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Forum Index : Microcontroller and PC projects : R36S
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stanleyella Guru  Joined: 25/06/2022 Location: United KingdomPosts: 2666 |
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| stanleyella Guru Joined: 25/06/2022 Location: United KingdomPosts: 2666 |
They look good but are not. https://www.google.com/search?client=opera&q=r36s&sourceid=opera&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8 get a cheap one, I paid £45 for 128GB one but not happy |
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Mixtel90 Guru Joined: 05/10/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 8228 |
Although I haven't got a R36S I do have a couple of similar multi-game machines and I rather like them. :) The main one has had the OS changed to Rocknix, which I think is a big plus. I don't know what you got either. There have been some less than brilliant clones around. Just bear in mind the following: I don't know how far you've investigated it, but many of the cheap machines are supplied with very poor SD cards. The first thing is to copy them onto good cards. If that machine has two slots, one being the OS one, then make that a good quality, fast card. There are a couple of hardware mods that can be done too. Adding copper heatsinks and improving the trigger buttons. Note that some of the emulators won't run well. They are all emulators running under Linux (a version of ArkOS, I think). The more powerful the original machine the less well the emulation is, usually. up to 16-bits is usually not too bad. You can add games and emulators to the machine by editing the data card. Don't edit the supplied cards at all, just copy them then put them away. They are unsuitable for repeated write operations as well as being slow. There's *loads* of info on the web about the R36S. It's been very popular. A good start. Mick Zilog Inside! nascom.info for Nascom & Gemini Preliminary MMBasic docs & my PCB designs |
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| stanleyella Guru Joined: 25/06/2022 Location: United KingdomPosts: 2666 |
Thanks Mick. the interest in pico as a game console? not for me although coding a game seems more fun. I had a 250G ssd connected to rpi 400 , played N64 snes games like starfox fine but drive failed, Kingston and can't find the rom pack again, over 2000 zxspectrum games alone. The R36S "seems" genuine ie says arkosxxxxx24 but flashing arkosxxxxx25 to new sd card no luck. mine has a 128GB sd card with arkos as drive F on win and roms as drive G not 2 sd cards. I tried cloning the sd card cos they're poor to another 128GB sd card with Euasus and Rufus but not enough space?? should be. anyway if you buy one it may be not as good as made out to be. supposed to have 40000 games but hasn't 40000 files on sd card?? |
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| Mixtel90 Guru Joined: 05/10/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 8228 |
how to back up your SD card Once you have a full backup on your PC you can start seeing what you actually have. :) It's not a great idea to try to back up from one card to another. Some card reader thingies aren't suitable for the bigger cards (I found out the hard way!). . Edited 2025-10-10 02:28 by Mixtel90 Mick Zilog Inside! nascom.info for Nascom & Gemini Preliminary MMBasic docs & my PCB designs |
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| stanleyella Guru Joined: 25/06/2022 Location: United KingdomPosts: 2666 |
Mick thanks for "A good start", lots of info I found in one place. got these files but no luck on new sd cards  |
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| stanleyella Guru Joined: 25/06/2022 Location: United KingdomPosts: 2666 |
PS. the sound is stuttery on lots of the games yet the "test" titles play intro music ok?? Final Fantasy ok |
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| Mixtel90 Guru Joined: 05/10/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 8228 |
That usually happens if the cpu is concentrating on keeping the frame rate up. You may be able to set the frame rate for each emulator, possibly even for each game - I don't know your system. There are often tweaks like that. Reducing the frame rate just a bit can help the audio a lot. Mick Zilog Inside! nascom.info for Nascom & Gemini Preliminary MMBasic docs & my PCB designs |
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| stanleyella Guru Joined: 25/06/2022 Location: United KingdomPosts: 2666 |
I returned it as it failed to boot last night, just says arkos 2 for 2 minutes then blank screen and flashing cursor. never returned anything to ebay seller before. photos on my phone of return labels but post office sorted it for me, 50 pence to print a return label. they say nostalgia isn't what it used to be |
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| Mixtel90 Guru Joined: 05/10/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 8228 |
The "big" one that I got was the Powkiddy X55. It's very good, with a 5.5in IPS display. It runs Atari Lynx games very well, which is quite an accomplishment when you realize that it is having to emulate hardware generation and manipulation of sprites in software. There are still problems in emulating the big consoles though, which is only to be expected. I see the X55 has gone up quite a bit since I got mine. :( Mick Zilog Inside! nascom.info for Nascom & Gemini Preliminary MMBasic docs & my PCB designs |
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| stanleyella Guru Joined: 25/06/2022 Location: United KingdomPosts: 2666 |
it would be fine if r36s worked but think get 64gb version, cheaper to upgrade sd card but then why bother? trying to set up emulation station on win. it always was a pain. roms github, pirate proxy |
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| Mixtel90 Guru Joined: 05/10/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 8228 |
That's the price you pay for running pirated games on emulators, I suppose. :) Emulating 8-bit consoles on a modern CPU is nothing, in most cases. 16-bit gets a bit trickier as you are now getting into the realms of custom video and sound chips. 32-bit consoles can be next to impossible to emulate, even on a big PC - especially if you don't have a high end GPU on it. At that point the console is cheaper than the PC needed to emulate it. On the "official" R36 site the R36S is about £50. It might be worth considering getting an official one rather than a clone. I like the Powkiddy X55 'cos it's big enough for a proper gaming experience yet small enough to take on a train journey. It's also a hell of a lot cheaper than many other options at around that size. Ok, it's not top of the line but it's very good. :) It's a cool name too. lol Mick Zilog Inside! nascom.info for Nascom & Gemini Preliminary MMBasic docs & my PCB designs |
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| stanleyella Guru Joined: 25/06/2022 Location: United KingdomPosts: 2666 |
the best experience was the 250GB ssd on rpi 400. it was running twister os 32 bit only and did a good job. until ssd failed. bigger screen was better. |
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