Features

Available on

RetroArch is available for download on a wide variety of app store platforms.

NOTE: Functionality can sometimes be different from that of the version available for download on our website. We sometimes have to conform to certain restrictions and standards that the app store platform provider imposes on us.

Cores

RetroArch/Libretro has over 200 cores, and the list keeps expanding over time. These include game engines, games, multimedia programs and emulators.

OpenLara

OpenLara is an early Tomb Raider game engine recreation.

Core available now for Windows/Linux.

For more information, read our article on this release here.

It uses the original data files in order to work. What is nice about this one is that it has some very fancy graphics effects added on top of the old game engine without it resulting in any stylistic clashes.

LRPS2

LRPS2 is a PlayStation2 emulator. It has a brand-new Vulkan-powered LLE renderer called ParaLLEl GS.

ParaLLEl-GS' goal is to be as accurate as software rendering but using the GPU instead of the CPU. Thanks to this we can also do enhancements which would be too slow to do on software, such as supersampled antialiasing and other enhancements.

For more information, read our article on this release here.

DOSBox Pure

DOSBox Pure is an easy-to-use plug and play version of DOSBox written specifically for Libretro/RetroArch. It supports MS-DOS and Windows 9x games. You can use savestates and even rewind. Automatic game detection with custom gamepad to keyboard mapping for many DOS games.

For more information, read our article on this release here.

PX68K

PX-68K is a Sharp X68000 emulator. This is a Japanese home computer from the late '80s/early '90s that was used by Capcom as devkits for their arcade games. It played host to many popular games from the likes of Namco, Konami and Capcom.

Core available now for Windows, macOS, Linux, Android and iOS.

For more information, read our article on this release here.

Innovation

RetroArch has been first to market with many innovative features, some of which have became industry standard. Because of its dynamic nature as a rapidly evolving open source project, it continues adding new features on an annual basis.

• Dynamically loadable programs (cores): Libretro as a backend technology allows RetroArch (or any frontend implementing the Libretro API) to run whatever multimedia program it wants as long as the lifecycle of the Libretro program is properly implemented. This main innovative feature has led to various other programs also adopting the Libretro API, making its emulator and game cores widely playable across various applications outside of just RetroArch
• Dynamic audio rate control: An attempt at solving one of the age-old problems of audio and video sync while not having either crackling audio or massive frametime deviations. The method works by dynamically adjusting audio resampling ratios in such ways that ideally, the audio buffer is never underrun nor overrun, thus avoiding blocking on audio.
• Runtime programmable pixel shaders on the GPU: Introduced in 2011, first supporting the Cg spec (now deprecated) and GLSL. Later on, a piece of middleware called SPIRV-Cross was developed so that a new shader spec (Slang) could allow us to run the same shaders regardless of the graphics API.
• Runahead: Introduced in 2018, runahead is a sophisticated way of running the game in a second session. The end result of this when it works is a vast reduction in input and video latency without any perceivable ghosting issues.
• AI text translation: This feature allows users to capture the current state of the game and feed it to a customizable endpoint for additional processing. With the help of OCR (optical character recognition) and other techniques, the AI service can provide a live translation of a game, or text-to-speech capabilities for the visually impaired among other things, either on demand or automatically.

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