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Last updated: 05SEP2021 (see Changelog for details)

I’m very proud of the PocketGo S30 Add-On Pack that I created last month, but something didn’t sit well with me about it. For starters, it was basically a series of clever workarounds to improve the experience, but it wasn’t perfect or sustainable. Today I’d like to introduce something I’m calling “Simple30”, which is a compilation of many improvements made by the retro handheld community that turns this device into something truly neat.

If you haven’t already, consider buying a PocketGo S30. For $60, it’s an excellent deal.

Table of Contents
First things first
Features
Installation
Required BIOS files
Supported systems
Hotkeys
Notes
Known issues

Changelog

First things first

The honest truth is that I had very little to do with the actual development of Simple30. This project is available thanks to a number of developers whose work enabled me to basically compile and streamline the user experience.

Developer bkacjois was able to create a fully-formed RetroArch 1.9.0 that works on the S30
Steve from Tech Toy Tinker (and RetroArena) added dozens of new emulators and ports to the device
DaMikki developed a safe shutdown mechanism for use with this device

So really I just took their work and put it into one package. I don’t think that Simple30 is the end of this development, either; I think that there are plenty more milestones to come.

Features

When it comes down to it, the goal of Simple30 is to give the user a fully capable device, but with a pick-up-and-play experience.

Simple30 is:

• Optimized to allow you to play 90 systems and ports altogether, but the flexibility to pare down your system list to as few systems as you’d like (or as many as you’d like).
• Pre-configured with optimal graphics settings to give you an excellent viewing experience without having to tinker with the settings yourself (but with the freedom to tinker if you’d like).
• Pre-loaded with all relevant shaders and cheat files for your viewing and gaming pleasure.
• Pre-configured with hotkeys to allow you to quickly and efficiently navigate your games.
• Able to use a safe shutdown mechanism that allows you to safely power off your device and preserve your save games and configuration settings.

Installation

I recommend you upgrade the stock SD card in your device to a 128GB or 256GB microSD card, from a reputable brand like SanDisk or Samsung, so that you have a reliable storage option with plenty of space for your game collection. It is also confirmed that 512GB cards also work fine on this device. Here is a link to my recommended cards.

In order for this card to work on your device, you will need to format it to FAT32 file system. Windows can only format cards which are less than 32GB to FAT32, so you will need to use a program called guiformat. For Mac, you can use the Disk Utility program that comes with MacOS to format (“erase”) the card, with MS-DOS (FAT) as the format. In both cases, you can name the card “SIMPLE30”.

Once your card is formatted, download Simple30 here, and unzip the contents and drag them into your FAT32-formatted SD card. That’s it, you’re done. You can now add your game files to their respective folder within the main “roms” folder, and your BIOS files, too (more on that in the next section).

Required BIOS files

The BIOS files now need to be placed in the retroarch/system folder. Here are the necessary BIOS files for the default systems:

DREAMCAST: 
dc/dc_boot.bin
dc/dc_flash.bin

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

FAMICOM DISK SYSTEM:
disksys.rom

GAME BOY (for boot logo):
gb_bios.bin

GAME BOY COLOR (for boot logo):
gbc_bios.bin

GAME BOY ADVANCE:
gba_bios.bin

NEO GEO:
neogeo.zip

PLAYSTATION:
scph1001.bin

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

Supported systems

The Simple30 image, by default, contains about 20 of the most popular classic systems:

Note that with this new software, Nintendo 64 is now available. But just like Sega Dreamcast and Sony PSP, performance is relatively limited. The other systems play just fine.

If you want to remove any of these systems from your main menu, simply go to the sections/emulators folder on your SD card, and move the respective system launcher file (they’ll be labeled according to the system they support) into the sections/emulators/optional folder; this will make the system disappear from your main menu.

But additionally, there are other emulators and ports that you can play on your device, such as:

To add these systems to your device, navigate to the sections/emulators/optional/ folder, and move whatever system you would like to play into the sections/emulators folder instead. Note that some of these systems will require additional BIOS files, and the ports will require retail files added to their respective rom folder.

Hotkeys

All of the emulators (except for the standalone PSP emulator) will take advantage of RetroArch’s universal hotkeys system. Here are the hotkeys that you can use while in a game:

RetroArch hotkeys

SELECT + POWER = Quit game and return to main menu
SELECT + START = RetroArch Menu
Hold START (3 seconds) = RetroArch Menu
SELECT + Y = Toggle FPS (frames per second)
SELECT + B = reset game
SELECT + A = pause emulation
SELECT + R1 = save state
SELECT + L1 = load save state
SELECT + L2 = rewind (when enabled)
SELECT + R2 = fast forward (see note below)
SELECT + RIGHT on d-pad = save state slot +
SELECT + LEFT on d-pad = save state slot -
SELECT + UP on d-pad = volume up
SELECT + DOWN on d-pad = volume down

Thanks to developer DaMikki, we now have working Fast Forward on Simple30.

– Launch RetroArch without a game loaded, then navigate to Settings > Video > Threaded Video > ON
– Go to Main Menu > Configuration File > Save Current Configuration
– Exit RetroArch, launch a game, and then press SELECT + R2 to toggle Fast Forward

Note that threaded video will introduce some screen shimmering on certain games, which may be undesirable. If you want to have the feature only on certain games, then launch that game, turn on Threaded Video, and then save the setting within Quick Menu > Configuration File > Save Game Configuration.

Notes

Here are some random notes that may help you get the most out of this unique device:

• If you load your roms onto your SD card and do not see them in the menu, go into the sections/emulators folder on your SD card and find the appropriate launcher file for your system. Open that file with a text editor, and find that last bit of code: (selectorfilter=gdi,cdi) or similar, and add the file extensions of your roms (.iso, .img, and so on).
• To scrape boxart or videos for your menus, check out this section of my Starter Guide.
• You can adjust the brightness within RetroArch by going to Settings > Video > Output > Screen Brightness. I find this easier than closing out of the game and adjusting the brightness in the main menu.
• With the way the system is currently configured, you cannot switch between RetroArch cores in one system. For example, while most Nintendo 64 games play best with the Mupen64Plus N64 emulator, others may play better with the Parallel N64 core. There isn’t a way to set the Parallel N64 core to launch with certain games. Instead, I’ve made a Parallel N64 core section, so that you can launch the same N64 library with that core instead. To set it up, go into the sections/emulators/optional folder on your SD card, and move the file named “07 parallel (n64)” into the sections/emulators folder. Now you will see a Parallel N64 option in your main menu.
• If you would rather just run RetroArch by default and not deal with the Simple30 menu interface, that is set up as well. Go into the bin/RA launcher folder on your SD card, and move the gmenu2x from from that folder into the bin folder (replace the one that’s already in there, although I would make a backup in case you want to revert back at some point). From now on you will launch directly into RetroArch whenever you boot up the device, and quitting RetroArch will shut down the device.

Known issues

Like any software solution, Simple30 is a work in progress. Here are some of the issues that I have noted:

• The “Save Content Directory Overrides” function does not work, which means that you cannot save settings specific to one game folder for systems that use the same core. For example, you cannot save Game Gear specific settings because it shares the same core as Master System, Genesis, and Sega CD.
• Some shaders will rotate the screen when turned on.
• Fast forward function does not work at this time.
• Volume and brightness levels are reset when the device is powered off/on.
• With MAME2003-Plus, some button presses register as multiple buttons. Until a fix is in place, you can do a workaround by swapping out the RetroArch core with MAME2003 (open the sections/emulators/ folder, find the MAME 2003-Plus file, open it with a text editor, and change the core to (params=-v -c retroarch-arcade.cfg -L mame2003_libretro.so).

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Changelog

05SEP2021
– Added Fast Forward instructions

13FEB2021
– Published guide

16FEB2021
– Added note about adding additional file extensions
– Added known issue about MAME 2003-Plus buttons