Windows Emulation on Legion Go is Impressive!

this gaming device can handle emulation to the extreme the legion go is one of the most powerful handhelds currently on the market utilizing the Z1 extreme processor with 16 GB of ddr5 7500 MHz Ram I've been playing and testing this new gaming handheld over the past month or so and it's quickly becoming apparent just how capable this device really is Lenovo has continuously been updating this Beast of a machine and it's really really starting to get good not only can It handle most newer titles it can also handle emulation of some of the best older titles we know in love and that's what we're here for today let's talk about what it's like to emulate games on the Lenovo Legion go Ed just recently released their Windows based software as a beta in December so I'll show some of that but my main focus here is showcasing what it's like to emulate on this device as always guys my name is Randall and you're watching Tech Stewart also just to let you know I'm getting over Co right now so if I sound like crap or you see my eyes watery or red or whatever I apologize for that hopefully I'll get better soon like I said before ID just recently released the beta version for their windows-based emulation software in December 2023 it's not the only software out there obviously but I've been using muud deck for my steam deck for a little while so I really wanted to try this out this Windows based version to see how it performed and on the Lenovo Legion go it's a great tester for it it's brought back a lot of fond memories playing these old titles lately and on a big screen such as the legion go it's really BL it really is so first of all to get mud it's really easy you just navigate to their website you click on download download the windows beta and you go through the install process there will be some warnings throughout the process but you'll just have to ignore those it should be fine once you have it installed you'll have to add your bios and your ROMs files through Steam ROM manager and select the emulators you want to use such as dolphin retroarc Etc honestly I'm not a pro when choosing or setting there are some really good guides out there if you Google it that way um that are more in depth and helpful than I probably could give you at this point mud also has a great Wiki on their website as well that you can utilize and I found it very helpful while going through this process especially with the BIOS to emulator cheat sheet also don't ask me where to get rom files from those are on you to figure out I highly advise that you use an external SSD or micro SD card for the BIOS and ROMs files as it makes it easier to do it separately on a computer and move them over that's just my per personal preference though I tried both a Micro SD card and a 2230 external SSD by charge once you do that it's up to you how you access the games but I prefer emulation station which is an optional emulator front end you can also use steam's Big Picture Mode which is also a good way to go as well Legion space doesn't have the best system monitoring display at the moment so instead I'm going to be using MSI After Burner to track our FPS TDP Ram Etc the FPS counter actually doesn't even work for me right right now for the legion go that I'm using um and I'm using the official driver for the legion go one other thing too is I do also have my vram set to 6 GB right now and I'm not going to mess with that per system or emulator we're just going to leave it at 6 and we're going to see what we can get for the most part until we get to Xbox 360 and PS3 I'm going to use the thermal power saving mode uh and Os set to efficiency once we get to Xbox 360 and PS3 I'll Crank that up and I'll either use the performance mode or I'll use a custom TDP of 25 to 30 to max out our performance another tip here is that even though UDC installs the different emulators uh you ask it to some of them will be outdated and I highly recommend you search for this emulator on your legion go open it up and update it to the newest version now let's get into the systems emulators and games the first emulator on list today is for the original Nintendo system called retroarc this one is typically very simple to run by most devices and the legion go is no exception two of the first games I played personally were that of Contra and also the Super Mario series I'm only going to show Super Mario uh today and the first Contra I'm not going to lie I forgot how hard some of these Classics really were Contra completely kicks my butt every single time I play it but what a challenge that is my brothers and I would play this together with my dad when we were kids and I have fond memories of thinking of those battles that we won and lost together Super Mario is one of those games I remember because we just spent hours playing this uh over and over and over and definitely fought over who was going to play the game but uh but it was a lot of fun the controls for the legion go here are very simple using the d-pad feels very nice and fluid um and uh and the large screen of the Legion go is probably the best out right now um with just how much real estate it has [Music] [Music] sh [Music] [Music] [Music] that's [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] no [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] n [Music] [Music] moving on to the next one let's look at the Super Nintendo which is also a retroarc emulator this was actually probably the first game console that was my own that my mom had bought me and I played it a ton back then one of my favorite games was Super Mario World and I spent hours playing this one and then also the Super Star Wars series that they came out with for Super Nintendo that was a blast to play as well even though it was really difficult both of these look great on the legion go and I also like to open up the stand and detach the controllers and play that as well just like the Nintendo the legion go has no problem running this retroarch emulator for Super Nintendo let's take a look at some of that gamep play for [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] up next is the Nintendo 64 system system running on another retroarch emulator what's nice about this one and the last one the Super Nintendo retroarch emulator is that they don't require bios files so all you need to do is add your ROMs files I'll be honest in my testing I didn't play this one near as much but the performance was still pretty outstanding on the legion go I found the controls a little a little bit more difficult to deal with than the others but I made it work two games I'm going to be showing today are golden ey7 which was a massive hit for this system I believe it was like top five bestselling games for the system since we're getting to more 3D related systems now this is where you'll start wanting to use the built-in hotkeys for these emulators and also increase and upscale uh the resolution the other game I'll probably show is the Star Wars Episode One racer say what you will about the movie but this pod racing game was amazing back in the day [Music] [Applause] oh [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] a [Applause] [Music] [Applause] a [Applause] [Applause] it's a new stick with me as I'm going to continue to go through the Nintendo systems here the next one here is is a favorite of mine to emulate just because of the sheer amount of amazing games it has for it and amazing you could play these in a small form factor and that's the Nintendo 3DS which is running on the CRA Citra emulator since the 3DS had two screens this one Works particularly well in Legion go because you have the large 8.8 in display so you're able to have that pretty large main screen with the smaller second screen still large enough to read two games I super like on this system are Kirby Robo Kirby Planet roboot I couldn't remember and Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D both are outstanding and they're so much fun to play in Legion go they look great and like I said the screen size of the Legion go really benefits here now let's take a look at some gameplay one thing to note is that you can increase or decrease the resolution in Citra go into the Citra emulator uh click on configure click on Graphics click on internal resolution update it to 3x 4X 5x 6X here I won't be covering the Game Boy systems in this video but those obviously work really well too through the legion go so if you want to add those please feel free I personally like those more on dedicated smaller retro devices [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] h [Music] [Music] [Music] woo [Applause] [Music] next up we have Nintendo's GameCube which is running on the Dolphin Emulator honestly I wasn't a huge GameCube person so I didn't have that many games for it um back in back in the day there was one that was near and dear to me though and that was Prince of Persia sands of time I played a lot of the Prince of Persia games while most were hit or miss this one was a gemm and it plays great with emulation just like with the Nintendo 3DS the internal resolution is cranked up or down so if you want to increase it to 3x 4X 5x it's a little easier just press start and up or down on the d-pad to adjust this it's super simple the other game shown here is going to be Mario Power Tennis Mario sports games are super fun and stupid without being too competitive just good old fashion fun right just like the other systems in emulator so far the legion go handles these like a champ but not all games run perfectly for example this happened to me just by playing the first first Death Star mission in Star Wars Rogue sadron 2 this one I think is one of the harder games to emulate and there's probably more tweaking I can do here to make it perfect but it's just an example that not everything is going to run absolutely perfectly even on the legion go a [Music] no [Music] [Music] [Music] a [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] that's to round out the last Nintendo system here let's look at the Wii and the Wii U together these are two of my favorites to emulate because a lot of games they just work really well they have different emulators though as the Wii uses dolphin just like GameCube and Wii U uses simu I'll show a couple of games here that just run fantastic one of these is Super Mario Galaxy 2 and the other is Legend of Zelda breath of the wild the graphics and frame rates are exceptional while running these games and I love playing them on the legion go sometimes the controls can be weird because of the wi and unchu controls but I always find it better to configure my controls through the emulator first before ever booting up the game samees time and headaches for sure one thing I want to mention about Wii U running on simu is the graphics packs if you go to the options in simu click on Graphics packs and download the latest Community Graphics packs this allows different configurations for certain games that allow you to improve your experience one such example is increase the frame rate limit for breath of the Wild by using the FPS Plus+ mod and also using the Xbox controller layout works perfectly on the legion go as well other games have other options you should consider at your own [Music] discretion [Music] [Applause] a [Applause] all right now let's get away from the Nintendo systems now and check out how the Sega Dreamcast performs using retroarc this was actually the only system I ever owned from Sega I wasn't a Sega Saturn or Sega Genesis owner so I don't have any of those to show you today but I love my Dreamcast so much I would play hours and hours of football on it my favorite game on the system was hands down NFL TK 2K which I couldn't tell you why I love this game so much on this system it was just something about the controller that Drew me in I was also playing you know a lot of football during that time another very popular game uh during that time was Crazy Taxi which is kind of insane I wasn't super into this one but it is kind of a cult classic for the system you will see more graphical issues ues here with the Dreamcast and performance related dips compared to some of the other systems and EM emulators we're looking at today not to say that it's not manageable by the legion go it's just not one of my favorite systems to emulate ball on the [Applause] [Applause] 19 of 32 on the how the wide receiver wasn't satisfi with just making the catch out [Applause] Def [Applause] yard Sony PlayStation was another one of those consoles I've fond memories I'm playing with my brothers on I remember many hours trying to play through Crash Bandicoot wrecking our cars and Twisted Metal and solving the puzzle games in Tomb Raider definitely nostalgic for me but it definitely didn't have the best of ground graphics for Sony PlayStation I'm using the duck station Standalone emulator for this you'll definitely want to increase the re resolution in this one but luckily it's easy to do in game by clicking on start and up or down in some of these games I'm showing you at 5x resolution for the legion go PlayStation has such a great library to go through definitely look into this one mov [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] the next one up is a Sony PlayStation 2 running on the PCS X2 IM ulator the PlayStation 2 was the first console that really got me into the Grand Theft Auto series and I remember staying up well past midnight playing many of those side missions trying to beat the game at 100% obviously I never beat it at 100% because I just don't dedicate that much time to it but I had a fun lot had a fun a lot of fun trying it anyways the PS2 is a ton of fun to emulate on the legion go two of my favorite games from the system are God of War II and Ratchet and clink up Your Arsenal there are a lot of configuration settings in PCS X2 you can take advantage of by upscaling your graphics changing your saturation filters and so on to make the games really look almost like PS3 gam sometimes let's check these out [Applause] sh [Applause] [Applause] this last PlayStation console is my favorite to play in the legion go the PS3 is ran by the rpcs3 emulator and it's got some great features my favorite one is that you can download game patches that most of the time improve the game experience for example demon Souls had had an unlock FPS game patch that'll allow you to get 60 frames per second instead of the 30 frames per second originally it runs like the dream on the legion goto I didn't really get any these games back then but recently in past 3 years I really started to enjoy the soul series I'll show you that game and I'll show you how a Heavenly sword runs which it doesn't run as well but it's another good game that came from the [Applause] system [Applause] e [Music] [Music] sh [Applause] next up is the Sony PSP one of those systems I didn't spend a lot of time with in the past but I'm really liking some of the games we can emulate here on the legion go the system runs off the ppssppp emulator which while it's not as featur rich like some of the other Play Station emulators it still has good configuration options almost all of these allow you to upscale the graphics and then you have little added tweaks you can do if you need to squeeze out more details or increase FPS the games I'm playing here today is Killzone Liberation which is a really interesting shooter for the series it's definitely growing on me and the other game I'll show is God of War ghost of Sparta [Music] [Applause] [Music] sh at the front line last I heard ran into a shet storm help him [Music] sir [Music] Rico is beyond this game blow it up the Microsoft Xbox is where I really started getting into playing multiplayer and specifically with family and friends I fell in love with Halo just like a lot of us did back in the day and remember kicking my brothers and Dad's butts from time to time the Xbox runs off the zimu emulator and it's okay but I don't feel like it shines quite like some of the Nintendo or Playstation emulators do that's not going to stop me from jumping back in enjoying some oldfashioned Halo single player though another game I was into at the time was Ninja giden I remember it being really hard for some reason but maybe I just sucked at video games back then I don't know I mean in any case let's take a look at both of these games and see how they run there it is there must be some back the last system we're going to look at today is the Xbox 360 running off the Zenia emulator you can also play Xbox Live arcade games on this as well I wasn't much of an arcade player on the 360 but this was the first console I actually got on in launch day and did the whole stay overnight deal with my buddy Terry at the time we stayed overnight in line at fries and skipped class the next day to play Perfect dark zero Cameo and I think Call of Duty 2 maybe that was the other release uh title at the time everybody hated on perfect dark zero too for their multiplayer and rightfully so honestly it was not that great but a single player campaign I actually really enjoyed that I had had a lot of fun playing that game so don't hate on me for that um uh but anyways by far my favorite system I've ever owned until this day games like Elder Scrolls Oblivion Gears of War Halo 3 those were some of my favorites back then one thing to recommend here is that if you do end up using UD deck it uses the current release of Zenia but I actually recommend for Xbox 360 you download the Zenia Canary emulator and also download the patches file which I will link to in the video's description Zenia Canaria was able to play the 360 games Far easier and with the patches file you have the ability to enable different patches that fix graphical issues unlocks FPS and resolves other performance related issues you might encounter while playing your games it doesn't cover all games but it does cover a lot of the top games from the system um and it has something you can tweak to do this you'll need to open up the patches folder after you download it uh open up the game you want to play and update the file as needed hit save and you're done make sure it's in the same folder as Zenia canary in order for these to work you also need to go into your config file um that's also located in the folder and enable game patches in that config file hit save and you're good to go if you don't see the config file after downloading Zenia Canary just run the emulator one time and after that you'll see it one thing to note here for Halo 3 on Xbox 360 is that I was having crashing issues like right when I got in the game in order to resolve this I went back into the config file updated the GPU from any uh strictly to Vulcan and that seem do the trick for both Zenia and RP CS3 don't be afraid to switch back and forth between Vulcan and open GL because one might perform better than the other today let's take a look at some Gears of War footage nice let's do this this way oh Focus phanta stand all right that's all the systems and emulators oh wait I forgot the Nintendo switch didn't I the Nintendo switch we are going to use the Yuzu emulator and take a look at a few games to be completely transparent I own a Nintendo switch OLED and Nintendo switch light both myself and my son we love those devices probably 90% of the time I would just use those dedicated systems over this even with the larger screen and mainly because with the original system there's just no effort right you pop in the cartridge or you select your installed game away you go with no tweaking or anything else necessary with emulation you'll have to configure your settings not just for the emulator but by the game and that can be annoying if all you want to do is jump on for 30 minutes and play Zelda or Mario or whatever my biggest hint here is if you run into issues uh while running this on Yuzu switch between open GL to Vulcan or vice versa and play with some of the settings everyone always does tears of the Kingdom but since we already did breath of the wild for Wii U let's do Mario Kart 8 and also Super Mario 3D uh Bowser's Fury [Music] w h overall the legion go handles these systems like a champ the biggest problem I had while running these on the legion go is right now I'm getting micr suing it doesn't matter what settings I change or what system emulator I'm running I think this is actually a legion go problem with the micro SD car that I was using this has been mentioned in a previous update for Lenovo and hopefully will be resolved in the future it doesn't happen for everyone but if you do end up suffering from it then you can do what I did and just buy an external SSD I ended up using a charge SSD enclosure which I am using a 1 tbte 2230 SSD it's pretty slick actually it works really well with the legion gun so even though it takes up one of your USB 4 ports you also have an extra USB 4 port on the bottom to charge your device if you need to I'd stick with installing your bios or ROMs files right to your legion go internal SSD or an external SSD for now until they fix this other than that the titles play great and look great with plenty of 30 to 60 frames per second titles we can play on Legion go I absolutely love the huge Legion go screen for these retro games and the vibrant color this display provides now how does this compare to the already fully released Steam OS version of Emy deck I will say that the steam deck it's an absolute beast when it comes to emulation and using Emy deck combined with all these emulators together it makes it incredibly simple to use and that's really a dream that translates over to the windows version of IMC for the most part now bear in mind this is a beta version that should continue to improve but I definitely had odd issues during the installation process that made it a little trickier on the Windows version I had to uninstall and reinstall it a couple of times I've also had to uninstall and reinstall specific emulators and reset the configurations on those to get things to work sometimes it just works weird none of that really has anything to do with the legion go and more to do with this being a Beta release software other than that it worked like a charm and I'm a huge fan of the IM deck in general um and did I forget to mention that it's also a free beta so if you want to go pick it up go pick it up I'm assuming they'll continue to offer this free after the beta as well but still this offering from IDC it's one of the best out there so go check it out at the end of the day do I recommend emulation Legion go hell yeah I do man it runs a ton of games and playing them on this big screen handheld with controllers attached my personal favorite is by far some of the most fun I've had in years gaming it Rivals emulation on the steam deck and I think this Windows B beta version of am deck is a great addition for anyone willing to try it out my favorite games to play are mostly on Super Nintendo Wii and PS2 it plays those games super well they look pretty good and they perform excellent in the majority of the games I tested the PS3 and Xbox 360 emulation on Legion go it's pretty significant on Legion go is it will run a lot more of these libraries of games that Z1 extreme processor has no problem with them I still probably prefer emulation for Steam OS rather than Windows because you have that more conso likee appearance and approach if you're into Retro games though the legion go is a great alternative for Windows emulation that's my Hands-On impression of Windows emulation on Legion go I hope you enjoyed the video today and if you did please like And subscribe to my channel I'm moving to a more gaming focused Channel and contempla a channel Rebrand that will most likely happen in February of this year all right guys that's it for me thanks for watching the video today and I'll see you in my next one bye guys

Channel: StewdioGamer

Views: 58,407

Keywords: Legion Go, Emulation, Windows Emulation, Retroarch, Citra, RPCS3, Xemu, Xenia, Dolphin, Handheld Emulation, Windows Emulator

Id: FbKYRvOYmr0

Length: 46min 10sec (2770 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 22 2024