Handhelds

[Whitters]

They've recently released an update for the PS Portal where a lot more games are available now for streaming from the cloud so you don't need to connect to your PS5 (or even own one theoretically), including a number of games that you have bought that aren't on PSN Premium

The caveats being that you need to have a PSN Premium subscription anyway (which I had anyway for the 'free' games), any games you own and want to stream rather than connect remotely to the PS5 for need to have been bought digitally rather than on disk, need to have a 'PS5' or 'updated for PS5' version (i.e. not PS4 games like RDR2), and need to be 'streamable' (you can tell from looking at the PS store). The latter counts out games like Battlefield 6, COD and FIFA for now, but they can still be run remotely from the PS5, as can RDR2, etc.

So all in all a good update, plus it has added 3D sound. Of course the Portal needs a good wifi connection still, but at least it's only relying on a good connection to the cloud in most cases now rather than to the PS5 too.

[DDHammer]

They've recently released an update for the PS Portal where a lot more games are available now for streaming from the cloud so you don't need to connect to your PS5 (or even own one theoretically), including a number of games that you have bought that aren't on PSN Premium

The caveats being that you need to have a PSN Premium subscription anyway (which I had anyway for the 'free' games), any games you own and want to stream rather than connect remotely to the PS5 for need to have been bought digitally rather than on disk, need to have a 'PS5' or 'updated for PS5' version (i.e. not PS4 games like RDR2), and need to be 'streamable' (you can tell from looking at the PS store). The latter counts out games like Battlefield 6, COD and FIFA for now, but they can still be run remotely from the PS5, as can RDR2, etc.

So all in all a good update, plus it has added 3D sound. Of course the Portal needs a good wifi connection still, but at least it's only relying on a good connection to the cloud in most cases now rather than to the PS5 too.

It's a great update, being a dad to a 2 year old with another on the way, I ended up selling my PS5 Pro as it was collecting dust and 90% of the TV time is spent watching Ms Rachel. I've got a massive library of Playstation games built up over 20 years, so it's great to be able to stream loads of my owned games now, especially on a £200 device.

Been playing FF7 Rebirth on the Portal loads over the last week, runs great streaming but the next big update to the Portal needs to be an increased bitrate, currently capped at 15mbps, no idea why they don't increase it as apparantly the chip can handle it.

PXPlay app on the Legion Go was the best streaming quality I experienced, largely because you could set the bitrate at 50mbps and foliage etc looked loads better, but that's a £600 device that requires a PS5 as well.

I'm sort of holding out on any new handheld purchase until the rumoured 2027 PS6 Canis Handheld (Dockable apparantly), I'm expecting Sony to blow the competition out of the water at a decent price.

[dasnutnock3]

at a decent price.

Given the state of the hardware market in 2025, I wouldn't bet on it.

[damiant]

Sounds pretty good for the price, which console are.you able to play up to?

[dasnutnock3]

Sounds pretty good for the price, which console are.you able to play up to?

If that was for me, this R36S clone can go up to Dreamcast, but struggles with titles requiring a bit more bhp. Crazy Taxi & Soul Calibur run fine, stuff like Dead or Alive 2 is a struggle.

Most annoying bit is the 64Gb microSD card it came with. Limitations of exFAT mean I can't really clone it to a 128Gb card (no way to expand the cloned volume), which means I'll need a fresh install, which is a bit of a PITA.

[damiant]

That's a shame mate

[dasnutnock3]

That's a shame mate

Not the end of the world. Suspect if I put some hours in, I'd be able to do something manual with a fresh build, but dunno if it's worth the faff. There's a second microsd slot I might be able to use for game-only storage. Again, can I be arsed? Time will tell...

[dasnutnock3]

Got it to work, now have a load of space to fill up on stuff

[Colne Dynamo]

Switch Emulators have come on a long way. A Retroid 5 (snapdragon 865) is now able to play many Switch games perfectly. The two main emulators are Eden and Citron and its best to have them both installed. NetherSx2 emulator is the go to for PS2 emulation, and the Standalone Dolphin best for Gamecube. Both should have no issues playing upscaled games on the Retroid 5 or other Snapdragon 865.

The Odin 2 or Retrod 6 on the other hand has a much better Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset and is able to play even more Switch games at full HD (docked mode) and can play pretty much the entire PS2 and Ganecube catalogue scaled up to 1080p

For Dreamcast, Flycast is probably the most powerful emulator (and can also emulate Naomi2 arcade games) but the amount of settings might be daunting to some. Redream is probably better for those that simply want it to work without any faff although the free version has no upscaling support - that is available for a small fee.

I use Retroarch for anything 16bit and below including GBA, and then I use standalone emulators for anthing above that. I use ES-DE as a frontend which works really well, although will only really be suitable for the higher end handhelds.

Just managed to grab a retroid 5 on ebay for £130 as a christmas present for my kid, and been setting it up over the last few days. Managed to get around 25 switch games on it working perfectly so far. For those with a Snapdragon 865 or above device, https://www.emuready.com is a good site to find compatible Switch games along with settings needed to run.

[damiant]

I only have a retroid 4 pro at the moment , think I will save for a 6

[damiant]

I see the odin 3 is being released but don't want to spend that much

[Colne Dynamo]

Drivers are sill young for teh G2 but in terms of CPU, its been shown to outperform the Snapdragon 8 gen 2 in some benchmarks. As those drivers mature, I think the device will end up being very capable, and is a good buy for £200.

Retroid 6 is same CPU/GPU as an Odin 2 so you could see if any deals are about for those as the screens a bit bigger on the Odin.