Retro Launcher v1.0.9

What's new

• Four new systems. Retro Launcher now plays Sega CD / Mega-CD, SG-1000, PC Engine CD / TurboGrafx-CD and Famicom Disk System games. That makes 25 systems. Each has its own folder under roms/ and its own console picture.
  • Sega CD (roms/segacd): .chd, or .cue with its tracks, or .iso. It needs the BIOS of the game's region in system/: bios_CD_U.bin (USA), bios_CD_E.bin (Europe) or bios_CD_J.bin (Japan).
  • SG-1000 (roms/sg1000): .sg. No BIOS.
  • PC Engine CD (roms/pcecd): .chd, or .cue with its tracks, or .ccd. It needs syscard3.pce in system/.
  • Famicom Disk System (roms/fds): .fds. It needs disksys.rom in system/.
  • CD games can sit in a folder of their own, like Dreamcast games.
• Two-sided FDS disks. When a game asks for the other side, open the pause menu and choose Flip disk side, then resume. It does the eject, side change and insert for you, and shows the emulator's answer. By hand it is RB, LB, RB. The controls card for FDS games now lists those buttons.
• BIOS check lists every system. Settings > BIOS check used to show only systems that already had games, so you couldn't see which BIOS a new system needed. Now every system's BIOS files are listed. Systems with games come first, and the others show "No games yet" and are not counted as missing.
• Console pictures for the new systems, in the Consoles list and on the DMD.
• Network transfer: BIOS names with capital letters, like bios_CD_U.bin, are now accepted. Settings > Download artwork covers the new systems.

Install

Already installed: Settings > Updates. It restarts on its own.

New install: download retro-launcher-v1.0.9.zip below, unzip it, and copy the external folder to the root of your cabinet's USB stick.

Guides: https://bla1ze.github.io/retro-launcher/wiki/

Retro Launcher ships no games, no BIOS files and no copyrighted artwork.

SHA-256 of retro-launcher-v1.0.9.zip:
d03d491b14a9aa9505f1ae118428252b84bf0b5dc60f5f8db102a47fe929e842

Retro Launcher v1.0.8

What's new

• CRT shader. Settings > CRT effect (it was CRT scanlines) has a new choice: CRT (Lottes). It gives games the look of an arcade monitor: a slightly curved screen, soft scanlines and a phosphor mask.
  • It's Timothy Lottes' public-domain crt-lottes-fast shader, running on the cabinet's GPU, for every system, including Dreamcast, N64 and PSP.
  • It keeps games at full speed. On a 4KP it held 60 fps on the backglass and on the 4K playfield.
  • On the 4K playfield it draws at a lower resolution and fills the screen from that, so it can look a little softer there than on the backglass. If a screen ever falls behind, it lowers that resolution by itself, but never so far that the scanlines blur away.
  • Bezels, the side glow, picture rotation and the pause menu work with it as before.
  • Scanlines light and strong are still there.
• BIOS files over the network. Settings > Network transfer can now send BIOS files as well as games. Pick BIOS files at the end of the system list on the web page.
  • The page lists every BIOS file the emulators can use, marks which ones you already have, and says which are required.
  • Drop yours on it. Each one is saved under its exact name in the folder the emulators read (system/, system/dc/, or roms/naomi/ for naomi.zip), whatever capitals your file has.
  • Other file names are refused, and a BIOS you already have is never replaced.
  • The page tells you whether the file is a known good dump. Settings > BIOS check on the cabinet shows the same result.

Install

Already installed: Settings > Updates. It restarts on its own.

New install: download retro-launcher-v1.0.8.zip below, unzip it, and copy the external folder to the root of your cabinet's USB stick.

Guides: https://bla1ze.github.io/retro-launcher/wiki/

Retro Launcher ships no games, no BIOS files and no copyrighted artwork.

SHA-256 of retro-launcher-v1.0.8.zip:
b4c4ed530ea4cee67ac99abab142772811f15f67791f1f97204d08353895422d

Retro Launcher v1.0.7

What's new

• Smoother heavy games. Retro Launcher now keeps the emulator on the cabinet's fast processor cores. Before, the system sometimes moved it onto the slower ones.
  • Saturn benefits most. In a test with Duke Nukem 3D, it went from 56 fps with dips into the 40s and constant audio crackle to a steady 60 fps with the crackle gone.
  • Light systems were already fine, and PSP barely changes.
  • It's on by default. Settings > CPU pinning turns it off if a game misbehaves.
• Arcade sound samples in one place. Some older games (Donkey Kong, Space Invaders, Galaxian) play some of their sounds from a separate samples zip. Put those zips in roms/arcade/samples/, and Retro Launcher copies them to both emulators' folders each time it scans the arcade games.
  • Samples you already put in system/fbneo/samples/ and system/mame2003-plus/samples/ by hand keep working.
• Put the cabinet at any player. "Swap players 1 and 2" in the pause menu is now Cabinet plays as. Each press moves the cabinet's controls to the next player, and your controllers fill the other places in the order they connected.
  • Cabinet as player 3 with two controllers: controller 1 is player 1, controller 2 is player 2, the cabinet is player 3.
  • Cabinet as player 2 works like the old swap, and if you had swap turned on it carries over.
• Clearer message for a zip in the wrong folder. Games that come with a disk image (NAOMI and Atomiswave GD-ROM games) have their .chd in a folder named after the game, and the zip belongs next to that folder, not inside it. A zip put inside is now listed with "Move ikaruga.zip up one folder" (with the game's name), and choosing it shows that message instead of trying to start it in the wrong emulator.
• No more logs/output.txt. The cabinet's own log capture for the app is now off. It also collected the firmware's startup scripts, which filled it with noise. Retro Launcher's own log, data/launcher.log, has everything needed for troubleshooting. Updated cabinets switch it off by themselves on first start; nothing else in retro-launcher.xml changes.

Install

Already installed: Settings > Updates. It restarts on its own.

New install: download retro-launcher-v1.0.7.zip below, unzip it, and copy the external folder to the root of your cabinet's USB stick.

Guides: https://bla1ze.github.io/retro-launcher/wiki/

Retro Launcher ships no games, no BIOS files and no copyrighted artwork.

SHA-256 of retro-launcher-v1.0.7.zip:
46990a675214db54debc4f2761a632754cc339523ac3d1e6e5daad93109891e0

Retro Launcher v1.0.6

What's new

• A second look: Attract. Settings > Theme switches Retro Launcher between Neon and Attract, an arcade attract-mode style: pixel type, square boxes with hard shadows, a blinking arrow on the selection, and CRT scanlines.
  • It covers the menus, the backglass and DMD screens, and the in-game pause menu.
  • Neon stays the default. Changing the theme restarts the menu and brings you back to Settings.
• Updates are found sooner. Retro Launcher now checks for an update every time it starts, not once a day.
  • Update available stays on the Settings row and on Settings > Updates until you install it.
  • What's new opens with Install and restart selected.

What's fixed

• A cabinet that starts before its Wi-Fi is ready checks again at the next start, instead of waiting a day.
• The pause menu fits on the backglass. With the new Rotate picture and Swap players items it ran off the top and bottom. This was also fixed in an updated 1.0.5 download, so this matters only if you got the first one.

Install

Already installed: Settings > Updates. It restarts on its own.

New install: download retro-launcher-v1.0.6.zip below, unzip it, and copy the external folder to the root of your cabinet's USB stick.

Guides: https://bla1ze.github.io/retro-launcher/wiki/

Retro Launcher ships no games, no BIOS files and no copyrighted artwork.

SHA-256 of retro-launcher-v1.0.6.zip:
5a77bab63a8fa47f0d77c07e4c5d89aeb9aef4ff836491b42be88d49cc393600

Retro Launcher v1.0.5

What's new

• Two players and more with USB or Bluetooth controllers. The cabinet's controls are player 1, and each controller you connect becomes the next player, up to four, in the order they connect. Arcade games take player 2's coin and Start from player 2's controller.
  • The pause menu shows who is who when a second controller is connected.
  • Swap players 1 and 2 in the pause menu makes a controller player 1, for playing on it alone. It's remembered for every game.
• Rotate picture, in the pause menu, for games that come up sideways, such as PSP, Game Boy Advance and Dreamcast games with a vertical (TATE) mode. Each press turns the picture a quarter, and it's remembered for that game.
  • The joystick turns with the picture, so up is up on the screen. Turn controls with it switches that off for a game that turns its own controls.
• Analog triggers. Dreamcast and NAOMI games that read how far a trigger is pulled, such as gas and brake in racing games, now get the real amount from a controller's triggers.
• What's new before updating. From the next update on, Settings > Updates shows the changes in every version you're about to get before it installs, with Later and Install and restart.

What's fixed

• A controller that drops off no longer blocks buttons. A Bluetooth controller switched off without disconnecting could keep a button held down, so Coin or Start stopped working on every controller. A button that's already held when a game starts is now ignored until it's let go.
• Xbox controllers: LB, RB, LT and RT are on the right buttons. The cabinet's controller settings swap the bumpers and triggers on Xbox Wireless Controllers, and LB read as held down. Retro Launcher now maps them the usual way. The cabinet's own settings are not changed.
• Clicking a controller's stick no longer inserts a coin or toggles a favorite. On controllers other than the cabinet's own, Rewind is the View (Back) button.

Good to know

• A controller beside the cabinet is now player 2. If you played alone on an Xbox or other controller before, turn on Swap players 1 and 2 in the pause menu once.

Install

Already installed: Settings > Updates. It restarts on its own.

New install: download retro-launcher-v1.0.5.zip below, unzip it, and copy the external folder to the root of your cabinet's USB stick.

Guides: https://bla1ze.github.io/retro-launcher/wiki/

Retro Launcher ships no games, no BIOS files and no copyrighted artwork.

SHA-256 of retro-launcher-v1.0.5.zip:
3f3603ab68c551205caa826c2642474a7ba1a1a4e11c5a0c7d6c25c602956dda

Retro Launcher v1.0.4

What's new

• The trackball scrolls the menus. With the Arcade Control Panel, roll the trackball up or down to move through any list: games, consoles, settings and the rest. It stops at the top and bottom. Settings > Trackball speed sets how fast.
• Multi-disc games are one game (PlayStation and Dreamcast). Discs named the usual way, like Final Fantasy VII (USA) (Disc 1), (Disc 2) and (Disc 3), now show as a single game. There's one memory card for your saves, and you swap discs with pause menu > Change disc.
  • It works with the discs together in one folder, a folder per disc (Final Fantasy VII (USA) (Disc 1)/…), or those disc folders inside one game folder. A disc unzipped one folder too deep is found too.
  • Retro Launcher writes a small playlist (Final Fantasy VII (USA).m3u) next to the discs. A playlist you wrote yourself is never changed.
  • Saturn's emulator can't swap discs, so Saturn multi-disc games still show each disc on its own.

Before you update: save in-game

If you're partway through a multi-disc game you've been playing disc by disc, save in-game at a save point before updating.

• Your in-game saves (memory card) come with you. Your memory card that holds saves becomes the game's.
• Save states and the quit-and-resume point don't carry over. They hold a specific disc in the drive, so they can't safely move to the combined game.
• Nothing is deleted: the old per-disc save files stay in saves/psx/.

Install

Already installed: Settings > Updates (it restarts by itself on v1.0.1 and later).

New install: download retro-launcher-v1.0.4.zip below, unzip it, and copy the external folder to the root of your cabinet's USB stick.

Guides: https://bla1ze.github.io/retro-launcher/wiki/

Retro Launcher ships no games, no BIOS files and no copyrighted artwork.

SHA-256 of retro-launcher-v1.0.4.zip:
55ade2d0dcb602c588244410351e9c4150583302226e986b31bd7d42199ddcd7

Retro Launcher v1.0.2

What's new

• Trackball support (Arcade Control Panel). The panel's trackball now plays trackball, spinner and paddle games, such as Missile Command, Centipede, Marble Madness, Arkanoid, Tempest and Golden Tee. It works in both arcade emulators:
  • MAME 2003-Plus uses it for every game that has a trackball or spinner.
  • FBNeo switches to it for the 531 trackball, spinner and paddle games it runs. Every other game keeps its normal controls.
  • Any USB mouse works too.
• Settings > Trackball speed: Normal, Slow or Fast.
• The arcade game lists now mark trackball, spinner and paddle games. They come with this update (cores/fbneo_libretro.db and cores/mame2003_plus_libretro.db).
• Input devices are listed in the log at startup, to help with controller problems.

Install

Already installed (v1.0.1): Settings > Updates. It updates 4 files and restarts on its own.

If you're on v1.0.0, start Retro Launcher again yourself once after updating.

New install: download retro-launcher-v1.0.2.zip below, unzip it, and copy the external folder to the root of your cabinet's USB stick.

Guides: https://bla1ze.github.io/retro-launcher/wiki/

Retro Launcher ships no games, no BIOS files and no copyrighted artwork.

SHA-256 of retro-launcher-v1.0.2.zip:
18a6be9d9013ce3f149b51ce81521b22eb99a1a5d0b917d8021f71cc2b0c2102

Retro Launcher v1.0.1

What's fixed

• Settings > Updates now restarts into the new version. In v1.0.0 the update installed, but the restart afterwards failed. That happened because the app looked up its own file after the update had replaced it.
  • If you're on v1.0.0, install this update. You may have to start Retro Launcher again yourself once, because v1.0.0 still does the restart.
  • From here on, updates restart by themselves.
• Each start now writes the app's path to the log.

Install

New install: download retro-launcher-v1.0.1.zip below, unzip it, and copy the external folder to the root of your cabinet's USB stick.

Already installed: Settings > Updates.

Website: https://bla1ze.github.io/retro-launcher/

Retro Launcher ships no games, no BIOS files and no copyrighted artwork.

SHA-256 of retro-launcher-v1.0.1.zip:
fc5ee8eeb4e7e7173a8809d43b29c094fdd20fc3fabaa50055a08bfa5e222e9b

Retro Launcher v1.0.0

v1.0.0 is v0.23.0 with only the version number raised, published to test Settings > Updates: a cabinet running v0.23.0 finds it, downloads it and replaces just the files that changed.

Retro Launcher: a neon front-end for 21 retro systems that runs right on AtGames Legends Pinball cabinets, as an External Application (no firmware changes, no root).

Website: https://bla1ze.github.io/retro-launcher/

Install

1. Download retro-launcher-v1.0.0.zip below and unzip it. You get an external folder.
2. Copy external to the root of your cabinet's USB stick (merge it with one that's already there).
3. Start Retro Launcher from the cabinet's External Applications menu. It creates a folder for each system.
4. Add your own games to external/retro-launcher/roms/<system>/, from a computer or with Settings > Network transfer. Then run Settings > Download artwork.

Later versions install themselves: Settings > Updates.

Highlights

• 21 systems:
  • Arcade (FBNeo and MAME 2003-Plus, chosen per game), Neo Geo, NAOMI, Atomiswave.
  • NES, SNES, N64, Genesis, Master System, Saturn, Dreamcast, PlayStation, PC Engine, Atari 2600, ColecoVision.
  • Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, Game Gear, Atari Lynx, PSP.
• GPU-accelerated Dreamcast/NAOMI/Atomiswave, N64, Saturn and PSP.
• Your screen: each game plays on the backglass or the playfield. Vertical arcade games go to the playfield automatically.
• Every screen used:
  • box art on the backglass;
  • the game's logo on the DMD, like a marquee;
  • the controls on the playfield while you play.
• Download artwork: covers, logos and bezels for the games you have, fetched by the cabinet itself.
• Network transfer: send games from any browser on your network, protected by a PIN.
• Arcade detection:
  • each zip is checked against both arcade emulators' ROM lists;
  • genres;
  • clones and broken sets can be hidden;
  • FBNeo high scores are kept.
• Save states, an automatic resume point when you quit, disc swapping and core options.
• Button mapping: presets, or press-to-assign, per game or per system.
• BIOS check: shows which BIOS files your systems can use, whether yours are good dumps, and where each goes.
• Updates: installs new releases in place, replacing only the files that changed.

Cabinets

Made and tested on the Legends Pinball 4KP (HA9920). The HDP (HA9919) has the same chip and a known screen layout.

Please note

Retro Launcher ships no games, no BIOS files and no copyrighted artwork. Use it with games you own.

It is a fan project, not affiliated with or endorsed by AtGames, Nintendo, Sega, Sony, SNK, NEC, Atari or Coleco.

Retro Launcher's own code is GPL-3.0. Each emulator keeps its own license; their sources and versions are listed in cores/CORES.txt. Full credits are in the README.

SHA-256 of retro-launcher-v1.0.0.zip:
2de2bf3d417ceb2ad8966d5806851508ae320c2a531f39d290a0ab0e45282035

Retro Launcher v0.23.0

The first public release of Retro Launcher: a neon front-end for 21 retro systems that runs right on AtGames Legends Pinball cabinets, as an External Application (no firmware changes, no root).

Website: https://bla1ze.github.io/retro-launcher/

Install

1. Download retro-launcher-v0.23.0.zip below and unzip it. You get an external folder.
2. Copy external to the root of your cabinet's USB stick (merge it with one that's already there).
3. Start Retro Launcher from the cabinet's External Applications menu. It creates a folder for each system.
4. Add your own games to external/retro-launcher/roms/<system>/, from a computer or with Settings > Network transfer. Then run Settings > Download artwork.

Later versions install themselves: Settings > Updates.

Highlights

• 21 systems:
  • Arcade (FBNeo and MAME 2003-Plus, chosen per game), Neo Geo, NAOMI, Atomiswave.
  • NES, SNES, N64, Genesis, Master System, Saturn, Dreamcast, PlayStation, PC Engine, Atari 2600, ColecoVision.
  • Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, Game Gear, Atari Lynx, PSP.
• GPU-accelerated Dreamcast/NAOMI/Atomiswave, N64, Saturn and PSP.
• Your screen: each game plays on the backglass or the playfield. Vertical arcade games go to the playfield automatically.
• Every screen used:
  • box art on the backglass;
  • the game's logo on the DMD, like a marquee;
  • the controls on the playfield while you play.
• Download artwork: covers, logos and bezels for the games you have, fetched by the cabinet itself.
• Network transfer: send games from any browser on your network, protected by a PIN.
• Arcade detection:
  • each zip is checked against both arcade emulators' ROM lists;
  • genres;
  • clones and broken sets can be hidden;
  • FBNeo high scores are kept.
• Save states, an automatic resume point when you quit, disc swapping and core options.
• Button mapping: presets, or press-to-assign, per game or per system.
• BIOS check: shows which BIOS files your systems can use, whether yours are good dumps, and where each goes.
• Updates: installs new releases in place, replacing only the files that changed.

Cabinets

Made and tested on the Legends Pinball 4KP (HA9920). The HDP (HA9919) has the same chip and a known screen layout.

Please note

Retro Launcher ships no games, no BIOS files and no copyrighted artwork. Use it with games you own.

It is a fan project, not affiliated with or endorsed by AtGames, Nintendo, Sega, Sony, SNK, NEC, Atari or Coleco.

Retro Launcher's own code is GPL-3.0. Each emulator keeps its own license; their sources and versions are listed in cores/CORES.txt. Full credits are in the README.

SHA-256 of retro-launcher-v0.23.0.zip:
d75174fecea0365e38dfc869d3f78107cf3a015e4c51fa4423c539f013d09e4b