PowKiddy X55 Starter Guide

Last updated: 31MAR2024 (see Changelog for details)

The PowKiddy X55 is a surprisingly good handheld, at an affordable price. It features a beautiful 5.5″ 720p display, decent performance up through N64, Saturn, and Dreamcast, and has official custom Linux firmware that makes the device run like a dream. It’s in a magical category where it gets many things right and doesn’t have any dealbreakers.

This guide will help you get set up with the device, from the very basics to some of my favorite advanced settings.

Buy one here:
Official PowKiddy store (use code “retrogamecorps” for 5% off your order)
AliExpress listing

Table of Contents
Where to buy
Recommended accessories
Build your ROM library
JELOS setup
Adding ROMs and BIOS files
Configuring JELOS
Hotkeys
Scrape game media
Pairing bluetooth controllers
Moonlight game streaming
PortMaster
Manually add themes

Changelog

Where to buy

There are two main places to buy the PowKiddy X55:

Official PowKiddy website: This is the official place to buy directly from the company. Shipping will be free, and if you use code “retrogamecorps” you will get 5% off the purchase price. There are other discounts available, like $5 off if you sign up for their newsletter.

AliExpress page: This is the official PowKiddy vendor page on AliExpress, which is a popular online marketplace in China. They will often ship worldwide, and the site will also provide some discounts depending on their current promotions.

There are also unofficial ways to purchase this device, like through third-party retailers such as KeepRetro, and you can even find listings on Amazon. Just bear in mind that these third-party sites will often charge a markup over the official prices above.

Note that when buying the PowKiddy X55, there may be an option to buy “additional storage” for the device at a small fee. This means the device will come with an additional microSD card that is pre-loaded with games — the larger the card, the more games it will contain. But keep in mind that the ROMs that come with these games are often poorly organized, or with incorrect versions of the games (hacks or wrong region). It is always best to build your own ROM library.

Recommended accessories

The PowKiddy X55 will come with a single 16GB microSD card to host the operating system, and if you choose, you can buy a version with a second SD card (pre-installed with games) to accompany it. These cards are from a generic brand and will be prone to failure. Your safest bet is to replace your cards with microSD cards from a well-known brand, which will prevent the cards from getting corrupted over time. I recommend you store that original card somewhere safe in case you run into any issues in the future, and buy new SD cards from a reputable brand like SanDisk or Samsung to use in your device.

The “TF1” slot on your device holds the system firmware, so for that card 16GB is ideal. The “TF2” slot is for your game files, so you will want a larger card for that one. You can either use a single-card setup to host both your system files and the games on one card, or you can separate the two functions using a dual SD card setup. I recommend a dual-card setup for ease of use, and you can use that second SD card in other devices with a similar setup.

In general, I recommend the cards listed below, in order of preference. The prices fluctuate all the time, so keep an eye out for deals. In general, I would expect to pay about $7 for a 16GB card, $12 for a 128GB card, and $17 for a 256GB card. For the SD2 slot, I recommend a 128GB card or higher, which will allow you to load EVERY 8-bit and 16-bit game out there, all of the arcade games that work, and a large number of CD-based game files (Sega CD, PSX, Saturn, Dreamcast, and so on).

16GB cards: 
SanDisk Ultra  
SanDisk Industrial (more reliable but pricey)

128GB cards:
SanDisk Extreme
Samsung EVO Select
SanDisk Ultra

256GB cards:
SanDisk Extreme
Samsung EVO Select
SanDisk Ultra

If you don’t have a nice microSD to USB adapter, you might want to think about getting one. A nice adapter like this one from Anker will give you the fastest transfer speeds possible, and won’t cause any corruption issues with your card.

When connected your PowKiddy X55 to an external display, you will need a mini HDMI adapter or a mini HDMI to HDMI cable.

A number of Bluetooth controllers will work with this device, but I have found that the 8bitDo SN30 Pro is a nicely-built controller with wide compatibility.

Build your ROM library

Since the PowKiddy X55 may take a while to ship, I would recommend that you build your ROM library now, if you haven’t already. Here is a general list of systems that can be played on the PowKiddy X55. For a more comprehensive list, check this page. Those noted with an asterisk cannot play every game at full speed, and so performance may vary. ROM file sources will not be shared on this website.

When getting ROM files, I recommend using the “No-Intro” naming convention, which is the standard naming used for ROM sets within RetroArch and other emulation communities. By using no-intro naming, you will be more likely to get box art automatically added when you load up your games and scrape their media. If you have a question as to how a game should be named, I recommend checking out the Libretro thumbnails directory. If your game name matches the thumbnail name found in this directory, chances are that it will properly download the media for it.

Additionally, an important component of a ROM library is maintaining BIOS files. BIOS files are system files necessary for some emulators (GBA, Sega CD, or PS1), and are helpful in improving accuracy with other systems. These files are copyrighted so you are on your own to find them, but a quick search for a RetroArch bios pack should get you on your way.  Here is more information about BIOS files.

Here is a listing of the most common BIOS files:

GAME BOY (for boot logo):
gb_bios.bin

GAME BOY COLOR (for boot logo)
gbc_bios.bin

GAME BOY ADVANCE:
gba_bios.bin

FAMICOM DISK SYSTEM:
disksys.rom

NEO GEO:
neogeo.zip (place in the neogeo folder)

SEGA CD:
bios_CD_E.bin
bios_CD_J.bin
bios_CD_U.bin

TURBOGRAFX-CD:
syscard1.pce
syscard2.pce
syscard3.pce

PLAYSTATION 1:
scph1001.bin

SATURN:
saturn_bios.bin

DREAMCAST (place in a folder named "dc") within the BIOS folder:
dc_boot.bin
naomi.zip (Naomi)
awbios.zip (Atomiswave)

JELOS setup

Update: as of March 2024, JELOS has been retired and the team members have forked it into a new OS, called ROCKNIX (Rockchip + Linux). In this guide I will keep the references to JELOS but link to the ROCKNIX installation page, since the installation process and configuration are the same.

Once you have the device in hand, I recommend setting up a fresh installation of the JELOS (Just Enough Linux OS) custom software. This provides many additional benefits to the PowKiddy X55 and is regularly updated.

This guide assumes you are working with new, blank microSD cards. If you are using cards that are not new, I recommend formatting them using the official tool from sdcard.org before starting.

1. Download and install Balena Etcher. This is a special software application that will flash the JELOS image to your microSD card.
2. Download the latest release of JELOS for the PowKiddy X55. You can find it on their Releases page, in the section labelled “Installation Package Downloads”. The file will be named “JELOS-RK3566-X55.aarch64-########.img.gz”, where the “#” symbols will indicate the date that the build was created, and it will be about 1GB altogether.
3. Using a USB card reader, insert your 16GB microSD card into your PC, then open up Balena Etcher. Click the “Flash from File” button and navigate to where your JELOS image file was downloaded, and select it. On the next tab, under “Target”, select your 16GB microSD card. Finally, click the “Flash!” button to being the process. You will get a prompt asking for your permission, just click through the prompt. The card will flash and verify your image, and once it is done, you can remove the card from your PC.
4. Insert the 16GB microSD card into the “TF1” slot on the PowKiddy X55, and also insert a larger microSD card into the “TF2” slot. Power on the device and let it run through its initial setup. Once you see the main EmulationStation interface, press START to open the main menu, and navigate to SYSTEM SETTINGS > HARDWARE > STORAGE and choose “CREATE GAME DIRECTORIES”. Back on the main menu, navigate to QUIT > SHUTDOWN SYSTEM.

** Note that the “CREATE GAME DIRECTORIES” option above is new and not included in the video guide above. Additionally, if you run into any issues where the game directories are NOT created after following that step, insert your TF2 card into your PC and create a folder named “roms” (lowercase and without quotes) in the root directory of the SD card, and try to create game directories again.

Adding ROMs and BIOS files

• Remove the larger microSD card from the TF2 slot and insert it into your PC using a USB reader. Inside this card you should find a series of subfolders, all named after various systems that will run on the PowKiddy X55. This is where you will add your ROM/game files. For a listing of each system, the corresponding folder, accepted file types, and any requisite BIOS file(s), consult this page from the JELOS wiki.
• Adding BIOS files can be tricky, but most of them will go in the “bios” folder on your “TF2” microSD card. There are some exceptions; for example, the neogeo.zip BIOS file will go in the neogeo folder. For the best results, follow the table found on this wiki page, and the list found above.

Games and BIOS files can be added and removed at any time from your microSD card, and every time you boot the device it will detect any changes to your games list and will update accordingly.

Where are my games? If you flash a new SD1 card of JELOS but also use an older SD2 (games) card, your games may not appear in the JELOS menu. That’s because in late 2023 JELOS shifted over to a merged storage feature, which allows you to store games on both SD1 and SD2 cards if you format them to ext4, which required some directory changes. Regardless, if you are not seeing your games but they are on the card, that’s because the games folders now go into a folder named “roms”. To set it up, access your SD1 from your PC, then create a folder named “roms” in the main directory if it isn’t there already. Now, move all your game folders into that roms folder. After that, JELOS will detect all your games.

Configuring JELOS

When first starting up JELOS, here are the steps I recommend to initially set up your device.

• Press the START button to bring up the Main Menu. This will be your main location for adjusting JELOS options.
• First, go to the Network Settings section and turn on the “Enable Network” option, then add your WiFi credentials to connect to your home network. If you would like, you can also enable Samba or SSH within this menu for wireless file sharing.

• In the Game Settings section, you can adjust configurations like overall aspect ratio and integer scaling. If you are just starting out, I recommend using the default options. One exception is the “Auto Save/Load” option, I recommend setting this to “Show Save States if not Empty”. This will auto-save your game when you exit it, and if there is an auto-save associated with your game when you boot it, it will give you the option to choose that auto-save or start the game from the beginning.
• Within the Game Settings section, there is an option for Per System Advanced Configuration. Here, you can make adjustments specific to a certain console. Here are some scenarios where this might be important:
  • If you want to change out the default emulator for a specific console, you can do that here. For example, NES uses Nestopia as its default emulator, but you could change it to FCEUMM, QuickNES, or Mesen instead.
  • You could specify a certain aspect ratio for each console, like 4:3 or 8:7 for SNES.
  • In the Shader Set section, you can choose a shader to load with each console. For pixel-based home console systems like NES and SNES, I recommend an interpolation shader to balance the pixels. Some of my favorites are the Interpolation/Pixellate and Interpolation/Sharp-Bilinear-2x-Prescale shaders. For handheld systems, I recommend using the Handheld/LCD3x shader to give an LCD-like feel.
  • For Game Boy, you can set a colorization option to mimic older LCD panels. My favorite is called “Special 1”.
  • For harder-to-run systems like N64, Dreamcast, Saturn, and PSP, I recommend adjusting the Default CPU Governor to PERFORMANCE to improve their overall speed.
• Finally, at the bottom of the Game Settings section, you can add your RetroAchievements login credentials.

• In the System Settings section, you can set your time zone, display options (like saturation level), and update your JELOS firmware.
• In the UI Settings menu, you can change your theme or configure the current theme. If you want to have a navigation setup like shown in the video above, keep the “System Theme” but in the Theme Configuration section, change the System View Style to “Multi System”.
  • Also within the UI Settings menu you can set the EmulationStation language, choose to swap the A and B buttons within the menu, and choose to see the frames per second (FPS) when playing games in RetroArch.

Hotkeys

There are two sets of hotkeys that are important to consider: those while in the main (EmulationStation) menu, and those while in a game (RetroArch for most systems).

JELOS hotkeys:
X while hovering over a game = Quick Menu
X (hold) while hovering over a game = add to favorites
L2 + Volume Up = battery status (voice prompt)
L2 + Volume Down = toggle WiFi on/off
R2 + Volume Up = increase brightness
R2 + Volume Down = decrease brightness
L1 + Start + Select = force close any app

RetroArch hotkeys:
Select + Start (2x) = quit game
Select + X = RetroArch quick menu
Select + Y = toggle FPS
Select + R1 = save state
Select + L1 = load state
Select + R2 = fast forward
Select + L2 = rewind (if enabled in Game Settings)

Some emulators have their own hotkeys. For example, to bring up the menu in Yabasanshiro (the default Saturn emulator), press the SELECT button. In PPSSPP (PSP emulator), press the L3 button. More info can be found here.

Scraping game media

Once you have added all of your game files, let’s scrape the media to improve the navigation experience.

• To start, head over to ScreenScraper and create a free account if you haven’t already. Make note of your login credentials.
• On your PowKiddy X55, press START to bring up the Main Menu. Navigate to the Scraper section, then in the USERNAME and PASSWORD sections, add your ScreenScraper credentials.
• From there, choose which types of media you wish to download. I like to use “Box 2D” as my image source, and I also turn on the “Scrape Videos” option. Everything else I leave unchecked.
• Once you are ready to scrape, select the “Next” button and on the next page, under the “Systems Included” menu, choose which systems you want to scrape for media. Then, select the “Start” button and the scraping process will begin. Depending on the size of your library, it may take some time.

If you come across any games that don’t have proper media art, you can hover over the game with your cursor, press the X button, and in the quick menu select “Scrape” to scrape the game individually. This will give you the option to change the search keywords to help you find the correct game.

Pairing bluetooth controllers

Setting up bluetooth controllers is pretty simple. In the Main Menu, open the Controller & Bluetooth Settings menu. Turn on the Enable Bluetooth option, then put your controller in pairing mode (this will vary depending on your controller’s instructions). Once the controller is attempting to pair, on your X55 select the “Pair a Bluetooth Device” option. It will scan and find your controller, and you should be paired.

Once the controller is paired, navigate to the Controller Mapping section and follow the prompts to pair your bluetooth controller’s buttons. Finally, configure the settings within “P1’s Controller” and “P2’s Controller” so that the controller is assigned the right player for however you’d like to set up your play session.

From then on out, when you turn on your controller, the X55 should find the controller automatically and assign it to the appropriate player.

Moonlight game streaming

Above is an older video showing how to set up Moonlight game streaming, and there is also an accompanying written guide, but I’ll walk you quick through how I set up Moonlight streaming on my (non-NVIDIA) Windows PC.

First, we need your PC’s IP address. To find it, go to Windows Menu > Settings > Network > Properties, and it will be listed under IPv4 address (usually it will be 192.168.86.XX, with XX being a serialized number on your home network). Make note of that IP address.

To get the PC to properly detect your PowKiddy X55 controller, I recommend installing the ViGEmBus driver. Simply download the latest release from their GitHub page, then run the exe file on your PC to install the driver. Restart your PC after the setup is complete just to be sure the driver is properly loaded.

Next, on your PC, download the Sunshine app. I recommend the “sunshine-windows-portable.zip” file found within the Assets section of their latest release. You may need to select the “Show all 24 assets” link near the bottom of the Release to see the file. Once downloaded, unzip this file on your PC and place the Sunshine folder somewhere handy, like your Desktop.

Start up the sunshine.exe file within the Sunshine folder, and a Command Prompt window will appear with a bunch of code. Once you see the “Registered Sunshine mDNS service”, you are ready to start. On your PC web browser, type in https://localhost:47990 — you will likely get a warning about an unsafe connection, go ahead and accept and proceed to localhost. You will be prompted to create a username and password for Sunshine, I recommend making it something very simple. Once you have created your credentials, it will ask you to log in.

Once logged in, navigate to the Configuration tab and scroll down. Under “Advertised Resolutions and FPS”, remove all options except 1280×720 and 60 FPS, then scroll to the bottom and click on the “Save” button. Click on “Apply” to restart Sunshine. Once Sunshine has restarted, scroll to the top banner and choose the “PIN” tab and then return to your PowKiddy X55.

On the device, go to Main Menu > Moonlight Game Streaming. In the Settings > Server IP section, enter the IP address of your PC. Next, make note of the “Pairing PIN” listed on the screen, then select the “Pair with Server” option. Back on your PC, type that PIN into your Sunshine page, and the two devices should pair. On the X55, choose the “Update Moonlight Games” option; after that, you should see a Moonlight section in your main EmulationStation menu, with two options: Desktop and Steam Big Picture. You should be able to choose either of these options to connect to your PC.

From here on out, any time you want to connect your PowKiddy X55 to your PC, you will need to go into the Sunshine folder on your PC and start the sunshine.exe file. After that, you should be able to connect by launching either the Desktop or Steam Big Picture options from your X55’s menu. To disconnect, press L1 + SELECT + START on your device.

PortMaster

PortMaster is a powerful tool that will allow you to download and install ports directly onto your device. These ports can be broken up into two options:

• Ready to Run Ports. These are games that are freeware or open source. You can download the entire game directly from PortMaster.
• Commercial Ports. These are games that have been ported over to Linux-based devices like the PowKiddy X55, but require commercial files to actually run. You can download the game’s boot/shell files from PortMaster, but afterwards you will need to add your own commercial files by following the instructions on this page.

To start PortMaster, make sure you are connected to WiFi, then go into Tools > Start PortMaster. Navigate to the “All Available Ports” and download any games that interest you, then add any necessary gamedata files based on the PortMaster wiki.

Some ports will work on the PowKiddy X55 but may not be a part of PortMaster, such as TMNT: Shredder’s Revenge and Super Mario 64. Guides for those games can be found in my Ports category on this website.

For the best results, I recommend changing the default CPU Governor to PERFORMANCE for most ports. Hover over the game in the Ports menu and press the X button to bring up the Quick Menu. Select “Advanced Game Options” and within there, change the CPU Governor to PERFORMANCE.

Manually add themes

JELOS comes with a couple themes out of the box, and you can use the ThemeMaster tool to download more directly onto the device. But I’ve also found that manually adding Batocera themes can be a lot of fun. In this section we’re going to install a new theme manually; there are many ways to do this (including over your home network), but we’re going to do it offline by transferring files from your Games card (SD2) to your System card (SD1).

• Go to this page and choose a theme you would like to install. Click on the name of the author to be taken to the theme’s GitHub repository. For this example, we will use the Alekfull NX theme.
• Click on the green button that says “Code” and from the drop-down, choose “Download Zip”. Download that file to your PC and unzip it so you have a folder named Alekfull-NX-master
• Put your X55 games card in your PC, and then move that Alekfull folder to any folder on your card. I usually use the 3do folder since it’s the first one in the list and I don’t have any 3DO games on my device.
• Put the card back into your device, then turn it on and go to Tools > File Manager
• Navigate to the 3do folder, press the A button to go inside. You’ll see your Alekfull folder. Hover over the folder, then press the X button to bring up a submenu, choose the “Cut” option and press A.
• Press the B button a few times to back into the main root directory (the folders should be named bin, dev, etc, and so on). Navigate to this folder: storage > .emulationstation > themes. Once you are there, press X again and select “Paste” and press A. Just wait for a couple minutes, you won’t get a fancy progress bar and it will seem like your device froze; but after a while you will see your Alekfull folder in the themes folder.
• Once the Alekfull folder has moved over, you can press the X button to bring up the submenu again, and choose Quit.
• Now press START to bring up the JELOS menu, and go to UI Settings > Theme Set and change to the AlekFull one. I recommend going into UI Settings > List Transition Style and change it to either Instant or Fade, those work the best with the Alekfull theme.

You can repeat these steps for any of the Batocera themes within their repository.

---

Changelog

31MAR2024
– changed JELOS links to ROCKNIX

01FEB2024
– added instructions in case your games are not appearing in the JELOS menu

26AUG2023
– added manual theme guide

05JUL2023
– published guide