Although every review or video that mentions it can run ps2 and gamecube. It can't. Also aethersx2 has been abandoned and is closed source. Also android sucks.
But so far its a really nice ps1 portable device. Usually I'd use my vita but I'm always worried about damaging it and they're not exactly in production so I wanted something more disposable with L2 and R2 buttons. Now i can play Abe's Odyssey/Exodus on the train :D
I'm actually considering selling my steam deck for something like it. Ultimately the fact the steam deck handles the wiiu well doesn't make up for the fact that it's bulky enough that I never want to take it on my commute. Although i guess i could spend more time reading instead of playing games...
It's bulky but so much more ergonomic than the Retroid or Switch. Literally haven't touched my Switch since I got my Deck. I've pretty much only been emulating or playing GZdoom though, lol.
I mean, so, the Retroid 3+ is much more capable than it looks, and only about 150 bucks (USD). From what i gather, there isn't too much a difference between even a higher end emulation handheld and the Retroid (some games might benefit from higher end hardware, but unless you're dead set on running something specific chances are most wouldn't notice)
Hell yeah! I got too download crazy lately, and now I'm doing that thing where I'll play 5 minutes of a game, save state, then try something else since i only had like 2 systems growing up.
Huh, weird! I've only had issues with the PSP emulator on it, and that was just due to some obscure controller setting I had accidently enabled. What exactly is it like...doing?
Usually I'd use my vita but I'm always worried about damaging it and they're not exactly in production so I wanted something more disposable with L2 and R2 buttons.
This, right here, is my biggest pet peeve about closed consoles. For the love of god release something so we can repair the old systems!
I think it was for this device but I believe retro game corps (on youtube) had a video on tweaks/hacks to get PS2/GC emulation running to a passable level. Worth a shot
I do follow him and I'm also a ps2 emu power user so know all the tricks. Problem with ps2 is some games are incredibly demanding to run while others not so much. Still doesn't solve the arm port being abandoned and closed source though. And games mentioned as being playable on retroid tend to have a very loose definition of playable, issues like major graphics bugs and constant drops below 100% speed with audio crackling are considered "playable" by some.
Fortunately my phone is powerful enough to brute force the ps2 library so i got an 8bitdo controller and mount for that.
Refurb 64gb steam deck and throw in a 1tb SSD is the best option for that. Comes out to about the same price as a new 64gb but with double the storage of the way more expensive 512gb. Pretty much everything works with proton except games with certain anti-cheat.
Lol yeah that's what I did with a 2tb ssd. Thankfully there is a big enough VN scene to help get me up to speed and now I know how to configure most things.
No reason to limit yourself to just PS1, since most 50+ dollar devices can do that- while GC and PS2 support is hacky at best, you should be able to do Nintendo 64, Sega Saturn, Dreamcast and PSP with upscaling.
Yeah you need a Snapdragon 845 at minimum to emulate PS2 with Aethersx2. And I'd recommend looking at a Snapdragon 865 or above, so you can play at higher resolutions and framerates, or with better rendering accuracy. At unisoc tiger processor with two average big cores, combined with six poorly performing little cores and a Mali GPU (the processor in the retriod pocket 3+) is never going to emulate a PS2. Mali GPUs have pretty poor performance in the PS2 and GameCube emulation space as well, basically forcing you to use Snapdragon processors with Adreno GPUs.
With Aethersx2, it's basically a port of PCSX2 to Android, done by guy that made Duckstation. All the translation layers seem to be closed source, yeah. Also I'd recommend downloading one of the apks before they decided to abandon development due to harrassment, I think apkmirror may be helpful there.
Yeah he did Aethersx2 under a pseudonym, but people figured out it was them due to the UI and some PCSX2 forum posts I think. After that there was some major fallout regarding death threats towards them, discord drama, entitled tech illiterate users, and a whole bunch of other stuff. Which is why development of aether is abandoned.
Got to one of the final screens on Abe's Exodus 20ish years ago and got stuck and walked away from the game. Definitely loved what I played of it though and heard in a Retronauts podcast that Odyssey is even better.