This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/sbcgaming by /u/hbi2k on 2024-03-22 20:46:25+00:00.
Updated 2024-08-02; see change log in the comments
This post is intended to give a broad overview to newcomers to the dedicated handheld emulation device scene who may not know what's reasonable to expect at what price point. Something that can be counterintuitive to newcomers is that how hard or easy a system is to emulate doesn't always track 1:1 with how powerful we think it is. We tend to think of the PS1, Saturn, and N64 as being contemporaries and roughly equal in power, for example, but in reality PS1 can run pretty well on a potato, N64 is trickier and needs more power than most budget devices can provide to run the entire catalog really well, and Saturn is notoriously difficult to run well and is stuck in the "may be able to run some games" category on many otherwise capable devices.
If you're a newbie that's been linked here, consider watching a few videos by Retro Game Corps, a popular YouTuber and reviewer around these parts. He goes over some of his favorite devices of 2023 and the first half of 2024 in various categories, and while I don't agree with all of his picks and others have become outdated very quickly, it can be useful to see what some of these devices look like in the hand. Links in this post are mostly to RGC video reviews or setup guides of these devices.
All that said, I've sorted various consoles you might want to emulate and various devices you might try to emulate them on into four broad "tiers":
Tier 1: PS1 and Below
- Price: $40-$140
- Systems That Should Run Fine: NES, GB, GBC, Genesis / Megadrive, SNES, GBA, PS1
- Systems that "may" be able to run "some" games: Dreamcast, DS, N64, PSP, Saturn
- Chips to Look Out For: JZ4770, RK3326, RK3566, Allwinner H700, Allwinner A133Plus
- Devices to Consider: Anbernic RG35XX family (incl RG40XXH), Miyoo Mini+, TrimUI Smart Pro, Powkiddy RGB30
At this price point, consider watching this broad overview comparing several standout devices under $100 in more detail than I'm able to hit here.
I could easily have included a dozen more devices in the "to consider" section; there are a LOT of devices in this general tier, with lots of little differences in form factor, feature set, etc. There are also a lot of devices running the JZ4770 or RK3326 chips that are technically outdated, but if you're happy sticking with PS1 / SNES and below, they're still perfectly good and may have advantages such as a particular form factor you're looking for that newer more powerful devices don't have. They may also be available on sale or lightly used for cheaper than newer devices. Note that JZ4770 and comparable chips may struggle with a handful of the absolute hardest-to-run SNES and PS1 titles.
The newer RK3566 chipset and comparable Allwinner chipsets such as the H700 won't quite get you all the way to "just-works, no hassle" performance of N64 or any of the other systems in the "some" category, but they're not much more expensive (and may even be cheaper depending on what sales are going on and shipping costs to your part of the world). I've listed the "some" systems in rough ascending order of how hard they are to run, but it's going to vary a lot depending on the individual game you're trying to play. On N64, for example, Mario Kart 64 is a pretty easy game to run and will probably run fine on the RK3566 (I've had decent results on the RK3326), but Goldeneye or Conker's Bad Fur Day will probably not be playable. Some N64 games run better or worse on different emulator apps or Retroarch cores, so you may be able to experiment with different options and/or enable frame skip to get some medium-weight games playable.
Keep in mind that the PSP runs in 16:9, and most devices in this tier have 3.5" 4:3 screens or similar. Even lighter PSP games that run okay performance-wise will not look good when letterboxed or stretched on such a small screen with such a drastic aspect ratio mismatch. Keep in mind also that devices in this tier may or may not have touchscreens, which may limit what Nintendo DS games you can play even where performance is not a concern. Most also have only one 4:3 screen, requiring you to use a hotkey to switch which DS screen you're viewing, further limiting what games you can usefully play.
Most devices in this tier run Linux-based firmware. Setup is usually very easy: download the firmware image, flash it to an SD card, drag and drop your ROM and BIOS files, and you're done. Some devices, such as the Anbernic RG353V, RG353P, and RG353M, can dual-boot into Android. This will give you access to different emulator apps that may be able to run some systems, especially N64, slightly better. I personally don't consider this feature super worth it because the price on those devices starts to overlap with more powerful dedicated Android devices in the next tier.
Tier 2: PSP and Below
- Price: $100-$150
- Systems That Should Run Fine: everything from Tier 1, Dreamcast, DS, N64, PSP
- Systems that "may" be able to run "some" games: Saturn, GameCube, PS2, Wii, 3DS, Vita, Switch
- Chips to Look Out For: T610, T618, Dimensity D900, Snapdragon 845
- Devices to Consider: Retroid Pocket 2S, Anbernic RG405M, Retroid Pocket 4 Base
Once again, there are a lot more devices I could have listed under "devices to consider," including several older devices that are still perfectly good, but have largely been eclipsed by newer devices offering more power or better build quality at a similar price point.
The vast majority of devices in this tier run Android, which will require a much more involved setup process than the predominantly Linux-based handhelds in Tier 1. Where Linux-based firmwares typically have all of the emulator apps preinstalled and preconfigured, Android-based devices typically require the user to manually install and configure each emulator app individually. Expect a greater learning curve, but if you want good performance on systems that struggle in previous tiers like N64 and PSP, that's kind of the price of entry.
Most devices in this tier have 4:3 or 16:9 screens in various sizes. Although PSP should run between pretty good and fantastic from a performance perspective, keep in mind that if you have a 4:3 device, 16:9 PSP games may display too small or distorted to be a very good experience. Keep in mind also that when playing DS and 3DS games on 4:3 devices, you will need to use a hotkey to switch screens. 16:9 devices will give you more flexibility for displaying both 3/DS screens at once, but smaller screens may limit how useful it is to try to display both screens side-by-side. Most Saturn games should run just fine at native resolution in this tier, but I still listed it as a "may / some" system because it's a notoriously tricky system to emulate, some games may still experience problems, and I haven't tested it at all on any of my own devices.
Much like N64 and PSP in the previous category, PS2 and GameCube performance is going to be very spotty in this tier. Many games will run, but expect to experience noticeable performance problems with many titles, to need to do a lot of tinkering with performance hacks and advanced emulator settings, and to deal with the fact that your favorite game may just plain not run well no matter what you do. I would caution the reader, when looking at video reviews of older devices such as the Ayn Odin 1 Lite and Pro, to consider the date they were reviewed. Newer devices (see the next tier below) have changed the landscape sufficiently that devices that were once considered as good as it gets for 6th-gen performance are now considered middling at best.
There are community-run spreadsheets that purport to tell you what you can expect from various games on various chipsets / devices, but I try to caution people to take them with a grain of salt. These spreadsheets are crowdsourced with very little oversight. Anyone can submit an entry; there is no requirement that you play a certain amount of the game or, frankly, that you know what you're talking about at all. I've seen several entries that were clearly added by someone who ran around the first area for fifteen minutes and called it a day, as well as some that are just plain misinformation by any measure. These spreadsheets can be a useful tool if you're looking for suggestions for what advanced settings to try tweaking, but they're dangerous as a buying guide. There are also lots of "footage roundup" videos on YouTube, some more trustworthy, some less, showing various games running on a device. Keep in mind that it's easy to cherrypick footage from the smoothest-running sections, and that the cycle skip settings necessary to get some games running at full speed / frame rate can introduce so much input lag that even though a game looks great on video, it feels terrible to actually play...
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