The Anbernic RG Arc is such a strange, yet cool device. Resembling a Sega Saturn controller, it is a little disappointing that some of the performance for Saturn isn’t the best. The hopes of a Custom Firmware arriving to fix that besides GammaOS have been slow and some may have given up hope. Fear not though, there is a great new firmware that is in Beta! Introduce Retro Arena.
Retro Arena is available and made through Tinker Tech Toys. Head over to their site to get the most recent version of the custom firmware or the Google Drive located here. As of writing this, Test 7 is the most recent version. It is said Test 8 is coming very soon with the Geolith Emulator for Neo Geo which is praised for its accuracy. There will still be some problems with Nintendo DS and scraping Super Famicom games. These are all just beta tests, but they are still worth it to check out.
How to Get
Installation is easy and will be much the same once released out of Beta. First, download the file and extract it to a location of your choosing. You will receive a folder that is a directory for your games and another that is an image file. First, insert your second SD card that you will be putting games on. Copy the directory over to the SD card and copy your legally backed-up games into the appropriate folders.
Now insert your first SD card into your computer. This card needs to be larger than 16 GB for it to work. Once it is inserted, make sure it is in FAT32 format and use an imaging flash software like Balena Etcher to copy the image file from the file to your SD card.
When this is finished, plug the SD cards back into your device and turn it on. You are now all ready! As of this writing, the only way to enable Wi-Fi is through Retroarch. Find the Retroarch section on your device and open the 32 version. Here, locate the wi-fi section and find the connection you would like to use. After this, you should have wi-fi set up as well! Don’t worry, because once the official release is out the install process will still be the same too.
Anbernic Arc running Retro Arena
Overview
I enjoy the look and simplicity of this CFW. As someone who had the first device of an RG351V with 351ELEC on it, this felt right at home with the implementation of EmulationStation. From the menu, you can download box art for all of your games so it is an enjoyable experience to scroll through your collections. I also enjoy the menu music with some great renditions of The Ramones, Michael Jackson, KoRn, and more.
The dying question on everyone’s mind is, “Does it play Sega Saturn any better than stock?” and from my experience I would say yes! I put a handful of Saturn games on my device to try and it seems to be running them more smoothly than stock. I played a few levels of Nights and Panzer Dragoon and both were very playable.
Will every game work? Not at all. It is an improvement though and makes the experience much, much better in my opinion. If you want a new experience to bring more life into your Anbernic Arc, I highly suggest giving Retro Arena a try yourself. Yes, it is still in Beta, but it is very promising. This is a great Custom Firmware to keep an eye on while it updates completely to being finished.
Purchase your very own Anbernic RG Arc on Amazon for fast shipping or from the Anbernic official store. Joey from Joey’s Retro Handhelds has a great guide on putting Retro Arena on your device here.
What did you think of this article? Let us know in the comments below, and chat with us in our Discord!
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Retro Arena v.10 works fine on my Anbernic ARC-S. It is very easy to use and has a lot of customizations possibilities. In general, I am very happy of its working. I buyed this console for playing Saturn games. It was very dissapointed when I realized the original firmware was a true dissaster with the Sega Saturn emulation. So, I would like to recommend to all the retro community to install Retro Arena to achieving the goal with Sega Saturn Games.
Many thanks Tinker Tech Toys. We wait excited for more revisions and the Retro Arena final version!
It’s a very good job what you have done with RA. It should continue, sorry IT MUST CONTINUE such GOOD GOB.
Plaease update it. I’m very ansious to see another version.
Can you elaborate on how to get the Wi-Fi connected? I tried putting in the IP address and password but wasn’t able to connect.
Are you connecting Wi-Fi through Retro Arch or just the regular menu? You have to go through Network connections through Retro Arch and find the Wi-Fi/enter the password. I don’t have my Arc anymore to check for sure, but that is how I did it
A bit late. But maybe ill help some one else.
Scroll to Retroarch.
Once there, you will have retroarch and retroarch32 as options.
Select retroarch again.
Hit right 2 times to get to the options, and scroll down to wifi
Wifi should be enabled by default. Leave it like that, else activate it, and scroll down to connect to network.
Just type it in and you are done.
Hopefully this will serve as a nexus for the finalization of Sega Saturn emulation…. Or is it just in need of customization?? Yabasanshiro standalone non-bios wors pretty great but is otherwise limited from the RetroArch suite!! WTF
PicoDrive works pretty well actually with some core option toggles per game where necessary. Ive got Soukyuugurentai going quite nicely and its even playing the Dungeons & Dragons ToD and SoM quite smoothly enough to ignore the extreme sprite ghosting. One thing I see might be missing is Sega Titan ST-V compatibility. No folder as far as I can see. Does that fall in somewhere else?? Me wants the real Terra Diver!!
Are U sure U didn’t mean Yabasanshiro?? PicoDrive is working nicely on my clear black one with the GG translations and SMS, MD, SCD, and all that…. Lucky I went for a Japanese style one just for SS in hopes the 2GB RAM might help (apparently it doesn’t), though, because after toggling away a bit too much I’ve wrecked both RetroArch UI’s. No obvious way to restore. Messing with video drivers seems to be a slight issue in this beta release. Hope this can be adressed in the final build!
Any word on when the final or next beta will be out? It’s been months since Beta 10 was released.
Since this page seems to be where people find this CFW: to anyone searching for the username and password to login via ssh/sftp/sshfs/whatever, it’s ark/ark on beta 10 at least. Hope this saves someone a gray hair.
I have an issue where pressing the Function button turns off the backlight on the screen. Thought maybe it was bugging out at one point until I heard the screensaver start up. Really not sure what to make of this.
OK, can anyone help with a really basic question. I got as far as extracting the zip file for beta 10 and the file has no extension. So Balena Etcher can’t see it. I’m not sure if I’m doing something wrong in that software or what. Any tips greatly appreciated.
Is this CFW abandoned?
It seems, in the official website of Tinker Tech Toys there is no trace of the Arc-S.
I’ve asked on their youtube channel and Steve says he’s still working on it
I am using it for a while. Man, both the console and the firmware work very well. However, I have been trying to play mp3 files as well, and I have searched like mad, but I dont see how.
Can it even do it? If so, please tell me how. Thanks
It seems the message is this beta build is as good as it gets. For real. Just dont try to be clever with Retro Arch its set up to be the best it can be I think. The enigma of the Sega Saturn continues. I’ll bet Anbernic will be releasing an upgrade. Following the ‘treat ’em mean keep ’em keen’ pimp/crack whore modus operandi.