RetroArch 1.8.1 released!

Libretro Team


RetroArch 1.8.1 has just been released. This version sees the coming of age of the mobile UI, which now has support for thumbnails. This will bring a transformative change to the way people get to interact with the UI on Android/iOS. And the best part is that this is only the beginning, even more drastic UX enhancements are planned!

Grab it here.

If you’d like to show your support, consider donating to us. Check here in order to learn more. In addition to being able to support us on Patreon, there is now also the option to sponsor us on Github Sponsors! You can also help us out by buying some of our merch on our Teespring store!

On-demand thumbnail downloading now enabled by default on Android/iOS

We’ve made the decision to enable the auto thumbnail scraping feature by default on Android/iOS since both devices are likely to be connected to the Internet. This is inline with what the majority of people on these platforms would want the default behavior to be. All other platforms remain unaffected – for systems other than Android/iOS therefore, it has to be enabled manually for it to work.

In case you are using your device offline and/or you don’t want a HTTP request to be performed every time you browse a new entry in a playlist, you can turn this setting off by going to ‘Main Menu -> Online Updater’ and turning off ‘On-Demand Thumbnail Downloads’.

MaterialUI – Thumbnail support plus more themes! The mobile UI finally grows up!

We are beyond excited to present to you even more UX enhancements for MaterialUI, the default UI for mobile devices like Android and iOS.

There is now initial thumbnail support for playlists in MaterialUI!

RetroArch 1.8.1 adds the Thumbnails and Thumbnail Upscaling Threshold options under User Interface > Appearance, and adds two new options: Portrait Thumbnail View and Landscape Thumbnail View. There are currently only list view implementations, which look something like this:

Portrait Thumbnail View

Off

List (Small)

List (Medium)

Landscape Thumbnail View

OFF

List (Small)

List (Medium)

List (Large)

Note the new ‘switch thumbnail view’ icon on the title bar (next to the search icon). This shows up when viewing any playlist provided that User Interface > Appearance > Thumbnails is set to anything other than OFF. Touching this icon switches to the next view mode (this is done independently for each screen orientation). Pressing the ‘scan’ button on a gamepad (RetroPad X) has the same effect.

On-demand thumbnail downloads are fully supported.

All loaded thumbnails have a nice ‘fade in’ animation.

A couple more screenshots –

We implore everybody that might have bounced off earlier versions of RetroArch for Android/iOS to please give this new version a chance. We are trying our best to be receptive to user feedback and whip the UX into shape so that it becomes a user interface that you will come to love instead of tolerate (at best). Thumbnail support has been missing for a long time so this is bound to be a big deal along with the other UX enhancements that version 1.8.0 already brought with it

Changes

1.8.1

  • BUGFIX/MENU: Fix menu rendering with Mali GPUs after changing video dimensions
  • CDROM: Adds pregap support to cdfs helper methods
  • CHEEVOS: Provides the new PCEngine hashing algorithm for RetroAchievements
  • LOCALIZATION: Update French translation
  • LOCALIZATION: Update Polish translation
  • LOCALIZATION: Update Spanish translation
  • MENU/MATERIALUI: Initial thumbnail support
  • MENU/MATERIALUI: Cutie / Virtual Boy theme added
  • MENU/MATERIALUI: Bugfix – Under certain extreme circumstances, entries with very long sublabel strings could have their text prematurely ‘clipped’ as the entry is scrolled beyond the top of the screen
  • MENU/MATERIALUI: Bugfix – Certain setting value strings were unnecessarily truncated (with a …) when using smooth ticker text
  • MENU/XMB: Sunbeam theme added
  • SWITCH: Accelerometer, gyroscope and illuminance sensor support
  • VITA: Accelerometer and gyroscope sensor support

What’s next?

We will be following this blog post up in the upcoming days with more about the Doom 3 core that libretro devs have been working on. Stay tuned – this core represents a big milestone for us since it is a semi-modern game running as a libretro core inside RetroArch, and our aim has always been to appeal beyond the emulation scene. We are fully supportive of even more non-emulator cores in the future, but we won’t forget about the emulation scene either, and we have some BIG announcements coming up that still remain a secret. So stay tuned and wait for further information to arrive when the time is right!

Quake 3 core ported to Libretro/RetroArch – with working online multiplayer + more!

Libretro Team

Hot on the heels of vitaQuake 2 being ported to Libretro/RetroArch, now’s the time for a full-fledged Quake 3 core to make its way to RetroArch!

Rinnegatamante used his vitaQuake 3 source port as the basis for this core. Unlike the vitaQuake 2 core, there is no fallback software renderer. Unlike Quake 1/2, Quake III: Arena was the first game by id Software to require the use of a 3D videocard. For now, this core will require the OpenGL API.

So what exactly is vitaQuake 3? It’s an ioquake3 port by Rinnegatamante that was originally made for the PS Vita as a standalone release, and has now since been ported to the libretro API itself.

It currently supports the following games/mods:

  • Quake III: Arena
  • Quake III: Team Arena
  • OpenArena
  • Urban Terror
  • Q3Rally

The core is currently available on both Windows and Linux on the Libretro buildbot.

Features

  • Fixed frame steps just like the Quake 2 core. You can set the target framerate beyond 60fps in case you have a high refresh rate TV/monitor
  • Resolution can be increased up to 4K (3840×2160). We will probably increase this limit later on
  • Fully working online multiplayer support
  • Full mod support. Should work with Urban Terror, Open Arena, etc

What is not done

  • Needs keyboard/mouse control options. Right now only the gamepad is fully mapped
  • (For mobile) If we want to bring it to mobile, the GL renderer has to compile as GLES 2.0-compatible. Alternatively we could make a separate renderer specfically for this purpose.

How to get it

The core is available right now on our buildbot. It will be only available for Windows PCs, Mac and Linux for now given the OpenGL fixed function requirements right now. We will see where we can go from here.

To install this core, in RetroArch’s Main Menu, go to Online Updater. First make sure your core info files are updated. Select ‘Update Core Info Files’.

After this is done, select ‘Core Updater’. From here, you can select ‘Quake III: Arena (vitaQuake 3)’ from the list and download it.

Requirements/How to use it

You need one of the following:

  • A working version of Quake 3 Arena’s datafiles (buy it on GOG, Steam, etc)
  • A demo version of Quake 3 Arena with the datafiles extracted

We might put up the demo version of Quake 3 Arena on our Content Downloader later to simplify the process for people who just want to test this core out.

Anyway, once you have the data files unpacked somewhere on your storage device, go to RetroArch, go to ‘Load Content’, go to the directory that has the data files, go to the baseq3 folder, and open pak0.pk3.

It should start the core now.

vitaVoyager – Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force Holomatch


vitaVoyager is a port of lilium-voyager, an ioquake3 fork made to be compatible with the multiplayer mode of Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force.

Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force was a game made by Raven Software in the early ’00s. It uses the id Tech 3 engine, the same engine powering Quake III: Arena.

Both local and online multiplayer are fully implemented as well as game against bots.

How to get it

The core is available right now on our buildbot. It will be only available for Windows PCs, Mac and Linux for now given the OpenGL fixed function requirements right now. We will see where we can go from here.

To install this core, in RetroArch’s Main Menu, go to Online Updater. First make sure your core info files are updated. Select ‘Update Core Info Files’.

After this is done, select ‘Core Updater’. From here, you can select ‘Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force (vitaVoyager)’ from the list and download it.

Requirements/How to use it

You need one of the following:

  • A working version of Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force’s multiplayer data files

Holomatch, with permission from Raven and other parties, is now fully free to download and distribute.

See this page here

Other relevant info can be found here –

“Fortunately you can play the multiplayer for free. Either you get it from the UFP, a multigaming clan or The Last Outpost, one of the last Elite Force RPG communities left.”

https://ufplanets.com/cms.php?27-Star-Trek-Voyager-Elite-Force

“UFPlanets.com LTD. has received written permission from CBS Broadcasting Inc., the current license holder of the Star Trek franchise and associated material, including the licensed material contained in these installers, to redistribute Star Trek Voyager® Elite Force™ for free via a digital download installer. “

We will have to research if it’s feasible or permissible for us to include these files on our Content Downloader. Until we have made that final determination, you can get them through one of the links above instead.

Anyway, once you have the data files unpacked somewhere on your storage device, go to RetroArch, go to ‘Load Content’, go to the directory that has the data files, go to the baseEF folder, and open pak0.pk3.

It should start the core now.

Coming tomorrow – lifting the curtains on id Tech 4

Tomorrow we’ll have a new blog post dedicated to our in-development Doom 3 libretro core. Stay tuned!

RetroArch 1.8.0 released!

Libretro Team


RetroArch 1.8.0 has just been released. The default mobile UI has seen a complete overhaul and we hope this will address many of the usability issues people had with RetroArch’s menu on Android/iOS. Note that we are far from done and that the next versions will have even more enhancements coming up!

In addition to the MaterialUI menu improvements, we now have MAME overlay compatibility for the OpenGL driver, seamless driver switching, and more!

Grab it here.

If you’d like to show your support, consider donating to us. Check here in order to learn more. In addition to being able to support us on Patreon, there is now also the option to sponsor us on Github Sponsors! You can also help us out by buying some of our merch on our Teespring store!

Big features

Complete overhaul of MaterialUI – UX for Android/iOS massively improved!

With version 1.7.9, we already improved the mobile UX significantly by adding touchscreen gestures and better touch responsiveness.

This however pales in comparison to what has been done for version 1.8.0 in this department. We will quickly go over the major highlights, most of the text here has been written by jdgleaver (the author of these changes) with only minimal edits by myself –

New menu scaling

At present, Material UI is scaled according to screen resolution and hard-coded magic numbers. This ‘kinda-sorta’ works on some mobile devices, but in general (and specifically on desktop computers and tablets) the interface is too large, and scaling is highly inconsistent when resizing windows. To combat these inadequacies, there existed a ‘DPI override’ feature which allowed the user to set a specific scale – but this didn’t work in real-time (so adjustments were blind), and it’s not user friendly (since the average user can’t be expected to know the correct DPI setting for their screen).

This new version modifies the scaling of Material UI such that it uses the hardware-reported DPI value of the display, with empirical adjustments to accommodate very large and very small screen sizes (where normal DPI scaling fails). This should ensure an appropriate default interface size regardless of hardware. Moreover, it removes the ‘DPI override’ and replaces it with a generic Menu Scale Factor under User Interface > Appearance, which is a simple fractional multiplier (much easier for the user to understand!). This Menu Scale Factor is now also used by XMB (instead of the previous XMB-specific scale factor) – it is intended that Ozone and menu widgets will obey this setting in the future.

  • DPI Override Removed – Menu Scale Factor comes in its place – starts out at 1.00x and can be made smaller or higher than the default value
  • Material UI now correctly readjusts its layout when screen orientation changes on mobile devices
  • Material UI now resizes in real-time when the user manually sets the Menu Scale Factor (this never worked properly with the old DPI override)
  • Material UI no longer leaks memory on ‘context reset’

Menu animations

A new ‘Menu Transition Animation’ option has been added under User Interface > Appearance. When this is enabled, menu transition events are animated.

All sorts of animations have been added – fade-in effects, slide effects, etc. If you dislike any of these, you can always turn the setting off completely to go back to the previous behavior.

System bar

A new Android-style ‘system bar’ has been added. This shows current core name, clock and battery level.

Navigation bar


The navigation bar is now shown at all times – i.e. it is an actual navigation tool, rather than a ‘top-level-menu’ curiosity.

Two new context-sensitive buttons have been added:

On the bottom left we have a ‘back’ button. This performs the same function as tapping the menu bar, but the button is in a more ergonomic/standard position. This should address most of the complaints Android users have about RetroArch ignoring the hardware back button.

On the bottom right we have a ‘resume content’ button. This means we can easily change/test runtime settings without performing finger gymnastics. e.g. we can change a core option or apply a shader and immediately toggle the menu off without having to hit back to get to the quick menu, and scroll up to the resume content entry.

Auto-Rotation

A new ‘Auto-Rotate Navigation Bar’ option has been added under User Interface > Appearance. When enabled (this is the default setting), the navigation bar is moved to the right hand side of the screen when using landscape screen orientations. It looks something like this:

If you don’t like this and you want it to always appear at the bottom of the screen, turn this option off.

Title bar

The title bar now uses a larger font, and the sublabel font has also been enlarged a little, to more closely align with Material Design standards.

Optimize Landscape Layout

A new Optimize Landscape Layout option has been added under User Interface > Appearance. This is intended to address the rather uncomfortable appearance of Materail UI in landscape orientation on wide displays (particularly on the desktop). The option is disabled by default on mobile platforms (like iOS/Android), and enabled by default everywhere else. When enabled, it looks something like this:


Graceful switching between video drivers

Graceful switching between video drivers has been added for Linux and Windows PCs thanks to Rinnegatamante (Patreon here). This feature originated as a bounty request, and it’s on the verge of being completed.

RetroArch in the past behaved unpredictably and unstably when switching to cores that wanted a context other than what was currently active. This could happen because of video_driver settings being different in a core config override or because a core’s core options were telling it to use a different renderer than what was active (e.g., GL vs Vulkan)

What happens now, is that RetroArch can seamlessly switch video drivers if a core requires it.

Example –

one of the new cores we have added over the past few weeks, VitaQuake 2, is a core that has two renderers. It has a software renderer and an OpenGL 1.x renderer. Say that RetroArch is running with the ‘vulkan’ video driver. We want to load VitaQuake 2.

What would happen with RetroArch 1.7.9

  • The renderer of VitaQuake 2 has two options – Software and OpenGL. Because there is no hardware context in the core for Vulkan, it would switch to Software.

What happens now with RetroArch 1.8.0 (with driver switching enabled)

  • The renderer of VitaQuake 2 has two options – Software and OpenGL. We make the assumption that you wouldn’t want to use the software renderer if OpenGL is available, so instead, RetroArch will seamlessly switch to OpenGL. When you unload the core/game, it will switch back to ‘vulkan’, so the driver switch will not be written to the config file.

What if you still want to use the Software renderer with a core like this with Vulkan?
That is certainly possible. To do this, we need to turn off the ‘driver switching’ feature. First, you need to make sure that ‘Show Advanced Settings’ is enabled under ‘User Interface’ settings. Once you have made sure of that, go to ‘Settings -> Core’. Then turn off ‘Allow cores to switch the video driver’. It should now behave like before again.

What if a core has several hardware context renderers? (like Dolphin/PPSSPP)
Cores like Dolphin and PPSSPP have several renderers available, such as OpenGL, Direct3D11 and Vulkan. Say you have RetroArch running with the vulkan driver. It would then naturally pick the ‘Vulkan’ renderer. Ditto for OpenGL and Direct3D11. So nothing changed there in that regard.

What is this particularly useful for?
The big issue with using the Vulkan video driver in RetroArch in the past (or Direct3D 11) is that while some software rendered cores might run faster with these drivers vs. OpenGL, there are plenty of Libretro cores that require the use of OpenGL. With this new feature, it will properly fallback to OpenGL for these exclusive cores but still use Direct3D 11 or Vulkan for all other cores. You can get the best of both worlds this way.

MAME layout compatibility with OpenGL driver


This started as a bounty request, and it has now been implemented at least for the regular OpenGL driver.

If you don’t know what MAME layout files are, you can read this here.

How to get this working?

First, ensure that you are using the OpenGL driver. NOTE: Make sure this is ‘gl’ driver, ‘glcore’ will not work right now but might work in a future version. Only the regular ‘gl’ driver right now will work with MAME layouts.

  • Find a layout bundle, like these: https://mrdo.mameworld.info/mame_artwork_ingame.php
  • Go to Settings > Onscreen Display > Video Layout and set ‘Enable Video Layout’ to ON, then use the ‘Video Layout Path’ option to navigate to your layout bundle.

NOTE: It’s only available for the GL driver right now, but we would like to extend it to other drivers in the future. Automatic loading of layouts based on content filename would also be a good improvement.

Changes

1.8.0

  • AI SERVICE: Added in fix for BMP returns to AI service. Added in label passing to AI service call
  • BSV: Fix BSV recording/playback
  • BUGFIX: Fix crash when setting Thumbnail Directory
  • BUGFIX/STABILITY: Set “Automatically Add Content to Playlist” to false by default, this was unstable on PS3 and Mac and other platforms potentially as well.
  • COMMON: Graceful driver switching for Windows and Linux
  • COMMON: Cache frame before converting 0RGB1555
  • LAKKA: Wi-Fi Access Point settings
  • MENU: Menu scaling improvements
  • MENU/MATERIALUI: There are no longer any animation glitches when ‘wraparound’ scrolling from the last entry in a list to the first, or when performing horizontal swipe navigation gestures on certain settings-type entries
  • MENU/MATERIALUI: List entries underneath the title and navigation bars are no longer highlighted when touching the title/navigation bars (this was only a cosmetic issue, but it was annoying…)
  • MENU/MATERIALUI: The current menu list is no longer reloaded when pressing the currently active tab on the navigation bar
  • MENU/MATERIALUI: The ticker text spacer has been set to a ‘bullet’ character (same as Ozone)
  • MENU/MATERIALUI: The default colour theme has been set to ‘Ozone Dark’
  • MENU/MATERIALUI: Three new colour themes have been added.
  • MENU/MATERIALUI: A new Menu Transition Animation option has been added under User Interface > Appearance. When this is enabled, menu transition events are animated
  • MENU/MATERIALUI: The navigation bar is now shown at all times – i.e. it is an actual navigation tool, rather than a ‘top-level-menu’ curiosity
  • MENU/MATERIALUI: Two new context-sensitive buttons have been added to the navigation bar – back button and resume button
  • MENU/MATERIALUI: A new Auto-Rotate Navigation Bar option has been added under User Interface > Appearance. When enabled (this is the default setting), the navigation bar is moved to the right hand side of the screen when using landscape screen orientations
  • MENU/MATERIALUI: The playlists tab is now correctly hidden when User Interface > Views > Show Playlist Tabs is disabled
  • MENU/MATERIALUI: Material UI now correctly readjusts its layout when screen orientation changes on mobile devices
  • MENU/MATERIALUI: Material UI now resizes in real-time when the user manually sets the Menu Scale Factor (this never worked properly with the old DPI override)
  • MENU/MATERIALUI: Material UI no longer leaks memory on ‘context reset’ (fonts were previously never free()’d)
  • MENU/MATERIALUI: A new Android-style ‘system bar’ has been added. This shows current core name, clock and battery level
  • MENU/MATERIALUI: A new search icon is shown on the title bar when viewing playlists and file browser lists. Pressing this launches the search interface
  • MENU/MATERIALUI: The title bar now uses a larger font, and the sublabel font has also been enlarged a little, to more closely align with Material UI standards
  • MENU/MATERIALUI: A number (quite a large number) of layout/spacing issues have been fixed
  • MENU/MATERIALUI: The existing colour theme handling code is not fit for purpose, so the whole lot got ripped out and reimplemented. In doing so, also adjusted all the theme colours to better match Material UI standards – with a few liberties taken for aesthetic purposes.
  • OSD: Fix fast forward indicator when not using menu widgets
  • PSP1: Remove duplicated FPS indicator on the screen
  • LIBNX/SWITCH: Make audren threaded audio driver the new default
  • VIDEO LAYOUT: Add video layout MAME overlay compatibility. Enabled for Windows/Linux/OSX/iOS/Android/libnx. Only works with GL driver for now, no glcore yet

RetroArch Overlay Editor – Create and edit your own overlays easily – now available for free!

Libretro Team

Article written by meepingsnesroms

Download here – http://buildbot.libretro.com/assets/cores/Utilities/OverlayEditor.zip

Since RetroArch was first running on touchscreen devices, it has been dependent on overlays for onscreen controls. But there has been no good way of editing them, for the last 6 years the only way to make overlays was to edit numbers in a text file, see if they looked good and if they didn’t edit them again until they did, I found this to be quite bizarre and when I made the Palm device overlay for Mu and I made a small buggy overlay editor with an incomprehesible fixed function GUI, it was a project I tried to make in a week as a challenge to myself and as a tool to make the Palm overlay because there was no way I would have the patience to edit the text file that many times.

At first I though no one really cared about it because whenever anyone talked about overlays it was just a border around the game screen and RetroArch wanted an excessive amount of work converting all the GUI files into text by hand, although recently I have gotten slightly bored with Palm stuff and someone was making an overlay and my editor was mentioned, since someone actually wanted an overlay editor I decided that it was worth it to finish it and make it user friendly so anyone can make a good RetroArch overlay.

There is no current plan to integrate the code with RetroArch itself but the source code will run on Windows, Mac and Linux and I will maintain a Win32 binary that can be run on all Windows versions and emulated elsewhere.

Here is a video of its current functionality, more will be added to allow easily making animated overlays from pictures and allowing advanced users to edit the text file directly for things that don’t have a GUI option.

It is in beta right now. If you choose to use it, submit all issues to https://github.com/meepingsnesroms/RetroArchOverlayEditor not the RetroArch repo.

vitaQuake II Libretro core WIP available right now on Windows/Mac/Linux! Plus high refresh rate support in libretro core games

Libretro Team



We’ve always felt at libretro that RetroArch is a platform that is agnostic to emulators. That is, the libretro API is not in any way tied to emulators and allows for far more applications to be ported beyond just emulators. So it’s always a delight to us when game engines get ported as libretro cores to add to the growing pool of non-emulator libretro cores. So it was music to our ears when the talented PS Vita homebrew coder Rinnegatamante graced us with a new libretro core – vitaQuake II! This is a port of a Quake II engine source port that he made originally for the PS Vita.

With this core, you will be able to play Quake II on RetroArch (or any libretro-compatible program for that matter).

YouTube videos coming later today showcasing the game running at both 60Hz and 120Hz!

Where to get it and for what platforms

The core is available right now on our buildbot. It will be only available for Windows PCs, Mac and Linux for now given the OpenGL fixed function requirements right now. We will see where we can go from here.

To install this core, in RetroArch’s Main Menu, go to Online Updater. First make sure your core info files are updated. Select ‘Update Core Info Files’.

After this is done, select ‘Core Updater’. From here, you can select ‘Quake 2 (vitaQuake 2)’ from the list and download it.

How to start Quake 2

You need to load Quake 2’s PAK0.PAK. This is usually found inside the Quake 2 directory’s ‘baseq2’ directory. Both the shareware version and the full version should work fine.

Information

It’s a very early version, and some bugs will still exist. Some examples:

  • If you want this to run with the regular gl driver, “Shared Hardware Context” needs to be enabled in Settings -> Core (you might need to enable Show Advanced Settings first in Settings -> User Appearance). The glcore driver on the other hand does not require you to enable this in order for the game to work as normal.
  • A savefile bug where after having selected New Game for the first time, starting it again after closing vitaQuake 2 for the first time will start you off at the beginning with all enemies already killed and the elevator button missing. In case this happens, you then need to go to the directory where your Quake 2 datafiles are, and manually delete the baseq2/save directory contents. Obviously this is very inconvenient and not at all intentional, so hopefully we can fix this soon.
  • After about 5/7 minutes, there might be a big freeze that can last for 5 seconds, after which the game will resume again. Obviously very nonideal and something we want to fix ASAP.

Technical details

Let us discuss some of the intricacies of this port:

  • Quake II dates back to an era where 3D graphics APIs and 3D video cards in general were truly in their infancy. Quake II makes use of a very limited subset of OpenGL 1.x. To complicate matters, right now the renderer is using some OpenGL 2.x functions as well such as glGetTexImage. We’ll have to see where we go from here – mobile would need a renderer that is at least compatible with GLES2, which means making use of non-fixed function vertex and pixel shaders, while on the other hand we can see an exclusively OpenGL 1.x renderer being very useful for low end hardware such as the 3DS, PS Vita and PSP – all these platforms have an OpenGL 1.x wrapper to some degree that translates back to their native graphics APIs. Frangarcj and Rinnegatamante are discussing possibly adding an OpenGL 1.x hardware context to the libretro API that would make it possible to target these platforms. So perhaps the future of this port is multiple renderers so that we can cast a wide net in terms of compatibility.

    Long story short – for now, this renderer is making use of fixed function GL, so you’ll need to be on a desktop computer to run this for now.

  • The glcore video driver will run this core right now without having to enable ‘Shared Hardware Context’. To get it to run with the regular gl driver, you will need to enable ‘Shared Hardware Context’ inside Settings -> Core. You might need to enable ‘Advanced Settings’ first in Settings -> User Interface before this shows up.
  • The libretro core has been changed slightly from the original so that the Quake II frame logic operates in fixed timesteps. In normal Quake 2 ports, this is usually done with a timer which acts as the framerate limiter. In libretro instead, we can guarantee that each retro_run iteration is exactly one frame, so all we have to do is pass the exact timestep delta for the framerate we are to target to Qcommon_frame. This gives us a silky smooth framerate with minimal frametime deviations. This might complicate matters in terms of existing Quake 2 server compatibility, but we kinda figure that it’s not worth it having suboptimal performance and that the existing Quake 2 server pool is very limited anyway and that it has its own drawbacks in terms of performance as it stands (with hard caps on framerate – most servers cap at 60-70 fps).
  • Quake II in general seems to have a default framerate cap of 90fps. We want to make as many libretro game engine cores suitable for high refresh rate gaming as possible, so we’ve gotten rid of this cap. We’ve tested the game to be running flawlessly at 100Hz and 120Hz.
  • The UI in Quake II normally doesn’t scale, so at higher resolutions it would appear very small. Because it’s 2019 and not a lot of people play their games at 640×480 anymore, there is now UI scaling implemented so that the UI text popups will be readable at 1080p and beyond.
  • Rumble has been implemented and is available as a core option, just like it was in the PS Vita standalone version.

High refresh rate gaming with libretro/RetroArch


There has been an increased focus on making sure libretro game cores are all they can be when it comes to supporting higher refresh rates. So far we have already had the following libretro game cores that can run at higher framerates (>60fps):

  • Prboom (Doom 1/2 game engine core)
  • Cannonball (Outrun game engine core)
  • OpenLara (Tomb Raider game engine core)
  • Tyrquake (Quake 1 game engine core) (NEW)
  • vitaQuake2 (Quake 2 game engine core) (NEW)

Tyrquake and vita Quake2 are two recent additions to this list. In order to get them to run without audio crackling at higher refresh rates, we had to change the audio samplerate from 44Khz to 48Khz, which seemed to do the trick.

To further increase the convenience factor, we’ve also implemented a nifty feature in these libretro cores: support for libretro’s ‘preferred refresh rate’ option. Basically, if you leave the ‘Framerate’ option at ‘Auto’, the libretro core will look at RetroArch’s configured ‘refresh rate’, and it will use this for the framerate. This means that inside RetroArch, you can switch to a 1440p 120Hz mode with the Resolution setting, then start the core, and without having to configure the framerate, it will then run the game at 120fps. Likewise, if you then switch to a 4K resolution at 60Hz, and close and reload the Quake core, the game will automatically run at 60fps instead. So, with cores that support the ‘RETRO_ENVIRONMENT_GET_TARGET_REFRESH_RATE’ environment callback, you don’t have to keep switching back and forth between separate framerates inside the core – you can simply leave it at ‘Auto’ and RetroArch will do the rest.

This feature has not been added yet for OpenLara and Prboom, but we’ll do so soon.