Buy the R36Max here: https://joeysrh.link/ALI_R36MAX
Recommended Accessories
- Samsung 128GB – For the SD card slot. A two SD card setup is not recommended.
- UGREEN SD Card Reader – Great SD Card reader option.
What is ArkOS?
We’re going to be installing ArkOS in this guide, which is a custom firmware available for the R36Max. I personally think ArkOS is a much better operating system to run than what’s sent with the device and has great community support.
As always, before we start, you need to have a branded, quality SD card and reader. Do not use the stock SD card that comes with the device, throw it out. This also includes the ROM SD card – if you’re here before buying the device, do not buy the ROM SD card, and if you’re here after, throw it out. Besides the fact that these SD cards are unbranded and low quality, meaning prone to failure and issues. The ROMS are low quality and have a ton of issues as well. A big one being the lack of ability to save progress, which really angers Pokemon fans. I’ll be showing you how to find ROMs as well, as subtly as I can. For a quality SD card and reader, the 128GB above is the best option.
For the R36S clones, like the R36Max, you only want a single card setup.
You also need a proper, branded SD Card Reader. All of these options are right above.
ROMs & BIOS Preparation
Now, the last thing you need is your ROM and BIOS library. If you just want a big list of games and then you can curate them yourself if you’d like, you can download a ROM pack called the Tiny Best Set. This set comes with a big curated list of ROMs and BIOS files. To make things easy, with a 128GB card, you want to download the filenames: tiny-best-set-go-games.zip + tiny-best-set-go-expansion-64-games.zip + tiny-best-set-go-expansion-128-games.zip. We can get the artwork through scraping in ArkOS itself, so don’t worry too much about that. You can extract all those zips to the same place, and you should have a few folders with BIOS, and a bunch of ROM folders. If you want more platforms that aren’t available in this package, it’ll be on you to source them yourself through Google, Reddit or other means.
Installing ArkOS
As far as software goes, we need 7-Zip and Rufus. This is going to help us image our SD card with ArkOS. Then head to the 7-Zip link as well and download 7-Zip, this will help us extract the image from the compressed file. Install 7-Zip.
Now let’s also grab the ArkOS image, so head to the AeolusUX Github, and you want to download the R36 Max image. Click GDrive or Mega to download it – if you’re choosing GDrive, make sure you’re logged in with your Google account.
Once it’s downloaded, right click it and choose 7-zip then extract here. You should see an img file afterwards. A lot of people make the mistake of imaging the first file you downloaded, you need to extract it.
Connect your branded SD card that you want to use for the operating system to the PC using the SD card reader.
Open Rufus and make sure the device listed is the SD card you have connected to your PC. Choose select on the right and navigate to the img file we extracted and select it. Leave everything else and click start, you might get popup warnings, you can safely agree and click yes.
Go check on some loved ones, this will take some time.
Setting up ArkOS
Once that’s all done, safely eject the SD card and we’re going to be putting it into the TF1-OS slot on the right side of the device while it’s powered off and nothing is in the TF2-GAME slot on the other side.
If you get a white screen (skip to Adding ROMs if yours booted properly)
Now, two things might happen. You might just get into ArkOS and everything will be okay or you’ll get what happened to me, and it’s a white screen with flickering. If this is you, push and hold the power button to turn off the device, take out your SD card and put it back into your PC as we need to replace a file. Now, replacing the file and putting it back into the device might work – but if you want to be extra safe or if that doesn’t work, reflash ArkOS using the same steps and replace the file as I’m about to show you, then put it into the device. I had to do that personally.
When you insert your SD card back into the PC, you’ll get popups warning you about it not being formatted, click cancel, do not format or you’ll have to restart from the beginning of this guide.
Now, the problem is we can’t access the drive we need to in Windows right now to replace the file. So we have to use another program called Minitool Partition Wizard. Install the free version, do not install the trial or pro version.
Launch MiniTool Partition Wizard after and now we want to assign a drive letter to the partition on the SD card. Right click the BOOT partition and click unhide partition then give it a letter and now click Apply. You should now see the drive in your PC and you can open it.
Now you want the DTB file. Download it. Rename it and remove the underscore 5. Then move that file onto the BOOT partition. Replace the file there. Now eject the SD card and pop it into the device again.
You’ll see an ArkOS text logo and then a bunch of things will happen, you device will reboot twice. Leave it alone.
If none of this happens for you and you see a blinking line, reflash ArkOS and replace the DTB file before putting it into your device, should work from there.
You’ll know that it’s all done when you see the Celeste picture or basically the frontend and you can start scrolling through. If you’re doing the one single SD card method, you’re basically done here and can skip to the next section. Push start, navigate to quit, shutdown system and click yes. Take out your SD card and put it back in the PC.
If you get a black screen (skip to Adding ROMs if yours booted properly)
If you are getting a black screen, they have changed the screens for newer devices, so you’ll need to try other dtb files. Here is the link: https://github.com/AeolusUX/K36-DTB – try the R36 Max one first, if that doesn’t work, then there is Panel 1-7, you will have to download the files inside, and replace them on your device until one set works.
So the steps are flash ArkOS to the card, replace the DTB, then put in device and try it.
If it doesn’t work, repeat steps with next DTB, one of the four will work.
Adding ROMs & BIOS
Okay, connect your SD card back to the PC. You should see an EASYROMS partition in file explorer, head into that.
It should be pretty self explanatory at this part, but these are all the platform folders where you can put your ROMS in, as well as a BIOS folder. What you want to do now is grab your ROMS and BIOS files from the Tiny Best Set collection we grabbed earlier, and put them in the right folder. The folder names likely don’t match for a lot of them, so you’ll have to just copy the ROM files inside the Tiny Best Set folders to the right location on the EASYROMS partition. If you get stuck and you’re not sure what platform is what, check the ArkOS wiki’s emulator page and it’ll show you, as well as the right file types and BIOS needed for each platform.
Once you’ve moved all that over, safely eject and put your card back in the powered off device.
Turn on the device, and you should see all your games setup and ready to go.
Button Mapping
Speaking of retroarch, there’s a few settings that aren’t on that should be in my mind. First, fast forward isn’t mapped for some reason, so let’s head to settings, input, hotkeys, and let’s select fast forward toggle and make it R2. Let’s also set show FPS to Y. This makes it so we push SELECT + these hotkeys to turn these functions on, since SELECT is our hotkey button. Back out one menu, and let’s turn off confirm quit, so you don’t have to do start+select twice to exit a game. Now let’s back out again and jump into saving. Right now, arkos is not auto saving state on exit, so if you want that, enable auto save state. In the same way, when you load a game, it’s not loading the save state automatically, so enable if you want that. I want both. Back out twice to get back to the main retroarch menu, and then configuration, save current configuration. Quit retroarch and now repeat all these same steps for the other retroarch version.
Themes
If you want to change your theme, from the main menu in arkos, press start, then ui settings and you’ll see a few themes here. If you want to add more, head to the arkos wiki and you’ll see instructions on how to do so.
Portmaster
Check out my guide here: https://joeysretrohandhelds.com/guides/portmaster-guide-for-retro-handhelds/.
Adding Wi-Fi
First, you need this Wi-Fi Adapter: https://joeysrh.link/AMZN_WIFI
Then, you need this USB-C Adapter: https://joeysrh.link/AMZN_WIFIUSBADAPTER
Connect them both, then connect it to the USB-C port.
In ArkOS, head to Options, Wi-Fi and use the trigger to select the Plus sign at the bottom. Select your Wi-Fi network and enter your password.
Use your triggers to exit with the X button.
Updating ArkOS (Wi-FI Needed)
Head to Options, and enable Remote Services. You’ll see a blinking cursor for a minute, then text that says it’s enabling remote services and when it’s all done, it’ll kick you back to the Options screen. Then, head to Update. It’ll give you a warning about not stopping the script, click okay and then you have to write ok. Then set it down and let it update.
Artwork (Wi-Fi Needed)
Push Start at the home screen. Head down to Scraper. At this point, you’ll want to setup an account at ScreenScraper’s website, and then come back here and enter those details in. The other options are personal preference, I don’t want or need ratings or videos, so I’ll turn that off. If you want actual box art, choose Box 2D for Image Source. When you’re ready, click Scrape Now and you can customize which systems you want to scrape, or just do the whole thing. I’m going to do the whole thing, so just click start when you’re ready.
Retro Achievements (Wi-Fi Needed)
This requires you to always use the Wi-Fi adapter, so you can skip this if you aren’t going to. If you don’t have an account already, head to the RetroAchievements website and make one as we’ll need your username and password. On the device, go to RetroArch from the main menu, and you’ll see two RetroArch instances. We’ll have to login on both, steps are the same. Open one then head to Settings, Achievements, Enable Achievements and then enter your username and password in each field. After that, back out to the main RetroArch menu and go into Configuration, then Save Current Configuration. Then Quit RetroArch. Repeat these steps again for the other RetroArch version.
Now just jump into some games and have fun. For normal usage, that’s all you need to do and that was the main point of the guide. Get you up and running and now the world is your oyster.