Datafrog SF2000 | ULTRACORE 0.23 

So consign the SF2000 to the 90s and move on? I agree! It was the worst new handheld of 2023 and should be forgotten. 👌

That's a big promise. I'll go and test.

I've tried testing this. Something weird going on with the build. I stuck stock 1.6 on and then the Ultracore and things like the FPS meter don't work now. Intentional? Plus there are 2 versions of my favourite test game. One of which crashes the whole unit.....

@@handheldgaming4life I've built the dynarec core w/o the newer FPS display, my git was old at the time. Regarding crashes, maybe August's build is just incompatible. But it's required for in-game saves, which was the whole point of the effort. I guess Tulio never grasped that when he snatched the core for his repack

Brilliant ... But only if it can play at original FPS, otherwise it's a stuttery jarring mess and no fun.

@@handheldgaming4life that's true.

I've not tried the RG353P, but I'd say any Anbernic device is going to crush the SF2000. I've got an RG Nano and that crushes the SF2000 for performance and its the smallest, weakest product in Anbernics current line up.

@@handheldgaming4life if you ever get the chance to get an RG353P you will not be disappointed. Its 640 x 480 124 hz display beats anything on the market for full screen retro gaming! Just be sure to enable G-Sync in Retroarch and you will be shocked at how buttery smooth it is. Battery life is insane. I freaking love that device!

If you follow the guide bundled in a text file with the Ultracore it tells you to run a little batch file which creates stub files so the roms you add show up in the ROMs area.

Someone's gotta tell the truth? 🤣 I'll give you its no worse than say a GP2X at emulation performance. And that cost £100 when new... back in 2005! But then that's kinda my point! The SF2000 would have been a good device back in 2005, even at 3x its current price... but its not 2005, its 2024! Is there a place for junk handhelds in this day and age?

@@handheldgaming4life I work in rough situations with frequent spells of inactivity. I could easily lose a book or break one of my more precious hand helds. Losing a £20 device wouldn't be a great source of distress and it does what it does do well, well enough. I've heard of people getting 2600 games to work on it, I have yet to figure out how to get lynx games to work on it. It seems wasteful to try and push the device to do GBA when it's clearly never going to happen. Coupled with me having the good fortune of receiving a full refund because the knock off SD card inevitably failed makes it quite a nice price. Can you get cheaper than free? I just don't see the logic of churning out video after video knocking something so inexpensive and kind of inoffensive. It's not like there is a better £20 handheld.

Not sure you're entirely unbiased, quoting £20 a good price when you paid £0. 🤣 Fyi for Lynx you just need to install multicore 0.10 and stick the Lynx ROMs in the Roms folder then run the batch file to scan it. 👍 They actually run fine. Personally I'd spend a little more than £20, pushing it up to £34 and get an Anbernic RG Nano. Much more capable device. Smaller, more pocketable and it's in an aluminium shell and has a keyring attachment. The RG Nano is a cracking little handheld, you pay a higher premium but it's made to last. There is a picture of one circulating that is scuffed up to hell but works fine and ironically the screen is unmarked even though the shell is scuffed up.

I like this device don't know where the comes from as it great for the price

@@ghostbaleada it's cheap price is all it has going for it. It doesn't perform well is the biggest issue.

It's the only part of Ultracore I liked. 👌 Sad you've been ripped off with no credit on a customer firmware that (on this version at least) offers no improvements over Multicore. 🙁

Yeah, in this setup the creator of Ultracore has no provided GBA ROMs. Although I need to take a look at why the ROM folder is 10gb alone.

Not at all. Its little more than a rip off of the original work with some out of date emulators to hide the fps counter and someone else's background/icon work. Oh and the "maker" didn't credit those he copied from. 🤦

That's positive news, is the fps counter reinstated?

@@handheldgaming4life Yes fps counter

And indeed that's what I do. I'd say the Anbernic RG35XX is a better device and the least expensive, but yeah its going to cost almost 3x the price but the difference is its totally usable and actually plays games at full speed. Next up my favorite the Miyoo Mini+. The new Anbernic RG35XX SP is already being discounted and its ok and also has a very nostalgia fueled look and feel. The Miyoo A30 might be a good buy too. All of what I've recommended are more expensive because there is nothing at the $12 mark that's any good!

@@handheldgaming4life maybe i'm not as much a snob as others, but i found that the frog was able to run whatever i wanted to play just fine. you say "and indeed that's what i do" when you literally admit you are unable to do that. if that's truly what you do, point me in the direction of something better than it. because for something that costs as much as a meal at mcdonald's the frog is pretty fantastic

I personally don't view games not running anywhere near full speed as snobbish. It's a core requirement of pleasant emulation. When games struggle to run at half fps and calling it playable is disingenuous at best and chasing clicks at worst. Maybe one day we will see a usable firmware one day but its been a long wait already.

@@handheldgaming4life maybe if that was actually the case, but it isn't. this thing runs games perfectly fine, are we using the same device? calling this thing bad and claiming it runs at less than half fps is disingenuous at best and chasing clicks at worst.

@@Jar_Jar_Twinks have you watched the videos with the FPS counter enabled or tested yourself.

I tried 0.24 but never made a video as there was no evidence performance was improved, but there was evidence that tampering was taking place to remove FPS counter. I see in 1.0 this is still in place so you can't show FPS in SNES, I guess because it doesn't run at full speed and showing the true FPS doesn't fit with the narrative that emulation is full speed, which its not. Videos also being recorded via the video out, ostensibly to appear that there is no flickering now, but the flickering is on the built in screen. Pretty sure Tulios vids are showing device in use? Needless I don't think I'll do a video on 1.0 as it don't believe it does anything new.

Yeah I not seen anything that suggests otherwise. Other than how strangely the FPS counter wouldn't display on their build when I tried it. But it's fine when I switch back to Multicore. 🤷

@@handheldgaming4life I would not be suprised if he has a mix of newer and and some older cores not supporting the fps counter.

That might explain it! Seemed initially underhand to me, trying to disguise poor performance but removing ability to check the actual FPS. But it would just be they are using an old core... but then how would that "improve" performance.

@@handheldgaming4life Well there was actually some performance regression in some multicore 0.10 cores due to some important changes, so thats why he is probably using some older cores. It will be hopefully solved in 0.11, but development slowed down due to lack of free time and honestly will to do so, because this is just such a terrible cpu to code on.

I just found out he used my theme for this lmao.

Just one decent one would indeed be nice. Something with reasonable power too that can cope with even the latest generation of 3:2.

Hey I paid 13 euros for it and it's pretty good, the ones you mentioned cost 3 or 4 times more

This always gets me, pretty good means "happy with sub par FPS". The more expensive devices will run more games at genuine original full speed.

I already have a lot of retro consoles but when I saw this one discounted to 10 Euros I could not help myself. That's less than I paid for a burger recently...