboy.

I'm planning to make some of my own games specifically for it too, simple 2D/3D stuff in Godot that runs natively on the hardware. Has anyone else here tried one of these yet? Or done any game dev for these kinds of handhelds? Would love to swap notes or ideas or any homebrew apps you've gotten to run on one of these.

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I have thought about it, I may whip up the quickest, dirtiest, barebones "don't-sue-me-eric" ""port"" of Blockland to run on this thing solely so I can finally recreate the absurdity of this thread:

And before any trolls tell me that the Gameboy Color can't connect to the Internet, what do you think the link cable is for?

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[Goth77]

pretty cool. are you using retro arch for emulation front-end? if so, I'd like to know how/if scummVM runs on that thing - with scummVM you can play old point and click games like pajama sam, putt putt , freddie fish etc. you said it handles psp emulation tho so I imagine it will have no problem with those older games

as for modded handhelds the only thing I have at the moment is a sega genesis portable which uses an SD card for roms - it's limited to master system and genesis games though and certain games/saves are incompatible.

but yeah, the dual stick feature on that is nice, I might have to pick one of these up. coincidentally I also had the translucent purple GBC as a kid

[Trymos]

I always worry about stuffing stuff with objects jutting out like this in my backpack, is this like an unfounded fear of mine with these pieces breaking or is this an actual thing that happens?

Also, how does PCSX2 run on this?

[Swholli]

pretty cool. are you using retro arch for emulation front-end? if so, I'd like to know how/if scummVM runs on that thing - with scummVM you can play old point and click games like pajama sam, putt putt , freddie fish etc. you said it handles psp emulation tho so I imagine it will have no problem with those older games

So it's running arkOS with emulationstation-DE as the frontend out of the box, retroarch and scummvm can both be ran as apps though to extend the compatibility. I'm pretty sure you can flash it and have retroarch act as the frontend, though.

as for modded handhelds the only thing I have at the moment is a sega genesis portable which uses an SD card for roms - it's limited to master system and genesis games though and certain games/saves are incompatible.

Oh, that's neat though, I didn't even know they made a genesis portable.

I always worry about stuffing stuff with objects jutting out like this in my backpack, is this like an unfounded fear of mine with these pieces breaking or is this an actual thing that happens?

Also, how does PCSX2 run on this?

I put the handheld itself in a little padded bag before I put it into my backpack front pocket, that way it doesn't get jostled too bad and it's protected from bumps.

Sadly it can't run PCSX2 at all, it's an ARM based architecture that can only support up to 32bit emulation, it can run Dreamcast, PS1, N64, DS and PSP iso/roms smoothly, though.

[bloody jumper]

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i like your nails, black is my favorite