u/DrantoSilver

After 4 years, I finally say goodbye to the ROG Ally. The Ally served me well and I loved it, but it really was stuck in a grey area. Compared to the Thor, the Ally is far more powerful, but not powerful enough to play newer PC games at high settings, while being too overkill for emulators, aside from super heavyweight ones like PCSX3 or Xenia (yet these were too heavy even for the Ally).

And so, I decided to switch to the AYN Thor as a strictly emulating machine. Luckily, I was able to get it within a day from a local place. Here are my experiences after using it for 2 weeks:

• The performance is just right. The Thor can run basically any emulator under the sun, aside from some big names I mentioned above. It really doesn't need to run something even the Ally struggled with.
• The Thor is very compact and light, only half the size and weight the Ally. It's barely bigger and heavier than my phone (keep in mind it's still a pretty huge machine in the Android world).
• While the screen of the Thor is smaller than the Ally (6 vs 7 inches), it has two of them, and is way better at playing 3DS games, and many more things if you are creative enough.
• The Thor use much less power, plus an OLED screen, and thus, has way longer battery life. The Ally can barely survive an hour without an external charger. It was a good machine, but wasn't good at being portable. If I want to game with a charging cable, I can just use my laptop.

Overall, it is a solid little gaming device and wow, it made me feel just like the first time I own a 3DS.

One of the most well known fact about RetroArch is that it's Dolphin core was extremly outdated, and was several years behind the mainline emulator. Was. Because since the end of last year, it has been deeply maintained and updated, thanks to it's hardworking devs. But it saddens me that their efforts aren't appreciated and talked about enough compared to many other emulators. Infact if you search about it, Google's "recalling and repeating machine" will recall and repeat, lol, severely "outdated" facts, when in truth, works were done on it as recent as 5 days ago.

As for my experiences on both device, both can run Green Man's Scary House extremely well on my AYN Thor, with no crash and a solid and stable fps. And the best thing about RetroArch is the many shaders and filters you can use within it. But of course, there are still caveats, so choose the one that works best for you.

Reasons to try RetroArch's Dolphin:

• Shaders and filters, one of the best things about RetroArch, if you want that CRT, vintage looks, then go for it.
• You don't have to install another emulator while able to use many others aside from Dolphin.
• Great looks and feels, as RetroArch can use many great and flashy custom themes.
• RetroArch has it's own sets of settings, so you can tinker things even further.

Reasons to stick to Dolphin standalone:

• RetroArch is quite RAM heavy. It uses up to 8gb of RAM on my Thor, while the Dolphin standalone uses around 6gb.
• No options to use custom drivers (you can still somewhat force it, but not very intuitive).
• Too heavy shaders can crash your games, especially on mobile devices.
• Updates are not as fast as the standalone, obviously, but still very fast now.

Overall, the Dolphin core is a solid alternative to the standalone version now, a big thank to everyone who helped building it!

First of all, a big thank to everyone involved in this project, open source devs truly hold up half the sky.

Second of all, the big question everyone always asks, how is this compared to Aether and it's patched version, Nether? Here is my experiences:

• Performance: When test with Black at 30 fps (they can run at 60 fps with patches, but there are large dips in more effect-heavy scenes on both, so I still prefer 30 fps) on my AYN Thor and Large Underclock of Clustertune, Nether's frame pacing is still a bit more stable (solid 30 fps vs 30 fps, but with small dips in some certain exploding scenes), with less power but ARM is close (5W vs 6W).
• Settings: Welp, ARM has a lot of settings, to put it mildly. Being able to change to a specific Turnip Driver of my choice make it an instant favourite. But of course the extensive settings come with the drawback of the UI being rather clustered and heavy on the eyes, which is a point right below.
• Interface: ARM is much cooler with it boot animation and effects, but I gotta say Nether's UI is still more intuitive, more "mobile user friendly", which is very clear and consistent. ARM can be a bit overwhelming for new user who isn't used to more advanced settings.

This is my experience over the past few days with ARM, but users' experiences can vary, so you should try it out yourself. Overall, ARM is pretty solid now, but you must be patient with it development, which is already insanely fast, making leaps and bounds just in just the last few months. Three cheers for the ARMSX2 Team!