With the upcoming new RetroArch version, it will be possible to use your fingers as a lightgun on iOS and Android. Not only that, but it supports multi-touch too! (iPhone XS Max shown in this video)
What you see here in this video is a demonstration of all the cores that include support for this new feature. The device being used here is an iPhone XS Max, and it’s plenty powerful enough to even run the likes of Mednafen/Beetle Saturn!
Here is a list of the cores so far that support this (along with the systems they support) –
We’ve written about the RetroArch Disc Project some time ago. To refreshen your memory, we want to make it possible to play physical optical discs with RetroArch.
It is our full intent to ship an initial beta version of this in a future version of RetroArch (maybe the next one?).
So far, we have added CDROM support for the following systems:
PlayStation1
Sega CD
Sega Saturn
3DO
Disc dumping
We’ve now added disc dumping as well! Go to the Main Menu, go to ‘Load Disc’. If you have more than one physical drive, you’ll see several disc drives. If no disk drives are detected, it will show nothing here.
Assuming you have a disc already inserted, select the disc drive menu entry and it should now start dumping your inserted media disc to RetroArch’s internal storage. During this time, you can go do something else while you wait for it to load. For instance, you can go load another core/game and just play it while waiting for the menu widget to finish.
By default right now, RetroArch will store all dumped CDROM images to the ‘Downloads’ directory of RetroArch. There might be more options for this coming up soon in the near future.
Disc images are dumped in bin/cue format. Most of the dumped images work generally very well, but games which rely a lot on redbook audio might still have some random issues
Flycast is an amazing Dreamcast emulator that is perhaps unique for having true zero-configuration online multiplayer capabilities! Flycast WinCE has recently gained support for zero-configuration online connectivity as well, but in this video we will first teach you how to input your ISP settings (most Dreamcast games that supported online multiplayer will require that you have set this up in at least one game once).
In this video (the first of a new series dedicated to online multiplayer gaming with RetroArch), we walk you through how to setup the ‘fake’ ISP online settings that allows you to connect to unofficial Dreamcast servers for the purpose of being able to netplay against other players in online multiplayer-enabled Dreamcast games. Note that Quake III Arena, NFL 2K2 and 4×4 Evolution are some of the only games that allow you to input these ISP settings inside the game itself.
Note also that all the settings you input can be bogus, but make sure the phone number is at least a fictitious 7-digit phone number. It can literally be ‘1234567’ for all we care here.
The online multiplayer is truly cross platform – you can play against other users that are using the standalone Flycast emulator instead of the Libretro core inside RetroArch, but you can even play against people playing with their real Dreamcasts (if they happen to use the same service). To learn more about Dreamcast Live, go to their website <a href=”https://www.dreamcastlive.net/connection-guide”>here</a>.
NOTE: Some games like Starlancer (Windows CE-based game) might require you to input Dial Account 2 as well inside ISP settings. In this video, you only see us setting up Dial Account 1.
So without further ado, upstream versions of Play!, the PlayStation2 emulator, are finally rolling out on the buildbot today!
Currently, the core is available and has been confirmed to run on:
Windows (64bit and 32bit)
Linux (64bit and 32bit)
Android
How to download it
Inside the main menu, go to ‘Online Updater’.
You might want to make sure first you have the latest info files by selecting ‘Update Core Info Files’ first.
From here, go to Core Updater.
Scroll down until you have found ‘Sony – PlayStation 2 (Play!)’. Download it. Go back to ‘Load Core’, and load it. Now go load a backup image file with it.
NOTE: Play! does not require any BIOS for you to dump, it uses its own HLE (High Level Emulation) BIOS.
What is Play! ?
Play! is a Work In Progress PlayStation2 emulator. Thanks to the great efforts of Zer0xFF, who took three days out of his busy schedule to port the emulator to the libretro API, we can start rolling out this emulator to our buildbot soon!
It must be stressed that Play! is a Work In Progress PS2 emulator, and we mean that literally. Don’t expect every game to run perfectly, far from it. However, it has a solid foundation and already has working dynamic recompilers for all the popular architectures, its value which cannot be understated. The libretro core also already has working savestate support.
System requirements
This core will require OpenGL on the desktop and OpenGL ES3 on mobile devices.
Your system should currently be as powerful as possible in order to get the best possible results. As time improves, system requirements will probably reduce.
Game compatibility is entirely dependent on the state of the upstream #Play! emulator. So as Play! improves, so too will the libretro core!
Help PlayStation2 emulation get better by supporting Play!
#Libretro is currently a Patreon backer of the Play! project, and we are very grateful to Zer0xFF from the Play! project for getting this port up and running in less than 3 days! Good open source PlayStation2 emulation deserves to get more funding, and we are happy to do our part. We hope you will as well!
Example video – running on RetroArch Android on a Samsung Galaxy S10+
Online support for Dreamcast Windows CE games coming soon in Flycast!
Courtesy of flyinghead (the brains behind the last two years of Reicast development) – online support for Windows CE… coming soon in Flycast! Available as standalone and available as a Libretro core for use in RetroArch!
The screenshot you see above comes from 4×4 Evolution, a racing game that uses Windows CE on the Dreamcast.
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Online support for Dreamcast Windows CE games coming soon in Flycast!