Emulation Battle! Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance (PS2) on 3 Handhelds - RG556, Odin2, ROG Ally

It's a handheld emulation battle! Anbernic RG556 vs. Ayn Odin 2 vs. Asus ROG Ally (Z1). How will each of these handhelds fare emulating a tough PS2 game - Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance?
Emulation settings aren't shown in this video, but here's a basic description:
* RG556: 1X resolution, mostly "Fast/Unsafe" settings in the NetherSX2 game information menu.
* Odin 2: 2X resolution, mostly "Safe/Optimal" settings in the NetherSX2 game information menu.
* ROG Ally: OpenGL rendering, 3X resolution. Other PCSX2 settings default.
The RG556 and Odin 2 were set to their fastest performance modes, the Ally was using 15W TDP.
There were two small glitches in the Ally's gameplay where the framerate dropped. This was unusual - hadn't seen that in BGDA on the Ally before. I speculated during the gameplay run that it might have been Steam (which I usually have running in the background) downloading updates. After the recording I checked ... it wasn't Steam doing it but my hunch was otherwise correct. Windows had downloaded and installed two pretty big updates while I was playing the game. Thanks, Windows!
As usual, any weird audio sync in the gameplay portions of this video is due to my rather low-end capture card - None of the systems have out-of-sync audio in this game.
Like this style of gameplay test? Hate it? Let me know in the comments. I'm debating whether to try this with Champions of Norrath (or maybe Jak 3) next.
0:00 Handheld Battle!
0:41 Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance
1:10 RG556 Gameplay
8:30 Odin 2 Gameplay
13:49 ROG Ally Gameplay
20:58 Final Thoughts

[@Sp33dFr34k85]

Could you please tell me which settings you used for the RG556?

[@ammrulz6]

Orin2 v 556. How compares the sticks, triggers, buttons, overall ergonics, screen, and gc emulation? I know the o2 is better performance, but can the 556 run most games with little to no tweaks? I know im asking a lot, but like i said, hardly anyone compares both of those systems. They usually compare to the rp3 for whatever reason 😅

[@chemicalburrito782]

If I could have *only* one of those two devices and the price difference wasn't going to be an issue, I'd spend the extra $100 and get an Odin 2 - running PS2 upscaled and full speed is important to me. My main retro system is Playstation 2, and the Odin 2 will run almost any PS2 that can be run on Android at full speed with no tweaks except upping the resolution. You do have to do tweaks on the RG556 (at the very least you'll usually want to tweak Hardware Download mode unless you notice graphics problems when you do) ... but usually not that many tweaks are required for most games. That said, there are some games that the RG556 just won't run well under any settings that the Odin 2 just powers on through. The Odin 2's joysticks are better than the RG556's - I do notice that I can make precision movements easier on the Odin 2 than on the RG556. Not to say that the RG556's sticks are bad, but just that I think Odin 2's sticks are better. I find the Odin 2's rear triggers smoother than the RG556, but I like the RG556 face buttons better (Anbernic usually has pretty good buttons.) For overall ergonomics, the two are pretty close and it's hard for me to pick a favorite here. I'll give the screen competition to the RG556. The Odin 2's screen is a good one (and larger), but the RG556's panel is also 1080P and really pops - they selected a really nice screen. Gamecube's an area where I can't be of that much help, I'm afraid - the system was just never really on my radar as a collector so I haven't really compared Gamecube performance on either of the two handhelds.

[@f2theab661]

Do you think the ally non extreme does a better job at emulation in general over the odin 2. I have the odin 2 but i feel like the screen is a bit too small when streaming from my PC using sunshine and moonlight and i keep seeing the ally open boxes go on sale all the time at best buy so im thinking of getting the ally

[@chemicalburrito782]

If I had to choose one based on emulation performance only and nothing else, I’d probably choose the Ally based on my experiences so far. Since the Ally is just a PC, you have more systems you can emulate than you have on Android and the emulators are generally more mature. The exception might be if you’re wanting to do Switch emulation, since the Switch emulators on the Odin 2 can do native code execution for a good performance boost. (I haven’t tried Switch on my Ally yet … been mainly focused on PS2 because it’s my favorite system.) I streamed on the Odin 2 for a little while. Like you mention, I found it to be too cramped for PC gaming. The screen size difference between the Ally and Odin 2 doesn’t sound like much on paper, but PC games to me feel better on the Ally - whether you’re streaming or just playing natively. I think I’d wait until they go on sale again, though. A couple of weeks ago, you could get a new Z1 Ally for $399.00 and the open box was (I think) $299. If your Best Buy has cheaper open box deals than the website, it’d be a good buy.

[@f2theab661]

@@chemicalburrito782 thanks for the reply. PS2 is also my favorite system to emulate and the Odin 2 has no problems doing it at 3x resolution so I think I can hold off and get myself a Lenovo Legion Go because that's what I'm really after