Platform Limitations

Platform Limitations

Some platforms have restrictions due to emulator design, Android limitations, or technical constraints.

External Emulator Setup Requirements

Several emulators require manual setup before Argosy can launch games:

ScummVM (Point-and-Click Adventures)

• Requirement: Games must be added to ScummVM's game list first
• Steps: Open ScummVM, add your game directories, let it detect games
• Why: Argosy launches via game ID, which requires ScummVM to know about the game

Vita3K (PS Vita)

• Requirement: Games must be installed within Vita3K
• Steps: Extract/install VPK files directly in Vita3K before launching from Argosy
• Why: Argosy passes the title ID; the game must already exist in Vita3K's library

Switch Emulators (Yuzu, Ryujinx, Sudachi, etc.)

• Requirement: Encryption keys must be installed manually
• Steps: Place prod.keys in the emulator's keys directory (varies by emulator)
• Why: Legal reasons prevent Argosy from distributing or managing Switch keys

General First-Run

Most external emulators should be opened at least once to complete their own setup (permissions, directories) before launching games from Argosy.

BIOS Distribution

Argosy can auto-distribute BIOS files to supported emulators from Settings > BIOS Files.

Supported:

• RetroArch, DuckStation, NetherSX2, melonDS, Flycast, Redream, Pizza Boy GBA

Manual setup required:

• Switch emulators (keys, not BIOS)
• Dolphin, PPSSPP, 3DS emulators (no BIOS needed)
• Arcade emulators (ROM-specific)
• Xbox 360 (XenDroid, AX360E) -- no BIOS needed

Built-in Emulator Limitations

Cheats Unavailable

These platforms don't support cheats due to dynamic memory allocation:

• GameCube, Wii
• PS2, PSP, PS Vita
• Dreamcast, Saturn
• NDS, DSi, 3DS
• 3DO, Jaguar

CheatDB and memory scanning won't work on these systems.

Heavy Platforms

Rewind is disabled on resource-intensive systems:

• N64, PS1, PS2
• Saturn, Dreamcast
• PSP, NDS

Performance varies by device.

Suspend/Resume on Hardware-Rendered Cores

Hardware-rendered cores cannot reliably keep a running session alive when Argosy is sent to the background (Home button or app switch). Android destroys the GPU (EGL) context while the app is backgrounded, and these cores cannot rebuild their GPU state on return, so Argosy reloads the game on resume instead of restoring it. Software-rendered cores resume normally.

Affected built-in cores:

• Dolphin (GameCube / Wii)
• Flycast (Dreamcast)
• Mupen64Plus-Next, ParaLLEl N64 (N64)
• PPSSPP (PSP)
• Beetle PSX HW (PS1, hardware renderer)

This is a long-standing limitation across the whole libretro ecosystem, not specific to Argosy. The same failure (a black screen with working audio, or a crash, after returning from the background) is documented and still unresolved in RetroArch for these cores. Restarting the game on resume is the only reliable behavior currently available, so that is what Argosy does.

Because of this, save states are disabled for these cores by default: their save states are unreliable and can restore audio and game logic while leaving the video black. An experimental toggle, Settings > Built-in Emulator > A/V & Performance > Hardware-Core Save States, re-enables them for testing on a per-core basis. Expect black screens or crashes when it is on.

Emulators That Don't Support External Launch

Emulator	Issue
Lemuroid	Does not support intent launching - must open manually
Redream	Launch failures on Android 13+ - use Flycast instead