While there is a good deal of modern games on offer, various gamers still prefer to play older titles due to various reasons ranging from nostalgia to simply preferring 2D over 3D graphics in certain game franchises. In this article, we’re going to look at the release of RetroArch 1.8.5 while also taking a quick look at Project Eris for the PlayStation Classic!
RetroArch 1.8.5 released
If you’ve ever dabbled in emulation, you’ve probably heard of RetroArch at least once as it’s a front-end that allows you to manage & run dozens of emulators and game engines using so-called cores. Other than simply being a convenient way to play games from multiple retro systems, it also comes with a whole slew of features including support for screen filters, a runahead feature to reduce input latency, a common UI for all cores, the ability to create game playlists and many more. However, its high popularity is probably a result of its availability on many hacked consoles such as the PSVita, Switch, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4 (currently unofficial), Wii (U), 3DS not to mention support for Windows [back to Windows 95], macOS and Linux!
Now, RetroArch 1.8.5 has been released and this relatively minor update brings along:
- The default menu driver (i.e. user interface) has been changed to Ozone from XMB which provides a Switch-esque UI
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RetroArch 1.8.5 running on Windows 7 with the brand-new ‘Nord’ theme. This release is slim on RA-wide features but it comes with a good deal of core updates which will be described in a later report!
- Lakka, a Linux distribution built primarily to run RetroArch, will still ship with XMB as default
- Ozone has received some improvements including:
- Elements are now scaled as per DPI
- It’s now possible to configure scaling manually
- Widgets/Notifications are now scaled appropriately
- Two new themes, namely Nord & Gruvbox Dark have been added
- Some minor quality-of-life (QoL) changes have been performed
- Various new cores have been added and some were updated especially on older consoles; these will be detailed in an upcoming cores progress report. Among these, we find:
- The addition of P-UAE to the PSVita port
- The addition of ECWolf to the 3DS and PSVita ports
- A re-based melonDS core for the Nintendo Switch which includes a JIT thus providing greatly improved performance
- Some more information on cores can be elicited from the February 5 & February 29 Cores Progress Reports which have been published between RetroArch 1.8.4 and 1.8.5’s release.
You may grab RetroArch 1.8.5 from this link by selecting the platform of your choice. You may support RetroArch’s development on Patreon or GitHub.
A quick look at Project Eris for the PlayStation Classic
Last week, ModMyClassic released Project Eris for the PlayStation Classic which is being touted as the spiritual successor to the highly popular BleemSync modding solution.
Project Eris is yet another modding solution for the PlayStation Classic which lets you make the most out of the micro-console! (Image Source)
This modding solution, which has fully replaced BleemSync, comes with a good deal of features including:
- The ability to play the 20 internal games included with the micro-console
- A pre-installed RetroArch port for your emulation needs
- Support for the most common filesystems including FAT32, NTFS, exFAT and ext4
- The ability to get online although only a few WiFi/Ethernet adapters are supported although no list of supported adapters is given
- This is a list of adapters supported in BleemSync which may also be supported in Project Eris
- A pretty nice boot menu letting you choose between RetroArch, Project Eris and Emulation Station
- Many other features including drag-and-drop game transfer support, folder support and USB OTG support for better USB device compatibility.
You may read more about Project Eris and grab it from this link. Currently, it’s at version 0.9 and a desktop application for replacing internal games will be available with version 1.0’s release.
Conclusion
In other emulation news, Stella 6.1 (Atari 2600 emulator) has been released and you may also be interested in reading about Animal Crossing: New Horizons getting in-game on Ryujinx & Cemu 1.17.4’s public release. Moving over to the Switch scene, hekate – CTCaer Mod 5.1.3 and Nyx 0.8.6 have been released.
The post Emulation & PS Classic News: RetroArch 1.8.5 released changing the default UI to Ozone (Switch UI), adding P-UAE & ECWolf cores for the PSVita & more + a quick look at Project Eris, BleemSync’s successor for the PS Classic! appeared first on Wololo.net.