Trimui Smart Pro S

[edgy badger]

Wait these are shipping now?

[safe walrus]

My review unit has shipped

[quasi dagger]

makes it look better

[quasi dagger]

I think just review units

[hexed holly]

How do you think that TSP fits into larger hands compared to RG40XXH?

[steep path]

Call me when the V2 with 2GB of RAM is released 🥹

[safe walrus]

mine just arrived

[median harbor]

Heck yes green

[onyx blade]

It's supposedly within MM of each other, size wise. So, with that said the TSP feels Great in my giant hands but I can definitely say it needs a Grip/Case to help that Ergonomics and Pocketability to protect the screen

[prisma rapids]

Fck I don’t need this but that green speaks to me

[lyric flare]

Play Dantes inferno

[rotund sluice]

didn't realize this had started shipping let alone arrived to people damn

i'd love to see a vertical with the chipset

[edgy thunder]

Is the chip running at 1.8ghz or 2ghz?

[quasi dagger]

trimui brick with cooling would honestly be one of the best budget verticals to date

[rotund sluice]

brick is already so good

i really think it'd need at least 1 stick/slider to be worth the extra power

[quasi dagger]

idk sticks kinda make a device just look ugly especially on a vertical

only device I can think of that did it good was ayaneo's pocket dmg

[rotund sluice]

i don't care even slightly about looks over function

looks in addition to function is fine

but if "it looks ugly" is the reasoning the h700/a133p is the max a vertical will ever need

because you don't need anything more than that for a dpad only device

[hexed holly]

That's some legit old man stuff in the background.

I'm thinking that the Brick needs a seriously downclocked version of this new TSPS chip.

It's kind of crazy how these chips have been on 28nm for a long time. We're only just now starting to get into mainline 22nm for all new budget devices.

There was such a huge power efficiency gain from 30nm to 10nm.

[manic vapor]

28nm is still cheap, that's why

[rotund sluice]

cpu cost needs to be next to free for these things to be a decent price

[manic vapor]

28nm is the cheapest node in terms of transistors per dollar, cheaper than 40nm or 22nm or anything really

I read somewhere that Allwinner is planning a high-end 12nm chip, but it's going to be expensive, like RK3588 level of expensive

[hexed holly]

@safe walrus Hey. Now that TSP is back in the spotlight could you speak a bit about how it compares to RG40XXH on the next video? Other than it being very true for myself in particular, I think that the TSPS is largely competing with the XX line, and probably most specifically the RG40XXH. I for one am curious how the TSP(S) feels in the hands compared to it. So it's a question of if it's a good enough upgrade for Portmaster. We don't really have a lot of options, especially considering how bro Powkiddy just fell off. It was a rather disappointing year for Linux consoles for me.

And also considering that Action Pi seemed to not appear anywhere.

[rotund sluice]

i personally wouldn't say the tsps is competing with the xx line as the h700 and a133p are already similar performance wise...

more like competing with the one35 and rgb50, e6max. etc...

especially around the price point

[hexed holly]

But those are things that few actually like. So not really.

[rotund sluice]

?

competition isn't based on how well the other product does

[hexed holly]

RGB50 may not exist.

[rotund sluice]

a device competes with similar devices. not with devices an entire price and performance class below

[hexed holly]

Well, I might agree with you if it wasn't such a desert for Portmaster right now. Cheaper models can compete with more expensive models. When it's within the same brand then it's called "canibalization".

[rotund sluice]

now granted i still think its worth comparing the newfound class (mid tier linux soc) that is pretty much brand new with the low tier linux soc devices

i just don't think they're 'competitors' in the same way that a muscle car doesn't exactly 'compete' with a granny car

[hexed holly]

For a lot of people, myself included, the choices came down to RG40XXH or TSP. Maybe Cube XX or something else like that, but in less traveled markets there aren't so many choices. For the most part only the largest selling items could be found for non-scalping prices.

[rotund sluice]

i suppose

i guess it just depends on if the tsps does well enough to break into that market then

[hexed holly]

If Powkiddy were doing it's thing then there would have been another few devices to compare to. Or if Action Pi was actually available. But it's very scarce out there now.

[rotund sluice]

guess it depends on if enough people are into the tier at the price range they're going to hit

[hexed holly]

Some people don't want to focus on it being Linux or not, but other than it being Linux I think that it's probably not very compelling today.

[rotund sluice]

$90 for barely any 3ds is going to be kind of hard to sell

[hexed holly]

Linux -> Portmaster

[rotund sluice]

especially when ayaneo just undercut the entire performance market with a ps2 capable device for pennies

[hexed holly]

Well, the thing is that you don't get Portmaster on an Android even with 5-10x the power. And for the most part Portmaster games are very efficient, and so don't need huge power. Really the only compelling thing is Portmaster.

I prefer the tight ES Linux integration versus loose sloppy Android app ES, but that only goes so far. Especially compared against vastly more powerful chips.

[rotund sluice]

yeah i guess that's really it. and i don't see portmaster carrying an entire tier of devices

it's neat but not game changing

[hexed holly]

I just think that people need to get onboard with the fact that the only way that this device will do well is because of Portmaster.

[rotund sluice]

i really just don't like ES to begin with 🤢

i much prefer miyoo-styled frontends

[hexed holly]

Any idea what the price is?

[rotund sluice]

it's in the 90 USD range

supposedly

[hexed holly]

ouch

Well, I'm not sure what $90 even means anymore.

[manic vapor]

"ps2 capable" is very generous for Air Mini. By that metric 405V/505 is "ps2 capable"

[hexed holly]

$90 could be $120, or actually $90.

The "$90" units that are coming out will probably only be available to me for $120-130 actually.

But a true $90. With inflation that could be something.

[rotund sluice]

i'd call the g90t infinitely more ps2 capable than the t618

but in all fairness even higher tier SoCs like SD865 don't do the entire PS2 library without hiccups

really though these tiny incremental upgrades aren't doing anyone any good

everyone complains about "another h700" but the chips that are going to replace it at similar or slightly higher price points aren't going to be able to do anything they can't already do

sure you might maybe round out the n64 library but like

[hexed holly]

Are you saying that this TSPS chip is just "incremental"?

It seems quite a bit more than just a small bump.

[rotund sluice]

it's not getting any full libraries from 'unplayable' to 'playable' is more what i mean

you get some more psp and some more dreamcast

but it's not like "3ds is playable"

the main console this is going to compete with is the mangmi air x which is just straight up more powerful any way you cut it. the smart pro s only gets an edge where portmaster is concerned.

[hexed holly]

Well, for me I don't really think or care about "full libraries". I suppose that I think about each game as it's own experience. Perhaps that's being older and coming from PCs where no matter how well you bought that within a few years you were just the fat kid again who couldn't play the new game. And also coming from WINE compatibility being so hit and miss 15 years ago.

[rotund sluice]

well its more about just knowing your purchase is worth it

i really don't waste my time on a device that does a handful of games that i have to tinker with endlessly to get working anyway

most people just kind of load games and hit go

[hexed holly]

Some people say that Linux hackers will start going to town hard on Air X right away. But we'll have to see how long that takes.

But think about it like this. You want to drive on road A, not road B. You can buy a super badass car for the same price as the whatever car, but it's not licensed to drive on road A, which is the main thing that you need and want a car for. For some, that is Portmaster.

Other than perhaps Morrowind, I don't know that any of those games need more than what TSPS offers.

[rotund sluice]

right i get that

i just really don't think the portmaster crowd exists

[hexed holly]

But if people just really want a PSP device, then maybe this isn't all that great. But PSP is kind of what it's supposed to be.

[rotund sluice]

outside of a tiny handful of potential people that may or may not buy the device to begin with

[hexed holly]

I think that probably the problem is that there are already enough of these devices out there to pacify Portmaster users, and this doesn't offer much more other than some better loading times. But there is a vastly larger market of people who want to play new Android games and more powerful systems. A lot of these people could be not very technical, and not necessarily all that geeky.

If there were several more demanding games on Portmaster then it might push people to buy this just for that. But there really isn't.

[rotund sluice]

yeah that's at least the nice part of portmaster

nothing is really that demanding

you have like pokemmo or whatever

celeste?

idk

[hexed holly]

It got Portmaster going, but ironically it could harm it a lot short-term because a lot of people who know and care about that already own devices. So it's not all that compelling to just buy/support a manufacturer to get something that doesn't offer anything new. But Android offers tons of stuff, even if it puts a slightly bad taste in our mouths due to it's clunkiness. But those screens, CPUS, drivers and economy of scales just can't be beat.

The one really good thing going for this device is that Powkiddy is out of the picture.

This device doesn't offer all that much, but there really is nothing else at the moment for what it does well.

I'm real curious to see how this plays out.

I'm going to make a prediction that this device does well enough, but will end up being one of their least successful devices. But probably the design process was a lot cheaper than making the original.

I bet that because the Brick is so popular and beloved that they'll end up taking their lessons from working with this new CPU to put it into a revised Brick. That device will keep selling for a long time, and the momentum of that device will carry this TSPS device (Such as CFW support).

[wicked grove]

Dont forget test 32bit port game like Steamworld Dig 1 Shovelknight perhaps to define both chips

[sour drum]

https://youtu.be/PAF8mQUCWkk

Nice Review

[sour bridge]

I don't work for these Chinese companies. Android might look super beneficial to them, sure. But I am my own advocate and I am not buying a device that won't let me add some good Linux CFW to it.

[pure palm]

Would be kinda interested in replaying Trails in the Sky on this...

[vivid heart]

68$

not that bad ...

[pure palm]

Listings on Ali are pretty bad atm

This is the lowest I could get for now

Do Trimui have a download for their stock firmware lying around?

I've never actually used the stock firmware of any Linux handheld

So setting it up on a fresh SD will be new for me

[void lintel]

they have a github but nothing for the S yet: https://github.com/trimui/

best deal seems to be mechdiy or gogamegeek $75?

[pure palm]

Are there still valid discount codes?

[pure palm]

So basically, unless I get it with an SD, the device is useless until Trimui let me download the firmware

[median harbor]

No, they have put up the SD card contents already. The firmware is separate from the SD stuff and shouldn’t be needed unless you brick your device or there’s an update

The OS itself is in the firmware

[pure palm]

If I put in a fresh SD into the device, will it automatically set-up file paths for me?

[median harbor]

No, you need the SD card contents. The emulators and apps all live on the SD card. But again those are already live on the GitHub so no worries

https://github.com/trimui/assets_smartpro_s/releases

[pure palm]

Sounds like maybe I should just get the smallest SD possible with it and just clone the data, before replacing the library

I'm finding this a bit too confusing

[void lintel]

my bad I didn't see assets_s

[median harbor]

Have you used a Miyoo mini or any other Miyoo or TrimUI device?

It’s the same basic setup

[median harbor]

No need to do anything special for it. You just extract the zip from the release I linked and paste it onto your sd card, and then you can load up your Roms and bios and be off to the races

[pure palm]

I've always gone straight into CFW with those

[pure palm]

Oh okay

That sounds easy enough

[rotund sluice]

@pure palm is that ryan gosling seliph .

[pure palm]

Actually no

First guess I got was Ryan Gosling Finn lol

But it's actually supposed to be Himmel

https://tenor.com/view/himmel-the-hero-himmel-frieren-sousou-no-frieren-frieren-anime-sparkles-gif-8586381365247325695

Whoever made the edit made the hair too dark

[rotund sluice]

the forehead threw me off i thought he had a headband on

the collar looked familiar but i couldn't tell from where. it was frieren fuckass clothing designs

[nocturne moat]

Here I was thinking Kaito

[lyric flare]

Is there a good argument for buying this over mangmi or pocket air mini

[median harbor]

Define “good” argument 😅 best I can come up with is “flavor”. You’ll probably eventually have more Linux CFW options on the smart pro s.

[coral mauve]

Going hands-on with this contraption at 6pm PST

[quasi dagger]

Wonder when mechdiy will start shipping

[void lintel]

they posted they were doing qc checks

[rotund sluice]

Portmaster

That's really it

[forest ermine]

My review unit has gone from being delivered last Friday to being expected on the 18th - 25th of December -_-

[sour bridge]

will mangmi even have stock? And in the case of the pocket air mini we already know the answer is no.

[coral mauve]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdYYN2XaVmo

[marble lagoon]

Rocknix team just managed to boot it on Mangmi

[shut folio]

Flat back for easy pocketability, TrimUI's top notch build quality with distinctive soft clicky controls, and it runs CrossMix right out of the box; which is an excellent full featured yet simple to use Linux OS.

[hexed holly]

That home button overlay looks pretty nice.

I noticed that the TSPS kernel version is 5.15. Does anyone know what the original had?

[rain urchin]

a133 was 4.x kernel

BSP only afaik

[hexed holly]

So that's a pretty nice upgrade. It will allow CFW to keep the official kernel that provides newer features.

It seems like that PSP isn't configured well. It seems like that it should be sailing right through GOW at 1x no problem.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjPR5_V1FCM

[rain urchin]

depends if it provides features. There's some good stuff in the 5.x kernel, but a lot of it depends if they compiled it in. Stuff like usb ethernet/wifi dongle drivers or zramswap. Hopefully the BSP for tha a523 has some of that stuff.

[sharp ferry]

Actually, it's a little bit cheaper in that store 😅

[pure palm]

Wonder why it's €105 for you

[sharp ferry]

Because of sellers coupon code 😉

[hexed holly]

Has anyone figured out why the more demanding GOW runs so poorly on the TSPS review units? It doesn't seem right for that chip that it would run so poorly.

[pure palm]

The settings need more tweaking

The GoW games on PSP hover around 30 FPS, but are actually capped at 60

So it's abnormally difficult to run them at full speed compared to other games

[hexed holly]

I can't recall exactly, but I think that it was running at only 20FPS a lot of the time.

Well, they should really get that in order because that will affect sales.

One thing that I really like about TrimUI is how they add in a few extra buttons and toggles that offers some pretty nice quality of life improvements. For example, the Fn toggle, and now the Home button on top.

Also that probably makes it more Android friendly.

I'm curious to see how NextUI utilizes that button since they're focused on that line.

[hexed holly]

Found this:

https://github.com/LoveRetro/tg5050-toolchain

[lyric flare]

Guys is $77 a good price for this?

And can u put crossmixOS on it?

[undone breach]

It is a different SOC ( A523 instead of A133P) therefore CrossmixOS need to redevelop but seem it is base on modify stock os should able to develop.

[undone breach]

For 77 dollar , for 8 dollar more at 85 dollar u may choose Mangmi Air X, bigger console but more powerful soc.
Or ayaneo pocket mini at 80 dollar where the soc is more powerful.
Therefore it is a choice to make as to choose Tsps or go for stronger soc chipset device.
Stronger soc chipset allow to try more emulator like 3ds/ps2 and gc which i think tsps maynot.

[undone breach]

Rocknix is work in progress with Mangmi Air X, there is chance that Air X may have linux and it may eventually have portmaster.

[forest ermine]

Finally delivered

[lyric flare]

I think I've watched like 5-6 reviews of this device
I just wanna see the gaming capability man

[pure palm]

Definitely a more tempting deal now...

[nocturne moat]

Got my tracking email!

[vivid heart]

https://youtu.be/Jgb-JuUL9Fk
perfect showcase how bad ps2 emulation, even native translation

[pure palm]

Who tf is trying to play PS2 on this

[rotund sluice]

Smart people

[pure palm]

Trimui Smart People S

[lilac compass]

David the eternal shill

[paper ice]

It's how the games are coded

Unlike other PSP games they are specifically made to render out as many frames at all times

On a real PSP this doesn't matter but with emulation it gets funky

There's a code to fix this and even on a powerful PC I use it to get better frame times

[hexed holly]

I suppose that they were figuring on hardware upgrades being available.

[safe walrus]

https://youtube.com/shorts/8EA85v8WsHY

[lyric flare]

Cool

[shut folio]

https://youtu.be/a0pEeCIHAvA?si=B3N2_GjZghRxgSDv

[worthy badger]

hmm didnt it work mostly the same on rk3566 with frameskip set to 1?

I thought a523 could run it full speed without frame skip, I guess I was wrong

[hexed holly]

I've heard that all of these mobile chips have basically relatively trash drivers and even silicon bugs compared to AMD, Intel and nVidia for example. So I mean that probably the specific emulators need to work around some of this mess for each new chip family.

I'd estimate that in the past these bugs or oddness would have caused massive graphical glitches until it was remedied. But now it can just be slowness and hiccups. I mean that it's all gotten much better, but that these specific chips still need to be massaged a bit on the kernel and software level.

[amber depot]

hmmmm should i get one for $70 🤔

[pure palm]

Me, personally, I'm waiting to see if the One35 gets delayed again

If it's delayed, I'm ordering this

If not, I won't

[worthy badger]

I just noticed that despite the frame skip set to auto, it runs mostly at 60 fps in the video, it will be an awesome PSP emulation handheld when it's cheaper

[pure palm]

Yeah pretty much

[hexed holly]

Hey does anyone know if the second dpad could be configured to be other shortcut keys in a game? I mean is the controller code exactly the same (between the two dpads) or does it have an extra bit that RetroArch or Portmaster could pick up? I mean I've been wanting to have other mappable keys for Portmaster on my RG40XXH.

It's not a super serious question because I won't be buying that device, but it's something that I would eventually like if everything else lined up for me.

The reason is that Portmaster games often rely on R1 held combos to do things. It's rough on the joints and nerves.

[nocturne moat]

Pretty sure the second dpad are separate keys, but it's not out yet

[hexed holly]

A 4.5" 3:2 with a second dpad would be killer for me. For example mapping R1 to Dpad2:Up would make Balatro way more chill.

[amber depot]

What second dpad 😅

Let's talk about other devices on their channels, we don't want that shi 🤣

[quasi dagger]

Finally got my tracking number

[amber depot]

https://tenor.com/view/the-office-dwight-jackpot-gif-21054814

[vivid heart]

huh

[potent ruin]

inb4 getting the old one instead

[amber depot]

That's why I ordered the yellow

[potent ruin]

[amber depot]

I've also bought a couple of the old ones from them before for friends it's their official store, they even send them with free case

[amber depot]

Looks exactly like this

[coral mauve]

Game testing livestream with @full salmon and I in one hour-ish

[coral mauve]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iQzJ579g4w

[harsh quest]

When ship

[quasi dagger]

Anyone know a good hard case for this thing

[worthy badger]

it looks to be the same size as original TSP, so probably most Vita cases should fit

[hexed holly]

I estimate that this device doesn't need to be as successful as the first for them to make money. Their experience with this chipset will go into a revised Brick in 1 to 1.5 years time. Then another repeat with the Brick Hammer S.

[amber depot]

I think it's ready to replace the old one. Found great deals for it with same pricing of TSP from a year ago.

[hexed holly]

I'm been wondering if there is an infinite supply of old chips to go through on the way to the new expensive chips, or if the industry will hit a wall there where they have to be bought at a higher price.

[manic vapor]

40nm forever!!

[river wadi]

@flat echo by any chance when you tested motorstorm on the RK2023 did you enable some performance cheat?

[flat echo]

UCES01250 - European version

[river wadi]

Ahhh cool

TSPS can run it at 2x res with just the performance/resolution fix cheat at mostly fullspeed

Just tested it

Guess the better soft-threading on linux does wonders

I'll do the same on android when gamma puts out something for this

[shut folio]

The Knulli is happening! 🥳

[flat echo]

yeah that's a decent step up from rk3566 only doing it at 1x.

the t618 struggles in the same way as the a523.

[river wadi]

Did you try it on the e6max back when you had it again?

[flat echo]

i did and android couldn't play it well enough. The game kept stuttering and running at poor fps

[river wadi]

Figured

[flat echo]

The other heavy games like SOCOM Portable/Bravo 2&3, burnout dominator & revenge, tekken 6 and whatnot ran okay, but not as good as they would in linux

[river wadi]

Yeah the bottleneck seems to be the threading

Burnout Legends can push to 3x on the A133P on linux with some minor slowdowns I know that

[quasi dagger]

whats knulli

[shut folio]

It's my personal favorite Linux OS and available for many devices, namely Anbernic's RG##XX line as well as TrimUI's original Smart Pro and Brick.

[quasi dagger]

What does it do

[shut folio]

It organizes your games with a snazzy Emulation Station front end and sets up and configures all the emulators correctly for you from the get go, with the option to do per system and per game advanced configurations to easily and simply set up everything just the way you like with a minimum of tinkering.

Knulli also has a quick shut-off and quick resume function, letting you power off the handheld anytime during a game, then it'll boot straight back into the game where you left off when you power it back on. Like Onion OS! ^_^

[sour bridge]

knulli comes with emulators preconfigured and the Emulation Station front end. It's literally just a fork of Batocera for low powered devices.

[flat echo]

the whole threading thing is easy to spot where it matters. once queuing happens in android, a game's fps is fucked. in linux there is no per core limitation. it's all virtualized and limited to the cpu bandwidth/cache

[hexed holly]

Knulli, Rocknix, MuOS. These are the main three gaming Linux distros these days. They don't all support all devices. But if a device is popular then it's likely to be supported by at least one of them.

In general the community can make better operating systems for these devices than what the manufacturers can provide. They're ultra easy to install on an SD card and you can be trying more than one.

There is also Portmaster that allows you to install old games with ease. That is Linux only (not Android).

[forest ermine]

Okay, I've been won over by Vice City Stories, for a time anyway.

• Smart Pro S
• 2x resolution
• Solid 30 FPS (no faltering)

God of War can be a bit...odd, esp around the first mini-boss, certainly not a stable frame rate for me around that one.

Some games gave poor performance (GoW, WipEout Pure), but then others like this have no problems at all.

[lyric flare]

Play dantes inferno

[pure palm]

Vice City Stories has always been a game shown being played on devices

It doesn't seem particularly unplayable on RK3326, so I'm not surprised it runs well on this

[flat echo]

Liberty City Stories is a bit more demanding

[sharp ferry]

Dante already runs like mad with performance cheatcodes on tsp, its better to try silent hill shattered memories 😉

[pure palm]

So do people only use Dante's Inferno as just a performance test?

[flat echo]

only the ps3 and xb360 versions exist in my eyes

[pure palm]

As they should

It's not a good port lol

[river wadi]

It's in the upper echleons of the PSP library in terms of how much you need to emulate it

[pure palm]

Yeah but I meant like does anyone actually bother to play it beyond that

Like people actually do play the GoW games on PSP

Whereas Dante's Inferno is literally just a performance benchmark to most people

[forest ermine]

GoW can be...rough

[paper ice]

Oof

[full salmon]

It's configured poorly out of the box

[safe walrus]

And the card they ship it with is crap

[sharp ferry]

https://youtu.be/Q_Tbsw1PRBQ

[lyric flare]

I have the original TSP
I meant running it with 0 tweaking
It can't do that

[sharp ferry]

Most of psp emulation on tsp is about tweaking

[onyx blade]

You want Better PsP without Tweaking, buy a Better Device. I Hear Retroid has a Version 6 coming in January

[flat echo]

or just you know... buy something that plays psp? like a powkiddy x28 or something?

[forest ermine]

That's fine, but their promo material they sent to me as a reviewer was pushing how great it plays PSP.

I know that's fine, its not going to be seen by the public, but if I went by their material then it's kicking butt

[split spindle]

it's a roided up rk3566, how well can it even perform

[forest ermine]

The irony is that its their own sheet which makes me sour on things

[onyx blade]

I would love to see x2 GOW on PsP, how do I Edit the Image on YT to show that

[flat echo]

its 8 a55 cores on 1.5mb of cache instead of 4 on 768kb. for multithreaded n64, psp, and dreamcast, that's fine

i think if you're in the "i don't wanna tweak. i just wanna game" crowd, this isn't your device

[onyx blade]

But I was talking about the User above S1eepy comment asking for TSP to do that

[split spindle]

it's interesting that the price is $89 there and even their website sells it for $99

[lyric flare]

I don't want an android
Tsp is kinda perfect cause of the form factor , size and bunch of cfw

[quasi dagger]

Is stock os/crossmix good or should I get cfw when more come out

[forest ermine]

I'm enjoying the stock OS a lot, actually. It'll come down to personal preference in the end which you prefer, but the theme with my green model is lovely

[flat echo]

the original tsp was depressing for me. i hopped on that train for a bit.

i rate it beneath the OGU

[onyx blade]

im on that train right now, its a nice device. but i know it is never going to be able to play the whole PSP library. however, i wanna see if i can get the whole Saturn Library working on it

[lone bramble]

shader preset won't load on vulkan. Is there any way? (working on GL)

[ember vault]

fyi vice city stories guy theres 60fps patches for that game

[coral mauve]

Green looks great!

[quasi dagger]

Finally got mine today

[forest ermine]

Which color did you opt for? I love the green on mine

[quasi dagger]

Black

[nocturne moat]

Mine should be coming in soon. I got the black original, and really liked it, but I opted for the white one this time

The colors looked like McDonalds plastic on their site, so I was reluctant to get them. They look a lot better in the photos being shared here

[quasi dagger]

Anyone know how to get themes

[amber depot]

Got them 🎆 Even got free strap, card reader and a charging block

Thought that was sandisk but it was Ceamere 🤣

[edgy badger]

TIL psp isn’t 16:9

[amber depot]

Yep it's 30:17

[edgy thunder]

Ppsspp auto crop to 480x270 for 16:9 displays

[amber depot]

it's 2 pixels off so i don't think that matters much...

but then again people want their 2pixels from what i've seen on the helegaly action pi

[hexed holly]

Speaking of the Action Pi, does it really exist outside of China?

[amber depot]

All I know is vietnam has it and all the first devices sold in the west + dev/review units

[hexed holly]

I was really surprised that the year was so barren for cheaper Linux handhelds. I'm guessing that was half market over-saturation and half sanction chaos. It feels though like that 2026 will continue on. I'm thinking like that the R&D spring built up some pressure and will be released next year.

[manic vapor]

There's no cheap linux-frienly chips above allwinner A527, this is peak linux experience I'm afraid.

[hexed holly]

What is coming up in about 2 years after this?

Well, if A527 could become the new floor like 3326 then it will be nice.

[amber depot]

If the price I bought these would be the norm it would be awesome

[amber depot]

Chips might get cheap but ram would be outrageous so 2026-2027 looks grim

[hexed holly]

I doubt that the ram thing will continue for a very long time.

[manic vapor]

And besides, you don't need much ram to emulate gamecube/ps2 I think, especially on linux

There's RK3576 and RK3572 maybe coming, those are relatively cheap and can emulate N64 no problem

There's also allwinner A733 already available, but it uses an imagination bxm gpu instead of mali, no clue what emulators it supports.

[hexed holly]

What about the chip in the Magmi Air X? Couldn't that get a lot of attention now so that in 2 years it's looking pretty good for easy Linux support?

[hexed holly]

1.5GB of ram to emulate Gamecube well?

This is going to be a very interesting test though. The market is going to find out just how much that people prefer Linux, even when it's an overall worse device than Android. It will be much more clear cut in 2026.

[hexed holly]

I'm very curious to find this out about myself actually. I honestly don't know just how far my strong bias towards Linux goes. Let's see.

[amber depot]

It doesn't need 2 years to get linux support

[void lintel]

Christmas has arrived early

[tiny bridge]

I have a white Action Pi in Hungary. Hopefully, the firmware keeps getting improved... 🙂

[hexed holly]

Well let's see what the state of it is within the next 6 months. Maybe it won't be quite ready for an OEM for a bit longer. There could be a lot of small issues with the overall support.

But really I don't see why there couldn't be new Linux devices with that 15 months from now.

A few days ago I was playing GTA VC on my RG40XXH. It got real choppy and weird for about three seconds bit about an hour into it during some kind of a checkpoint moment. Maybe it was a memory leak finally hitting, but if it was a serious loading issue then that would probably be resolved on the TSPS. The TSPS might be able to brute force it's way through bad programming moments in otherwise perfect games.

[hexed holly]

TSPS has appeared on aliexpress.ru for scalping price (in Moldova). I even see one for $250.

So, any day now.

Who knows though. They might even not have them but just be trying to flip a future item for stupid high price.

Who actually buys that shit for so much?

[amber depot]

reviewers

[hexed holly]

I finally pulled the trigger. I bought a TSPS for $375. But watch just my luck it will be forever held in "shipping" and I'll have to request and fight for a refund.

[amber depot]

https://tenor.com/view/tom-delonge-blink182-wtf-meme-what-the-heck-first-date-gif-25383351

[hexed holly]

joking

[flat echo]

honestly, i really want a logitech gcloud. they're really cheap on ebay. only thing holding me from getting one is i have an rg556

speaking of which, i need to put Skate 3 on my t820 devices

[hexed holly]

I paid the $400 shipping so that I can get the TSPS in time for the NextUI release. They're cooking right now.

https://github.com/LoveRetro/NextUI/commits/tg5050/

[river wadi]

Skate 3??

No PC ver unless you're a masochist and gonna try RPCSX-UI

[flat echo]

skate 3 is tony hawk pro-skater 3.

[river wadi]

Ohhhhh

I thought you meant the EA one

[flat echo]

sorry lol

[river wadi]

THPS3 is around about mid GC/PS2 so yeah it'll run

[flat echo]

i've been comparing the pc port to the ps2 port to see where they're different

[river wadi]

Ahhh

I remember trying to set the pc version up with controller but gave up and installed dolphin LMAO

You know more about joy2key than i do

[flat echo]

oh i've already gone through that -madness-

[river wadi]

PC has higher quality sound effects I know that

[flat echo]

the sound is weird on pc. npcs are always set to volume 4-5 and the sound settings only apply to music, ui, player/environment.

so if you set everything to 1, you still hear loud-ass construction workers, or the kid stuck to the fence, or the bully in the field spouting their lines at half volume.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1344107893850505358/1450895244303401071/thismess.png?
but yeah joy2key is fine. game runs like butter on toaster pcs

sad that only underground 2 and project 8 are on psp. pro skater 2 is on dreamcast, so the tsp-s should be fine for all of those

[river wadi]

THPS1 and 2 Dreamcast both run fine on the original TSP

[coral mauve]

[quasi dagger]

Whats next ui Ive heard the name but don't know what it does

[river wadi]

You ran it through gamehub? On the 556

[flat echo]

i may give that a shot later since Flatout 1&2 run quite well out of gamehub/winlator. just doing it on win600 for now

[hexed holly]

NextUI is a distro forked from MinUI. It's very minimalistic and has a bunch of extensions.

[quasi dagger]

Oh nice

is there a discord to keep up with progress

[hexed holly]

Well, probably best to learn how to read source code a bit. I'm not exactly familiar with it, but I'm a programmer.

[median harbor]

Yes there is, it’s linked on their GitHub I believe

[zealous escarp]

How is it? Do you have the normal TSP as well?

[celest tendon]

arkos trimuismartpros incomming?

[undone breach]

375 dollars why so expensive??

[quasi dagger]

The quality is nice but i haven't played anything yet, and I dont have an original TSP

[median harbor]

I have ended up really liking the TSPS so far, to my own surprise. I actually wasn’t a big fan of the original, but this one’s got enough marginal improvements here and there that it’s been much more enjoyable

[amber depot]

https://tenor.com/view/nah-im-good-santiago-zayas-rome-flynn-with-love-nah-im-okay-gif-1668417139409515036

Green arrived late 🎉

[quasi dagger]

Anyone know how to make your own themes

[hexed holly]

I was just thinking that if the market was so scarce with Linux devices this year then it probably means that the kernel hackers will be concentrating on a small amount of devices.

[quasi dagger]

Whats the point of these two

[potent ruin]

to take space!

[hexed holly]

It looks like a music player.

Does it include one?

It's probably not a great device for that, but others could be, like the brick.

I saw a recent post about someone using a newer 2.8" android as a music player. Seems pretty ok.

or maybe 3.2

[quasi dagger]

I tried it out of the box and it just does nothing if you press it

It looks nice but its useless

[pure palm]

So stock firmware actually is Android?

[hexed holly]

No

@quasi dagger Do you get that Home button overlay within games?

[vivid heart]

https://youtu.be/dL0TWX9_2YM?si=zchqFgwb6a5l5c5o 2Х

[flat echo]

regarding the music player, when you have 100 devs working on the same thing, some of them start adding features just to say they did something

[quasi dagger]

Yes

[undone breach]

portmaster should not focus on game but important apps such as netflix or Spotify.
Possible one day to get netflix /Spotify or youtube to run on Linux.

[harsh quest]

https://portmaster.games/detail.html?name=librespot

[quasi dagger]

Anyone know how to add boxart manually

[rain urchin]

Which Netflix/Spotify/YouTube app are you referring to?

[undone breach]

What I mean netflix and spotify on linux ( portmaster possible)
I believe linux should have a web browser and should able to access youtube using web browser.

[hexed holly]

The problem is that those services can change their client protocols at any moment.

[hexed holly]

That will naturally happen when these devices are powerful enough to realistically do that. They're just barely getting there now.

[rain urchin]

1gb isn't enough RAM to run a web browser on those sites.

[hexed holly]

I don't think that you're appreciating just how much hyper-optimization that it takes to make these potatoes run so many systems. A lot of new commercial software is incredible bloated and lame.

[rain urchin]

portmaster has a web browser that runs in 1gb... but none of those websites will load in it. https://portmaster.games/detail.html?name=netsurf

[rain urchin]

This is the correct take. I'm currently staring at Dead Cells assembly code trying to figure out how to snip and cut certain sections to make it run faster.

[hexed holly]

That is pretty badass. I have a CS degree and that sort of work impresses me quite a lot.

[rain urchin]

Dude... LLM is the way. Claude code can read hashlink, x86, and aarch64 assembly like it's reading english. I just let the LLM tell me what's going on and then we discuss strategy that the LLM implements. This is how I wrote the aarch64 backend to haxe/heaps. It's not that I don't know how to write a compiler, but the back-and-forth with the LLM teaches me so much about what's going on.

If you wanna follow along, I'm (very verbosely) documenting my process here:
https://discord.com/channels/1122861252088172575/1446936430621495356

[hexed holly]

Do you know of any videos that demonstrate that? I've not gotten up to speed with AI. I'm pretty good at debuging in impossible environments where you're pretty lucky to get any output at all, and that just looks like print statements in logs. Getting output out of messed up situations is a whole skill in itself that rarely translates to perfect awesome tools.

There is also the privacy thing at my every keystroke being plugged into a server.

[hexed holly]

It says that I don't have access.

[rain urchin]

oh oops yeah, that's dev-only

[hexed holly]

Well, these devices are as awesome as they are probably due to only like 25 people (or so).

[rain urchin]

I have not seen any documentation on how to do this stuff, and it's been mosly trial and error to get a feel for when the LLM can understand things and when it's hallucinating. I think understanding RLDT in their training steps can inform how you know what to ask, but they do so much RLDT now in modern models that it truly never fucks up reading assembly.

It's not that I'm exactly vibe coding, but I'm definitely ceding all the stuff to the LLM that it can handle, and it can handle a lot. My job is kinda like being linus torvalds, where I just code review an enormous amount of output. I will say though for hairy debugs, we just drop into generated assembly code and I just paste it into the LLM. There's no point in debug prints, the LLM understands assembly so it doesn't need a translation layer to occasionally output to human-readable format. However it doesn't understand this, so you have to craft the base prompt to insist that it doesn't put debug prints but instead just reads the assembly in the debugger.

[hexed holly]

Are you doing all of this to make Deadcells work on Portmaster?

[rain urchin]

haxe/hashlink is a programming language and virtual machine runtime that underpins many many games. Deadcells is the most popular, but there's a ton of them. My goal is to port all of them with optimizations to run on potato devices.

Here's the first game that works with this approach (and you should be able to see it if you're on the portmaster discord):
https://discord.com/channels/1122861252088172575/1451699345526231232

This is running on my aarch64 (ARM) jit compiler for hashlink bytecode

[hexed holly]

I'm working on a buildless component library that uses shadowdom, and pretty new browser stuff to make a vue/svelte like system where the script, style and markup are all in one file. I've made it using plugins so that I can swap out the template/reactive/signal parts. I first got it going with bloated Alpine.js, then petite-vue and then another cool bit of code that I found. I swapped out their homegrown signal library for the badass alien-signals library whose cutting edge research went into remaking Vue 3.6, preact and others. The bundle size is tiny for what it does. And the compnents can be server-side inline included or loaded dynamically, so it can be very fast to start up.

https://github.com/perchlabs/ucom

Oh, so anyways, I don't really know how AI could help me with this because the specific ways that I'm hooking up the cutting edge browser features together isn't really available. Only the APIs are available, but I have no idea how AI could figure that out.

But I imagine in 5+ years that AI could just whip you up one of these frameworks once there were already dozens of examples to train from.

[hexed holly]

So are you mostly working on the runtime? I've seen that portmaster flowchart.

[rain urchin]

it could do it today... you just have to craft the prompt to inform the AI of all the bits. It can totally read the API docs and divine how to use the api.

[hexed holly]

The tricky part is that you already have to do massive research to discover the bits.

[rain urchin]

LLM's can do research and summarize their results.

[hexed holly]

And then deadends and "[ ] Not support on Safari", etc.

[rain urchin]

but just pasting in a wad of source code works too

[hexed holly]

I should probably try it. I'm definitely young enough that I'll need it.

[rain urchin]

I'm old, but I don't type in code anymore. I learned C in 1992 but this changes how I develop. You need to be able to do both, reading lots of code is often harder than writing it, but if you get good at reading code you'll never write it again.

[hexed holly]

Well, I currently have on my plate to experiment ripping out vue-reactive for some variant of alien-signals. I can absolutely do it, but the last three times that I started it I was already too exhausted from the first moment and it made my head spin. AI could probably actually do that since it's clear cut.

It's been fun making many dozens of small optimizations. Sometimes I can take 100 bytes off of the uncompressed build, but often times it's only 20 bytes.

[rain urchin]

that's too much micro-optimization. You need to instrument what's occupying memory and only cut where it will benefit. Also "make my head spin" is the death of LLM coding. The big challenge I find is to strap in and not "head spin" but still follow along where it goes. It's indeed exhausting, but I find that I'm saved mental cycles from writing the code so I can spend them ALL on following along with the plan.

[hexed holly]

For a web framework it's not about saving memory but saving bundle size. It should get out of the way very fast.

[rain urchin]

Its a cool project.

[hexed holly]

I want to be able to automate my smart farm without having a build step for it. I miss how you used to be able to directly hack on the server like with PHP and uncompiled javascript. I think that the industry and private projects haven't been servicing this well at all. Probably because all people with a mind to do so have gone into AI. As far as I can tell it's definitely left some gaps.

[last trail]

TrimUI has this on Linux? 😳

[potent ruin]

yes

[quasi dagger]

Anyone else starting to find this menu more and more useless

Half the things here dont work

Like the trimui and music thing does nothing

and the temp never seems to change

And all the other stuff you could change in settings although it is nice to have in game

[hexed holly]

Is there really no music player?

Have you tried flicking the physical Fn switch to see if it changes the CPU readout?

[bitter hedge]

Anyone seen analogue stick issues? Mine is missing inputs 80% of the time. Seems like the old bug from the original tsp sticks

[pure palm]

Which is strange since the sticks this time around should be much better

[forest ermine]

None. It's odd.

[hexed holly]

Maybe it was cut at the last minute.

[median harbor]

There’s 100% a music player on the stock firmware. Idk how well it plays with the OSD though

I haven’t tested it. But it exists

[forest ermine]

What the heck, I've been spending all week on this thing. How am I to access this?!

Oh, jeez. The 'music' selection on the apps section. Well, I'm a dolt.

FLAC plays fine. Music continues to play if the device is locked and hotkeys to change tracks, pause etc all work with the screen off. Pretty good actually!

[hoary glen]

Can it play during games?

[forest ermine]

Good point, let me see!

[hexed holly]

Also, if you have a playlist loaded / music in the directory then can it start playing from the Home widget? Or does it need to be started first from the app?

[forest ermine]

Yep, it plays with games 🙂

[forest ermine]

It can be paused / played from in there. Do you mean from say a cold boot?

[hoary glen]

Sweet!

[forest ermine]

It doesn't play (using the menu from the HOME button - from cold boot, so it has to be started from the app it seems

[hexed holly]

That's probably something that can be improved later. Maybe Crossmix...

[quasi dagger]

Oh wow

guess I was wrong

[forest ermine]

It was a surprise to me, but...it shouldn't have been. Right there in the 'apps' section!

[quasi dagger]

I didn't really expect it to relate to the menu part when I first saw it lol

[quasi dagger]

Has anyone noticed the sticks dont really register at times

Is this a software or hardware issue

[forest ermine]

This hasn't happened to me once! Interesting.

[hexed holly]

Does anyone here own both a TSP/S and RG40XXH? How do the ergonomics compare?

[bitter hedge]

Yes! I'm having this issue. If you try and move them fast they don't register properly. I've been going back and fore on aliexpress chat trying to solve it. They had me basically disassemble the device and put it back together. And sent me firmware to try. Both did nothing of course...
I also tried some Nintendo switch sticks in it while I had it open and they behaved the same

[quasi dagger]

Hopefully crossmix or some custom OS fixes this

[bitter hedge]

I wanted it to play psp racing games and stardew valley, and it can do neither of those things in its current state.
I haven't seen anyone else mention this across YouTube discord and reddit, whether that means ours are defective or are people just not noticing who knows

[bitter hedge]

Just to add, the behaviour has been noted in the knulli alpha discussion too

[hexed holly]

$82 + 31. Still kind of crazy, but getting there.

[wet ingot]

hi guys, booted the surwish Crossmix bought directly along w the trimui smart pro S. Is the crossmix they provide reliable? This sort of banding happened after around 15 mins of use so I'm wondering if anyone encountered this with their unit too. Thanks in advance!

[median harbor]

I don’t think this is a CrossMix issue. Might be a loose ribbon cable

[split spindle]

my TSPS is spending Christmas in Belgium it seems

[onyx blade]

https://tenor.com/view/world-cup-belgium-bélgica-bel-pan-fans-gif-12023803

[hexed holly]

$76 + $14 = $90. Getting there.

[flat echo]

huh. tempted to get this just for music

my zune is almost dead

[hexed holly]

Get a Brick for that. I recently read a demonstration of how someone turned a touch android console into an ipod.

I can't remember which device. It's a newer highly rated 2.8". I want to say XU32 (XU20 V32) or something like that.

[split spindle]

XU20 V32 yeah, pretty decent as a mp3 player

[flat echo]

hmmmmmmm

[lyric flare]

Are u talking about rockbox from portmaster
It's decent but it doesn't sound that good

[hexed holly]

Ok, so I'm not really knowing about it other than having skimmed a demonstration is all.

But are you speaking as an idiom? Or do you mean that the actual sound on the device doesn't sound good? Would it be bad with audiophones (like bad circuits)?

[hexed holly]

At any rate, even if Brick isn't great as an iPod, it would still be better than a TSPS due to size.

[sour bridge]

you are supposed to get a good dac if you really want the good audio

It's definitely not a software problem. Rockbox runs on my ipod and the audio is great.

[hexed holly]

So, if you say so. I really couldn't say how differently that a bad DAC vs good DAC sounds like when used with good ear buds.

[hollow lichen]

for this niche that honestly enjoys the gadgets and tinkering first and foremost, there should be a larger overlap with messing with ipods

i absolutely went 「psp homebrew > ipod rockboxing > iphone jailbreaking > ten-year timeleap > chinese handhelds」

the irony is ive come full circle now and daily an ipod classic and psp3000 🤦🏻‍♂️

[flat echo]

can't deny the og hardware was the best

[split spindle]

that would require people to still have ipods

[hollow lichen]

can pick up a "busted" $30 ipod classic and refurb/upgrade/mod it just like these toys

[onyx blade]

I always love how people wanna not acknowledge the Hardware modders with a shit ton of will power and moxie

[solid river]

Is the audio coming directly out of the front or is it bouncing in the case like the last model?

[bitter hedge]

Bit of both, it has the same ports at the front but also has ports on the rear. The speakers are mounted to the back of the joysticks with the outputs facing downward

[solid river]

Basically I wouldn't understand unless I have the handheld in my hands.

[bitter hedge]

I wouldn't buy it for the audio quality, its not great by any means, its just okay.

[forest ermine]

Exactly this!

It's fine, it gets quite loud and maintains everything, but its not winning any audio awards. Interesting to me was the low quality voicework on GTA Vice City Stories. I'd forgotten that compressed audio it has for dialogue!

[shut folio]

In simpler terms, the speakers are down firing in the direction of the holes but not directly out of the holes.

[lyric flare]

What % of psp can this one play at full speed

[solid river]

Ooooohhh... That makes more sense. 😅

[solid river]

At least 90% if not 95% of the Library at native resolution at least.

[hexed holly]

I've wondered if part of the overall relative slowness of the nextui project has been them privately massively refactoring the display code. I saw that minui had a pretty basic display system that had some unexpected issues when nextui animated it. Very high CPU usage during the menus. They said that they needed to rewrite a whole lot of code to really fix it properly.

Or maybe nextui devs just took a break after such a long sustained push.

[silent onyx]

Late, but apparently, it's limited to 16-bit width audio for some reason. This is a Rockbox limitation that they never bothered to fix even as they allow higher and higher ranges

(This kinda made me wish I got a PSP as a kid, heh. Could've also served as my iPod substitute in addition to a place for games)

[undone breach]

Enjoy the good review from Retro Game Corp:)

https://youtu.be/FvJ7QP6iId4?si=-5VqBb5-o58jGvcJ

[split spindle]

I don't need a review, I got mine today

[onyx blade]

https://tenor.com/view/congrats-nice-happy-for-you-congrats-nice-happy-for-you-gif-1927193140186872022

[median harbor]

@harsh quest the normies are starting to get their TSPSes, any chance of moving this out of upcoming?

[harsh quest]

There's a list of About 6 handhelds that can be moved out of upcoming, I won't be able to do it tonight with the RH Stream coming up

[hexed holly]

Do PSP players actually play a massive amount of Chains of Olympus?

[potent ruin]

wait, are you supposed to play beyond the first level?

[worthy badger]

Do they play anything? Or just set up devices and forget about them?

[silent onyx]

True

[hexed holly]

I'm wondering if something will happen around ram such that some devices will have more stealth price jumps over 2026. In that case the 1GB of ram would really be easier to sell.

There is some serious gamification going on with the prices and shipping of these units. Is it really that price when only a 1000 people in the entire community can get it for that price? If shipping is $25 instead of $15 then isn't that just gamification? I hope that the community factors that in or it's just going to be a whole lot of mismatched comparisons.

Supposedly TSPS is $100, but even at this early time I can find it in Moldova ali.ru for $90 or less including shipping. Is this "$100" even considering shipping, or would that be extra? The Magmi is only available for about $140-145 after shipping (~$133 + $8). So for me it's already $90 vs $140. That means Magmi is 55% more expensive.

Magmi is overall quite a bit better. Let's call it 50% better for 50% higher price. That seems fair. What is not fair is saying 50% better for 10% higher price.

We'll see how it all straightens out over the year. I think though that we're going to have to hold these Chinese marketing bullshitters to count or it could only get worse.