I need a decent handheld for emulation and I think steam deck is the best choice out of all the options available, the other option I had in mind was the retroid pocket 4 pro but for that price (200 dollars) I might as well save up for another week and get a steam deck (500 dollars).
My problem is I don’t really like spending money at all, I have three issues with spending
1.) Money makes me horny
2.) Money can go to my savings account where it would be safer
3.) Stannis Baratheon crack pipe
I have been enjoying my miyoo mini plus but the system maxes out at PS1 and ideally I want to be playing PS2 emulation
I bought one for ps2 only to be let down massively by the youtubers really do hype it up for ps2 which is so odd.
You can forget about NTSC you'll need PAL copies of every game, then you'll need to check it against the compatibility sheet which will mark a game as "playable" only to find even with the tinker steps applied still runs below 100% speed and then has major graphics bugs. Then you'll find out aethersx2 is unsupported then you'll have people hype up nethersx2 when all it does is change internal config the core is still the same shit. And it doesn't end there the fucking controller mapping is bugged. Niche problem but i like binding armoured core camera buttons to the right stick but aethersx2 doesn't stop pressing the button when the stick returns to neutral position it only stops pressing if the stick is in the opposite direction.... Then you'll find that opengl doesn't run on the system well at all and the recommendation is to use vulkan but pcsx2 relied on opengl for best compatibility and the vulkan backend is broken for loads of games. But opengl performance sucks massively.
Welcome to my experience of being sold on a lie then hitting every brick wall. Still love the device tho but if I had a miyoo mini already I'd be fucked right off. I also have two much more powerful smart phones and a tablet i run aethersx2 on but still run into many issues its just not a good platform for ps2.
I have also learned not to listen to any handheld reviewing youtuber and research the device myself. Maybe once Play! hits maturity android might see some decent ps2 support but thats not anytime soon
With aethersx2, you have to use a device with a high end Snapdragon processor and Adreno GPU for it to work properly on OpenGL and Vulkan. Exynos and MediaTek processors with Mali GPUs, even the lastest ones, will perform terribly, especially in OpenGL. The graphics drivers for the Mali GPUs are missing key features. Snapdragon 865 is the minimum needed for full speed emulation. Then you can use most of the same settings and hacks you'd use on PCSX2, and the games work, mostly.
I have an 888+, 8 gen 1 and 8 gen 3 device and even the 888+ struggles just about hitting 100% speed with frequent dips on a lot of games. The gen 1 and 3 chip run it at what I'd deem smooth but at that point the steam deck is just a better option
Oh yeah I forgot to mention that the 888 and first batch of the 8 gen 1 have worse sustained performance than the 865 due to thermal throttling, caused by the inferior Samsung process. It was a massive deal back when the phones with the 888 first came out.
Yeah that true, at the same price, obviously the steam deck is the far better option.