Leaf v0.9.0 - Recording, USB-C Audio, and 32X Support

Four changes since v0.8.0: a way to record what you are playing, 32X support, a refresh rate built for PAL games, and USB-C headphones.

Record your games

Hold MENU and tap R1 to start recording, and the same combo to stop. A small red dot pulses in the corner while it runs, and the dot never appears in the clip itself.

Recording is off by default. Turn it on in Settings->Controls & Feedback.

Clips land in a Recordings folder at the top level of the SD card. Each one is captured losslessly, then converted in the background to an MP4 that plays anywhere once you leave the game.

Discord's free upload limit is 10 MB, which is roughly 30 seconds of gameplay. Longer clips are split into numbered parts that each fit under it, so anything you record is postable without editing. Both the conversion and the splitting can be turned off if you would rather keep the original and handle it yourself.

Recording works in RetroArch games. PSP, Dreamcast and PortMaster titles run in their own emulators and cannot be captured. Shaders are not included in clips: recording takes the picture before any shader runs, so a clip of a game with a CRT shader comes out clean and sharp instead.

32X games now work

32X support has been added. Leaf previously used Genesis Plus GX for 32X, which handles Genesis, Mega Drive, Sega CD, Master System and Game Gear, but not 32X. Those games could not run at all.

PicoDrive now ships with Leaf and handles 32X properly. Existing 32X games pick it up automatically, with nothing to change.

100 Hz, for PAL games

The refresh rate choices are now 60, 100, and 120 Hz.

A rate is only worth having if it divides evenly into a frame rate. 60 and 120 suit 60fps NTSC games. 100 is for 50fps PAL games, and it is the only rate that divides into 50 cleanly. At 60 Hz a PAL game has to hold some frames on screen longer than others, and that unevenness is the stutter you see when the screen scrolls.

Black Frame Insertion now works at 100 Hz too, so PAL games finally get it. It needs the panel running at exactly twice the game's frame rate, and until now it was locked to 120 Hz, which only ever served 60fps games.

90 Hz has been removed. It divided into nothing anyone plays. If your handheld is set to 90 it will move to the nearest rate still offered.

USB-C headphones

Plug USB-C headphones or a USB-C to 3.5mm dongle into the top port, the one labelled OTG, and audio moves to them automatically. Unplug and it returns to the speaker. A USB-C entry appears in Settings->Display & Sound while something is attached, so you can switch by hand as well.

Volume is remembered per output, the same way the 3.5mm jack and Bluetooth already were.

Charging is unaffected: the bottom port handles power and is separate, so you can charge and use headphones at the same time.

Fixes

• Moving the cursor on Settings->Display & Sound no longer drags. The page was making four requests to the background service on the drawing thread every time it refreshed. This had been true since roughly early June.
• The last row on that page is no longer cut off at Extra Large font with button hints showing.
• Volume buttons no longer jump after the output changes on its own. Plugging in headphones or connecting a Bluetooth headset left the first press stepping from the previous output's level. This affected the 3.5mm jack and Bluetooth as well.

Installing

Extract leaf-mlp1-sd-v0.9.0.zip to the root of a FAT32 or ext4 SD card and boot the handheld with it inserted. The same steps work for a fresh install and an update, and your games, saves and states are left alone.

To return to stock, extract leaf-mlp1-recovery-v0.9.0.zip to the card root and boot once with it inserted.