Buy the TrimUI Smart Pro S here!
Recommended Accessories
- MicroSD Card: 128GB or 256GB (with the platforms this plays, you would be safe with either of these options)
- MicroSD Card Reader: UGREEN SD Card Reader
- Charger: UGREEN 65W Charger (use the USB-A port for charging)
Updating the firmware
This setup guide assumes you want to start from scratch, with a brand new branded SD card and you will be providing your own ROMs & BIOS files.
The first thing you need to is grab the latest firmware, and you can get that from here. The file that you want is the one that starts with trimui_tg5050.
Extract the zip file using 7-Zip.
We need to format your brand new card as FAT32. We can use a program called Rufus to do so. Download the portable version.
Connect your SD card to your PC using a branded SD card reader (recommendations above), and open Rufus. Make sure that device is your SD card, should match the same size. Change Boot selection to Non bootable. Make sure that File system is FAT32 or Large FAT32. Click START.
When it’s done, you’ll have a blank FAT32 formatted SD card.
Copy the contents of the zipped file we extracted earlier to the root of the SD card.
Eject and insert the SD card into your TrimUI Smart Pro S.
Hold down the Volume Minus key and then the Power button to turn it on.
Release both buttons when you see the green progress bar on screen.
When it’s done, the device will reboot automatically and your firmware will be up to date.
Future updates
In the future, you don’t need to format or setup an entirely new card to update the TrimUI Smart Pro S.
Just grab the latest firmware files once again from the Github, place them onto the root of the SD card and follow the same steps during boot to install the firmware.
Setting up the SD card
This setup guide assumes you want to start from scratch, with a brand new branded SD card and you will be providing your own ROMs & BIOS files.
Make sure that you followed the Updating the firmware section of this guide before continuing.
We need to setup the SD card, so you want to get those files from here and you want to choose the sd_base option.
If there’s a hotfix file as well, you want to download that too.
Copy both (if there’s two) zips to the root of your SD card.
Find the non-hotfix file (named trimui_smart_pro_s_tg5050 etc.), right click it, 7-zip and extract here.
Allow overwrite if it asks.
When that’s done, do the same with the hotfix file if it exists – right click it, 7-zip and extract here.
Allow overwrite if it asks.
Your SD card is now setup! You can move on to the next section to add games and BIOS files.
Adding ROMs & BIOS
Connect your SD card to your PC.
Head inside the Roms folder, and you should see a bunch of folders for all of the systems that the device supports.
It should be pretty self explanatory at this point, but you want to move your ROMs for each system into the corresponding system folder.
For BIOS, head to the RetroArch folder, then .retroarch, and then system. Inside of this folder is where you would put your BIOS files.
Don’t forget, that when you add or remove ROM files, they may not always show up and you might need to refresh the ROM list. Head to the Game tab in the operating system, then push the Menu button on the device bottom left and select Refresh Roms.
How to remove the on-screen overlay and/or shaders?
Go ahead and open a game from the system that you want to remove the overlay/shaders from.
Push the Menu button bottom left, then Advanced Menu.
Scroll down to On-Screen Overlay and then turn off Display Overlay to remove the overlay.
And/or, if you scroll down to Shaders and then turn off Video Shaders to remove shaders.
Then, head to Overrides and choose Save Content Directory Overrides to save the changes and apply them to all games for that system.
Repeat these steps for any other systems.
How to add hotkeys to RetroArch?
Head to Apps and then open RetroArch.
Move over to Settings and then Input and then Hotkeys.
Here’s my suggestions:
- Hotkey Enable: L3
- Quit: Y or Start
- Fast-Forward (Toggle): R2
- Load State: L1
- Save State: R1
- Show FPS: A
This means, when you push L3 plus any of these button combinations, it will do that hotkey in-game.
Frequently Asked Questions
How to switch views?
On the Games page, press START to switch between flow and grid view.
How to start Netplay with other people via LAN?
- Make sure all players have the same game ROM.
- Make sure all players are connected to the same WLAN.
- Turn on Netplay via Settings > System > Netplay.
- Host player enters the game,
- Other player goes to the Netplay tab and should see the host’s game.
Hotkeys
- Brightness Minus is START+L
- Brightness Plus is START+R
How to change the emulator or core being used for a game?
Highlight the game in the list and push X.
