Slightly over a month ago, I shared the news about the AYA-NEO, a handheld gaming PC that claims to be the “most powerful handheld gaming device”. While it’s not going to replace a high-end PC, it’s going after the niche, but substantial market of handheld PC consoles, mostly populated by the GPD line. With the dedicated gaming buttons and compact form factor, such devices do have an appeal to them.

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As the AYA-NEO touts itself as the “most powerful handheld gaming device”, there were footage of prototypes of the device running some of the latest games like Death Stranding and Horizon Zero Dawn decently. Its AMD 4500U SoC seems to offer respectable AAA on-the-go PC gaming but what about emulation, more specifically, Nintendo Switch emulation?

Given the obvious inspiration that the AYA-NEO took from the Switch when it comes to the design, the question of how Yuzu performs on it is inevitable. And today I am excited to help clarify things a bit with exclusive footage of the AYA-NEO emulating Super Mario Odyssey via Yuzu. This was made possible thanks to “Uncle A”, AYA-NEO’s creator, who was very kind to provide the video. You can check it below, with English commentary from Uncle A himself:

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As far as I know, this is the first official video performance with English commentary of the AYA-NEO emulating Switch games. I did come across a brief video of Super Mario Odyssey but it was less than a minute long. As you can see in the video above, performance is not fantastic, with choppy audio and unstable frame rate ranging anywhere from 30-50. As Uncle A pointed out, the CPU might not be to blame with higher usage as compared to the GPU. But that’s only one game that we saw and hopefully we’ll get to see more in the future.

And that future might not be too far away as the “Founder Edition” of the AYA-NEO is planned for an October release. This Founder Edition will differ from the later version in that it won’t have a detachable controller (likely to prevent facing lawsuits from Nintendo) and will also be shortened from 282mm to 255mm. While there is no exact price tag for the AYA-NEO, it was previously expected to cost less than $700.

What are your thoughts about the AYA-NEO? Are there any other Switch games else you would like to see get tested on the device?

 

[Deleted User]

Yeah, the more, the merrier, those x86 handheld are amazing !




WinMax (so aya too) can even run Arkham Knight smoothly, what a time to be alive !

 

[MohammedQ8]

I mean, it wasn't the greatest device and it got delayed so much that I lost interest when I got it (it was also DOA on arrival and took months to get a replacement). Emulation wasn't even really great on it in my experience.

it felt like I bought PS vita for free because pandora preorder money was very old money hehe.

 

[smf]

You should never support a crowdfunded product until it actually releases

Someone has to, or no crowd funded product would ever be released.

 

[Taleweaver]

...okay? So for about two or three times the price of a switch, you can back a crummy looking lookalike that can play a bootlegged alpha version on a beta emulator?

Trolling aside: I guess this and the GDP Win max will be battling it out which one plays switch games best.

I mean Doom runs on one

Yeah...about time these things contained something positive for men.

Also...this conversation coming to a normal gamer family near you:

Girlfriend: have you seen my pregnancy test?
Boyfriend: mmmhmmm... *zoned out gaming*
Girl: hey...what are you doing with it?
Boy: just one more level.
Girl: I want to know if we're going to have a baby!
Boy: mmmhhmmm....could be. Yeah. Okay...*continues gaming*
Girl: GIMME THAT!!!
Boy: what? So you can pee all over my progress? I don't think so! Just be a little patient, okay?

Not like anybody on this site would play it that way.

Play? No. But I wouldn't be surprised if some console collectors went out to buy and hack a test "because it can be done".

 

[yoyoyo69]

that won't stop them they are like apple now suing anyone who has an apple in their logo

Yeah, that definitely seems to be the case.

 

[TheRealNGB]

Not bad for running current games at 720p/30fps on the go, between on screen keyboard, and being able to pair a portable one via bluetooth, a built in keyboard isn't really necessary.

I'd consider one if it makes it past reviews without blowing up or falling apart.

 

[AirbusX]

Yeah, the more, the merrier, those x86 handheld are amazing !




WinMax (so aya too) can even run Arkham Knight smoothly, what a time to be alive !

WOW, I had never heard of this unit. Hopefully it does well I wouldn’t mind investing in one of these.

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

WOW, I had never heard of this unit. Hopefully it does well I wouldn’t mind investing in one of these.

The GPD Win Max is already released, but it'll set you back a cool $1000 if you want one, which for that price you might as well just buy a thin gaming laptop.

 

[AirbusX]

The GPD Win Max is already released, but it'll set you back a cool $1000 if you want one, which for that price you might as well just buy a thin gaming laptop.

Really? On Amazon it says it’ll be released Sept 25th. Yea it’s pretty steep

 

[smf]

...okay? So for about two or three times the price of a switch, you can back a crummy looking lookalike that can play a bootlegged alpha version on a beta emulator?

That is kinda my feeling. I'm sure there are people that want this enough & if it was a third of the price then I might consider it. It doesn't really scratch the console itch though, there is no drm, no lockout etc.

 

[ov3rkill]

What's interesting is the future of AMD APUs. They're beating the shit out of Intel.

 

[gregory-samba]

This looks nice and all, but I rather have a gaming laptop if I was in the market for a portable computer.

 

[fvig2001]

Really? On Amazon it says it’ll be released Sept 25th. Yea it’s pretty steep

It's out for those who bought it in Indiegogo (or who got lucky because of a screw up by Lanruo). Apparently 3rd parties will officially ship it on 25.

 

[Deleted User]

Really? On Amazon it says it’ll be released Sept 25th. Yea it’s pretty steep

Glad I made you discover this gem.

I bought the win max during the extended funding campaign last july, and it was 6200HKD ~ 680€, free shipping.
Considering it was 85€ below its retail price, the win max is roughly 765€ plus VAT (had a 50€ custom fee) and shipping.

If you only wish to play legacy games up to MGSV/Arkham origins or GC emulation, just buy a GPD Win 2, it is 200€ cheaper and more compact.

It is a delight to play good ol' C&C/RA3 skirmishes on the go.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

What's interesting is the future of AMD APUs. They're beating the shit out of Intel.

If only we had Nvidia GC in these little things, we could finally enjoy Project Diva Arcade and its 100ish titles on the go...
One can dream

 

[ov3rkill]

@Torina Who knows maybe we're not far off especially now that Nvidia got ARM. Maybe finally, Nvidia will keep on developing and improving on their Tegra and what's the future in it. Or maybe a successor of Tegra or a new Shield perhaps?

 

[AirbusX]

Glad I made you discover this gem.

I bought the win max during the extended funding campaign last july, and it was 6200HKD ~ 680€, free shipping.
Considering it was 85€ below its retail price, the win max is roughly 765€ plus VAT (had a 50€ custom fee) and shipping.

If you only wish to play legacy games up to MGSV/Arkham origins or GC emulation, just buy a GPD Win 2, it is 200€ cheaper and more compact.

It is a delight to play good ol' C&C/RA3 skirmishes on the go.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------



If only we had Nvidia GC in these little things, we could finally enjoy Project Diva Arcade and its 100ish titles on the go...
One can dream

What I really want is to be able to play my Steam Library on the go. Emulator I really care about is Dolphin so I can play GC games, other than that I’ve got my Hacked switch so I don’t care about emulating it on the unit.

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

@Torina Who knows maybe we're not far off especially now that Nvidia got ARM. Maybe finally, Nvidia will keep on developing and improving on their Tegra and what's the future in it. Or maybe a successor of Tegra or a new Shield perhaps?

Nvidia has been developing and improving Tegra all along, the ARM acquisition won't change anything in that regard.

The X1 is a 5 year old product, but there's still the X2 and Xavier which are out in the wild now (though only really used with Nvidia's Drive platform, you can still pick up an X2 or Xavier dev board if you have a chunk of change sitting around), and Orin which was announced some 2 years ago and will feature an Ampere GPU, which should show up next year or so.

 

[ov3rkill]

Nvidia has been developing and improving Tegra all along, the ARM acquisition won't change anything in that regard.

The X1 is a 5 year old product, but there's still the X2 and Xavier which are out in the wild now (though only really used with Nvidia's Drive platform, you can still pick up an X2 or Xavier dev board if you have a chunk of change sitting around), and Orin which was announced some 2 years ago and will feature an Ampere GPU, which should show up next year or so.

Interesting. I did not know that. Good to know they're still on it. Here I was thinking they're still milking the shit out of the old Tegra X1. haha

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

Interesting. I did not know that. Good to know they're still on it. Here I was thinking they're still milking the shit out of the old Tegra X1. haha

They're only really still using it because there's not a huge market for Android TV boxes these days now that Smart TVs are basically the standard, and because the X1 is still fully capable of pushing 4k HDR content without issue. Since that's about all most people use the Shield TV for these days (despite their initial push for gaming on it either via those "Shield ports" of PC games or through GeForce Now), it just doesn't make much business sense to spend all the R&D money and market research money on something that won't really benefit the average user.

Perhaps the day 8k TVs become the norm for the average consumer we may see a Shield TV 2 with like an Nvidia Orin SoC or something, but until then I probably wouldn't expect any kind of true hardware successor to the Shield TV.

 

[Deleted User]

What I really want is to be able to play my Steam Library on the go. Emulator I really care about is Dolphin so I can play GC games, other than that I’ve got my Hacked switch so I don’t care about emulating it on the unit.

My Win2 is dedicated to Steam, Blizzard and GOG launchers.

Some games may be tricky to run, like Settlers 3 or Rogue squadron due to bad graphic drivers and games like Starcraft or Warcraft 3 lack efficient button mapping, which is lame.

Otherwise, Starcraft 2 and RA3 run perfectly so, everything is OK.