Turn your old phone or tablet into a retro gaming console
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- čas přidán 16. 07. 2024
- We all have old phone and tablets lying around the house. So why not turn one into a retro gaming handheld for zero cost? Let me show you how to set up the software, install the games and even add a gamepad to make a fantastic retro handheld games machine.
Don't forget to check out the main project page on my website for more info and help in finding the games and BIOS files and for links to the games controllers I used.
bytesnbits.co.uk/old-phone-to...
Dig themes at digdroid.com/forums/categorie...
Games controllers
amzn.to/3Y4KuFz
amzn.to/3Y0BAsX
0:00 Introduction
1:08 My devices
3:02 What games can you play
5:31 Installing the software
9:29 Downloading games and BIOS files
13:10 Setting up RetroArch and Dig
20:40 Selecting emulation cores
25:55 Setting up a games controller
32:32 Overlays and hotkeys
38:54 Themes
43:21 Conclusion - Věda a technologie
Thank you ,this is a great show well I am 71 years old and a tech type but I never had time to play games ,now I do so on to use my old Samsung A71 phone and build a handheld console that all the kids in the neighberhood will envy .
Brilliant. Make sure to buy a baseball cap and wear it backwards to fit in with the gamer crowd.
May god protect you in your life and i hope u will have fun
The most impressive part of this video is still having a lg g4 that hasn't toasted itself. Man I miss my old one. The camera just took the most amazingly vibrant and warm photos.
Great phone. It was good to get it back into use again.
Thank you for the tutorial !! I'll be doing this on my Samsung S6 tablet.
Great! Have fun!
My friend. Thanks a bunch. I was able to pick up a Red Magic 5g on the cheap, and thanks to your video, I'm enjoying games from my youth. Consider me a new subscriber :)
Glad I could help. Hope you enjoy reliving the 80s.
Thank you, this is the most helpful video I've ever seen. I'm going to set up my old samsung A5 to become my retro gaming console 😊
Great to hear! Have fun!
Great video and very detailed. many thanks.
Glad it was helpful!
I have iPega (different model), but I recommend GameSir X2 Pro. Just played Bio Menace and Doom. I even forgot, that I'm using cellphone. In some respects it's even better, than Steam Deck.
Good to hear you're having some retro fun with your phone. Thanks for the tip.
Underatted love your content❤❤
Thanks
Surprised to hear another northern Irish accent like my own in this sort of video, good stuff
Glad you enjoyed it
Really useful vid ❤
Glad you think so!
Incredible!
Thanks
Love this channel. Doesn't get enough subs!
I appreciate that! Thanks.
Nice. I'm more a lightweight PC gamer so I bought a chinese 8" windows tablet + Ipega controller & got myself some 2D indie steam games in the early 2010s with okay performances 😄
Great setup. Have you tried installing some retro games? Have a look at one of my LaunchBox tutorials
You da man. Thanks dude. Here's a sub for your trouble.
Thanks
I really appreciate this video, it helped me a lot. Just out of curiosity - will you also make a video on setting up Daijisho?
Thanks. To be honest I've never tried using Daijisho. I'll have to have a look at it.
@@BytesNBits Just out of curiosity, which Samsung tablet is that at 0:02 ?
Great video! Thanks for putting in all the work it took to make this. I have an old Samsung tablet I'm going to try this with. Is there a way around having to hit a button to hide the controls overlay and just have them not show up at all? I know you said you did it that way to prevent Dig from getting in the way.
Thanks. Yes. In RetroArch you can turn off the screen overlay completely. It's the top option in the overlay settings area. Have fun!
Hi there! You convinced me to get my old phone out of the desk drawer and give it a try.
Is there any noticeable input lag with using a bluetooth controller? It's the only thing keeping me from getting a BT controller.
BTW the lag at 33:00 was most likely the game itself, it's known for its slowdowns. There is an optimized rom for it, as well as some settings for the core and RetroArch that reduce the slowdowns.
Thanks for the tips. On the lag side I don't really notice any. I guess there must be some but it doesn't get in the way of the games.
There are also usb c based controllers like those from gamesir. Look into those!
Thanks for the info. So many to choose from!
Hello, just saw your video, as a frontend I would recommend you to take a look at Daijisho, DIG can't keep up. greetings from Germany
Cool, thanks! I've not looked at that one.
Had a quick look. Looks great but not for Android V5 that running on the tablet in the video. I'll have to try with a newer device!
How about setting up CRT filters?
There are a lot of settings you can play around with inside Retroarch.
could u update this to use something like launchbox or emulation station desktop edition?
Launchbox has an Android version you can use. I think there are a few other front ends as well. Find one that suits you, but they need to be Android applications.
Galaxy s7 with an ipega spider, get also panda game pro or something like that.
Sounds good to me!
I bought a few Samsung galaxy epic 4 G I collect them like sea shells lol, I was going to make a a retro hand held out of them like The Phawx did but I was going to take it a step further and try to install lineage os on like android oreo custom rom but not sure how to custom rom lol
Sounds like a good project. I'm not sure how you get the OS onto a phone.
I have an old Amazon 8" tablet, so can I use that to make a games console? Please thank Bob in the UK.
That should work fine. Again the consoles you'll be able to emulate will depend on the processing power of your tablet.
One question... What is the minimum specs required for m64plus fz on the lowest settings ? 😅 I'm curious.
I honestly don't know. I was using a really old lowish end tablet and that was fine.
@@BytesNBits thanks a lot ! Personnaly, i have a tablet that can run GameCube but... I wanted to know in case my little brother get his first tablet, that way i can put some Mario games, and not these mobile knockoff. So in case, it's good to know.
a lite custom roms for old devices will definitely give additional performance since custom roms doesn't have bloatwares.
Yes, thanks. There are a lot of optimisations you can do for your setup. This video is really a starting point to get you up and running easily.
@@BytesNBits yes im actually working on a little hobby of mine, converting old phones to some emulation devices. most phones have custom roms that doesn't have bloatwares... then after installation your optimizations further improves the performance.
Yeah buddy, wayyy better than a lot of hendhelds they're selling now
Especially if you've got a device lying in your drawer.
thank you! Now, my old ass has a new purpose for my old devices.
Sounds good to me
There was time when we wait for our turn in arcades to play metal slug and other games. Now all these games in our pocket 😅
Yes. It's great. But the arcades did have a certain excitement about them which I think gets lost a bit with the emulation.
Just to heads up if you have a Hudl 1 or 2 Tesco no longer supports these so DO NOT FACTORY RESET them or its a massive pain to get them up and running again 😊
Thanks for the tip.
Would this work on an Amazon Fire Tablet?
It should do if you can side load the apk file.
Thanks for a really good video, very useful.
I have been planning to do retro gaming on old Android devices for a while now (including on an old Motorola G4 like you have) but I refuse to run Google Android anywhere due to the privacy and tracking issues - any Android devices I do use daily run Lineage OS on them with no Google applications on them.
So in the case of my old devices "thrown into a drawer", I need to get a version of Lineage (or old Cyanogenmod) on them first and then put RetroArch etc. on them.
I've also got an old JXD S7800B handheld Android console that I picked up in a cheap eBay auction lot that would be nice to do something with, given it too has a quad core CPU in it and built in controls. I think it needs a new internal battery and last time I looked it only ran Android 4.2 so will have to see if there's a more recent custom ROM for it - another one of my "future projects" that I need to make time to look into...
On the JXD side. I've set up my Hudl V1 running Android V4 using RetroArch. The APK download from the Libretro website installed and works fine. Dig is still available from the Play Store. It installs but doesn't seem to run on this version of Android.
@@BytesNBits Good to know, thanks for that bit of information.
@@BytesNBits One small point - have you checked the actual version of Android on the Hudl? Something in the back of my mind tells me that Android 4.4.2 is the very earliest Android release that allows anything to run - so if your Hudl is on, say, Android 4.2, then it might be worth seeing if there's an old upgrade ROM to get it to 4.4.2.
Is there any tablet I can't run game emulators on
I guess some of the really old devices won't work. It's really down to be able to find emulators that are compatible with your OS version. Most Android ones should be fine. Not sure about iOS. I think Apple didn't like the idea of emulation on their system.
Can I still reuse my old windows phone? I can't seem to be able to find a way to even turn it into a permanent console.
If you can find an emulator to run on Windows it should be OK. I haven't tried that OS.
Can I connect a wireless xbox controller with the tablet instead of the one you have?
You should be able to, especially on newer devices.
Sadly I can't do this either way because my old tablet is android 4.2.2 and doesn't have retroarch on the play store, I have a tab 3 lite
will this work on an old rotary phone
Oh haha very funny !
Yes! With slight modification.
I baught 2 or 3 Bluetooth controllers for my android phone and non of them ever map properly and the guy sends you a video of him explaining how to do it in Chinese, and you can't make out what he's pressing on the controller ...
Can you find a manual for the controller. Usually you have to hold down a different button as you power on to put the controller into different modes. Or just try powering on with a different a/b/x/y button held down and see what happens.
@@BytesNBits I did power and x,y etc. Different ones show up but only partial button maps on all of them.
Like how hard can it be. Just map the thing to the virtual joystick overlay, but they can't even do that !!!
My tablet is so old that it can't connect to controllers wirelessly, it's android 4.2.2
Unfortunately you're going to have problems with V4. You can still install Dig and you might be able to use a USB controller.