r/rgds

I've been running GammaOS for awhile and finally gave Rocknix a try. It was very easy to install, although I had to use Balena Etcher instead of the Rocknix imaging tool...

I can already tell input is snappier compared to GammaOS, so that is nice. And while I know this is underpowered for 3DS, it did manage to boot up and play Bravely Default okayish when I tried that.

Took inspiration for this idea from Retro Games Corps. This neat app called PlayTranslate translates the Japanese games into your second screen to your own language of choice and even gives you synonyms and original hiragana for whatever it is written on screen. Really neat way to play untranslated games this way. I myself will give SMT Devil Summoner a shot.

Edit - One advice I can give you is, if you're playing a JRPG or Visual Novel, set the translated area setting to bottom 33 or 50%. In my testing, the translations came out faster than when I set the translated area to whole screen.

If you want to see this tool in more detail, check out RGC video on it - https://youtu.be/Sp0eJZSRQiA

Just wanted to share my experience with Smash Bros for 3DS on the RGDS. I'm currently running it on the stock Android firmware, and it’s surprisingly playable for me.

​I'm getting a consistent frame rate between 38-45 FPS. It’s not full speed, but it feels smooth enough to play without any major issues or glitches. Anyone else having a similar experience, or found a way to squeeze more frames out of it?

​I've been spending a lot of time testing 3DS titles on the RGDS lately. While performance isn't always perfect, I've found a handful of games that are genuinely fun and look great with resonable speed. Some game work really well

🔴 Official Anbernic Linux

⚠️ Avoid the "Extra MOD": Do not install the post-setup mod Anbernic recommends. It just changes basic settings you don't need, and it breaks the power-off function. With the mod, the power light stays on after shutdown, forcing a hard reset. Skip the mod, and it shuts down perfectly.

• SD Card Stability: Far less picky than custom firmware. It flashes flawlessly via Rufus or BalenaEtcher on almost any card size (32GB, 64GB, 128GB) and boots reliably every single time.

Emulation:

• DS: Same performance as rocknix, but quite a lot titles have minor touch/control mapping issues.

• MS-DOS (DOSBox Pure): Runs smoother than on Rocknix.

• Amiga: Sluggish. It uses the standard PUAE core instead of the optimized PUAE 2021 core (wonder if you can replace cores on linux manually, ez on android but with linux i have no clue)

The "PORTS" Folder: makes me wonder what's that for.

🔵 ROCKNIX (2026-06-01 Build)

⚠️ Genius Touchscreen Feature: For non-DS systems, ROCKNIX beautifully utilizes the unused second screen as a quick-access menu. Huge win for usability.

• Fussy Flashing & Boot Loops: Extremely picky with micro SD cards. Certain brands and sizes (like Kodak or specific 64GB cards) constantly failed. It often booted fine the first time, only to black-screen on the second restart. I swear to you i'm tired of changing usb ports different pcs multiple tests before things run. I'm old and tired.

Emulation:

• DS: Excellent DS compatibility

• 3DS Surprise: It can actually play a few 3DS titles at an acceptable framework (like Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D).

• Apps: Standalone ScummVM and PortMaster are currently buggy. It's much better to run ScummVM directly through the RetroArch core instead. (anyway, who buys this for scummVM... me... only me...)

What are your thoughts after testing these two?

Download: https://github.com/thatgameovergirl/dsi-puh-lus/releases/tag/v.2.1
Based on https://github.com/beebono/dii-ess-aye by u/beebono
Special thanks to u/NiKo_OnReddit who has been supporting this project a lot since the start :)

Features

• Works with both screens — The theme knows your device has two displays. Everything is placed exactly where it needs to go, nothing bleeds off the edge.
• Pick your background — Choose between "Castlevania Throne" and "Mario Castle" in the settings menu. Swap any time.
• System icons pop — Each console's logo and controller art have a soft white outline so they're easy to see even against dark areas.
• Fancy system selector — Browse your consoles with a golden glow around the selected one and a little red arrow that bounces above it.
• Clean game list — Game names show up on a see-through panel with resized box art beside them. Looks sharp.
• Your RetroAchievements name — If you use achievements, your username shows at the top of the screen.
• Battery, clock, Wi-Fi — All the usual status icons are styled to match the theme instead of looking out of place.
• Bonus tools included — A one-click installer and uninstaller you run from the Ports menu, a cleaning tool for messy names and a helper for scraping game info over SSH.

What's changed since last month?

- Fixed bug that prevented FBneo and MSX emulators from running.

- Fixed bug that made the default background permanent, now you can change the background.

- Fixed background scrolling when navigating between systems

- Removed golden overlay from the game carousel selection

- Subtle separator lines added between game list entries.

- New helper tools, clean_gamelists_dsi-puh-lus.py and stub_missing_games.py let you clean up messy game names and fill in missing entries.

- Install script fixed. The enable script now restarts ES at the end.

- Uninstall script. You can now fully remove the theme.

Will there be more updates? Probably, I think the top screen looks empty most of the time but still need to figure out what I want to put in there (Probably videos + description)

Why don't we have notifications? The RG DS has two screens, but this theme has to work with a stretched canvas that's wider than what's actually visible. That "invisible" area is where the notification popups end up, so you never see them. There's no fix without rewriting how EmulationStation places its popups.

Not only the menus are readable, the controls can be mapped easily and the pixel shader looks better than that blurry one on the base drastic. Really hope this emulator goes a long way.

Edit - I took inspiration for this setup from this comment (https://www.reddit.com/r/ANBERNIC/comments/1ubf0al/comment/ou5pd12/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=mweb3x&utm\_name=mweb3xcss&utm\_term=2&utm\_content=share\_button). Let me simply everything for you.

It's a good idea to make a backup of save data in case anything goes wrong for you.

1. I did this setup on my android phone, so grab the cx file manager from android. Then on your ds, enable ftp and samba connection on the internet section in the settings. Then in the cx, go to the network tab click on new location -> remote -> local network and select rk3566. This will allow you to access the rg ds files on your phone.
2. Next, download the 2 .sh files from the comment I posted and place them in the games-rom -> ports folder. Make sure you have launched portmaster at least once and did the initial setup for it. After you place the files in the folder, restart your emulation station.
3. Next, run the install sh files from the ports section. Let it do its thing for a bit. Next run the inputs file and setup the initial controls for drastic.
4. Once you're done mapping everything, download the third file in the above comment and place it in the config -> drastic -> config. If it tells you to override, do so.
5. Once you have done everything, it's a safe bet to reboot your system. After this, try and test a game and see if it works (if you want to go into menu, it's menu button + X I believe). You can remap the controls as you would on the normal drastic, but you can also unbind controls by pressing R3 (make sure that you don't unbind anything that says Menu). I would suggest that you should map L2 and R2 as load and save state respectively, Menu button + A for swap screens, menu button + B for pixel/blur shader swapping and Menu button + Y for fast forward toggle.

One day before the update i was playing 80s Overdrive.

Hope they fix it on the next nightly.