R36S Hacking

Pristine R36S unit The R36S is a hand-held gaming console available online.
This page is about re-purposing it as a generic Linux device for custom software - ie: writing & running your own applications on it. If you want to use the R36S for its normal purpose (gaming etc..), then I would recommend you look at ArkOS, or one of the other custom firmware systems that support it.
This page is for doing fully custom developments, using the R36S as a hardware platform.
It has the following basic hardware:

Labeled internal photo

DDR RK3326 Quad Core RK817 PMIC 3v3 UART Speaker Battery LCD Vibrator (not loaded) 3.5mm audio jack Sorry, your browser does not support inline SVG. Sorry, your browser does not support inline SVG.

Hardware details

The R36S is very similar to the ODroid Go Super. Or the ANBERNIC RG351V

  • LCD: DSI attached 640x480 panel. No datasheet available, put looks like it uses an NV3051D controller

GPIO Assignments

Note: Pins that are using an alternative function may not be listed here yet.
Bank Pin Function
GPIO0 PA3 DWMMC Card Detect
GPIO0 PB3 PMIC DC Detect
GPIO0 PB15 PWM0 - Attached to Joypad ?
GPIO0 PC0 PWM1 - LCD Backlight
GPIO0 PC1 Blue Heartbeat LED
GPIO1 PA2 Button A
GPIO1 PA5 Button B
GPIO1 PA6 Button Y
GPIO1 PA7 Button X
GPIO1 PB4 DPad Up
GPIO1 PB5 DPad Down
GPIO1 PB6 DPad Left
GPIO1 PB7 DPad Right
GPIO2 PA0 Button Volume Up
GPIO2 PA1 Button Volume Down
GPIO2 PA2 Button F3
GPIO2 PA3 Button F4
GPIO2 PA4 Button F5
GPIO2 PA6 Button Top Left
GPIO2 PA7 Button Top Right
GPIO2 PB5 PMIC Battery Low Detect or LED?
GPIO2 PC6 Headphone Detect
GPIO3 PB0 Joypad AMux-B
GPIO3 PB1 Button F1
GPIO3 PB2 Button Top Left 2
GPIO3 PB3 Joypad AMux-A
GPIO3 PB4 Button F2
GPIO3 PB5 Joypad AMux Enable
GPIO3 PB6 DWMMC (2)? Card Detect
GPIO3 PB7 Button Top Right 2
GPIO3 PC0 LCD Reset
Original Software Info The unit that I purchased came with the following software version info:
  • Linux version 4.4.189 (dev@rk3326-dev) (gcc version 6.3.1 20170404 (Linaro GCC 6.3-2017.05) ) #3 SMP Wed Oct 13 23:24:26 EDT 2021
  • U-Boot 2017.09-00048-ge8824042a0-dirty (Oct 07 2021 - 18:03:21 -0400)
Mainline support

The R36S is not supported directly by mainline Linux or U-Boot. However the core chip (RK3326) is, so it mostly just needs a custom device tree and kernel configuration to work.

The customised sources are available from:

These images (in particular the buildroot image, which is responsible for packaging the other repositories up) are capable of producing an SD card image which is entirely built from source.

Build Instructions All these instructions assume that you are running a relatively recent Debian-based Linux machine on x86_64. They should work without too many changes on other distributions - your milage may vary. The full image is managed by a customised version of Buildroot. This has been customised with a configuration that points to the U-Boot and Linux sources mentioned above. It should download and build everything necessary
# Install the necessary tools on your Linux machine
sudo apt update && sudo apt install device-tree-compiler build-essential gcc git bc curl

git clone https://github.com/AndreRenaud/buildroot-r36s.git
cd buildroot-r36s
make r36s_defconfig
make
        
The final command takes quite a while - this will download and build everything that is required. On my machine (AMD Ryzen 9 7950X 16-Core Processor), this takes around 45 minutes. When finished, it will create output/images/sdcard.img. This is suitable for booting the R36S to a Linux prompt. It includes a demonstration application to confirm things are functioning.

Network booting the new images

  1. Plug in a supported USB-C Ethernet adapter, attach a serial port to the debug console. Power the unit on & stop it at the boot prompt
    Hit ctrl+c key to enter uboot console
    ctrl+c key pressed - drop to console
                
  2. Download the new images
    usb start && setenv autoload n && bootp && setenv serverip 192.168.2.141 && tftp 0x02000000 rockchip/Image && tftp 0x01f00000 rockchip/rk3326-r36s.dtb && tftp 0x10000000 rockchip/rootfs.cpio.uboot
                    
  3. Or using fat
    load mmc 0:1 0x02000000 Image && load mmc 0:1 0x01f00000 rk3326-r36s.dtb && load mmc 0:1 0x10000000 rootfs.cpio.uboot
                    
  4. Set up the boot args & boot the new images
    setenv bootargs console=ttyS2,1500000n8 earlycon root=/dev/ram ip=any vt.global_cursor_default=0 && booti 0x02000000 0x10000000 0x01f00000
                    
SD Card Layout

The RK3326 boots directly from the SD card - ie: there is no on-board flash chip or anything containing the bootloader. The bootlaoder itself lives on the SD card, and the on-CPU bootrom is smart enough to start this up and execute this code. Once the bootloader (U-Boot) is running, then it can grab the full Linux kernel/filesystem and start things running.

This layout is as follows:

Offset Length Description
0 512B Master boot record
32kB ~9MiB U-Boot
10MB 500MB FAT Filesystem

Because the Linux system built here runs entirely in-RAM, there is no writeable filesystem on the SD card (it is included read-only inside the Linux boot image). However it would be possible to add another partition after the FAT filesystem, format it as EXT4, and use this as a boot filesystem if required.

Building an SDL application

Using the Go-SDL2 library, it is fairly simple to produce a standalone image that boots into your application. If this image is packaged into a unified package (ie: kernel + filesystem), then it is easy to build & load onto a new unit.

A simple example of this is provided at r36s-demo-app. This is included and automatically run on startup in the buildroot image from above.

SDL interprets the controls as a dual-joystick controller with a lot of buttons

Button SDL Joystick Button
DPad up 8
DPad down 9
DPad left 10
DPad right 11
Select 12
FN 16
Start 13
X 2
Y 3
A 1
B 0
Left Joystick Press 14
Right Joystick Press 15
Vol + 18
Vol - 19
L1 4
L2 6
R1 5
R2 7
Benchmarks & Hardware Testing

Preamble

These benchmarks are run with the performance scheduler enabled, to ensure the CPU is always run as fast as possible. Note: Some of these benchmark programs are not built in the default buildroot image, and will need to be manually enabled.
# echo performance > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_governor
# cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_governor
performance
        

MHz

github.com/wtarreau/mhz
# mhz
count=497425 us50=19997 us250=96924 diff=76927 cpu_MHz=1293.239
        

Whetstone 1.2

www.netlib.org/benchmark/
# whetstone 500000

Loops: 500000, Iterations: 1, Duration: 10 sec.
C Converted Double Precision Whetstones: 5000.0 MIPS
        

Dhrystone 2

www.netlib.org/benchmark/
# dhrystone 50000000

Dhrystone Benchmark, Version 2.1 (Language: C)

Program compiled without 'register' attribute

Execution starts, 50000000 runs through Dhrystone
Execution ends

Final values of the variables used in the benchmark:

Int_Glob:            5
        should be:   5
Bool_Glob:           1
        should be:   1
Ch_1_Glob:           A
        should be:   A
Ch_2_Glob:           B
        should be:   B
Arr_1_Glob[8]:       7
        should be:   7
Arr_2_Glob[8][7]:    50000010
        should be:   Number_Of_Runs + 10
Ptr_Glob->
  Ptr_Comp:          -927526240
        should be:   (implementation-dependent)
  Discr:             0
        should be:   0
  Enum_Comp:         2
        should be:   2
  Int_Comp:          17
        should be:   17
  Str_Comp:          DHRYSTONE PROGRAM, SOME STRING
        should be:   DHRYSTONE PROGRAM, SOME STRING
Next_Ptr_Glob->
  Ptr_Comp:          -927526240
        should be:   (implementation-dependent), same as above
  Discr:             0
        should be:   0
  Enum_Comp:         1
        should be:   1
  Int_Comp:          18
        should be:   18
  Str_Comp:          DHRYSTONE PROGRAM, SOME STRING
        should be:   DHRYSTONE PROGRAM, SOME STRING
Int_1_Loc:           5
        should be:   5
Int_2_Loc:           13
        should be:   13
Int_3_Loc:           7
        should be:   7
Enum_Loc:            1
        should be:   1
Str_1_Loc:           DHRYSTONE PROGRAM, 1'ST STRING
        should be:   DHRYSTONE PROGRAM, 1'ST STRING
Str_2_Loc:           DHRYSTONE PROGRAM, 2'ND STRING
        should be:   DHRYSTONE PROGRAM, 2'ND STRING

Microseconds for one run through Dhrystone:    0.2
Dhrystones per Second:                      5313496.5
        

RamSMP

github.com/cruvolo/ramspeed-smp
# ramsmp -b 1
RAMspeed/SMP (GENERIC) v3.5.0 by Rhett M. Hollander and Paul V. Bolotoff, 2002-09
            
8Gb per pass mode, 2 processes
            
INTEGER & WRITING         1 Kb block: 31725.15 MB/s
INTEGER & WRITING         2 Kb block: 32488.16 MB/s
INTEGER & WRITING         4 Kb block: 31273.08 MB/s
INTEGER & WRITING         8 Kb block: 30794.42 MB/s
INTEGER & WRITING        16 Kb block: 28151.88 MB/s
INTEGER & WRITING        32 Kb block: 25592.05 MB/s
INTEGER & WRITING        64 Kb block: 23752.54 MB/s
INTEGER & WRITING       128 Kb block: 16333.79 MB/s
INTEGER & WRITING       256 Kb block: 4139.72 MB/s
INTEGER & WRITING       512 Kb block: 3052.76 MB/s
INTEGER & WRITING      1024 Kb block: 2687.96 MB/s
INTEGER & WRITING      2048 Kb block: 2558.74 MB/s
INTEGER & WRITING      4096 Kb block: 2495.56 MB/s
INTEGER & WRITING      8192 Kb block: 2455.05 MB/s
INTEGER & WRITING     16384 Kb block: 2444.15 MB/s
INTEGER & WRITING     32768 Kb block: 2426.52 MB/s
# ramsmp -b 2
RAMspeed/SMP (GENERIC) v3.5.0 by Rhett M. Hollander and Paul V. Bolotoff, 2002-09

8Gb per pass mode, 2 processes

INTEGER & READING         1 Kb block: 18657.31 MB/s
INTEGER & READING         2 Kb block: 19117.18 MB/s
INTEGER & READING         4 Kb block: 19015.44 MB/s
INTEGER & READING         8 Kb block: 19224.95 MB/s
INTEGER & READING        16 Kb block: 19315.28 MB/s
INTEGER & READING        32 Kb block: 14500.51 MB/s
INTEGER & READING        64 Kb block: 12601.52 MB/s
INTEGER & READING       128 Kb block: 9393.90 MB/s
INTEGER & READING       256 Kb block: 2493.20 MB/s
INTEGER & READING       512 Kb block: 2113.54 MB/s
INTEGER & READING      1024 Kb block: 2079.59 MB/s
INTEGER & READING      2048 Kb block: 2128.96 MB/s
INTEGER & READING      4096 Kb block: 2127.43 MB/s
INTEGER & READING      8192 Kb block: 2127.84 MB/s
INTEGER & READING     16384 Kb block: 2128.69 MB/s
INTEGER & READING     32768 Kb block: 2129.91 MB/s
# ramsmp -b 3
RAMspeed/SMP (GENERIC) v3.5.0 by Rhett M. Hollander and Paul V. Bolotoff, 2002-09

8Gb per pass mode, 2 processes

INTEGER   Copy:      2065.59 MB/s
INTEGER   Scale:     1986.97 MB/s
INTEGER   Add:       1615.27 MB/s
INTEGER   Triad:     1580.92 MB/s
---
INTEGER   AVERAGE:   1812.19 MB/s
# ramsmp -b 4
RAMspeed/SMP (GENERIC) v3.5.0 by Rhett M. Hollander and Paul V. Bolotoff, 2002-09

8Gb per pass mode, 2 processes

FL-POINT & WRITING        1 Kb block: 32645.77 MB/s
FL-POINT & WRITING        2 Kb block: 32949.56 MB/s
FL-POINT & WRITING        4 Kb block: 32244.32 MB/s
FL-POINT & WRITING        8 Kb block: 31326.32 MB/s
FL-POINT & WRITING       16 Kb block: 28502.43 MB/s
FL-POINT & WRITING       32 Kb block: 25335.06 MB/s
FL-POINT & WRITING       64 Kb block: 22989.79 MB/s
FL-POINT & WRITING      128 Kb block: 10451.13 MB/s
FL-POINT & WRITING      256 Kb block: 4236.35 MB/s
FL-POINT & WRITING      512 Kb block: 3085.57 MB/s
FL-POINT & WRITING     1024 Kb block: 2715.68 MB/s
FL-POINT & WRITING     2048 Kb block: 2587.16 MB/s
FL-POINT & WRITING     4096 Kb block: 2512.82 MB/s
FL-POINT & WRITING     8192 Kb block: 2471.48 MB/s
FL-POINT & WRITING    16384 Kb block: 2450.66 MB/s
FL-POINT & WRITING    32768 Kb block: 2432.75 MB/s
# ramsmp -b 5
RAMspeed/SMP (GENERIC) v3.5.0 by Rhett M. Hollander and Paul V. Bolotoff, 2002-09

8Gb per pass mode, 2 processes

FL-POINT & READING        1 Kb block: 19054.87 MB/s
FL-POINT & READING        2 Kb block: 19404.67 MB/s
FL-POINT & READING        4 Kb block: 19334.34 MB/s
FL-POINT & READING        8 Kb block: 19506.71 MB/s
FL-POINT & READING       16 Kb block: 19504.42 MB/s
FL-POINT & READING       32 Kb block: 15559.88 MB/s
FL-POINT & READING       64 Kb block: 12594.27 MB/s
FL-POINT & READING      128 Kb block: 9090.03 MB/s
FL-POINT & READING      256 Kb block: 2614.38 MB/s
FL-POINT & READING      512 Kb block: 2149.01 MB/s
FL-POINT & READING     1024 Kb block: 2112.19 MB/s
FL-POINT & READING     2048 Kb block: 2148.63 MB/s
FL-POINT & READING     4096 Kb block: 2148.72 MB/s
FL-POINT & READING     8192 Kb block: 2149.29 MB/s
FL-POINT & READING    16384 Kb block: 2150.60 MB/s
FL-POINT & READING    32768 Kb block: 2149.96 MB/s
# ramsmp -b 6
RAMspeed/SMP (GENERIC) v3.5.0 by Rhett M. Hollander and Paul V. Bolotoff, 2002-09

8Gb per pass mode, 2 processes

FL-POINT  Copy:      2066.56 MB/s
FL-POINT  Scale:     1952.23 MB/s
FL-POINT  Add:       1615.04 MB/s
FL-POINT  Triad:     1246.41 MB/s
---
FL-POINT  AVERAGE:   1720.06 MB/s
        

Memtester

pyropus.ca./software/memtester This is less of a benchmark and more of a sanity check that the hardware appears to be functioning properly. This takes ~18 minutes to finish.
# memtester 500M 1
memtester version 4.5.1 (64-bit)
Copyright (C) 2001-2020 Charles Cazabon.
Licensed under the GNU General Public License version 2 (only).
            
pagesize is 4096
pagesizemask is 0xfffffffffffff000
want 500MB (524288000 bytes)
got  500MB (524288000 bytes), trying mlock ...locked.
Loop 1/1:
  Stuck Address       : ok
  Random Value        : ok
  Compare XOR         : ok
  Compare SUB         : ok
  Compare MUL         : ok
  Compare DIV         : ok
  Compare OR          : ok
  Compare AND         : ok
  Sequential Increment: ok
  Solid Bits          : ok
  Block Sequential    : ok
  Checkerboard        : ok
  Bit Spread          : ok
  Bit Flip            : ok
  Walking Ones        : ok
  Walking Zeroes      : ok
  8-bit Writes        : ok
  16-bit Writes       : ok
            
Done.

bonnie++ - v1.03e (SD card)

Performance here is quite dependant on the SD card that is installed. This benchmark shows ~34MB/s write, 53MB/s read performance. www.coker.com.au/bonnie++
# mount /dev/mmcblk0p2 /mnt/
[ 2014.668991] EXT4-fs (mmcblk0p2): mounted filesystem e139ce78-9841-40fe-8823-96a304a09859 r/w without journal. Quota mode: none.            
# df -h
Filesystem                Size      Used Available Use% Mounted on
devtmpfs                429.8M         0    429.8M   0% /dev
tmpfs                   474.5M         0    474.5M   0% /dev/shm
tmpfs                   474.5M     32.0K    474.4M   0% /tmp
tmpfs                   474.5M    100.0K    474.4M   0% /run
/dev/mmcblk0p2            6.4G      2.8G      3.3G  45% /mnt
# mkdir /mnt/bonnie
# bonnie++ -d /mnt/bonnie/ -u 0:0
Using uid:0, gid:0.
Writing with putc()...done
Writing intelligently...done
Rewriting...done
Reading with getc()...done
Reading intelligently...done
start 'em...done...done...done...
Create files in sequential order...done.
Stat files in sequential order...done.
Delete files in sequential order...done.
Create files in random order...done.
Stat files in random order...done.
Delete files in random order...done.
Version 1.03e       ------Sequential Output------ --Sequential Input- --Random-
                    -Per Chr- --Block-- -Rewrite- -Per Chr- --Block-- --Seeks--
Machine        Size K/sec %CP K/sec %CP K/sec %CP K/sec %CP K/sec %CP  /sec %CP
buildroot        2G 24834  98 33960  13 18684  14 24672  97 52645  24  2682  32
                    ------Sequential Create------ --------Random Create--------
                    -Create-- --Read--- -Delete-- -Create-- --Read--- -Delete--
              files  /sec %CP  /sec %CP  /sec %CP  /sec %CP  /sec %CP  /sec %CP
                 16 13161  98 +++++ +++ 20575  95   709  98 +++++ +++ 18645  95
buildroot,2G,24834,98,33960,13,18684,14,24672,97,52645,24,2681.8,32,16,13161,98,+++++,+++,20575,95,709,98,+++++,+++,18645,95
        

glmark2-es2-drm

Note: This test was run when still mid-way through kernel porting. Results may not be accurate now. This test takes ~5m to run.
# glmark2-es2-drm
Warning: DRM_CAP_ASYNC_PAGE_FLIP not supported, falling back to 'mailbox' mode for SwapInterval(0).
=======================================================
    glmark2 2023.01
=======================================================
    OpenGL Information
    GL_VENDOR:      Mesa
    GL_RENDERER:    Mali-G31 (Panfrost)
    GL_VERSION:     OpenGL ES 3.1 Mesa 24.0.7
    Surface Config: buf=32 r=8 g=8 b=8 a=8 depth=24 stencil=0 samples=0
    Surface Size:   480x640 fullscreen
=======================================================
[build] use-vbo=false: FPS: 230 FrameTime: 4.349 ms
[build] use-vbo=true: FPS: 228 FrameTime: 4.386 ms
[texture] texture-filter=nearest: FPS: 679 FrameTime: 1.473 ms
[texture] texture-filter=linear: FPS: 668 FrameTime: 1.499 ms
[texture] texture-filter=mipmap: FPS: 694 FrameTime: 1.443 ms
[shading] shading=gouraud: FPS: 148 FrameTime: 6.803 ms
[shading] shading=blinn-phong-inf: FPS: 147 FrameTime: 6.804 ms
[shading] shading=phong: FPS: 144 FrameTime: 6.964 ms
[shading] shading=cel: FPS: 144 FrameTime: 6.975 ms
[bump] bump-render=high-poly: FPS: 49 FrameTime: 20.752 ms
[bump] bump-render=normals: FPS: 753 FrameTime: 1.329 ms
[bump] bump-render=height: FPS: 720 FrameTime: 1.390 ms
[effect2d] kernel=0,1,0;1,-4,1;0,1,0;: FPS: 554 FrameTime: 1.805 ms
[effect2d] kernel=1,1,1,1,1;1,1,1,1,1;1,1,1,1,1;: FPS: 195 FrameTime: 5.151 ms
[pulsar] light=false:quads=5:texture=false: FPS: 776 FrameTime: 1.289 ms
[desktop] blur-radius=5:effect=blur:passes=1:separable=true:windows=4: FPS: 156 FrameTime: 6.415 ms
[desktop] effect=shadow:windows=4: FPS: 440 FrameTime: 2.275 ms
[buffer] columns=200:interleave=false:update-dispersion=0.9:update-fraction=0.5:update-method=map: FPS: 43 FrameTime: 23.706 ms
[buffer] columns=200:interleave=false:update-dispersion=0.9:update-fraction=0.5:update-method=subdata: FPS: 43 FrameTime: 23.572 ms
[buffer] columns=200:interleave=true:update-dispersion=0.9:update-fraction=0.5:update-method=map: FPS: 52 FrameTime: 19.542 ms
[ideas] speed=duration: FPS: 190 FrameTime: 5.290 ms
[jellyfish] default>: FPS: 196 FrameTime: 5.127 ms
[terrain] default: FPS: 14 FrameTime: 74.175 ms
[shadow] default: FPS: 106 FrameTime: 9.457 ms
[refract] default: FPS: 12 FrameTime: 84.059 ms
[conditionals] fragment-steps=0:vertex-steps=0: FPS: 544 FrameTime: 1.839 ms
[conditionals] fragment-steps=5:vertex-steps=0: FPS: 437 FrameTime: 2.292 ms
[conditionals] fragment-steps=0:vertex-steps=5: FPS: 543 FrameTime: 1.843 ms
[function] fragment-complexity=low:fragment-steps=5: FPS: 539 FrameTime: 1.857 ms
[function] fragment-complexity=medium:fragment-steps=5: FPS: 303 FrameTime: 3.305 ms
[loop] fragment-loop=false:fragment-steps=5:vertex-steps=5: FPS: 531 FrameTime: 1.885 ms
[loop] fragment-steps=5:fragment-uniform=false:vertex-steps=5: FPS: 531 FrameTime: 1.885 ms
[loop] fragment-steps=5:fragment-uniform=true:vertex-steps=5: FPS: 317 FrameTime: 3.159 ms
=======================================================
                                  glmark2 Score: 336
=======================================================
    

FFMPEG video display

ffmpeg -i /tmp/video.mp4 -pix_fmt bgra -vf "transpose=2,scale=640:480" -f fbdev /dev/fb0

Audio playback

amixer sset Master 255 && curl -L -o /tmp/sample.wav https://www2.cs.uic.edu/~i101/SoundFiles/CantinaBand3.wav && aplay /tmp/sample.wav