Hacking the R36S Game Emulator

R36 Gaming Console in Protective Case

Hacking R36S

In this piece, we will talk about how to improve the R36S. You've just purchased a highly modifiable item, and there are many rabbit holes to explore. If you purchased your R36s from my store, you've got an original R36S and not a dangerous, cheap clone. If you have your R36S already, you know that it works great right out of the box. If you're like me, you want more than just cheap; you want to maximize your investment, which, to me, means a few things. But mainly, it means you're hacking the r36s! Let's go do this:

1. Swap the stock nameless R36S 64GB SD card with branded, high-quality, high-durability 32GB and 128GB micro SD cards so that you don't lose your game progress, and sleep easy knowing that it is configured in a more highly available architecture.

2. Add new games and expand it from the 64GB version with 15k games to the 128GB version with 25k games for free.

3. Adding a silicon case to prevent damage from drops.

4. Adding a wifi dongle so the console can have internet connectivity to update games, download new games, and play multiplayer.

5. Adding a screen protector to further protect the screen from drops.

Budget for improvements: $100

By the end of this piece, we will have invested about $100 into a budget-friendly Game Emulator, ensuring it stands the test of time and provides us with years of fun and no trouble. Plus, we get to have fun tinkering.

SD Cards

A few months ago, I grew tired of constantly replacing SD cards. I have a lot of devices that require SD cards, and they would break frequently. So I replaced them all in one swoop with high-quality SD cards and haven't had the first problem since. It appears that there are numerous error codes that can result from faulty SD cards. The SD card that comes with the Game Emulator stock isn't reliable. Whenever you purchase an item with an SD card, the first step is to replace it with a brand-name card. Brands and quality matter big time for SD cards. You'll save your games and time on this SD card, making it not worth the headache of losing everything. This is a mandatory step in my opinion.

This Game Emulator was designed for occasional use, such as one time during a road trip, rather than as a serious portable gaming console, which is what we're preparing it for. We're preparing it for the streets, for the occasional drops and slips, for the ring-a-ting-tings and the dilly-whacka-do. They didn't account for wear and tear or abuse, and they made it as cheap as possible. It's really too cheap for my standards, so I'm fixing that because at it's root, this is one sweet electronic. This is a fantastic $50 gaming machine, and we're going to upgrade it to become the best gaming machine it can be, one that won't break down on you in serious portable gaming conditions.

A quality SD card is a few bucks, and I'm going to make you buy TWO. You need two for this architecture, and they need to be name-brand, like the one in the product list at the bottom of this article.

One 32 GB is for the operating system, and the other 128 GB is for games, game progress, and other applications.

ArkOS

The 32GB name-brand SD card that you will replace the 64GB stock one with, we will install the ArkOS operating system on and make it bootable. This is widely believed to be the best operating system for this hardware.

Download an imager. Since I use a Mac, I will be using Balena Etcher.

A website specifically for this ArkOS warns against using Balena Etcher, but it seems awfully suspicious. The person warning against it is promoting the developer's name of the imager product he's promoting, which seems like an attaboy promotion. Maybe they'll go on a date or something.

Balena Etcher is the 900lb gorilla for ALL operating systems for imaging flash drives, SD cards, and external media. It is really a simple and fantastic free tool. I've contributed to their project a time or two and I'd recommend you to do the same.

The issues they describe seem to stem from using a too-large micro SD card or issues during the copy process, but when imaging something, it's either going to work or it's not; it doesn't degrade as time goes by as they describe. That is a common problem with people, they try to buy these generic Micro SD cards that are terabytes, and wonder why it has all of these problems. You need to spec the size of your Micro SD card to be near the capacity you'll fill it. That solves a lot of the most common SD card issues, other than buying a high-endurance brand-name SD card.

To paint the picture a little bit better, if you're storing pictures on a digital camera, it's better to use a 16GB Micro SD Card and use two if you need more storage. Do it this way to improve reliability and redundancy, rather than to try to shove a 1TB Micro SD card in the camera. For our purposes, 32GB is a little bit more than we need for the operating system but not too much more that the extra space gets bumps and bruises that corrupts the card. Then, in the second slot on the other side of the console, we are adding a 128GB name brand card just specifically for the games. We are separating the games which are disposable and replaceable, with the SD card that will hold the ArkOS, saved games, configurations and are unique to you. And, on a regular basis, you'll pull out the 32GB memory card and use Balena Etcher to make an image of it. So you'll back it up.

Flash this file onto your 32GB name-brand card.

I will say one last thing about the R36s and the TF2 slot, it's very finicky and only works with some brands of SD cards. I had a SanDisk card in mine, and the R36S slot 2 TF2 slot wouldn't recognize the SanDisk card until I replaced it with the one in the shop. You're welcome to try other SD cards, but make sure they're high-quality SD cards.

Once the image has been completed, Windows may ask you if you want to format the SD card. MAKE SURE TO CLICK CANCEL ON THIS QUESTION! If you let it format the SD card, you will need to install the image again.

Start your Game Emulator and go to Options > DeviceType > and select r36s and then let it restart.

GAMES

Games in this world are called ROMS, and they are only legal to have if you own the corresponding game. So be sure to delete all the ROMS you download that you don't have a cartridge for. You won't go to jail, but Nintendo might sue you if they show up at your front door.

This is because you invited them, and they saw you playing their games, and they have evidence that is admissible in court.

Ok. So, it's unlikely you'll be doing bad things then, huh (srsly don't create a YouTube video).

So I'll leave you to ponder while I point you in the direction of Tiny Best Set.

Take your 128GB name-brand SD card and put it into your Game Emulator and go to Options > Advanced > go all the way to the bottom and select switch to TF2 slot for ROMS (or something similar).

Then you'll know if your machine will have the common problem of not being able to read your SD card in the TF2 slot. If you're having trouble, try a different name-brand SD card. SanDisk is the worst for this application.

Download uTorrent and unzip the torrent below then double-click

tiny-best-set-go_archive.torrent.zip

Download ZIP • 487KB

Out of this torrent, you'll select:

• tiny-best-set-go-games.zip

• tiny-best-set-go-expansion-64-games.zip

• tiny-best-set-go-expansion-128-games.zip

When it finishes downloading, you'll unzip the three zip files (will take quite a while). It will contain a zip file for every ROM, but you don't need to unzip these. The Game Emulator will unzip them as needed.

Then you'll put your 128GB name-brand Micro SD card into your card reader.

This is a manual process. Copy the ROMS you want to include from the three zip files you unzipped (they will also be zip files) into their respective folders, which were created on the 128GB name-brand Micro SD card when you selected 'switch to the TF2 slot for ROMS'.

Keep the original SD card that came with the Game Emulator. You will want to copy some of the PSP and PS games from there to your new card.

This process takes a day or so. I highly recommend getting the additional extras. I've got all of the games on my r36s and now just dove headfirst into games. The extras should be here soon and I'll post a note. Grab yours today!