Retroid Pocket Mini V2 - 2026-07-20

Warning

Early preview for Retroid Pocket Mini V2 (SM8250). Built on top of upstream virtudude/armada; Mini V2 is confirmed working after extensive live testing on real hardware. Retroid Pocket 5 boots and mostly works per community testing; Flip2 remains largely untested.

Built from this repo's main @ 1284b1a, kernel/DTS + InputPlumber patch from Ga1dz1/armada-packages.

Download: armada-20260720-final.img.gz (7.6 GiB)

sha256: f3f56e144d26afc3ca72af72feca3bb174b91e327445014f3587691fe153f86b

New since the last upload

• GRUB replaced with ROCKNIX's own compiled binary (vendored, see grub/README in the repo) - fixes menu button-input unreliability reported on Flip2 and RP5, and fixes the boot menu never actually remembering your last-selected device across reboots. Both confirmed live on real Mini V2 hardware: correct device auto-boots, readable menu, correct panel orientation.
• Stick RGB lighting is fully independent per stick - the left and right stick can each run a different mode, color, and animation settings at once. A new "Configure each stick separately" toggle in the Decky settings panel defaults off (both sticks mirror every change, matching the simpler old behavior) - turn it on to control each stick independently.
• Real suspend (s2idle) on all three SM8250 devices (Mini V2, RP5, Flip2), replacing fake-suspend as the default. Fake-suspend never actually power-gated the SoC - it only froze userspace and blanked the screen - so the power button could never produce a genuinely complete sleep before. RP5/Flip2 wake reliability after real suspend is still being investigated based on community reports of intermittent wake failures; a 10-minute watchdog is armed as a safety net on all three devices in case a wake ever fails to register.
• Ambilight now works correctly in-game, not just in the Steam menu - it was going black as soon as a game started rendering fullscreen. Root cause was gamescope's direct-scanout optimization bypassing the composited output ambilight's screen capture reads from; fixed by forcing full composition (--force-composition, confirmed present in our build via gamescope --help).
• Automatic power profile switching by AC/battery power source - Performance when plugged in or docked, Balanced on battery, both configurable. Switches only right at the plug/unplug transition, so picking a different profile manually in between isn't fought.
• Snappier, more consistent resume from sleep - the backlight is now explicitly turned back on as the very first action on wake, instead of relying entirely on the kernel's own resume ordering.

Working (carried over)

• SM8250 kernel + device tree support for Retroid Pocket Mini V2 (and the original Mini), vendored/adapted from ROCKNIX.
• Gamepad: full button mapping, gyroscope, no ghost/duplicate controller in Steam.
• RGB stick lighting modes: Static, Breathing, Battery, Battery+Breathing, Rainbow, Chase, Alternating, Reactive, Multidot, Ambilight, and Duotone (two-color split), each with relevant Speed/Intensity/Size sliders, per-button flash colors in Reactive mode, and a "follow screen brightness" toggle.
• Steam UI scale fix that survives a restart.
• Audio no longer breaks after sleep/resume.
• GPU overclock: one safe 855 MHz tier above the previous 800 MHz ceiling, live-tested without faults.
• Removed SM8250's default CPU underclock - the "Balanced" profile now uses the actual stock max frequencies instead of capping at ~80%.

Known issues

• Retroid Pocket 5 audio doesn't work yet - being actively investigated with a community tester.
• RP5/Flip2 real suspend wake reliability is unconfirmed on real hardware - the watchdog will recover the device on its own if a wake ever fails; please report specifics if you hit it (screen stays black vs. wakes but hangs, whether it happens on a calm single press with a pause between attempts).
• Flip2 is largely untested beyond booting and the fixes above.
• Ambilight resource cost at scale over long sessions is unconfirmed.
• General upstream armada known issues also apply (see the README).

Collaboration

This fork intends to work with upstream virtudude/armada for exchanging and merging work, not permanently diverge. The audio fix, real-suspend hardening, InputPlumber passthrough patch, and stick RGB lighting feature are all being submitted upstream as separate PRs since they're generic fixes/features, not specific to this device family.