Quest in Finding a good Android Emulation Device

[fastbilly1]

I was always curious about this, especially since you have to root to connect a ps3 controller. It means you could make your own shield portable, strictly for emulation, for much cheaper using one of those fancy phone holders. I am curious to how new you can go on that Exceed 2. Caster, can you try running Retroarch or Drastic and a DS game? Its a 1.2ghz A7, a gig of ram, and a Adreno 302 gpu - it should be able to run 2d heavy DS games no problem.

Edit:
Apparently it has the same cpu/gpu as the xperia E1, which runs Mario Kart DS full speed. This is very interesting.

Caster, how long is your battery life when gaming?

[casterofdreams]

Battery life I am unsure about since I got this last night. It's on 75% brightness with airplane mode enabled so no wireless communication to eat up battery. The phone has a 2100 mAh battery.

As for other emulators I've only gotten into than three I mentoned before so I need to look for an .apk file for the DS and get a rom. Edit: didn't see the two apps mentioned above. I can look for them and perform a check but it'll have to be the weekend.

[fastbilly1]

Give retroarch a go:
http://buildbot.libretro.com/stable/1.2.2/android/

Thats the APK for 1.2.2 stable. It has cores for up to PSP/DS emulators.

[casterofdreams]

Fastbilly: in using that app along with Yoshi's Island DS it does not run well. I don't know if the app, the phone, the rom, or anything else is to blame.

What I can confirm is that every game I've thrown at it for the GBA, SNES and GBC run flawlessly. Just without sound. See, if you have sound enabled there's slowdown. I remember this from a few years ago with my first android phone. Disabling sound in the options menu brings this up to normal speed. On my current phone, the LG G3, it runs with sound on normal speed but can't save. Ultimately the sound issue doesn't affect me. I'm okay with the concession.

[casterofdreams]

After a little over a week with this device and I'm happy to report that my quest is officially complete.

It plays GBA, GBC, and SNES games. There is some slowdown if sound is enabled in the options menu however. Unknown as to why. I think it's more software than hardware at this point.

The device is now $14.99 on Amazon so $5 less than when I purchased it. I bought another one and a couple of 32GB micro SD cards.

I recommend it as long as the no sound caveat isn't a deal breaker.

[marlowe221]

After a little over a week with this device and I'm happy to report that my quest is officially complete.

It plays GBA, GBC, and SNES games. There is some slowdown if sound is enabled in the options menu however. Unknown as to why. I think it's more software than hardware at this point.

The device is now $14.99 on Amazon so $5 less than when I purchased it. I bought another one and a couple of 32GB micro SD cards.

I recommend it as long as the no sound caveat isn't a deal breaker.

This is very very interesting to me. I have been in search of a good way to emulate GB/GBC/GBA games in a handheld form factor.

What are you doing for controls, using the onscreen ones?

[casterofdreams]

Yes I am using the on screen controls. The games that require precise 8 way directional input are not easy so I avoid those types of games.