I was looking for a cheap emulation console to use on our living room TV and I ended up deciding on this.
This is the Gamestick GD10 - a small Firestick shaped game console. Getting one isn't as easy as it should be, because these were really popular 2 years ago they sold like hot cakes and a bunch of "fakes" popped up with weaker processors or worse EmuElec versions.
Luckily I knew someone selling them locally and I had them guarantee to me that it is a GD10.
After paying the $29.99 I got the system and yeah, it's legit. It's one of the 3 best models out there (Being Vayava, AMPOWN and Your Name Gamer), this one is a YNG.
The YNG model is arguably the worse one out of the 3 because it's not as compatible with the best system images out there, but I eventually found a good one that works and flashed it to my SD card.
(Performance should be the same though)
For storage I'm using a 64GB ADATA micro SD card, the one that comes with the system is a 32gb card labelled as 64gb and probably has a high rate of failure since it's a cheapo Chinese card.
This is the EmulationStation menu that the image I downloaded uses, you can of course use other themes and it'll work perfectly fine too as long as it's ES compatible.
I had to up the VRAM ES uses so it could run more smoothly and not crash, but now it's running nigh on perfect.
Performance
Of course games from like the NES all the way up to PS1 run flawlessly so I won't even spend my time talking about them.
What really matters when it comes to GD10 is PSP, N64 and Dreamcast.
PSP runs any 2D or simple 3D (like Jeanne D'Arc) games perfectly but more intensive stuff like Ridge Racer 2 or the GTA games are a bad experience.
N64 runs almost everything perfectly, from Mario 64 to Banjo Kazooie, Wave Race 64, Beetle Adventure, Goldeneye, etc. They all ran fine for me.
Dreamcast is a little more interesting, it runs most games fine, even 3D ones (I've tested Sonic Adventure 1 and 2 and Crazy Taxi) but some struggle (like Dead or Alive 2) and it runs pretty much all 2D games perfectly. So the great 2D fighters this system has will all run great, guaranteed.
Overall, I really like what I got here and it'll be really useful for a long time to come, assuming it doesn't stop working.
But I'm pretty positive it'll be fine, I've seen people using these for 2 years straight.
Performance is satisfactory, it can be customised heavily and it runs EmuElec and Retroarch so it isn't just a "crappy emulation system."
One observation I must make is that if you plan on getting one of these, don't run it through your TV's USB as those often don't carry 5v/2A power, instead find a cheap USB brick that can do 5v. Mine does 5v/3A and it runs just fine.
Doing this will ensure that games don't freeze, that the SoC doesn't fry itself, that the SD card doesn't get corrupted and that you can use a USB Hub to connect more stuff to it!
Thanks for reading!
