GameStick $17/$20 (in store/online) at Gamestop

ashram said:
i think kitkat would be just fine.... also if they would release the kernel source, that would be even better....
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This Gamestick is running so well, I don't want anything to change unless it makes it run better :) I need NO new features TBH....

So unless Kit Kat will make it smoother or quicker, I don't see a reason for upgrading.

 
On a related note...I fired up the Ouya today. My plan was to install Happy Chick and Kodi and see how it compared to the Gamestick.

I factory reset the Ouya. Those two apps are the ONLY two I installed. HappyChick's menu didn't work well with the controller. I had to have a mouse of some type. After that, Ikaruga ran flawlessly using a PS3 controller (FAR better than what the Gamestick could handle). However, trying to "back out" of any menu made HappyChick force close. I wish the menus worked better, but I was impressed by the performance.

Kodi was also hit and miss. For one, I had my Ouya on WiFi (which I know is bad)...and compared to the Gamestick WiFi it was terrible. So bad, in fact, that I had trouble simply installing some add-ons, and my router is only one room away in my house. I didn't fire up any movies, but I have used XBMC on the Ouya before so I know it can run 1080p pretty well.

Additionally, the GUI of Kodi was not as smooth as it is on the Gamestick. I presume it's because of the Ouya OS running? Not sure...but things were sluggish, menus didn't pop up as fast, and the cursor generally lagged behind far more often.

For Kodi, I truly believe there is no substitute or better value than these Gamesticks!

 
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Vulcan2422 said:
This is a nice thought but, the appeal of Kodi is that I don't even have to turn on the PC to stream videos from projectfreetv.
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True, Playon Is more for those who would want to use its other features as well, being able to hv an easy to use plugin for onechannel and projectfreeTV is a bonus. I also use XBMC on my fire tv stick, that runs a similar price to this game stick as well minus a controller.
 
drolan said:
Be careful with that.. Zero cache mode has a chance to corrupt the location it's in.. It's better used on a computer but just be careful
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What location can it corrupt? Hopefully just SPMC, and not my Android installation, right?

I enabled it since HD video was taking ages to buffer, and I did get the full buffer error.

I figured worst case I could remove and reinstall SPMC if it caused problems; it won't take long to set up everything again.

jle7385 said:
True, Playon Is more for those who would want to use its other features as well, being able to hv an easy to use plugin for onechannel and projectfreeTV is a bonus. I also use XBMC on my fire tv stick, that runs a similar price to this game stick as well minus a controller.
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Yeah, I was torn between this and the Amazon Fire TV Stick. The Fire is currently $39 / $40 right now, but it does come with a nice remote and has better specs.

However, the Fire has been $20 (Prime members only) and $25 (Best Buy) somewhat recently. For $25 I would've gone for the Fire over the GameStick, but sideloading apps and whatnot isn't as appealing to me as a 100% Android experience.

So for under $40 I got the GameStick and a Logitech K400 :) I got it hoping my parents would enjoy it, but they're probably better suited for something like the Fire TV Stick instead. I might be taking the GameStick and K400 with me when I move out then :p

 
keyblader1985 said:
I mentioned this before, but has anyone found ANY way to use a PS2 controller with an adapter? Only the Dpad works when I try.
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Do a search for 'PS2 controller USB adapter.' Should produce several options. There are also plenty of USB game controllers that are nearly identical to the PS2 and PS3 controllers.

 
yellowsnow4free said:
What location can it corrupt? Hopefully just SPMC, and not my Android installation, right?

I enabled it since HD video was taking ages to buffer, and I did get the full buffer error.

I figured worst case I could remove and reinstall SPMC if it caused problems; it won't take long to set up everything again.

Yeah, I was torn between this and the Amazon Fire TV Stick. The Fire is currently $39 / $40 right now, but it does come with a nice remote and has better specs.

However, the Fire has been $20 (Prime members only) and $25 (Best Buy) somewhat recently. For $25 I would've gone for the Fire over the GameStick, but sideloading apps and whatnot isn't as appealing to me as a 100% Android experience.

So for under $40 I got the GameStick and a Logitech K400 :) I got it hoping my parents would enjoy it, but they're probably better suited for something like the Fire TV Stick instead. I might be taking the GameStick and K400 with me when I move out then :p
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You can actually do the same on the Fire TV. There is a lot more to it though and the chances of bricking it are MUCH higher. It works somewhat in the same way to put Cyanogenmod on the Ouya. If you aren't comfortable using the android sdk and using adb shell I would stay away.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/fire-tv/development

Side note: Bought a cheap chinese 40mm fan to mount on the GameStick to work with my heatsink mod. Interesting how they are able to send it to me for 80 cents lol.
www.ebay.com/itm/381068007981

Already have a usb plug stripped so I can convert it to USB powered.

 
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zebular said:
You can actually do the same on the Fire TV. There is a lot more to it though and the chances of bricking it are MUCH higher. It works somewhat in the same way to put Cyanogenmod on the Ouya. If you aren't comfortable using the android sdk and using adb shell I would stay away.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/fire-tv/development

Side note: Bought a cheap chinese 40mm fan to mount on the GameStick to work with my heatsink mod. Interesting how they are able to send it to me for 80 cents lol.
www.ebay.com/itm/381068007981

Already have a usb plug stripped so I can convert it to USB powered.
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Interesting! Maybe sometime down the road I'll check out the Fire TV then :) (still very happy with the GameStick for the price though).

And yeah, gotta love cheap electronics off eBay! Shipping from China takes a little while, but for less than $1 it's worth the gamble, and the wait :)

 
yellowsnow4free said:
Interesting! Maybe sometime down the road I'll check out the Fire TV then :) (still very happy with the GameStick for the price though).

And yeah, gotta love cheap electronics off eBay! Shipping from China takes a little while, but for less than $1 it's worth the gamble, and the wait :)
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Well, I read the reviews for cheap 40mm fans on newegg and it was a bunch of people bitching they ordered it at the beginning of the month and still haven't received them. So yeah, I'll pay $2 less lol.

 
My cousin managed to get me the dock from his local store in south fl since it was completely out in my area.   I finally got it today.

I fucked up my set up on my home screen to the point where I accidentally deleted access to my apps so I can't add things to the home screen anymore :(  argh.

 
Many times I just get a blank screen on my TV when it starts up. Sometimes it works just fine. I've tried it with the USB power from the TV and with the provider USB power supply.

When it does work I often get those error message pop-ups about some app is not responding and asking if I want to wait or close.

 
So I tried using Plex instead of Kodi, to stream a local 720p file from my pc to the gamestick. It works! Yeah there is a tiny bit of quality loss but i have it set to stream at 720p which i think is 6mb? Anyways its not enough to bother a bedroom tv. 

 
CodeTrader said:
Many times I just get a blank screen on my TV when it starts up. Sometimes it works just fine. I've tried it with the USB power from the TV and with the provider USB power supply.

When it does work I often get those error message pop-ups about some app is not responding and asking if I want to wait or close.
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If you are often getting pop up errors about waiting on an app, check your keyboard settings to see if it has something like imegamepad or similar listed. I had that problem after playing with it for a while. The keyboard got installed through trying to configure a controller on an emulator. I think it was retroarch but I am not 100% certain. Anyway I deselected that keyboard and that problem disappeared. It happened on every startup though. Turns out it was an app called imegamepad or gamepadime or similar. I uninstalled that and never had the problem again.
 
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A friend of mine keeps getting the cache error in SPMC. I haven't experienced this yet, and zero cache didn't work, nor did the cache tool in SPMC. I erased SPMC and am trying the 14.1 beta but has anyone resolved the cache error?
 
reinstalled 1.4 and it definitely runs some games better. NES, GBA, Genesis, and SNES are playable. N64 and PSX are unplayable and won't connect my controller correctly anyway :/

Also whenever I change the governor from conservative to performance it automatically reverts back. Anyway to make it stick?

 
Chewbacca's Abortion said:
reinstalled 1.4 and it definitely runs some games better. NES, GBA, Genesis, and SNES are playable. N64 and PSX are unplayable and won't connect my controller correctly anyway :/

Also whenever I change the governor from conservative to performance it automatically reverts back. Anyway to make it stick?
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Not until we either get kernel access or someone makes one.

 
N64 does not run to smooth but zelda and mario 64 is playable with wireless 360 pad but conkers bad fur day is really choppy unless I run it on lowest resolution😭
 
Any suggestions for a good key mapping app? I'd like to be able to use my pointer as if it was a proper finger press especially. Many games don't get beyond the home screen because it needs a physical touch...is there a simple work around for this? 

 
Picked one of these up Monday and haven't had a ton of time to mess with it but got the cfw installed - thanks for the youtube vid - made installing very easy. I used a very old Kingston 1gb card.

I'm using a small rf wireless ms notebook mouse that seems to work fine. I am a lefty mouser so is there any way to swap mouse buttons?

Using the gamestick controller so far - I have xbox wireless and dongle but just haven't had a chance to try it yet.

I've tried retroarch a bit and also a few other emus. Does retroarch not detect .7z files? Is there some setting I can change/add to make it detect them?

Played n64 snowboard kids - forgot which emu - and it seemed ok. Played nes Contra on a few emus and one of them crashed on me - again forgot which one.

 
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positive: Had my brother pick up the last dock in his area!

negative: i have to go visit him, well the visit isn't the negative, it's the 4 hour drive....

 
Has anyone been able to get the crunchyroll addon working?

I get a 'script failed' message immediately upon attempting to launch, and was curious if others are having similar issues.
 
I am using Kodi. But can't adjust the screen settings. I tried video calibration but it only shrinks or stretches the screen. When I watch it's like I am missing the right corner of the screen. If anybody could help I would really appreciate it. Thanks in advance.
 
Racerxaxa1 said:
I am using Kodi. But can't adjust the screen settings. I tried video calibration but it only shrinks or stretches the screen. When I watch it's like I am missing the right corner of the screen. If anybody could help I would really appreciate it. Thanks in advance.
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I had the same problem and one person here helped me. Go to the android settings and change the output to 720p. That will fix the problem.
 
Well I tested super mario world on the three snes emus in retroarch (two of which are snes9x versions) and on the standalone snes9x app as well as the standalone snesoid app and just never saw "normal" performance. The standalone snes9x was the best but still a little slow and choppy at times. The other retroarch snes emu was the worst.

Am I doing something wrong here? Are there some settings I'm missing that I need to adjust either within the emus or within the os settings? I tried all these with wifi off just to see if that made a difference and it didn't seem to. Am I just expecting too much from this thing? Should it not be able to run snes games full speed?

Also - I haven't done anything with xbmc/spmc/kodi yet - just haven't had a chance.

 
Racerxaxa1 said:
I am using Kodi. But can't adjust the screen settings. I tried video calibration but it only shrinks or stretches the screen. When I watch it's like I am missing the right corner of the screen. If anybody could help I would really appreciate it. Thanks in advance.
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omargm said:
I had the same problem and one person here helped me. Go to the android settings and change the output to 720p. That will fix the problem.
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Interesting; I didn't know setting Android to 720p fixed it.

You can also run SPMC (from the Play store) and it handles the video properly.

bordjon said:
Well I tested super mario world on the three snes emus in retroarch (two of which are snes9x versions) and on the standalone snes9x app as well as the standalone snesoid app and just never saw "normal" performance. The standalone snes9x was the best but still a little slow and choppy at times. The other retroarch snes emu was the worst.

Am I doing something wrong here? Are there some settings I'm missing that I need to adjust either within the emus or within the os settings? I tried all these with wifi off just to see if that made a difference and it didn't seem to. Am I just expecting too much from this thing? Should it not be able to run snes games full speed?

Also - I haven't done anything with xbmc/spmc/kodi yet - just haven't had a chance.
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What controller are you using for SNES emulation? Apparently the GameStick controller decreases emulator performance. Try a Xbox 360, PS3, or Ouya controller if you have one.

 
bordjon said:
Well I tested super mario world on the three snes emus in retroarch (two of which are snes9x versions) and on the standalone snes9x app as well as the standalone snesoid app and just never saw "normal" performance. The standalone snes9x was the best but still a little slow and choppy at times. The other retroarch snes emu was the worst.

Am I doing something wrong here? Are there some settings I'm missing that I need to adjust either within the emus or within the os settings? I tried all these with wifi off just to see if that made a difference and it didn't seem to. Am I just expecting too much from this thing? Should it not be able to run snes games full speed?

Also - I haven't done anything with xbmc/spmc/kodi yet - just haven't had a chance.
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try the http://www.happychick.hk/ app. every game ran fine that i threw at it except for n64 of course. Arcade Street Fighter vs xmen ran like a champ. Also use a controller other than the gamestick one itself.

 
Thanks for the replies guys! I have a wireless xbox 360 controller with dongle that I plan on trying out but just haven't had a chance. I sure hope that fixes the problems. I had wondered if it was the funky bluetooth controller. Though it doesn't seem to be lag from the controller but rather just slowness and stuttering. I've also seen mention on the gamestickers forums about using setcpu - not sure if it was by one of you here - but I may try that also. But I'll try the xbox controller first. I'll also try happychick. I've seen mention of it but just haven't had a chance to try it yet either.

*edit* another question - will the ps3 controller work if plugged in via usb? I think I saw mention of running some app to allow it to run via bluetooth but can't remember if I saw anything about if it's just plug and play with the usb.

 
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For people looking for wireless remote options for XBMC (or whatever).

Someone here recommended this and I received it yesterday and have been loving it.  The keyboard is not LED backlit so it's a little difficult to type stuff in the dark, but I can navigate and right/left click just fine without looking.  The instructions are a bit lacking and the dongle is hidden under the battery flap.  Also, the touch pad works surprisingly well.  I would recommend it to anyone looking for a cheap wireless mouse/keyboard combination.

 
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