GammaOS Nano v1.4.4 (Anbernic RG DS Plus) Release Notes

Patreon Exclusive Release
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This release will become publicly available to non-supporters at a later date. The password will be posted on Patreon.

Release Date: 3 October 2026.

What's new in v1.4.4

Mostly bug fixes, with Screen Calibration and hidden games as the main additions.

• Screen Calibration. Display > Screen Calibration sets brightness, contrast, saturation, hue and red, green and blue levels for each screen separately, with a live preview. Unlike the existing LiveDisplay colour calibration, it is applied by the display controller itself, so it also reaches DS games in DraStic-nano, and it holds from the boot logo on.
• Hide games without deleting them. A game's options gain Hide Game; Game Settings > Hidden Games brings them back.
• System updates can no longer leave a device that does not boot. From v1.4.4 on, every partition an update writes is read back and checked, a bad write is retried and repaired, the bootloader and boot partitions are saved first and put back if writing them fails, and an update that cannot complete stops with an error instead of rebooting into a half-written device. This also fixes the crash part way through installing that some devices hit when updating to v1.4.3. The progress bar now covers the whole update, and the device no longer sleeps during the download. The update to v1.4.4 itself is still installed by the updater of the version you are on, so if it fails, use the keep-user-data route below.
• Touch reaches the whole screen on every unit. On some RG DS Plus units a touch fell further and further short towards the right edge, with the far edge unreachable, because the touch driver replaced the panel's factory calibration with a generic one. The panel now gets its real configuration.
• SD cards that would not boot. Some cards that wrote and verified fine on a PC left the device stuck in recovery, or read back silently corrupted data, because their fast transfer mode never calibrated properly. A card that fails the fast mode now steps down to a slower mode that works.
• Larger Android text. Android's own screens and apps were drawn at about half the size they should be on these panels; they are now scaled to the panel. The GammaOS home and DraStic-nano are unaffected.
• DS microphone fixes. Speech through the microphone could chop, repeat or distort, ignored the gain the game sets, and stopped working after the first visit to the in-game menu. All fixed, and Mic Level now defaults to 0, the level Brain Age's speech recognition responds to best.
• DraStic-nano System settings page with Nickname, Birthday, Language, Favorite Color, Slot-2 Cartridge, the RTC option and a Custom Clock, which until now could only be set in the DraStic app. The birthday now reaches games on the right month.
• Game fixes: Hotel Dusk no longer flickers or bobs, or crashes with Hi-res 3D, and Pokemon Ranger's top screen no longer drifts after each Start press. Heavy scenes no longer drop into slow motion after a capped fast-forward.
• Plus the ES-DE theme engine rendering themes the way ES-DE does, app icons no longer turning black after using an app, apps no longer closed while their file picker is open, PICO-8 carts showing up in the PICO-8 system, Network Shares fixes for SMB, WebDAV and FTP over TLS, and Select+Volume no longer changing the volume along with the brightness.

The complete list is in the changelog:
https://github.com/TheGammaSqueeze/GammaOSNext/wiki/GammaOS-Next-Changelog#v144-october-2026

Updating from v1.4.3

• v1.4.4 is available over the air. Go to Quick Menu > Settings > System Update > Update via Internet and the device downloads and installs it in place: no reflash, no card rewrite, and your games, saves and settings are kept. This is the recommended route for anyone already on v1.4.3 or v1.4.2.

• If the over the air update gives you trouble (a failed update warning, or a device that does not come back), the safest way to move an existing card to v1.4.4 is the Upgrade, keep user data option in Rockchip SD Tool v1.1.1 or newer, using the image below. It rewrites the loader and every partition the image carries, leaves the partition table exactly as it is, and leaves the partitions that belong to the device alone, userdata among them, so your games, saves and settings survive. It also checks the card's layout against the image first and refuses a card that does not match, before writing anything.

  https://github.com/TheGammaSqueeze/rockchip_sd_tool/releases/tag/v1.1.1

  Use v1.1.1 or newer for this, not v1.1.0. In v1.1.0 an upgrade also rewrote the misc partition, which Rockchip firmware ships carrying a wipe-all instruction for the first boot, so the device wiped the user data the upgrade was meant to keep.

• A clean flash of the package below is only needed for a fresh install or if you want to start over. Flashing erases everything on the card, so copy anything you want to keep off it first. Games on the second card slot are untouched.

One build: Core

The RG DS Plus ships as a single Core build: GammaOS Nano with no Google apps and a super lightweight Android underneath, built for boot-to-play on this device's 1 GB of RAM. You can switch to the native Android interface at any time from Quick Menu > Power > Boot Android. There is no Full build and no NO_OC_UV variant for this device.

This is a whole new GammaOS

GammaOS Nano is not a launcher, it is a whole micro-OS built on top of Android. It grabs the panel the instant you power on and paints a full console-style home (the RG DS Plus boots into the DSi System Menu theme by default), but underneath it is deeply integrated with the low-level Android system and the device hardware: DRM-direct rendering straight to both panels, an early-boot audio engine that sounds before the rest of the system is even up, native power and sleep management, and direct control of the two screens. There is no heavy Android launcher loading in the background, no bloat, and no waiting. It boots straight to a console-style experience that is fast, lean and built for a controller first.

Known Issues

• This build ships with NO Google Services. This is a deliberate design choice for maximum performance, battery life and a clean boot-to-play experience on a 1 GB device.
• If you ever used Rocknix (or another mainline distribution), the device could go dark on every restart or power off afterwards. v1.4.4 ignores and clears the leftover power setting Rocknix leaves behind on its first boot. This fix was found and confirmed on the RG DS and ported to the RG DS Plus, which uses the same power chip and driver, but it has not been separately reproduced on a Plus; if a Plus still goes dark, unplugging and replugging the battery clears it.
• The RG DS Plus has 1 GB of RAM. Large Android apps and games that keep hundreds of megabytes in memory will page to the card and slow down; DraStic-nano and the built-in players are tuned for it.
• DraStic RetroAchievements currently supports Softcore mode only. Hardcore mode is pending approval from the RetroAchievements team, which can take up to around 6 months if they agree to it.
• Performance improvements are mainly for NDS/DraStic. Don't expect 3DS titles to run any better.

What GammaOS Nano Gives You

GammaOS Nano gives you three complete home themes (the RG DS Plus boots into the DSi System Menu theme by default, and you can switch to PS3 XMB or Minima at any time), the built-in DraStic-nano DS player with GPU-accelerated hi-res 3D, low-latency audio on speakers and headphones, per-game settings, undo for quick saves, a fast-forward speed limit and 38 RetroArch LCD and CRT shaders, plus RetroAchievements (Softcore) and Quick Resume, the dual-screen Control Center for single-screen apps, custom and looping video wallpapers (including separate wallpapers per screen), an in-game overlay on a power-button hold, reworked sleep and wake, and self-contained music, video and photo players, a controller-first web browser, IPTV and Internet Radio, system-wide Network Shares (SMB/NFS/WebDAV/FTP) with Syncthing built in, a global search, and the PSP Go slide clock. Switch to native Android any time from Quick Menu > Power > Boot Android.

Learn More About GammaOS Nano

A full guide to everything GammaOS Nano can do, its themes, players, settings and hidden features, is here:
https://thegammasqueeze.github.io/GammaOSNano-WIKI/

Before You Download

The GammaOS image ships as one split archive in two parts. Download both, plus a flashing tool:

• RG_DS_Plus_GammaOS_Core_v1.4.4.7z.001
• RG_DS_Plus_GammaOS_Core_v1.4.4.7z.002
• A flashing tool:
  • Rockchip SD Tool (use this one) for Windows, Linux and macOS: https://github.com/TheGammaSqueeze/rockchip_sd_tool
    It verifies every block it writes, retries bad ones, handles cards of any size, and tells you plainly when a card is failing instead of writing a silently broken image. Most "it won't boot" reports come down to a write that was never checked.
  • GammaOS_SDDiskTool_v1.69_SDBootOnly.zip is attached below as a legacy fallback (Windows only, the stock Rockchip tool patched for large cards). It does not verify what it writes and often needs several attempts. Only reach for it if the Rockchip SD Tool will not run on your machine.

SD card: a 32GB or larger A2 spec microSD card is recommended (Samsung Pro Plus or SanDisk Extreme class). Amazon Basics A2 cards are fine, though their quality has been inconsistent in the past. A1 cards boot, but expect slower menus and boot because of their lower random read and write speeds. Games can live on the second slot on any card.

Extract

Extract both parts of the archive together (extract the .001 while the .002 is in the same folder), using the password from Patreon. You will get a single Rockchip image, RG_DS_Plus_GammaOS_Core_v1.4.4.img.

Install (Windows, Linux and macOS)

The RG DS Plus runs GammaOS entirely from the microSD card. The internal storage is left untouched: to return to stock, remove the card. Full installation steps are available here:
https://github.com/TheGammaSqueeze/GammaOSNext/wiki/GammaOS-Next-Installation#anbernic-rg-ds-plus

1. Do NOT use DD, Win32DiskImager or balenaEtcher. Only the two tools above write a bootable card.
2. Insert the microSD card with a reliable card reader. If a write fails or the card does not boot, try another reader or adapter first.
3. Rockchip SD Tool (recommended): launch it, choose the RG_DS_Plus_GammaOS_Core_v1.4.4.img image, choose the card, click Write and wait for verification. On macOS open it the first time with right-click, Open (it is not notarized).
   GammaOS SDDiskTool (legacy, Windows): extract the zip, launch SD_Firmware_Tool.exe, choose SD Boot, click Firmware, select the image and click Create. It may take a couple of attempts to succeed.
4. Writing takes up to 10 minutes; leave it to finish.
5. Eject the card, insert it into the RG DS Plus and power on. The first boot takes a few minutes while the system sets itself up.

Note: Writing the card erases everything on it. Remove any other microSD card from the device before the first boot.

Overview

GammaOS Nano v1.4.4 for the Anbernic RG DS Plus, based on Android 14 / LineageOS 21, as a single lightweight Core build (no Google Services) that boots straight into GammaOS Nano, a native console-style home built for handhelds, with a fast boot-to-play experience, three full home themes, the DraStic-nano DS player with GPU 3D, low-latency audio on speakers and headphones, and RetroAchievements, a dual-screen Control Center, and custom and video wallpapers. Switch to native Android any time from Quick Menu > Power > Boot Android.

Full Changelog

The complete, detailed changelog for v1.4.4 is available here:
https://github.com/TheGammaSqueeze/GammaOSNext/wiki/GammaOS-Next-Changelog#v144-october-2026

Support

For assistance or feedback, please open an Issue here:
https://github.com/TheGammaSqueeze/GammaOSNext/issues

Credits

Thank you for supporting GammaOS development and helping improve GammaOS Next for the Anbernic RG DS Plus.