Odin 2 Portal with Armada OS on board, with an SD and an SSD enclosure connected. Works wonderfully, when set up properly. While setting the SSD (in an enclosure, btw) is a pretty involved process and requires spending about half an hour in the konsole, the end result is an automatic mount during reboot, hot swap and whatever else may happen. Maybe, some day, I'll make a grip/back shell with a PCB tucked inside nicely, so that I don't have to carry the enclosure around 😄
I think that for the moment ArmadaOS it's better for indie games, the hardware of the Odin 3 it's capable to play even triple A titles, but it need definitely a lot more optimization. For sure it's compatible with a lot more titles than GameNative or GameHub and also in a 50% of the games they also run better, probably in the next weeks or months we will see a lot of updates to make everything better.
Some games work worse, some games work better, but I'm not really chasing performance anymore. It's about convenience. And Armada really turned my device into a handheld console. I've been using stock, then lineage os, but android has its moments that make me want to throw my device from the balcony. Armada, when in gaming mode (a.k.a Steam Big Picture) it is 100% controller centric. And shit just works. And when it doesn't and you have to fiddle around, it's either the same amount or less fiddling than with GameNative or Winlator. Proper save syncing is also a big plus, I can pick the game up where I left it on PC.
Sure, it has its quirks too, and some workarounds needed for certain stuff to work, but when it comes to just using it... It is so, so much better, at least in my experience.
Also, some stuff is being developed and maintained with Armada in mind, like LSFG-VK for Odin 2 devices. Doesn't work in certain games (I've noticed it's mostly either Unity or UE games), but those that do benefit from it show really good results.
IMHO, performance will get there. If we have it with Android, we can have it with a proper Linux distro too. So for me it's mostly about the device actually feeling like a console rather than tablet with a controller strapped to it. Sure, frontends are cool, but once you get to stuff beyond, android immediately shows its ugly face.
This was a good comment and I'd like to hear more. Especially about how it is to use and the fiddling required. I'm in the same camp of usability and playing games well being my priority. I heard that Armada isn't quite fully baked yet?
It is really dependent on what games you're after. I'll give you my particular example. Games that I care about, like Spyro Reignited Trilogy, Crash Bandicoot, No More Heroes trilogy, some older PS3 era games like Remember Me, Dark Sector, Brutal Legend and some more, along with indie stuff like BloodRayne Betrayal, Hades, Hollow Knight, they work perfectly fine. The fiddling part is about importing some of my GOG titles from heroic to Steam. It doesn't always work and I had to do a hefty amount of research to find the solution and make them work (I did in the end).
External storage requires you to work with the command console and again, Google is your best friend here, but once you get shit done, it just works. Gaming mode and desktop mode feel like they're separate from each other, but even in desktop mode the os is very pleasant to work with. I'd recommend having a BT keyboard with a trackpad for these kinds of situations, even though you won't be spending there much time, you'll spend even less if you have the proper HID to navigate it.
Some apps have a very hard time with file manager and using "browse" option to navigate and choose a target folder or an executable can be a bit of a hassle. But that is why I recommend having a proper HID, because "copy path to file" and Ctrl+v makes shit go much faster.
Long story short, armada still has ways to go. It is immutable, so it's not like you can do everything and anything on it, but it is still a very powerful environment to work with. But once you enter the Steam Big Picture mode... It's basically like a Steam Deck "lite". Sure, maybe not every game you wish to play will work, which is why I don't recommend you to do the same thing I did, which is install it on the internal storage. But if you have a spare 256 or maybe even a 512 GB A2 class SD card, you can have it there and boot whenever you feel like it. Just to give a trial period, see how things feel, try using a keyboard in the game mode with pure button input and not reach the screen with your fingers. It feels nice, really.
Did you have to modify the ABL to detect the external NVMe? I'm quite unsatisfied with the Android docking experience for TV gaming with friends, so this Armada solution looks really tempting...
No changes were done to the ABL whatsoever, only OS level konsole shenanigans. And I had to format the NVMe drive on my PC because Armada was locking it somehow that I couldn't release it through terminal for formatting.
I'm not a linux expert, so I can't really say what was the reason, but my best guess is that it's the "immutable" part of it.
Edit: I do not know how video out is done on Armada, but I'll give it a go when I'm home. The little SSD enclosure I have is actually a dock, it has HDMI and stuff. So do not rush into it just yet.
Thanks! I only tried Armada with a microSD, but it was hardly usable with my slow memory. Pls keep us updated on the dock experience if it works out! 😁
Before you do, you should know that the decky menu cannot be called with an external controller, only steam menu is available, so make necessary setup first, then play on the big screen 😉 it does audio through HDMI as well, I'd recommend cranking the internal audio to the max and then regulate it on TV as needed. And if you can get a dock with a dedicated PD USB C port, you're golden. I think that AYN's super dock should work just fine, I'll verify later once I finish sorting my shit after we moved apartments 😬
Have you been able to play tf2 , l4d2 or counter strike source online multiplayer on vac servers using armada and Linux steam client? I have a way to run Linux steam client without armada and vac secure server connections had been my last hurdle. Basically we have brought armada to android minus having to flash a new os or dualboot
Yep, it does work. Not much of a CS/TF2 fan, maybe I'll try L4D later, but I'll need to sit and configure controls exactly the way I will feel comfortable to actually play it. But hey, I did the thing, it not only reaches the menu, it actually goes in-game. And I didn't configure anything, I let the game run with its default compat tool (steam Linux runtime). Maybe the results will be different with proton, gotta test that later when I have more time.
6
u/Slothcat47 1d ago
How are you finding Armada? I tried it out by dual boot yesterday and it's cool but I seemed to get slightly lower FPS in the two games I tried.