http://www.libretro.com/
RetroArch 1.3 was just released for iOS, OSX, Windows, Linux, Android, Wii,
Gamecube, PS3, PSP, PlayStation Vita and 3DS.
You can get them from this page:
http://buildbot.libretro.com/stable/1.3.0/
Once again the changelist is huge but we will run down some of the more
important things we should mention:
Cores
Reicast (Dreamcast core)
We have ported Reicast over to the libretro API. This is a Sega Dreamcast
emulator.
Supported platforms:
Right now, it runs on OSX, Windows, and Linux (64bit Intel only for now).
Over the next coming days/weeks we will be porting it to Android and iOS as
well and making it work for 32bit Intel too, so keep watching this space.
There were some improvements made over regular Reicast. Render To Texture
features are enabled (they are disabled by default in Reicast), which means
that certain effects like the heat room in Resident Evil: Code Veronica and
the pause screen in Crazy Taxi render correctly. A bug got fixed which led to
a bunch of sprite tile glitches in Capcom Vs SNK 2. We added a workaround so
that Marvel Vs Capcom 2 no longer crashes (by detecting the game and
changing it on the fly to rec_cpp). We made the x64 dynarec work on OSX which
wasn’t working before. We implemented a workaround for Soul Calibur
(whitelisted for OSX/Linux only for now) that should prevent some of the
Z-fighting.
Notes
1 – Reicast NEEDS BIOS files. You can run it without BIOS files but the
success rate is so low that we really stress you always use it with bios
files. The BIOS files go inside <system directory>/dc. If you have not set up
a system directory, then it will look for a folder called ‘dc’ inside the
same directory you loaded the ISO from.
2 – Make sure that ‘Shared Context Enable’ is enabled in RetroArch. To
verify this, go to Settings -> Core -> HW Shared Context Enable and make sure
it says ‘ON’. If you don’t do this, you might find that there are severe
graphical glitches or that nothing even shows up at all.
3 – It should be stressed that the 64-bit dynarec for x86_64 is a lot slower
than Reicast’s 32bit dynarec. Right now, the Reicast libretro core on PC is
only available in 64bit form. When the 32bit version comes out, you might
want to try it on a 32bit version of RetroArch too, it might give you a big
speedup vs. the current 64bit version.
I fully intend on doing more work on Reicast once we have these releases out
of the way.
Platforms:
You will find installation instructions for the platforms here
MacOSX PowerPC (10.5) (NEW)
Starting with version 1.3, RetroArch is now available on PowerPC Macs running
OSX.
You need at least MacOSX 10.5 (Leopard) to be able to run the PowerPC version
of RetroArch OSX.
I have included the cores which are known to work so far with the RetroArch
bundle itself since we don’t yet have OSX PowerPC cores on our buildbot.
PlayStation Vita/PlayStation TV version (NEW)
There is also a RetroArch version available now for PlayStation Vita and
PlayStation TV. To use this, you need to use the (still quite impractical for
daily usage) Rejuvenate jailbreak. No better jailbreaks are available as of
this time, sorry. We will continue fleshing out this port for when a more
mainstream jailbreak comes around.
Nintendo 3DS version (NEW)
The Nintendo 3DS version is in a satisfactory enough state to be released
now. It has received quite some attention on the Internet already. For
instance, some of our cores (like dosbox libretro) has received quite some
attention in the press. Others have been impressed by PCSX ReARMed being able
to run on 3DS. Overall, the 3DS version has made quite the splash.
You will get the best experience using a New Nintendo 3DS since it has a much
faster CPU than the regular 3DS. All of the cores available for 3DS will
benefit from this bump in specs.
Lakka – the RetroArch turnkey solution for HTPCs/ARM devboards (NEW)
lakka
Remember all that talk about RetroBox last year? RetroBox has now turned into
Lakka.
With Lakka, you can turn nearly any ARM or x86 hardware into a
fully-functioning retro videogame console capable of running countless games
with a very nice userfriendly console user interface. We strive to make it as
plug-and-play as possible so that you are not reminded at any point in time
that this is actually a PC running Linux.
Startup time is very quick (less than 5 seconds is a conservative figure),
and in most cases we use DRM/KMS graphics drivers to ensure the best possible
latency given the hardware. The entire user interface is gamepad controlled,
you don’t have to bring a keyboard and mouse to this thing, it should be as
plug-and-play as possible.
Please check out our sister project’s website here: lakka.tv. It’s quite
overwhelming the amount of ARM hardware and HTPCs that Lakka can run on.
This is our antidote and answer to the kind of ripoff RetroArch Android boxes
that have begun to pop up like Retro Freak and Retron5. The only thing we
lack yet obviously compared to those is reading from the original cartridges
(inso far as that is important), but we encourage developers to contribute to
the project so we can build it up to have support for that too. In the end
having something that you can get free of charge and bring your own hardware
to it is in your own best interests vs. these kinds of retro hustles.
For the more technical minded, I can’t stress this enough: you are getting
an inferior experience emulating on some underpowered Android SoC the likes
of which are in these el-cheapo devices that are nevertheless sold at huge
markups, you’d very much want to bring your own hardware and run Lakka on it
for the best experience and also so that you aren’t held hostage by the
hardware itself with forced firmware updates crippling what you can do with
the hardware. In most cases we use DRM/KMS drivers with Lakka, so you don’t
get the overhead of an X11 server to begin with. What little we lack in terms
of spit and polish we hope we can fix with some collaborative effort.
MacOS X (10.6/10.7/10.8+)
RetroArch is available for both 32bit and 64bit Macs running OSX.
iOS
RetroArch is available on iOS, both on iPhones and iPads. You can use the
Cydia version if you are on a jailbroken device, otherwise you will have to
sideload it yourself on your non-jailbroken device.
Android
The user interface got a total overhaul (see ‘Revamped User interface’).
Numerous bugs were fixed.
I removed the camera and location API permissions, these were experimental
augmented reality features which in hindsight were not really worth it to
have to release several different APKs for and it was preventing us from
being able to appear on Android TV. It was only ever used in one test core
which wasn’t even available through the buildbot anyway so it was just a big
inconvenience in the long run.
I know the v1.2 release did not go over well with Android users and there was
a lot of criticism. I hope that with v1.3 we are able to win some of these
users back. Needless to say it has been hard making RetroArch less
CLI-focused but I think it’s finally starting to bear fruit.
You can get the Android version either from the Google Play Store or (better
yet), through F-Droid. F-Droid is a really convenient way of being able to
run RetroArch. As soon as we push an update to the code, F-Droid within no
time will inform you an update is available and allow you to upgrade to the
latest version. This makes it possible for you to update RetroArch daily
without having to wait for a while for some stable version to come out.
PlayStation3 (PS3)
The PS3 version features some big changes. MaterialUI and XMB are both
available now as menu drivers. The XMB menu driver is now enabled by default.
Libretro database support is in, and things should generally work fine.
I released only the DEX version. PS3 sceners can take the DEX release and
create a CEX version of it.
Wii version
Wii and Gamecube ports are the same as ever. More work is needed on the USB
HID part of RetroArch Wii before we can reliably use the DualShock3/4 and
other USB pads.
PSP version
The PSP version has been updated. There are no big changes to mention for
this port.
RetroArch Improvements
Improved playlist support
Both PlayStation1 and PSP games can now be scanned. Once the games are
scanned and identified inside the database, they are added to a
system-specific playlist. This makes it easy and convenient for you to start
these games by just going to the playlist and selecting them instead of
having to go through the filesystem and manually select the file again.
Revamped user interface
There was a ton of criticism about version 1.2’s user interface on mobile
devices, like Android. We have decided to give it a makeover. It now
resembles a Material Design user interface and some of the annoying display
bugs were fixed on Android. It now also has tabs at the bottom which you can
touch. This can quickly take you to the playlists and/or settings screen.
XMB has also received a makeover. A bunch of actions now have their own tabs
inside the horizontal menu. For instance, you can now scan for content by
going to the ‘Add’ tab and selecting a directory instead of having to
navigate through a bunch of menus. The history list is also now on a separate
tab, as is the settings themselves.
RetroArch/libretro’s reach
We don’t like to brag a lot and we don’t like self posturing. Nevertheless,
RetroArch and libretro is definitely starting to become omnipresent. Plenty
of people have used it in some form or another without even being aware of
its name or its existence. For instance, there have been plenty of projects
unrelated to us or the team (like NewRetroArcade) which were actually just
libretro frontends implementing the libretro API, and the popular Raspberry
Pi distribution RetroPie for instance uses RetroArch for a lot of the
videogame emulation it provides.
Not everything has gone according to plan. We had to do a very substantial
rewrite this past year that has definitely been daunting and some of you
noticed that things didn’t progress as fast as we’d like but we are finally
out of development hell again and ready to fire on all cylinders again. There
will never again be another half a year delay in development due to endless
rewrites.
What’s next for RetroArch
RetroArch 1.4 (the next version) will bring RetroArch to two new platforms.
New platforms – tvOS/Windows Phone
There will be a tvOS port, and there will be a Windows Runtime (WinRT) port
so that RetroArch can run on Windows Phones among other things. Those are the
two big porting endeavors I will be busy with. I hope to get something
substantial done by end of February/March, but don’t hold me to that.
There will be a new user interface as well added to the mix that will cater
more to people used to point and click-based interfaces. We showed some
screenshots before of the ‘Zarch’ interface we have been working on, and
there is also a ‘Hexa’ user interface which might make it out of the
prototype stages as well.
There will also be a lot of new cores. In fact, cores are being updated and
added daily through the cor e updater, so definitely keep watching that
space. You don’t have to wait for version 1.4 in order to be able to use
these new cores.