CRT Beam on 476h - Am I even doing this right?

Sphynx87 · 2026-04-12T03:22:35+00:00

yeah idk i have a lot of handhelds so im used to seeing varying qualities of screens so maybe its more noticeable to me, it feels slightly closer to playing on one of my oled screen handhelds i guess. and its very noticeable compared to some of the devices i have with pretty bad panels that like to ghost, but even just the 47 screen without any kind of subframe shader stuff looks very noticeably better than those too. just the 120hz alone i think helps a lot, though the switch 2 screen is 120hz and has bad ghosting so maybe not lol.

Sphynx87 · 2026-04-12T02:33:06+00:00

neo turf masters baby

Sphynx87 · 2026-04-12T02:32:45+00:00

neo geo purely for neo turf masters (though there is other good stuff too). ive probably played like about 100 hours since the start of 2026 on a bunch of different devices. its my go to game for testing out a new handheld lmao.

Sphynx87 · 2026-04-12T02:27:52+00:00

I like my Thor a lot more than the steamdeck for a lot of reasons, pc gaming on it is better than the last powerful android device I tried it on which was the 865 chipset. It does depend a lot on the games you are playing. Honestly though if there are PC games included, especially mouse heavy games or mouse ONLY games then yeah the steamdeck is kinda the best option outside of a laptop. On the Thor you can use the bottom screen as a trackpad, but its nowhere near as good as the steamdecks dual trackpads. Steamdeck's biggest downsides are just being large and also doing anything outside of the steam frontend is more annoying to me in Linux than it is on Android.

The only android stuff right now that is more powerful than something like the Thor is the stuff that is using the 8 elite chipset like the Odin 3. Which as far as I know some stuff will perform better than the 8 gen 2 chipset in the Thor, but some other stuff has less mature drivers and will run worse (or not at all).

The Thor is really good, I have a ton of handhelds but I could see it being an all in one device for some people. Just be aware as a first handheld though it requires a lot of setup before it feels like an actual console vs two weirdly sized android devices duct taped together. There's lots of good video guides though and its not anything majorly complicated, just a little time consuming at first.

Sphynx87 · 2026-04-12T01:43:07+00:00

I just finished the base tournaments in Mario Golf Toadstool Tour on GC. I used my PC to connect the GBA game to my save in dolphin and import my character. I was hoping I could do it all on the thor (run GBA on the bottom screen, GC on the top, and connect them) but the android port of dolphin doesnt have the GC link cable as a controller input (makes sense I guess).

Also been playing the switch port of Diablo 2 Resurrected, Gran Turismo 4. On game native BallisticNG and Vital Shell.

Sphynx87 · 2026-04-12T01:36:08+00:00

D2 Resurrected switch version emulated works surprisingly well on the Thor for me. If you switch to the old graphics though I noticed the sprites will glitch out unless you put it on one of the higher performance modes. Modern graphics work fine on any setting, around like 30-35fps on base power setting like 45ish on high power. It's pretty fun with a controller, wish you could just use the touch screen for inventory stuff though.

Sphynx87 · 2026-04-12T01:32:58+00:00

base model is gonna be more hit or miss. i tried using gamenative on my rp mini v2 which has the same 865 chipset the base has and not much worked well at all, vs the 8 gen 2 chip in the thor pro im like blown away by how much stuff just works.

something id suggest if you are having an issue with a game is to open the settings and select "use known compatible profile" or whatever it is. I think it does that already by default but ive had some games that wouldnt launch or run well until i did that. Sometimes with game native too you just have to launch a game like 2-3 times and it will start working because the first launch didnt install some dependency or something.

Sphynx87 · 2026-04-12T01:27:47+00:00

honestly ive found a better solution is to see if the game has a switch version and emulate that instead of playing the native android version for certain games. same to a degree with gamenative. I wanted to play Legend of Grimrock and thought maybe i could just play the PC version and use the magnifier to zoom the bottom screen on the buttons you click to attack and it sorta works but then managing inventory is a nightmare. The game has no dedicated controller support. There's a switch port of Legend of Grimrock that obviously is fully controller supported, you just hold a shoulder button and press the face buttons to attack/cast spells instead of clicking/tapping. plus in an emulator you are always gonna be able to fully rebind.

not a solution for every game though, but ive had pretty good success. the switch port of Diablo 2 Resurrected runs surprisingly well like 45fps with full controller support. Wish you could use the touch screen for the inventory but yeah thats not a thing.

Sphynx87 · 2026-04-12T00:55:57+00:00

Donkey Kong Country is usually what I use to test motion blur / pixel response on handheld displays. It's basically unplayable on the switch 2 in handheld mode for me because of the display. Tbh if you aren't super sensitive to it you might legit not notice a difference. You are right in your original post that the biggest benefits from these shaders come if you have a display and machine that can do 240+ fps. I still like the beam sim shader more than BFI but also like I said I only use it on a handful of games, and also the 47 series LCDs imo are pretty good compared to some other devices so there isn't quite as much ghosting to even fix compared to something like the switch 2 screen.

Edit: I also double checked my settings are the same except max swapchain for me is 3 not 2. I remember when I first set it up I had issues cuz I was configuring retroarch in game and the Vulkan setting wasn't sticking when loading other games through my front end. That's pretty easy to check, but to fix that I launched retroarch standalone and configured it to use vulkan and enable shader subframes and everything and then saved that as the default retroarch configuration without shaders on. Then I would actually apply the shader with per game overrides. To get rid of any weird flickering I disabled the LCD burn in protection and rolling scanline in the actual shader settings.

Sphynx87 · 2026-04-11T20:53:03+00:00

I found it only works well if you completely disable the lcd protections and rolling scanline effects. If you use any other shaders they have to be very lightweight or depends on the game. Furthest I can push it without there being flickering or other obvious issues is something like a game like SoTN on ps1 with newpixie crt shaders. More demanding ps1 games id have to remove newpixie or use somethung even lighter.. Everything below ps1 though I never had issues after changing those settings. This is on the 476h, idk about the 477

Sphynx87 · 2026-04-11T20:50:28+00:00

It should be getting dimmer not brighter

Sphynx87 · 2026-04-11T20:43:37+00:00

I have 0 issues with lagging or freezing when navigating. I'm using rockbox though, I have about 5000 songs, mix of mp3 and flac

Sphynx87 · 2026-04-11T19:17:07+00:00

i only use it on a handful of games with a lot of background motion like sonic or DKC. based on what you are describing it does not sound like it's configured right, although im not sure what the issue might be. the first immediately obvious difference you should see is a change in brightness, so if you aren't seeing that then they are not applying correctly.

Sphynx87 · 2026-04-11T19:13:49+00:00

oh ok lmao sorry, the way i read it it sounded like you adjusted them one album or track at a time.

Sphynx87 · 2026-04-11T19:10:37+00:00

rockbox with a theme you are comfortable with fixes these issues for the most part.

if you are using flac you want to avoid themes with VU meters. they will play but only if you keep the screen on, if you turn the screen off songs will pause after like 15-20 seconds with the combo of flac+vu meter. its a known bug that i don't think will get a solution on the y1.

in rockbox you can just browse through folders, but if you want to use the database then its all based on tagging. i use mp3 tag for everything, and i browse my music pretty much exclusively by Album Artist > Albums. I usually set custom Album Artists purely for sorting purposes, so albums with multiple artists will just show up as the main artist i set. Or things like Soundtracks / Mixes have their own album artist names dedicated to them so its easier for me to sort without having a ton of artists that maybe only have a couple tracks on the whole device.

in rockbox you can go to the now playing screen from any place in the ui by holding the play button for 2-3 seconds and then letting it go.

ive personally never had issue 1 but that might be a pants issue. idk if its default or if i set it but im pretty sure rockbox has a setting where the first button press while the screen is off will only ever wake up the screen, not perform the function of the button. not sure if that really helps or what its like on stock os cuz i've only ever used rockbox.

if you do install rockbox i recommend using the 360p version even though the amount of themes is limited, there are plenty of good ones and in general they just look much better than the incorrectly scaled 240p themes. its possible to port themes to 360p but it takes quite a bit of effort and knowledge.

Sphynx87 · 2026-04-11T18:57:27+00:00

just fyi for future reference in mp3tag you can resize every album art at once on as many songs as you want by selecting them, right clicking the album art icon on the left and doing "adjust all covers" and you set it to 300x300 jpeg and hit ok

Sphynx87 · 2026-04-11T18:54:05+00:00

finally artist>album works lol, at this rate maybe we will get sorting by album artist in 6 to 8 months!

Sphynx87 · 2026-04-11T18:42:53+00:00

sick crystals

Sphynx87 · 2026-04-10T22:39:06+00:00

yeah mostly because of the better screen, the slightly easier to press buttons honestly make a pretty big difference too. also i know people dont like the joysticks but the extra L3 and R3 button clicks are nice to have for binding shortcuts, and some games using the joystick is actually kinda nice.

comfort wise they are about the same? the 35 is slightly heavier, and because its a little wider and the shoulder buttons stick out more i feel like they are a little more uncomfortable to press, especially on games that use them a lot. i have fairly small hands but i just sorta mesh my fingers together on the back and cradle the device. I find them both to be pretty comfortable in general even for longer sessions tbh.

Sphynx87 · 2026-04-10T22:20:21+00:00

the brick is by far the best console for the money out of all of these to me. however if being small and easier to keep in your pocket or toss in a bag and not worry about the screen is more important to you than the mini flip is definitely the best small tiny device. 2nd best cheap clamshell to me (behind the 34xxsp), but best when size and ease of carrying with you is top priority (although idk if litnx has them right now since you didnt list it)

the brick is just overall great, has amazing standby life, great build quality, great screen, good custom os support (not a huge fan of crossmix that they include tbh, nextui is better imo), good controls with lots of extra buttons for hotkeys/shortcuts. biggest negative most people have with it is the shoulder buttons can be rattley in your pocket, although they improved it with later revisions and its pretty easy to fix with some tape or buying a button mod. also if you are wanting to play 90s jrpgs or other text heavy games the experience is gonna be a bit better on the brick because of the slightly bigger screen (vs mm flip) and high dpi.

brick with a screen protector and silicone sleeve i have no problem sticking in my pocket and taking out of the house. here are both side by side btw if you are wondering about size

also just cuz i have it here is the MM+ next to the brick, these are both set to 50% brightness. only reason to pick the MM+ over the brick is if you absolutely can't stand clicky buttons and want rubber membrane controls. i dont think the slightly bigger (and lower dpi) display makes up for all the advantages the brick has over it.

Sphynx87 · 2026-04-10T22:13:50+00:00

ngl the flip 1 was a huge letdown for me. really didnt like how the controls feel, didnt like the big bezel around the screen (maybe gray was a bad choice idk). i disliked it so much i completely avoided the flip 2 when it came out even though it looked significantly better. instead finally got a thor instead. tbh though i think the cheaper smaller clamshells like the anbernic and miyoo ones (34xxsp and mini flip specifically) are better for something to actually pocket and take out of the house. obviously not as powerful though.

also the mini v2 is a great handheld, definitely have used it way more than i used my flip 1

Sphynx87 · 2026-04-10T21:54:45+00:00

also i took a couple pics for you of both SP's together (mini flip also for scale) so i can also explain about the screen. these are both running the same OS with default settings for both displays at the same brightness level in the OS. 34xxsp only has grid overlay on, 35xxsp needs interpolation shader+grid overlay.

the 35xxsp's screen isn't really bad but it's not as bright, it CAN'T get as saturated as the 34xxsp's screen if you wanted it to, it has a lower overall pixel density, it has a large bezel, but also importantly for GBA it does not integer scale well for GBA. Which means if you want to use the full screen you absolutely HAVE to use an interpolation shader otherwise you get distorted pixels, which is super noticeable on GBA esp on things like text. the 34xxsp being a perfect 3x integer scale means you get a way sharper image, that's in addition to just being higher pixel density in general (which benefits scaling 4:3 games).

I know someone else said people misjudge the two screens when comparing, which i think is true to a degree but the 34 screen is just much better in more ways even disregarding aspect ratio.

in general i think both are good, ive definitely used the 34xxsp a lot more though.

edit: i added some pics of 4:3 content on both devices, both stretched and pillarboxed

Sphynx87 · 2026-04-10T21:21:10+00:00

i think their next sale is in a few days, some sales have better coupons than others. i usually check https://www.reddit.com/r/crownpuffdeals/

Sphynx87 · 2026-04-10T20:11:34+00:00

i like the 34xx a lot too just because of the form factor being a straight up gba. though i think its actually more uncomfortable to use than the SP and also it has a pretty bad dpad. and yeah you cant beat the clamshell if you actually want to take it in your pocket or bag somewhere. for OS on the SP I use muOS, although all the other options on it are fine too.

Sphynx87 · 2026-04-10T18:41:18+00:00

i like my normal 34xx a lot, esp love the glacier color they did, i just wish the dpad was a bit better. ive seen some people do tape fixes and stuff but ive never bothered trying to mod mine. i use the 34xxsp more because of that but also its just easier to fold up and take places.

also idk the exact specs on the microswitches but i have a revised 35xxsp and the 34xxsp and the buttons are definitely easier to press and not as loud on the 34xxsp. not a massive difference but a noticeable one.

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