Leaf v0.10.1-beta.2 (Tester Build)

Warning

This is a beta test channel, not a public release.
Builds here are provided for testers only. They may be unstable, incomplete, or
change without notice. Do not run them as your everyday setup, and please do not
redistribute them. For a stable, supported version, install the latest release
from the main Leaf repo:
https://github.com/Utility-Muffin-Research-Kitchen/Leaf/releases/latest

---

What's new in v0.10.1-beta.2

This build lets every home layout use either flat or photographic system artwork,
fixes stuck directions during rapid D-pad reversals in DraStic, and stops unnecessary
controller forwarding and calibration logging while standalone emulators are active.
It also includes all fixes and features introduced in beta.1.

Added in beta.2

Pick flat or photographic system icons

• Settings > Appearance > Layout > System Icons now offers Automatic, Flat,
  and Photographic independently of the selected home layout.
• Automatic preserves the existing behavior: Tabs use flat artwork and Cover Flow uses
  photographic artwork. An explicit choice persists across layout changes and relaunches.
• Per-system Roms/<SYSTEM>/icon.png overrides still take priority. Systems without a
  photographic asset safely fall back to the flat pack.

DraStic D-pad reversals no longer stick

• DraStic now releases the previous direction when the D-pad jumps directly to its
  opposite direction without a neutral event in between.
• This fixes unwanted continued steering or movement during fast left/right and up/down
  reversals, including the reported Mario Kart drift case.

Cleaner standalone-emulator input monitoring

• While a standalone emulator is active, Jawaka's watch-only input mode no longer tries
  to forward events through a virtual controller that is intentionally absent.
• Unused stick-calibration sampling is also skipped in that mode, preventing repeated
  bad-file-descriptor and calibration messages without affecting Menu hotkey monitoring.

Included from beta.1

Amiga joins the library

• Put Amiga games in Roms/AMIGA. Leaf supports floppy, hard-disk, CD, WHDLoad,
  archive, and manual .m3u playlist formats through the packaged PUAE 2021 core.
  The newer core is the default; full PUAE remains available from the Core menu.
• Put user-supplied Kickstart firmware under BIOS/puae. Leaf does not include
  proprietary firmware.
• Multi-disk .m3u games appear as one library entry while their member files stay
  available to RetroArch's disk controls. ZIP and 7z packages pass through intact.
• Amiga has dedicated launcher and Central Scrutinizer cards, normal and Cover Flow
  artwork, safe ROM/BIOS upload routing, and ordered ScreenScraper matching for Amiga,
  AGA, CDTV, and CD32 content.

RetroArch settings survive normal and forced exits

• Ordinary settings changed in the RetroArch app now save back to Leaf's durable
  configuration after Quit, launcher restart, reboot, and other managed shutdowns.
• Leaf hides RetroArch's unsupported alternate-configuration menu, keeps its per-launch
  working copy private, and replaces the durable configuration atomically so a failed
  save cannot truncate the last good copy.
• Launcher shutdown now gives RetroArch time to save before cleaning up verified
  stragglers. A normal boot no longer waits through the former fixed one-second delay.

Select is a game button again

• RetroArch no longer reserves Select as its hotkey modifier or combines it with
  Start to exit. Existing shared configurations are healed automatically.
• Holding Select no longer blocks the D-pad or other core input, fixing hold-to-act
  controls such as the warp action in Goodboy Galaxy.
• Leaf's Menu button still opens the in-game menu, and the existing Menu chords for
  screenshots, recording, brightness, and game switching remain in place.

Faster, more dependable launcher input

• Short D-pad presses are no longer swallowed when a slow frame queues a release and
  the next press together. The input daemon also wakes immediately for physical
  controller activity instead of forwarding a quick press and release as one batch.
• Animated list text now reuses cached glyphs instead of rerendering every color step.
• Cover Flow loads system and app images through the background worker, uses smaller
  runtime icons, and starts sooner while thumbnails stream in.
• PC-98, Atomiswave, and Naomi use photographic Cover Flow renders consistent with the
  rest of the carousel.

Simplified Chinese in Thing-File

Leaf passes its language to launched apps. Thing-File follows that setting, ships a
fully reviewed Simplified Chinese interface, and reuses Leaf's shared CJK font for both
translated controls and Chinese or Japanese filenames.

Tester focus

• System icons: exercise Automatic, Flat, and Photographic under both Tabs and Cover
  Flow. Confirm the choice updates immediately, survives relaunches, respects a
  Roms/<SYSTEM>/icon.png override, and falls back cleanly for missing artwork.
• DraStic: rapidly reverse each D-pad axis, move through diagonals, and repeat the
  reported Mario Kart steering case. Confirm no direction remains held after release.
• Standalone input monitoring: exercise DraStic, PPSSPP, N64, and Flycast sessions
  with stick movement and Menu hotkeys. Confirm hotkeys still work and Jawaka's logs do
  not accumulate bad-file-descriptor or calibration-measure messages.
• Beta.1 regressions: recheck Amiga launch and persistence, RetroArch settings after
  exit/restart, held Select input, short launcher D-pad taps, Cover Flow artwork, and
  Thing-File in Simplified Chinese.

This beta includes everything in stable Leaf v0.10.0.

Already running a compatible Leaf install? Open System Update, set Update Channel
to Beta, then check for and install the update.

For a fresh install, extract leaf-mlp1-sd-v0.10.1-beta.2.zip to the root of a FAT32
or ext4 SD card and boot with it inserted. Your games, saves, and states are left alone.

Leaf v0.10.1-beta.1 (Tester Build)

Warning

This is a beta test channel, not a public release.
Builds here are provided for testers only. They may be unstable, incomplete, or
change without notice. Do not run them as your everyday setup, and please do not
redistribute them. For a stable, supported version, install the latest release
from the main Leaf repo:
https://github.com/Utility-Muffin-Research-Kitchen/Leaf/releases/latest

---

What's new in v0.10.1-beta.1

This build adds first-class Amiga support, makes RetroArch settings and shutdowns
more reliable, restores Select as a normal game button, and improves controller input,
Cover Flow startup, and Simplified Chinese app support.

Amiga joins the library

• Put Amiga games in Roms/AMIGA. Leaf supports floppy, hard-disk, CD, WHDLoad,
  archive, and manual .m3u playlist formats through the packaged PUAE 2021 core.
  The newer core is the default; full PUAE remains available from the Core menu.
• Put user-supplied Kickstart firmware under BIOS/puae. Leaf does not include
  proprietary firmware.
• Multi-disk .m3u games appear as one library entry while their member files stay
  available to RetroArch's disk controls. ZIP and 7z packages pass through intact.
• Amiga has dedicated launcher and Central Scrutinizer cards, normal and Cover Flow
  artwork, safe ROM/BIOS upload routing, and ordered ScreenScraper matching for Amiga,
  AGA, CDTV, and CD32 content.

RetroArch settings survive normal and forced exits

• Ordinary settings changed in the RetroArch app now save back to Leaf's durable
  configuration after Quit, launcher restart, reboot, and other managed shutdowns.
• Leaf hides RetroArch's unsupported alternate-configuration menu, keeps its per-launch
  working copy private, and replaces the durable configuration atomically so a failed
  save cannot truncate the last good copy.
• Launcher shutdown now gives RetroArch time to save before cleaning up verified
  stragglers. A normal boot no longer waits through the former fixed one-second delay.

Select is a game button again

• RetroArch no longer reserves Select as its hotkey modifier or combines it with
  Start to exit. Existing shared configurations are healed automatically.
• Holding Select no longer blocks the D-pad or other core input, fixing hold-to-act
  controls such as the warp action in Goodboy Galaxy.
• Leaf's Menu button still opens the in-game menu, and the existing Menu chords for
  screenshots, recording, brightness, and game switching remain in place.

Faster, more dependable launcher input

• Short D-pad presses are no longer swallowed when a slow frame queues a release and
  the next press together. The input daemon also wakes immediately for physical
  controller activity instead of forwarding a quick press and release as one batch.
• Animated list text now reuses cached glyphs instead of rerendering every color step.
• Cover Flow loads system and app images through the background worker, uses smaller
  runtime icons, and starts sooner while thumbnails stream in.
• PC-98, Atomiswave, and Naomi now use photographic Cover Flow renders consistent with
  the rest of the carousel.

Simplified Chinese in Thing-File

Leaf now passes its language to launched apps. Thing-File follows that setting, ships a
fully reviewed Simplified Chinese interface, and reuses Leaf's shared CJK font for both
translated controls and Chinese or Japanese filenames.

Tester focus

• Amiga: test A500 floppy, AGA/WHDLoad, multi-disk .m3u, mouse, CDTV, and CD32
  content. Exercise disk controls, saves, states, NVRAM, timing, scraping, and reboot
  persistence with legally supplied firmware under BIOS/puae.
• Central Scrutinizer: upload representative Amiga ROM, archive, playlist, and BIOS
  files; confirm their destinations and that unsupported content leaves no partial file.
• RetroArch settings: change an ordinary setting in the RetroArch app, then test Quit,
  Leaf restart, reboot, and a forced close. Confirm the setting survives and no stale
  RetroArch process remains.
• Select and Menu: hold Select in several cores, confirm Start alone never exits, and
  exercise the in-game menu, screenshot, recording, brightness, and game-switcher chords.
• Input and Cover Flow: hammer short D-pad taps in an art-heavy library and watch for
  missed movement, stutter, blank icons, or late image corruption.
• Thing-File: switch Leaf between English and Simplified Chinese, browse CJK filenames,
  and check long dialogs and first/last-item selection.

This beta includes everything in stable Leaf v0.10.0.

Already running a compatible Leaf install? Open System Update, set Update Channel
to Beta, then check for and install the update.

For a fresh install, extract leaf-mlp1-sd-v0.10.1-beta.1.zip to the root of a FAT32
or ext4 SD card and boot with it inserted. Your games, saves, and states are left alone.

Leaf v0.10.0-beta.8 (Tester Build)

Warning

This is a beta test channel, not a public release.
Builds here are provided for testers only. They may be unstable, incomplete, or
change without notice. Do not run them as your everyday setup, and please do not
redistribute them. For a stable, supported version, install the latest release
from the main Leaf repo:
https://github.com/Utility-Muffin-Research-Kitchen/Leaf/releases/latest

---

What's new in v0.10.0-beta.8

This build adds first-class PC-98, Atomiswave, and Naomi libraries, makes Chinese game
search work with pinyin initials, and finishes translating launcher and 5-Game Mode
controls that could still appear in English.

Added in beta.8

PC-98 is now a packaged system

• Put games in Roms/PC98. Leaf uses the packaged Neko Project II Kai core and
  supports the common PC-98 disk and hard-disk formats, ZIP pass-through, save states,
  and RetroArch's disk controls.
• Put the text font at BIOS/np2kai/font.bmp or BIOS/np2kai/FONT.ROM. Optional
  np2kai firmware and rhythm samples belong in that same folder.
• The handheld controls default to np2kai's Arrows keyboard mode, so Start can answer
  Return prompts. Mouse, keypad, manual keyboard, and Atari joypad modes remain available
  in core options.
• Multi-disk games can use a one-line UTF-8 .cmd file. Jawaka shows the command once,
  mounts its referenced disks in order, and hides only those dependent disk entries.

Atomiswave and the Naomi family join Flycast

• Put Atomiswave content in Roms/ATOMISWAVE and Naomi, Naomi GD-ROM, and Naomi 2
  content together in Roms/NAOMI. Standalone Flycast is the default; RetroArch
  Flycast remains an alternate.
• Keep the required user-supplied BIOS archives under BIOS/dc: awbios.zip,
  naomi.zip, naomi2.zip, and any game-specific Naomi archive Flycast requires.
• ZIP arcade sets and their dependent CHDs stay intact. Jawaka presents one launch entry
  with a friendly title while leaving the fixed Flycast filenames unchanged.
• On the built-in controls, Select inserts a coin, L2/R2 remain Dreamcast's analog
  triggers, and arcade buttons 1 through 6 use A/B/L1/X/Y/R1. Cabinet Service/Test,
  Insert Card, and optional buttons 7/8 are not assigned on the handheld.
• PC-98, Atomiswave, and Naomi have distinct launcher and Central Scrutinizer cards,
  canonical upload folders, and system-aware ScreenScraper lookup.

Search Chinese titles by pinyin initials

With Leaf set to Simplified Chinese, Search now accepts the initials of a Chinese
game name. For example, CJMLA can find 超级马里奥. Normal name search and direct
Chinese-character search continue to work, and this extra matching stays disabled in
other languages.

The last launcher controls are translated

The remaining English in 5-Game Mode setup and unlock screens, power confirmations,
launcher tool menus, and system-return actions now goes through Leaf's translation
catalog. This includes the Pick 5 Games flow, PIN prompts, reconnect action, and button
hints.

Included from beta.7

Simplified Chinese is essentially complete across Leaf's interface

beta.7 translated and reviewed the values on the right-hand side of Settings rows that
were still English:

• Appearance: color names, list styles, font sizes, tab switching, and the whole
  Status Bar page including visibility, clock formats, and battery styles
• Lighting: every effect name
• Display & Sound: audio outputs, HDMI states, and black frame insertion
• Network: connection, signal, and IP lines
• Game Art: the Scrape Queue, its row states and filters, and priority settings
• Options: Display Name, Core, and the rest of a game or system's Options page
• The empty Favorites and Recents messages

Coverage of Leaf's own interface rose from 68 percent to 83 percent. Most text left in
English is intentional: console names, product names such as Leaf and RetroArch, clock
speeds, and aspect ratios.

beta.7 also retained beta.6's immediate input after wake, 5-Game Mode resuming the last
RetroArch save, smoother motion in long lists, and favoriting a game from search results.

Tester focus

• PC-98: try direct and multi-disk .cmd launches, verify Japanese text renders from
  BIOS/np2kai, exercise controls and disk switching, then save/load and exit cleanly.
• Atomiswave/Naomi: try standalone and RetroArch Flycast, including a Naomi GD-ROM if
  available; verify Coin, all used action buttons, Dreamcast triggers, saves, and return
  to Leaf.
• Library management: confirm all three cards and icons in Central Scrutinizer, test
  accepted and rejected uploads, scrape representative artwork, and check persistence
  after reboot.
• Chinese search: search several Chinese game names using initials, mixed spacing, and
  Chinese characters. Report wrong matches or missing common characters.
• Chinese UI: walk through Pick 5 Games, PIN unlock, power confirmation, and the tools
  menu. Report English that is not an intentional product, console, or technical name.

Already running a compatible Leaf install? Open System Update, set Update Channel
to Beta, then check for and install the update.

For a fresh install, extract leaf-mlp1-sd-v0.10.0-beta.8.zip to the root of a FAT32 or
ext4 SD card and boot with it inserted. Your games, saves, and states are left alone.

Leaf v0.10.0-beta.7 (Tester Build)

Warning

This is a beta test build, not a public release. It is provided for testers
only and may be unstable, incomplete, or change without notice. Do not run it as
your everyday setup, and please do not redistribute it. For a stable, supported
version, install the latest release from the main Leaf repo:
https://github.com/Utility-Muffin-Research-Kitchen/Leaf/releases/latest

---

What's new in v0.10.0-beta.7

Simplified Chinese is now essentially complete across Leaf's own interface.

The English that was left in Settings is gone

beta.6 fixed the pages that stayed English because the code never looked their
translations up. That work uncovered a lot of text which had never made it into the
translation file at all, so it could not have been translated even in principle.

Those strings have now been translated and reviewed. In practice that means the values on
the right-hand side of Settings rows, which were the most visible gap:

• Appearance: color names, list styles, font sizes, tab switching, and the whole
  Status Bar page including Visible, Hidden, the clock formats and battery styles
• Lighting: every effect name
• Display & Sound: audio outputs, the HDMI states, black frame insertion
• Network: the connection, signal and IP lines
• Game Art: the Scrape Queue, its row states and filters, and the priority settings
• Options: Display Name, Core, and the rest of a game or system's Options page
• The empty Favorites and Recents messages

Coverage of Leaf's own interface goes from 68 percent to 83 percent. Almost everything
still in English is meant to be: console names, product names like Leaf and RetroArch,
clock speeds and aspect ratios.

Everything from beta.6 is still here

The device waking without the input stall, 5-Game Mode resuming your last save, smoother
motion in long lists, and favoriting a game from search results.

Testing notes

If you read Chinese, this is the build to look at. Worth reporting:

• Anything that reads wrong in place. A word can be correct in a list and wrong in its
  row. This is the most useful thing you can tell us and the hardest for us to find.
• Text that overflows or is cut off. Chinese is denser than English and some of these
  values sit in tight rows on the right-hand side.
• English where you would not expect it. A row's left-hand label is more likely to be
  a real miss than the value beside it.

Expected, not faults: console names, product names, clock speeds and aspect ratios stay in
Latin script on purpose. The standalone emulators other than PPSSPP are still English, as
are RetroArch's own deeper menus.

Installing

Already running a compatible Leaf install? Open System Update, set Update Channel
to Beta, then check for and install the update.

For a fresh install, extract leaf-mlp1-sd-v0.10.0-beta.7.zip to the root of a FAT32 or
ext4 SD card and boot with it inserted. Your games, saves and states are left alone.

Leaf v0.10.0-beta.6 (Tester Build)

Warning

This is a beta test build, not a public release. It is provided for testers
only and may be unstable, incomplete, or change without notice. Do not run it as
your everyday setup, and please do not redistribute it. For a stable, supported
version, install the latest release from the main Leaf repo:
https://github.com/Utility-Muffin-Research-Kitchen/Leaf/releases/latest

---

What's new in v0.10.0-beta.6

Faster to wake, quicker back into a game, smoother to move around, and a first pass at the
Chinese strings that were never being translated.

The device wakes up properly now

Coming back from sleep used to leave the screen lit and the buttons dead for several
seconds. That was the launcher waiting on the SD card: it sat in a loop for up to five
seconds checking the card had remounted, before it would look at input again.

It now does that work in the background. The screen and the controls come back together.

If you had learned to wait a beat after waking the device, you can stop.

5-Game Mode picks up where you left off

Launching a game from 5-Game Mode now resumes your last save instead of starting from
the title screen. Recents has worked this way for a while; focus mode was still cold
starting every time.

It matters most here, because those few games are the whole device and whoever is using it
is the least likely to want to navigate a title screen and a load menu to get back to
where they were.

A game you have never played still starts normally, so nothing to set up. This applies to
RetroArch games. PSP, DS, Dreamcast and N64 run their own emulators and still start fresh.

Moving around is smoother

Holding a direction in a list now glides rather than stepping, and the highlight follows
the selection instead of snapping to it. Most noticeable when running down a long game
list.

Favorite a game from search

Press Y on a search result to favorite it, the same as anywhere else. Previously you
had to find the game again in its system to do that.

Chinese: the strings that were never being looked up

Several Settings pages stayed in English no matter what, and it was not a translation
problem. The translations existed and shipped on the card; the code was drawing the
labels without ever asking for them.

Colors, Layout and Status Bar in Appearance now read in Chinese, along with the Status
Bar rows underneath. Wi-Fi was also misspelled as "Wifi" in one place, which had
quietly turned it into two separate entries to translate.

Expect to still see English in places. Fixing the above uncovered a lot of text that
had never made it into the translation file at all, so it could not have been translated
even in principle: the Lighting effect names, the Scrape Queue, most values on the
right-hand side of Settings rows, and the empty Favorites and Recents messages. Those are
now collected and with our reviewer.

Please do not report untranslated English strings in this build. We have a list, it is
long, and it is being worked through. What is worth reporting is anything that reads
wrong rather than merely English, or English text in a place you would expect us to have
caught, especially the left-hand label of a row rather than its value.

Console names stay in Latin script on purpose, as do product names like Leaf and
RetroArch.

Everything from beta.5 is still here

PPSSPP in Chinese, the charger no longer wrecking your brightness, RAOfflineProxy as an
optional Pak Rat app, quicker RetroArch launches, unlimited same-core game switching, and
everything before that.

Testing notes

Most useful this round:

• Wake the device from sleep repeatedly and see whether input is ready when the screen
  is. Try it right after a game, and after it has been asleep a long while.
• 5-Game Mode: play a game, exit through the in-game menu, then launch it again from
  focus mode and check it resumes. Then launch one you have never played and check it
  starts normally.
• Long lists: hold a direction and see whether the motion reads smoothly, or
  overshoots.
• Search, then Y on a result, and check it appears in Favorites.
• If you read Chinese, the Appearance pages are the ones to look at.

Expected, not faults: untranslated English in Settings values, the Lighting effect names,
the Scrape Queue columns, and console names. All known.

Installing

Already running a compatible Leaf install? Open System Update, set Update Channel
to Beta, then check for and install the update.

For a fresh install, extract leaf-mlp1-sd-v0.10.0-beta.6.zip to the root of a FAT32 or
ext4 SD card and boot with it inserted. Your games, saves and states are left alone.

Leaf v0.10.0-beta.5 (Tester Build)

Warning

This is a beta test build, not a public release. It is provided for testers
only and may be unstable, incomplete, or change without notice. Do not run it as
your everyday setup, and please do not redistribute it. For a stable, supported
version, install the latest release from the main Leaf repo:
https://github.com/Utility-Muffin-Research-Kitchen/Leaf/releases/latest

---

What's new in v0.10.0-beta.5

A small, focused build: PSP games speak Chinese, and the charger no longer throws your
screen brightness away.

PPSSPP follows your language

Set Leaf to 中文 and PPSSPP follows, the same way RetroArch already did. Its
menus, settings and pause screen come up in Simplified Chinese, and setting Leaf back to
English brings PPSSPP back with it. You never set it in two places.

If you want Leaf in one language and PPSSPP in another, set it inside PPSSPP's own
settings. Leaf notices you have chosen for yourself and stops changing it from then on,
so your choice survives launches and updates.

PPSSPP could not draw Chinese, Japanese or Korean at all

This was a real bug on every device, in English builds too, and it had been there the
whole time.

Open PPSSPP's own Settings > System > Language on any earlier build and scroll to the
bottom. Every language whose name is not written in Latin letters, so Chinese, Japanese
and Korean among others, showed as a row of empty boxes. PPSSPP names each language in
its own script and had no font on hand that could draw those characters, so it drew
nothing. Chinese could not even be picked, because its own name was one of the boxes.

That is fixed, and the same fix covers Chinese and Japanese text anywhere else in
PPSSPP's interface.

Which emulators follow Leaf, and which do not

Not every standalone emulator can do this, and the reasons differ:

• PPSSPP follows Leaf, as of this build.
• DraStic is only ever offered in Traditional Chinese, the one translation it
  ships. Rather than switch a Simplified reader into the wrong script, Leaf leaves it in
  English.
• Flycast and the N64 emulator carry no Chinese at all.

The charger no longer wrecks your brightness

Run the screen dim, plug in the charger, and the brightness used to jump to a much
brighter fixed level and stay there, even after unplugging. Getting your setting back
meant going into Settings and putting it there by hand, every time.

Plugging in now nudges the screen only as far as it has to, to the dimmest level the
hardware will hold while charging, and unplugging puts your own setting straight back.

The floor itself is enforced below Leaf, in the stock firmware, and cannot be switched
off. Leaf cooperates with it rather than fighting it, which is why the screen still gets
slightly brighter when you plug in instead of staying exactly where you left it. That
part is expected. Losing your setting entirely was not.

Everything from beta.4 is still here

RAOfflineProxy as an optional Pak Rat app, quicker RetroArch launches, unlimited
same-core game switching, and everything before it: Simplified Chinese, localized
RetroArch menus, multiple wireless controllers, Video From Hell and Syncthing.

Testing notes

PPSSPP has a lot of newly visible text, none of which anyone has been able to read until
now. Worth reporting:

• Anything that reads oddly in place. The PSP menus were translated upstream, not by
  the reviewer who checked Leaf's own strings, so this is their first real look.
• Text that overflows or gets cut off. Chinese is denser than English and PPSSPP's
  rows were laid out for Latin text.
• Any remaining boxes in PPSSPP, on any screen. Report the screen you saw them on,
  ideally with a photo.
• Switching Leaf between 中文 and English and launching a PSP game each time, to
  check PPSSPP followed both ways.
• Setting a language inside PPSSPP yourself, then launching again, and confirming
  Leaf left your choice alone.

On brightness:

• Plugging and unplugging the charger with brightness set very low, and whether your
  own level comes back on unplug.
• The same across a reboot, and while a game is running rather than at the launcher.

Expected, not faults: the screen still brightens slightly when you plug in at a very low
level, since that floor is stock firmware and Leaf only keeps the change as small as it
can. A screen that goes dark while charging and returns on a button press is standby, not
brightness, and is unchanged here. DraStic, Flycast and the N64 emulator stay English.

Installing

Already running a compatible Leaf install? Open System Update, set Update Channel
to Beta, then check for and install the update.

For a fresh install, extract leaf-mlp1-sd-v0.10.0-beta.5.zip to the root of a FAT32 or
ext4 SD card and boot with it inserted. Your games, saves and states are left alone.

Leaf v0.10.0-beta.4 (Tester Build)

Warning

This is a beta test channel, not a public release.
Builds here are provided for testers only. They may be unstable, incomplete, or
change without notice. Do not run them as your everyday setup, and please do not
redistribute them. For a stable, supported version, install the latest release
from the main Leaf repo:
https://github.com/Utility-Muffin-Research-Kitchen/Leaf/releases/latest

What's new in v0.10.0-beta.4

beta.4 adds an experimental, optional offline-achievement bridge for prepared casual RetroArch games, removes the arbitrary cap on same-core game switching, and makes a few long-session launch and refresh paths more reliable. It retains everything introduced in beta.3: Simplified Chinese, localized RetroArch menus, multiple wireless controllers, Video From Hell, and Syncthing.

Experimental offline RetroAchievements (optional)

RAOfflineProxy is now available as a Pak Rat-owned optional app. It is not bundled with Leaf or put on the SD card by this release.

• Install it from Pak Rat when you want to test it, then use a previously prepared game in casual RetroArch mode.
• When the service is running and healthy, Leaf uses it for the game session. Hardcore sessions always bypass the proxy and launch normally.
• If the optional service is absent or not running, RetroArch launches normally without waiting. If it was expected but is unhealthy, Leaf gives you a clear choice to play without achievements or cancel and fix the service.

This is intentionally experimental and casual-only. Please test the ready, stopped, and unhealthy-service paths, and confirm Hardcore behavior stays direct.

Quicker, uninterrupted RetroArch sessions

• RetroArch launch configuration generation is faster, especially once a device has accumulated a larger configuration.
• The resident launcher no longer stops same-core content switching after an arbitrary experiment-era limit. Switch between several games using the same core and report any return-to-menu, save, or controller issues.

Service and UI polish

• Syncthing’s opt-in background launch behavior is restored.
• Timed setting rows request their next redraw promptly after an update, keeping live values responsive instead of idling until the next scheduled refresh.

Testing focus for beta.4

• Install RAOfflineProxy through Pak Rat. In casual mode, test a prepared game while the service is healthy; then stop or break the service and check the direct-launch fallback and its prompt. Verify Hardcore never routes through it.
• In RetroArch, switch repeatedly between games sharing a core. Confirm input, saves, return-to-menu behavior, and subsequent launches stay sound.
• Start several RetroArch games after changing settings. Confirm the quicker launch path does not lose per-game settings, controller assignments, or recording support.

Included from beta.3

What's new in v0.10.0-beta.3

Leaf speaks Chinese, RetroArch does now too, wireless controllers arrived, and there are two new apps to try.

Simplified Chinese is here

Go to Settings > General > Language and choose 简体中文. Leaf now has 275 reviewed, native-speaker-translated strings across every screen, dialog, setting, and first-boot page.

The Chinese option switches Leaf's typeface automatically and keeps it locked to a font that can show every character cleanly. You do not need to hunt for a font or worry that a system name will turn into boxes.

Chinese and Japanese game names in your library now render correctly too.

RetroArch follows your language

RetroArch now uses Leaf's bundled menu assets and fonts. Switch Leaf to Chinese and RetroArch's menus follow. Core options, overlays, and translated menu text are in place instead of falling back to an unthemed default.

Multiple wireless controllers

Up to four Bluetooth controllers can now join a session. Leaf remembers which player each controller belongs to, shows the controller name, and keeps the built-in controls as Player 1.

Xbox controllers get their own button labels so the prompts match what is printed on the pad. Player order is maintained through RetroArch, including multitap games.

Two new optional Pak Rat apps

Video From Hell is a native video player for your MLP1. Drop supported videos on the card, open it from Pak Rat, and it plays them with hardware decoding. It is still early: start with a couple of files and tell us what works and what does not.

Syncthing brings peer-to-peer file sync to the device. It stays asleep unless you enable it from Pak Rat, then starts in the background when Leaf launches. This is not a backup service: use it for copies you can replace, and keep a real backup somewhere else.

Testing notes

Try Chinese in Leaf and RetroArch. Check long game titles, dialogs, the first-boot flow, and switching back to English. Let us know about any clipped text, missing characters, or screens that stayed in the wrong language.

Pair two or more controllers and check player order, Xbox prompts, disconnect/reconnect behavior, and a multitap game if you have one. The usual handheld-with-two-controllers setup is not a multitap game, so it is normal for it to show three players rather than four.

Open Video From Hell with a few formats and report the file, resolution, and behavior for anything that fails. For Syncthing, enable it, reboot Leaf, and make sure it appears only after you asked for it.

Expected, not faults

• Translated system names are shown in the small bottom text.
• Volume and brightness overlays remain in English for now.
• With the handheld plus two controllers, Player 3 is expected unless the game uses multitap.

Installing

Follow the usual beta update or fresh-install instructions for v0.10.0-beta.4. As always, keep your saves safe before experimenting.

Leaf v0.10.0-beta.3 (Tester Build)

Warning

This is a beta test build, not a public release. It is provided for testers
only and may be unstable, incomplete, or change without notice. Do not run it as
your everyday setup, and please do not redistribute it. For a stable, supported
version, install the latest release from the main Leaf repo:
https://github.com/Utility-Muffin-Research-Kitchen/Leaf/releases/latest

---

What's new in v0.10.0-beta.3

Leaf speaks Chinese, RetroArch does now too, wireless controllers arrived, and there are
two new apps.

简体中文 - Simplified Chinese

Leaf's interface is now available in Simplified Chinese. Go to Settings > General >
Language and pick 中文. Leaf restarts, about a second, and comes back translated.
Pick English the same way to go back.

The translation was written and reviewed by a native speaker from the community, not
machine-translated and shipped. Around 275 strings are covered: menus, settings, dialogs,
button hints, the in-game menu, and status messages.

Some things stay in English on purpose. Game names come from your files and the
scraper, so Leaf never rewrites them. Console names stay in Latin script, which is how
Chinese players write them too, though the arcade category is translated. Product and
app names keep their names since those are what you would search for when asking for
help. RetroArch's own menus now follow along too, covered below.

The interface switches to a font that can draw Chinese, since none of the nine Leaf fonts
carry those characters. That is why the Font row is locked while Chinese is active;
your chosen font returns when you switch back.

Chinese text is lighter than it was. Native speakers said it read too heavy, and they
were right: Leaf thickens every font a little for legibility on a small screen, which
suits Latin but closes up characters that already pack a lot of strokes into one square.
Chinese is now drawn at its true weight. Tell us if it has gone too far the other way,
especially in the smaller text.

Chinese and Japanese game names

This one works in any language, including English. A game file named in Chinese or
Japanese, a fan translation for example, used to show as empty boxes. It now renders
correctly everywhere titles appear.

RetroArch has a new menu, in your language

Open the RetroArch menu in a game and it looks nothing like it used to. It was a plain
green-on-black text grid drawing from a built-in bitmap font. It now has icons, readable
type and a proper theme.

The reason is worth knowing, because it explains the rest. Leaf ships RetroArch's real
asset set for the first time: icons, TrueType fonts, and a font that can draw Chinese and
Japanese. The old menu could not use any of it. The new one can, and that same font is
what lets RetroArch show Chinese at all.

So RetroArch follows Leaf's language. Set Leaf to 中文 and RetroArch's menus are
Chinese the next time you launch a game. Set Leaf back to English and they come back. You
never set it in two places, and there is no way to strand yourself in a language you
cannot read your way out of.

Multiple controllers

Wireless controllers now play alongside the Pocket 1's own controls, up to four players:
three controllers plus the handheld. Pair one under Settings > Bluetooth. The Xbox
Wireless Controller is the one we test against, and other controllers SDL recognizes
generally work, but treat those as best effort.

Controllers take the first player slots in the order they connected, and the handheld is
always the last player. Handing someone a controller should make them player 2, not
demote whoever is holding the device. Player order is decided when the game starts, so
connect everyone before you launch.

The Xbox button now does what the Pocket 1's Menu button does. It opens the Leaf
menu over your game, and the menus inside PPSSPP, DraStic, Flycast and the N64 emulator.
Whoever is holding a controller can reach the menu without asking for the device back.

One thing that looks like a bug and is not. Most of these consoles only ever had two
controller ports, so with two controllers connected the handheld is player 3 and seems
dead. That needs the console's multitap switched on in RetroArch, per game, and Leaf
deliberately does not do it for you since plenty of games misbehave with one plugged in.
Disconnect a controller and the handheld becomes player 2 again straight away. The full
explanation is at https://leaf.game/guide/controllers/.

This is the newest and least proven thing in the build, and we already know it has rough
edges. Please be rough with it.

Two new apps

Neither of these ships on the card. Install them on-device: press Menu, open
Actions > Pak Rat, and pick them from the list. They install over Wi-Fi and turn up in
your Apps tab.

Video From Hell plays video on the handheld, including the gameplay you record with
Menu + R1. H.264 and HEVC decode on the MLP1's video hardware rather than the CPU, so
1080p plays comfortably without flattening the battery. With two SD cards it merges the
Videos folder from each into one library, and it remembers where you stopped.

Syncthing keeps a card's game saves in sync with your other machines: another Leaf, a
computer, a NAS, a home server, or an Android handheld. Leaf handles the awkward parts,
binding folders to physical cards, pausing sync while a game has its files open, and
following a card whose mount point moves after a reboot. Start with saves; states also
work but are less portable.

Worth saying plainly, because it is the mistake that costs you a save file: Syncthing is
not a backup. A deleted or damaged file syncs everywhere. Keep real backups, or turn
on file versioning on whatever always-on machine you sync against.

Details: https://leaf.game/app-store/video-from-hell/ and
https://leaf.game/app-store/syncthing/.

Testing notes

The Chinese translation has been reviewed on a flat list but not yet walked through on
the device, which is where context problems show up. Worth reporting:

• Anything that reads oddly in place. A word can be correct in a list and wrong in its
  row.
• Text that overflows or gets cut off. Chinese is denser than English and some rows
  are tight.
• Anything still in English that you would expect translated. Some of that is
  deliberate, above, but not all of it.
• Switching back and forth between 中文 and English a few times.

On the RetroArch menu:

• Switching Leaf between 中文 and English, launching a game each time, and checking
  RetroArch followed.
• Any missing or boxy characters in the Chinese menus. Report the screen you saw them
  on, ideally with a photo.
• Menu size and theme. Leaf now sets both. Say so if they read badly on the panel.

On controllers, the useful things to try:

• Pairing, then power cycling the controller and the handheld, and whether it comes
  back on its own.
• Player order with one and with two controllers, and that the handheld keeps the
  last slot rather than losing one.
• The Xbox button reaching the menu in RetroArch games and in PPSSPP, DraStic,
  Flycast and N64.
• Controllers other than an Xbox pad, which are the least tested case of all.

Expected, not faults: translated system names sort to the bottom of the Games list, the
on-screen volume and brightness flashes stay English, and the handheld going quiet as
player 3 when two controllers are connected without a multitap.

Installing

Already running a compatible Leaf install? Open System Update, set Update Channel
to Beta, then check for and install the update.

For a fresh install, extract leaf-mlp1-sd-v0.10.0-beta.3.zip to the root of a FAT32 or
ext4 SD card and boot with it inserted. Your games, saves and states are left alone.

Leaf v0.10.0-beta.2 (Tester Build)

Warning

This is a beta test build, not a public release. It is provided for testers
only and may be unstable, incomplete, or change without notice. Do not run it as
your everyday setup, and please do not redistribute it. For a stable, supported
version, install the latest release from the main Leaf repo:
https://github.com/Utility-Muffin-Research-Kitchen/Leaf/releases/latest

---

What's new in v0.10.0-beta.2

Leaf speaks Chinese, RetroArch does now too, wireless controllers arrived, and there are
two new apps.

简体中文 - Simplified Chinese

Leaf's interface is now available in Simplified Chinese. Go to Settings > General >
Language and pick 中文. Leaf restarts, about a second, and comes back translated.
Pick English the same way to go back.

The translation was written and reviewed by a native speaker from the community, not
machine-translated and shipped. Around 275 strings are covered: menus, settings, dialogs,
button hints, the in-game menu, and status messages.

Some things stay in English on purpose. Game names come from your files and the
scraper, so Leaf never rewrites them. Console names stay in Latin script, which is how
Chinese players write them too, though the arcade category is translated. Product and
app names keep their names since those are what you would search for when asking for
help. RetroArch's own menus now follow along too, covered below.

The interface switches to a font that can draw Chinese, since none of the nine Leaf fonts
carry those characters. That is why the Font row is locked while Chinese is active;
your chosen font returns when you switch back.

Chinese and Japanese game names

This one works in any language, including English. A game file named in Chinese or
Japanese, a fan translation for example, used to show as empty boxes. It now renders
correctly everywhere titles appear.

RetroArch has a new menu, in your language

Open the RetroArch menu in a game and it looks nothing like it used to. It was a plain
green-on-black text grid drawing from a built-in bitmap font. It now has icons, readable
type and a proper theme.

The reason is worth knowing, because it explains the rest. Leaf ships RetroArch's real
asset set for the first time: icons, TrueType fonts, and a font that can draw Chinese and
Japanese. The old menu could not use any of it. The new one can, and that same font is
what lets RetroArch show Chinese at all.

So RetroArch follows Leaf's language. Set Leaf to 中文 and RetroArch's menus are
Chinese the next time you launch a game. Set Leaf back to English and they come back. You
never set it in two places, and there is no way to strand yourself in a language you
cannot read your way out of.

Multiple controllers

Wireless controllers now play alongside the Pocket 1's own controls, up to four players:
three controllers plus the handheld. Pair one under Settings > Bluetooth. The Xbox
Wireless Controller is the one we test against, and other controllers SDL recognizes
generally work, but treat those as best effort.

Controllers take the first player slots in the order they connected, and the handheld is
always the last player. Handing someone a controller should make them player 2, not
demote whoever is holding the device. Player order is decided when the game starts, so
connect everyone before you launch.

The Xbox button now does what the Pocket 1's Menu button does. It opens the Leaf
menu over your game, and the menus inside PPSSPP, DraStic, Flycast and the N64 emulator.
Whoever is holding a controller can reach the menu without asking for the device back.

One thing that looks like a bug and is not. Most of these consoles only ever had two
controller ports, so with two controllers connected the handheld is player 3 and seems
dead. That needs the console's multitap switched on in RetroArch, per game, and Leaf
deliberately does not do it for you since plenty of games misbehave with one plugged in.
Disconnect a controller and the handheld becomes player 2 again straight away. The full
explanation is at https://leaf.game/guide/controllers/.

This is the newest and least proven thing in the build, and we already know it has rough
edges. Please be rough with it.

Two new apps

Neither of these ships on the card. Install them on-device: press Menu, open
Actions > Pak Rat, and pick them from the list. They install over Wi-Fi and turn up in
your Apps tab.

Video From Hell plays video on the handheld, including the gameplay you record with
Menu + R1. H.264 and HEVC decode on the MLP1's video hardware rather than the CPU, so
1080p plays comfortably without flattening the battery. With two SD cards it merges the
Videos folder from each into one library, and it remembers where you stopped.

Syncthing keeps a card's game saves in sync with your other machines: another Leaf, a
computer, a NAS, a home server, or an Android handheld. Leaf handles the awkward parts,
binding folders to physical cards, pausing sync while a game has its files open, and
following a card whose mount point moves after a reboot. Start with saves; states also
work but are less portable.

Worth saying plainly, because it is the mistake that costs you a save file: Syncthing is
not a backup. A deleted or damaged file syncs everywhere. Keep real backups, or turn
on file versioning on whatever always-on machine you sync against.

Details: https://leaf.game/app-store/video-from-hell/ and
https://leaf.game/app-store/syncthing/.

Testing notes

The Chinese translation has been reviewed on a flat list but not yet walked through on
the device, which is where context problems show up. Worth reporting:

• Anything that reads oddly in place. A word can be correct in a list and wrong in its
  row.
• Text that overflows or gets cut off. Chinese is denser than English and some rows
  are tight.
• Anything still in English that you would expect translated. Some of that is
  deliberate, above, but not all of it.
• Switching back and forth between 中文 and English a few times.

On the RetroArch menu:

• Switching Leaf between 中文 and English, launching a game each time, and checking
  RetroArch followed.
• Any missing or boxy characters in the Chinese menus. Report the screen you saw them
  on, ideally with a photo.
• Menu size and theme. Leaf now sets both. Say so if they read badly on the panel.

On controllers, the useful things to try:

• Pairing, then power cycling the controller and the handheld, and whether it comes
  back on its own.
• Player order with one and with two controllers, and that the handheld keeps the
  last slot rather than losing one.
• The Xbox button reaching the menu in RetroArch games and in PPSSPP, DraStic,
  Flycast and N64.
• Controllers other than an Xbox pad, which are the least tested case of all.

Expected, not faults: translated system names sort to the bottom of the Games list, the
on-screen volume and brightness flashes stay English, and the handheld going quiet as
player 3 when two controllers are connected without a multitap.

Installing

Already running a compatible Leaf install? Open System Update, set Update Channel
to Beta, then check for and install the update.

For a fresh install, extract leaf-mlp1-sd-v0.10.0-beta.2.zip to the root of a FAT32 or
ext4 SD card and boot with it inserted. Your games, saves and states are left alone.

Leaf v0.10.0-beta.1 (Tester Build)

Warning

This is a beta test build, not a public release. It is provided for testers
only and may be unstable, incomplete, or change without notice. Do not run it as
your everyday setup, and please do not redistribute it. For a stable, supported
version, install the latest release from the main Leaf repo:
https://github.com/Utility-Muffin-Research-Kitchen/Leaf/releases/latest

---

What's new in v0.10.0-beta.1

Leaf speaks Chinese, wireless controllers arrived, and there are two new apps.

简体中文 - Simplified Chinese

Leaf's interface is now available in Simplified Chinese. Go to Settings > General >
Language and pick 中文. Leaf restarts, about a second, and comes back translated.
Pick English the same way to go back.

The translation was written and reviewed by a native speaker from the community, not
machine-translated and shipped. Around 275 strings are covered: menus, settings, dialogs,
button hints, the in-game menu, and status messages.

Some things stay in English on purpose. Game names come from your files and the
scraper, so Leaf never rewrites them. Console names stay in Latin script, which is how
Chinese players write them too, though the arcade category is translated. Product and
app names keep their names since those are what you would search for when asking for
help. RetroArch's own menus are not translated yet.

The interface switches to a font that can draw Chinese, since none of the nine Leaf fonts
carry those characters. That is why the Font row is locked while Chinese is active;
your chosen font returns when you switch back.

Chinese and Japanese game names

This one works in any language, including English. A game file named in Chinese or
Japanese, a fan translation for example, used to show as empty boxes. It now renders
correctly everywhere titles appear.

Multiple controllers

Wireless controllers now play alongside the Pocket 1's own controls, up to four players:
three controllers plus the handheld. Pair one under Settings > Bluetooth. The Xbox
Wireless Controller is the one we test against, and other controllers SDL recognizes
generally work, but treat those as best effort.

Controllers take the first player slots in the order they connected, and the handheld is
always the last player. Handing someone a controller should make them player 2, not
demote whoever is holding the device. Player order is decided when the game starts, so
connect everyone before you launch.

The Xbox button now does what the Pocket 1's Menu button does. It opens the Leaf
menu over your game, and the menus inside PPSSPP, DraStic, Flycast and the N64 emulator.
Whoever is holding a controller can reach the menu without asking for the device back.

One thing that looks like a bug and is not. Most of these consoles only ever had two
controller ports, so with two controllers connected the handheld is player 3 and seems
dead. That needs the console's multitap switched on in RetroArch, per game, and Leaf
deliberately does not do it for you since plenty of games misbehave with one plugged in.
Disconnect a controller and the handheld becomes player 2 again straight away. The full
explanation is at https://leaf.game/guide/controllers/.

This is the newest and least proven thing in the build, and we already know it has rough
edges. Please be rough with it.

Two new apps

Neither of these ships on the card. Install them on-device: press Menu, open
Actions > Pak Rat, and pick them from the list. They install over Wi-Fi and turn up in
your Apps tab.

Video From Hell plays video on the handheld, including the gameplay you record with
Menu + R1. H.264 and HEVC decode on the MLP1's video hardware rather than the CPU, so
1080p plays comfortably without flattening the battery. With two SD cards it merges the
Videos folder from each into one library, and it remembers where you stopped.

Syncthing keeps a card's game saves in sync with your other machines: another Leaf, a
computer, a NAS, a home server, or an Android handheld. Leaf handles the awkward parts,
binding folders to physical cards, pausing sync while a game has its files open, and
following a card whose mount point moves after a reboot. Start with saves; states also
work but are less portable.

Worth saying plainly, because it is the mistake that costs you a save file: Syncthing is
not a backup. A deleted or damaged file syncs everywhere. Keep real backups, or turn
on file versioning on whatever always-on machine you sync against.

Details: https://leaf.game/app-store/video-from-hell/ and
https://leaf.game/app-store/syncthing/.

Testing notes

The Chinese translation has been reviewed on a flat list but not yet walked through on
the device, which is where context problems show up. Worth reporting:

• Anything that reads oddly in place. A word can be correct in a list and wrong in its
  row.
• Text that overflows or gets cut off. Chinese is denser than English and some rows
  are tight.
• Anything still in English that you would expect translated. Some of that is
  deliberate, above, but not all of it.
• Switching back and forth between 中文 and English a few times.

On controllers, the useful things to try:

• Pairing, then power cycling the controller and the handheld, and whether it comes
  back on its own.
• Player order with one and with two controllers, and that the handheld keeps the
  last slot rather than losing one.
• The Xbox button reaching the menu in RetroArch games and in PPSSPP, DraStic,
  Flycast and N64.
• Controllers other than an Xbox pad, which are the least tested case of all.

Expected, not faults: translated system names sort to the bottom of the Games list, the
on-screen volume and brightness flashes stay English, and the handheld going quiet as
player 3 when two controllers are connected without a multitap.

Installing

Already running a compatible Leaf install? Open System Update, set Update Channel
to Beta, then check for and install the update.

For a fresh install, extract leaf-mlp1-sd-v0.10.0-beta.1.zip to the root of a FAT32 or
ext4 SD card and boot with it inserted. Your games, saves and states are left alone.