RetroArch Official Release v0.9.7

Published on 08-23-2012 07:56 PM

17 Comments

Its official!! After a few rounds of unofficial updates from pete_uk & deank since the 0.9.6 official release the developers (Sqaurepusher aka TwinAphex & Themaister) behind RetroArch decided it was time to make version 0.9.7 official. Take a look below for all the great changes to the Emulator since the 0.9.6 official release RetroArch and all its libretro cores are now completely compatible with multiMAN/mmCM . Be sure to checkout this thread with all types of Retro Covers that can now be used on multiMAN/mmCM.

PS3 Changes Since the 0.9.6 Official Release.

Added Core: Mednafen_Wswan
---Bandai WonderSwan
---Bandai WonderSwan Color
Added Core: Mednafen_PCE_fast
---Turbo GrafX 16 / PC-Engine
---Turbo GrafX CD / PC-Engine CD
---Super GrafX
Core Updated: Genesis_plus_gx version 1.7.0
--- Sega CD Support Added
Added: multiMAN compatibility to all libretro cores
Improved stability / error trapping
ZIP extract modes expanded - it can extract the contents of a ZIP file to the current directory, and/or extract to current dir and immediately load the first ROM/game file.
Improved GUI
Various changes under the hood to many to mention.

RetroArch version 0.9.7 Official Readme

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
RETROARCH PS3 - 0.9.7
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
RetroConsole Level: 2
Author: Themaister, Squarepusher/Twin Aphex
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
HOW TO INSTALL THIS
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ON DEBUG (DEX) PS3
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Put the PKG file 'retroarch-ps3-v0.9.7-dex.pkg' on your
USB stick, put it in your PS3. Go to the PS3 XMB - go to the
Game tab - Select 'Install Packages', and install the PKG file.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ON CFW P3
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Put the PKG file 'retroarch-ps3-v0.9.7-cfw.pkg' on your
USB stick. Put it in your CFW PS3. Go to the PS3 XMB - go to the
Game tab - select 'Install Packages', and install the PKG file.

NOTE: The official release no longer supports Geohot/Wutangzra
CFWs. If you must use them, you have to do pkg_finalize on the PKG
to install it.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
HOW TO USE THIS
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On first startup, RetroArch will select one of the dozen or
so emulator/game cores. The name of the core currently loaded will
be shown at the top side of the screen.

You can now select a ROM that this core supports and load it in
the Filebrowser.

To select a different core in the menu - press Select to go to the
Settings screen. From here, go to the 'Retro tab', and select
'Default emulator core'. Press X to go to a filebrowser where you
can select a different core. Press X to confirm, then exit
RetroArch. Start up again to boot up to the new emulator core.

To change to a different core ingame - press R3 to bring up
the 'Quick Menu'. Select 'Change libretro core'. Press X to
go to a filebrowser where you can select a different core.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
INGAME CONTROLS
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
During ingame operation you can do some extra actions:

Right Thumb Stick - Down - Fast-forwards the game
Right Thumb Stick - Up - Rewinds the game in real-time
('Rewind' has to be enabled in the
'Settings' menu - warning - comes at a
performance decrease but will be worth it
if you love this feature)
RStick Left + R2 - Decrease save state slot
Rtick Right + R2 - Increase save state slot
RStick Up + R2 - Load selected save state slot
RStick Down + R2 - Save selected save state slot
L3 + R3 - Go back to 'Menu'/'Quick Menu'

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
WHAT IS RETROARCH?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
RetroArch is a modular multi-system emulator system that is
designed to be fast, lightweight and portable. It has features
few other emulator frontends have, such as real-time rewinding
and game-aware shading.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
WHAT IS LIBRETRO?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Libretro is the API that RetroArch uses. It makes it easy to
port games and emulators to a single core backend, such as
RetroArch.

For the user, this means - more ports to play with, more
crossplatform portability, less worrying about developers having
to reinvent the wheel writing boilerplate UI/port code - so that
they can get busy with writing the emulator/porting the emulator/game.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
WHAT'S THE BIG DEAL?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Right now it's unique in that it runs the same emulator cores on
multiple systems (such as Xbox 360, PS3, PC, Wii, Xbox 1, etc).

For each emulator 'core', RetroArch makes use of a library API that
we like to call 'libretro'.

Think of libretro as an interface for emulator and game ports. You
can make a libretro port once and expect the same code to run on all
the platforms that RetroArch supports. It's designed with simplicity
and ease of use in mind so that the porter can worry about the port
at hand instead of having to wrestle with an obfuscatory API.

The purpose of libretro is to help ease the work of the emulator/game
porter by giving him an API that allows him to target multiple
platforms at once without having to redo any code. He doesn't have
to worry about writing input/video/audio drivers - all of that is
supplied to him by RetroArch. All he has to do is to have the emulator
port hook into the libretro API and that's it - we take care of the rest.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PLAYSTATION3 PORT
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The PS3 port of RetroArch is one of the most developed console ports
of RetroArch.

A couple of unique features RetroArch PS3 boasts that is not commonly
found anywhere else:

- Game-aware shading in every emulator now (*)
- Real-time rewinding
- More shader features (motion blurring, etc)
- Switching between emulator cores seamlessly, and ability to install new
libretro cores

Included with RetroArch PS3 are a bunch of shaders - including the
latest versions of the popular xBR shader. It is possible to use two
shaders simultaneously to get the best possible graphical look.

* Check out Opium2k's manual shaders for Zelda 3 and others - you can
find DLC packs for RetroArch at this site:

https://code.google.com/p/retro-arch/

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
EMULATOR/GAME CORES BUNDLED WITH PS3 PORT
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The following emulators have been ported to RetroArch and are included
in the PS3 release of RetroArch.

- Final Burn Alpha (Arcade - various) [version 0.2.97.26]
- FCEUmm (Nintendo Entertainment System) [recent SVN version]
- Gambatte (Game Boy | Super Game Boy | Game Boy Color) [version 0.5.0 WIP]
- Genesis Plus GX (Sega SG-1000 | Master System | Game Gear | Genesis/Mega Drive |
Sega CD) [version 1.7.0]
- SNES9x Next (Super Nintendo/Super Famicom)
- VBA Next (Game Boy Advance)
- Prboom (for playing Doom 1/Doom 2/Ultimate Doom/Final Doom)
- Mednafen PCE Fast (PC Engine/PC Engine CD/Turbografx 16)
- Mednafen Wonderswan (WonderSwan/WonderSwan Color/WonderSwan Crystal)

All of the emulators listed above are the latest versions currently
available. Most of them have been specifically optimized so that they
will run better on PS3 (some games would not reach fullspeed without these optimizations).

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
WHAT EXTENSIONS ARE SUPPORTED BY EACH CORE
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Prboom WAD|wad
- SNES9x Next smc|fig|sfc|gd3|gd7|dx2|bsx|swc|zip|SMC|FIG|SFC|BSX|GD3|
GD7|DX2|SWC
- Genesis Plus GX md|smd|bin|gen|zip|MD|SMD|bin|GEN|ZIP|sms|SMS|gg|GG|sg|SG|
cue|CUE
- VBA Next GBA|gba
- FCEUmm nes|NES|unif|UNIF
- Gambatte gb|gbc|dmg|zip|GB|GBC|DMG|ZIP
- Final Burn Alpha zip|ZIP
- Mednafen PCE pce|PCE|cue|CUE
- Mednafen Wonderswan ws|WS|wsc|WSC

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ZIP SUPPORT
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FOR EACH CORE (except for Final Burn Alpha)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There are three modes -

EXTRACT ZIP TO CURRENT DIR: When you press 'X' on a ZIP file in the File Browser,
its contents will be extracted to the current directory. From there, you can
load the RMO and play.

EXTRACT ZIP TO CURRENT DIR AND LOAD FIRST FILE: When you press 'X' on a ZIP file
in the File Browser, its contents will be extracted to the current directory.
The first ROM that was extracted from the ZIP file that is a ROM will be loaded
automatically.

EXTRACT ZIP TO CACHE DIR: When you press 'X' on a ZIP file in the File Browser,
its contents will be extracted to the /dev_hdd1/ partition. From there,
you can load the ROM and play.

WARNING: Savestates and SRAM files that have been created by loading ROMs
from the cache dir this way will be removed after RetroArch has been closed.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FOR FINAL BURN ALPHA
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Selecting a ZIP file from the Filebrowser will load that game directly.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Troubleshooting
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you find that RetroArch no longer works for whatever reason, there is
a way to get it back to work -

- Remove retroarch.cfg from the 'SSNE100000' folder, then start up again.
The Libretro management service in RetroArch should automatically pick a
random libretro core and write this to the config file.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What can you expect in the future?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- An official Android port of RetroArch (no, no App Store 'fee' - 'free'
as in beer AND as in libre - will be the focal point of RetroArch 0.9.8)
- Port of NxEngine to libretro - runs Cave Story (PC version is already done,
runs on big-endian consoles but has too many bugs to be playable)
- Port of MAME 0.72 to libretro
- Port of VICE to libretro
- Port of ScummVM to libretro
- More emulators, more games that will run on RetroArch
- Lots of other crazy ideas that might or might not pan out

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Credits
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Mudlord for his Waterpaint/Noise shaders.
- Hyllian for the xBR shader.
- Opium2k for the nice manual shaders (bundled with PS3 release).
- Deank for assistance with RetroArch Salamander on CFW PS3s and
Multiman interoperability.
- FBA devs for adopting the libretro port.
- Ekeeke for help with the Genesis Plus GX port.
- ToadKing for having done a lot of work on RetroArch Wii.
- Freakdave for helping out with the Xbox 1 port.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Websites
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Twitter: libretro (libretro) on Twitter
Source: http://github.com/libretro
Homepage: RetroArch - multi-system frontend for libretro
Opium2K DLC for RetroArch: https://code.google.com/p/retro-arch/
IRC: #retroarch (freenode)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Download 3.55 CFW: RetroArch 0.9.7 Official
Mirror: RetroArch 0.9.7 -- Mediafire

Download DEX/3.41 OFW: RetroArch 0.9.7 Official

Source #1: xbins.org
Source #2: Ps3crunch.net

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Categories:

_{Tags :

arcade,

bandai,

emulators,

fba,

final burn alpha,

imame4all ps3,

libretro,

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nec,

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pc-engine,

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super nintentdo,

turbo grafx 16,

twinaphex,

wonderswan}

17 Comments

STLcardsWS - 08-23-2012, 09:40 PM
- Reply
Please Note: That Imame4all is not included in this official release for a few reasons.
Its was a buggy port to MAME, its an old emulator of MAME that has many bugs and issues. So Squarepusher has abandoned that port. They are planning to port the much better Mame 0.72 to the PS3 in the future.. However i will provide a download link to add this core for the time being. Since this core was already released and used by many. But please use at your own risk and beware of the issues that exist As i said this has been scrapped for the PS3 so dont ask the RetroArch team for any improvements and or tweaks. This is the only core not multiMAN comp. and it will not be multiMAN comp. So dont bug deank about it.. Just to many issue & various other problems for this specific mame port.

UPDATE:
Okay i have tested the Imame4all core from the pete_uk build of 0.9.7 RC-1.

Notes of this core: USE AT YOUR OWN RISK
- This port has been scrapped by the RetroArch team for the PS3
- This is an unofficial core from a previous release so some feature will not work.
- Save/Load Support Does not work
- Any multiMAN features will not work even returning to multiMAN option. (works on all other cores)
- This port some games that should work will not.
- Please Beware this port is very buggy and problem do arise.
However there are some good things bout this port.. This is the only Mame port on the ps3 that will play games like MK II/MK III/ NBA Hangtime Extreme.
But issues with MK I & nba jam & T.E./Nba hangtime were they will not boot, to name a few examples..

Download link: Mediafire

Again please beware there are issues with this port.!!!

indirect76 - 08-23-2012, 09:40 PM
- Reply
This is excellent. I'm always interested in emulator development. Thanks for the release.

JOshISPoser - 08-23-2012, 10:13 PM
- Reply
awesome! i shall report any bugs i find, if any. I really like this emulator and its progress. I hope for sega cd cd audio soon and hopefully that someone is working on a port for n64.

btw, could someone maybe test any nfl blitz with mame? or at least tell me if it's possible to play, i'm pretty sure it needs a chd file and i'm not sure if this can play those.

STLcardsWS - 08-23-2012, 10:59 PM
- Reply
NFL blitz i don't believe works. in the Imame4all unofficial core..

Soon as eke-eke adds it Sega CD audio to genesis plus gx to the Wii. it will be ported to RetroArch.

There will never be a n64 emulator on the ps3 until we see some advancements on CFW and the dynarec..

Unless someone takes the very long task of a complete rewrite and i doubt you see that.

Update:
Added info to changelog and added mirror for CFW link.

hulk - 08-24-2012, 12:24 AM
- Reply
i hope this make sense. on the xbox emulators when you put in say SMW.smc or SMW.zip into the rom folder and when you boot up zsnesxbox it shows up as Super Mario World in the rom browser. you think something like this could be implanted in the next update?

STLcardsWS - 08-24-2012, 02:13 AM
- Reply
Anything is Possible but is it feasible? Sometimes time is spent on better things or sometimes things use to many resources for what its worth. All you can do is ask they have the RetroArch forums (link @ libretro.org and you See Sqaurepusher AKA twinaphex on crunch forums as well from time to time.

rstabbs71 - 08-24-2012, 08:16 AM
- Reply
Nice work again. As mentioned above, I also love seeing the advancements in the emulation scene. (still hoping to see an intellivision or colecovision port added in sometime lol) One question about the firmwares, it mentiones 3.41 OFW, I take it that it wouldnt work on Rebug 3.41 or am I wrong on this? Just figured I'd ask the question that many more will ask later on today
Working great so far, been testing our the different games and they seem to work perfectly. Keep up the great work

pete_uk - 08-24-2012, 08:25 AM
- Reply
Originally Posted by rstabbs71

Nice work again. As mentioned above, I also love seeing the advancements in the emulation scene. (still hoping to see an intellivision or colecovision port added in sometime lol) One question about the firmwares, it mentiones 3.41 OFW, I take it that it wouldnt work on Rebug 3.41 or am I wrong on this? Just figured I'd ask the question that many more will ask later on today
Working great so far, been testing our the different games and they seem to work perfectly. Keep up the great work

I don't think anyone has tested it on 3.41 CFWs yet. If you could test it and it doesn't work, I'll repackage the 3.55 version so that it will work on 3.41

rstabbs71 - 08-24-2012, 09:17 AM
- Reply
Sounds good, one of my consoles still has that on there, as soon as I get home later today I'll give it a test run

Clarkalel - 08-24-2012, 12:10 PM
- Reply
Hopefully in the next release or a small patch to be enable IN-GAME button configurations so it works with fight stick ( arcade stick ) would be much better. L1+L2 or maybe Start+Select to get into quick menu and return to game.

HipHopHead - 08-24-2012, 08:28 PM
- Reply
For some reason it's not saving default dirs for me (3.55 KMEAW). For default ROM dir I set it to /dev_hdd0/ROMS/ but it defaults the the root every time. Also, for savestates I have it set to /dev_hdd0/game/SSNE10000/USRDIR/cores/savestates/ but it always just saves them to the same dir as the ROM. I see that option 'Custom Savestate Dir enable' but that doesn't seem to do anything either.

Is this a bug or am I doing something wrong?

edit: I should say it's saving the settings in the options but it's not utilizing the dirs I tell it to.

STLcardsWS - 08-25-2012, 12:20 AM
- Reply
Not sure, i just use the default directories. but from what i have been seeing around other forums. The paths are not changing for ROM paths. not sure. I will make the developers aware of the issue.

JOshISPoser - 08-26-2012, 07:35 PM
- Reply
seconded. i've been having the rom path problem since rc 1 of 0.9.7. my saves *seem* to be alright because when i load a save through a game, it seems to work and i always had them in the rom's folder. idk about savestates though, i haven't had too much luck with them in the past and haven't used them much.

LKJHGFDSA - 08-28-2012, 02:04 PM
- Reply
how about adding support for a platform we don't already have emus for, like atari 2600.

underball - 08-29-2012, 11:54 AM
- Reply
Robohobo released an Atari 2600 PS3 Emulator more than a year ago.

atari 2600 ps3 emulator - Page 1 - PS3 NEWS - PlayStation 3 News - PS3News - PS3 CFW - PS3 Hacks - PS3 JailBreak - PS3 Games

JOshISPoser - 08-29-2012, 12:20 PM
- Reply
maybe magic happens...how about adding an emulator we don't have, n64? :P

Joshman - 02-14-2013, 04:41 PM
- Reply
Works in a fantastic way! Ahhh yes, I was finally able to pass Contra with one life (and many many many in-game saves and loads).

I would love to see an in-game Turbo option for buttons. Sometimes I want it. Sometimes I do not.

I would love to see N64 as well!

Keep up the good work!