GammaOS Next Setup Guide

GammaOS Next

GammaOS Next is a replacement for the stock Android operating system that device ships with, and it’s also Android.

It will completely wipe your device, so be aware of that and you want to setup GammaOS Next before anything else.

What devices does it work with?

GammaOS Next is now available for the Anbernic RG556, RG Cube, RG406H and RG406V.

GammaOS Next is a clean Android 13 LineageOS based operating system that you can flash to any of those devices for a lot of improvements – you’ve likely heard of GammaOS for previous devices and how good it was – this is even better.

From June 1st 2025 to August 1st 2025, it is Patreon exclusive and you need to be subbed to Gamma’s Patreon to download it. It’ll cost you $10 to sub and get this unless you want to wait until after August 1st, but support the man, he does a lot for our hobby and not just on the Android side. 

Benefits of GammaOS

• Daijisho comes preconfigured with RetroArch out of the box for Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, NES, SNES, Genesis and PS1. 
• You get full control on button remapping, to remap any physical button to anything you want.
• You can calibrate your analog sticks and adjust deadzones.
• For those with the RG556, this has reduced PWM flicker with DC Dimming Emulation.
• You can have the on-screen colors match your RGB LED’s so that it syncs together and you get a cool sync’d lighting.
• There’s a deep sleep option that basically shuts down all processes in the background when sleeping if you want.
• Multiple options for performance modes from Max to Normal to Power save and easily toggleable.
• A bunch of quick setting toggles to easily change a bunch of different things that we’ve talked about already, just in the swipe down menu.
• L2/R2 will properly work in Android games that they didn’t work in before.
• GeForce Now actually works.
• For those that use Syncthing, or have trouble accessing Android/data storage, you should be able to here now.
• And there’s a whole bunch more, but that’s the gist – compared to stock operating system, the only real missing part is on-screen button mapping. 

Backup your device

So, flashing this to your device will wipe your entire device, which means the first thing you should do is back everything up.

I have an entire other video on how to backup every emulator and what you need to do and I suggest you do that first to keep all your saves and stuff.

Download GammaOS, drivers and files

Next up, you will need a Windows PC to do this, but let’s go ahead and download the latest release from the GammaOS Next Github.

You want the Full version, not the Lite, and there’s three parts to each device – so if I’m using the RG406H, I want RG_406H_GammaOS_Next_Full_v1.7z.001, 002 and 003.

You also need to grab UnisocTools so scroll down and download that as well. 

Select all three, and you’ll need 7-Zip installed so grab 7-Zip from that website if you don’t have it and right click, 7-Zip, Extract here.

It’ll ask you for your password, which you need to get from the Patreon post on Gamma’s Patreon. It should extract a .pac file. 

Extract the UnisocTools folder as well to its own folder.

Head into the folder, then UnisocDrivers, Win10 even for those with Windows 11 and open DPInst64.exe to install the drivers we need.

Just go through and close it when it’s all green and checkmarky.

Unlocking the bootloader

Now, making sure your device is completely powered off and no cable connected – open the UnisocTools/UnlockBootloader folder and then open the UnlockBootloader.bat script.

Hold down the Back button on your device and plug in your USB cable. Make sure it’s a USB A to C cable, I don’t think USB C to C will work.

You have 30 seconds, if you miss it, just reopen the script and try again. 

You’ll know it worked because the script will start doing a whole bunch of things, and your screen will say INFO LOCK FLAG IS UNLOCK.

I waited a bit longer until I saw a charging notification and then it’s safe to disconnect the USB cable. Make sure the device is off, it should be.

Flashing GammaOS

Next, head into UnisocTools/SPRD_Download_Tool folder and run ResearchDownload.exe.

If you get an error running ResearchDownload.exe

You may run into an error trying to run ResearchDownload.exe.

To fix it, head to the Microsoft Redist site here, and you need to download the following versions: 2005, 2008, 2010 and Latest.

Install both the x86 and x64 versions, even if your PC is 64-bit.

The tool should work afterwards!

No error or I fixed it, what’s next?!

Click the Load Packet icon, all the way to the left and you want to select the .pac file that we extracted from the three files earlier. 

Let it do its thing, wait til you see information at the top which says your device information and everything.

Now click the Play button and once again hold the Back button on the device and connect it with the USB cable.

It’ll start to flash and do all of the fun stuff.

I actually kept the USB cable connected for a bit longer, but Gamma suggests that you can disconnect the cable at the GammaOS setup screen. You can also push Stop on the tool to stop it.

Initial Setup

Now you just want to go through and setup the initial parts of the device.

You may get a notification for RetroArch, make sure to click install anyway. 

Once you do all of that, you should see the Daijisho home screen and really, you’re done now.

You now have GammaOS all setup and ready to go and you can start adding more emulators, or just playing games if you want.

Adding ROMs/BIOS

If you want to use the built-in storage, there’s a ROMS folder on your internal storage and you can throw ROMS inside of the system folders for auto syncing to Daijisho.

Otherwise, put your SD card in, tell Daijisho where to look for those ROMS, and you can follow my actual setup guide for the device now for setting up other emulators and everything.

What next?

Now, you can feel free to add any other emulators, change settings and so on. You can follow most of the parts of this guide to setup the rest.