Bringing a GameShell up to date?

GameShell
1

Hi,

I got Clockwork GameShell in the Kickstarter and never really used it much. I wanted to make some use of it, and eventually upgrade it. I’ve got two questions:

  1. I’ve got he CPI3 board and was wondering if it’s worth updating to the CPI3.1 board when/if they come back in stock?
  2. The OS I’ve got seems like it’s not been updated since forever, whenever I’ve gone to the update there hasn’t been any changes. What is the latest version of the OS I should be running? Would it be better to update by flashing the image to the card?
  3. What’s the D.E.O.T. version?

Thanks in advance!

2

The updater that you find on the gameshell updates the Launcher which is, lets say the “Desktop”, for the OS a flash is always the best bet, there are some scripts to try to update from older OS but could fail.

The D.E.O.T. version is a fork of the original OS with a different skin and if I remember correctly a bit behind in terms of updates.

If you want the latest of everything and already configured and plug and play, I recommend you this amazing community driven OS

2 Likes
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Hello! Welcome to the forums!

Just to avoid confusion, the offical DEOT version is the one that’s behind. It was visually very pleasing, with a few extra bells and whistles not found in the original version.

The DEOT+ version is actually a very up to date stock image, with the DEOT features ported over; but also includes a lot of other updates and bonuses not found in the official DEOT OS. You can even switch off all DEOT UI features and have a pre configured up to date image.

I’ve tested it on both the original Kickstarter and 3.1 updates board. It works fine on both. RAM doesn’t seem to be the bottle neck for the majority of usage in hand held mode. Of course the Kickstarter one won’t be able to connect via HDMI, but that’s a given.

Just be sure to read the first post in the thread properly. A few things have been changed, and some instructions on how to do things that you find on the forums will be outdated, and will no longer work. That said, most of the ones worth installing (in my eyes) have already been installed. Eg, the battery monitor, and global volume control.

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Haven’t turned my GameShell on in a loooong time. Considering updating to this DEOT custom.

How are the emulators running on it? I remember having issues with gPSP on earlier firmwares which is why I got mine working fine and just stayed there.

Is it worth updating now?!

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Good to see you back! :slight_smile: I think the last I saw you was in 2019?? A lot has changed since then! You’ll definitely have a light and day difference using anything made this year. Possibly consider writing a new card from scratch, rather than trying to upgrade your current installation.

I’d be a little biased by saying that my custom DEOT image is the best OOB experience, but it is what I’ve tried to make it, ironing out kinks as users reported them, and keeping it up to date with official updates to the launcher. There are a lot of extra emulators setup, and existing emulators run fast; including SNES super FX emulation etc. I’ve mainly updated the Retroarch cores via buildbot, keep Retroarch updated, and have the underlying Debian OS updated.

I would release a new image each time I made changes, which was fairly frequently, as people reported things wrong, or I felt that something needed tweaking. I haven’t updated in a while; not because I’ve lost interest, but more because I’m finding less things to change.

With regards to gpsp, I’ve only had issues when using an overclocking, and that’s something that for gba, really doesn’t need to be utilised. It was some micro stuffers, and slight audio distortion. This possibly coincided with the flickering that some people experienced. I’ve provided a few different scripts to try and get it to behave the way you want.

For me, it runs exactly the way I expect it to on both a R16 and a R16-J 3.1 cpi board and a first Gen cpi board, but some still report things wrong with their installation. SD Cards are ridiculously cheap, so just try it out, and see how it feels.

What was wrong with your gpsp back in the day? I can double check it’s not something present in the DEOT image. If you do try it out, I’d be keen to see your feedback, as a founding Gameshell owner who went through the early Os renditions!

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Wow! Thank you for the reply!
Yeah it’s been a long while! Found the little guy and decided to give it some love again! I’ll definitely reflash my card with your custom image and let you know how it runs in comparison. I’m looking forward to it!

From what I remember, gPSP always ran choppy and was really hard to get it running anything smooth. After climbing a TONS of hills we got it working! Haha.

My current OS also crashes a lot and I have to reboot. Sometimes it won’t even boot. So I’m sure anything will be great’ I’m running 0.2 :stuck_out_tongue:

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OH MY GOODNESS! 0.2!!! I wasn’t even around for those days, and had enough troubles with 0.3!

I don’t ever get crashes, hangs or random card corruption with my image. Battery and heat issues should theoretically be far better; basically on anything past 0.5 stock. That’s what this is based on.

The one thing you might need to do is fiddle with which kernel/clock speed combo to use that suits you. The one it’s set to is what I use. It’s the one with most features, eg suspend, on demand governor, overclock etc. But some people report screen flickering. Change it till you find one that works for you.

Re: gpsp, using the kernel/clocks it comes with, I also get some choppy frame rates. Moving to a different one fixes this. Ah that’s something I’ve been meaning to fix! Adding in a tclock divided to the kernel. But eh. For now it should work.

From memory, you were a founding member right? I’m guessing you’ve got both a stock 3.0 board and a 3.1 board? If you have some time, could you test the image on both? See how things like screen flickering and gpsp performance go. I’ve tested on a few different boards but can’t replicate the problems people report.

Re: not booting up, since you’ve got an older unit, it could also be a battery thing. That’s the one thing I found, re boot up issues. Replacing the battery resolved this. I guess for now, have the Gameshell plugged in when doing the first boot; just because it will be expanding the partition to your card etc.