RetroArch

This article is about the emulation of a console or deprecated PC platform on Windows, macOS (OS X), or Linux.

RetroArch (pronounced /ˌrɛtroʊˈɑːrtʃ/) is a free, open-source, cross-platform front end for emulating a variety of classic computers, retro consoles, arcade machines and game engines. It is the reference implementation of the libretro API, designed to be fast, lightweight, portable and without dependencies. It is licensed under the GNU GPLv3.

General information

Official forums

Official help pages

Steam Community Discussions

Source code (GitHub)

RetroArch Setup Guide

Availability

Source	DRM	Notes	Keys	OS
Official website
itch.io
Steam

A browser-based version is also available.

RetroArch can be compiled to run in DOS but no official builds are available.

DLC and expansion packs

RetroArch uses plug-ins called "cores" for emulating specific systems. They can be downloaded and installed by using the Online Updater feature.

Name	Notes
Home computers	Amstrad CPC Atari ST, STE, TT, Falcon Commodore PET, CBM-II, VIC-20, 64, Plus/4, 128, Amiga Elektronika BK-0010, BK-0011M MSX, MSX2, MSX2+, MSX TurboR NEC PC-8000, PC-8800 (PC-88), PC-9800 (PC-98) Sega SC-3000, SF-7000 Sharp X1, X68000 Sinclair ZX81, ZX Spectrum Spectravideo SV-318, SV-328 Thomson TO7, MO5
Home consoles	Atari 2600, 5200, 7800, Jaguar Coleco Industries ColecoVision Fairchild Channel F GCE Vectrex Magnavox Odyssey 2, Phillips Videopac+ G7400 (Odyssey 3) Mattel Intellivision NEC TurboGrafx-16/PC Engine, TurboGrafx-CD, CD-ROM², Super CD-ROM² NEC PC Engine SuperGrafx, PC-FX Nintendo NES/Famicom, SNES/Super Famicom, 64, GameCube, Wii Panasonic 3DO Sega SG-1000, Master System, Mega Drive/Genesis, CD, 32X, Saturn, Dreamcast SNK Neo Geo CD Sony PlayStation, PlayStation 2 (PCSX2) Uzebox
Handheld consoles	Atari Lynx Bandai WonderSwan, WonderSwan Color Dedicated handheld electronic games Nintendo Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, DS, 3DS Nintendo Pokemon Mini, Virtual Boy Sega Game Gear, VMU SNK Neo Geo Pocket, Neo Geo Pocket Color Sony PlayStation Portable
Arcade machines	Capcom CPS-1, CPS-2, CPS-3 Cave Data East DEC-0, DEC-8, DECO IC16 Galaxian based hardware Irem M62, M63, M72, M90, M92, M107 Kaneko 16 Konami LaserDisc games Neo-Geo NMK16 Pacman based hardware PGM Psikyo 68EC020 and SH-2 based hardware Sega NAOMI, ST-V, System 1, System 16, System 18, X-Board, Y-Board Super Kaneko Nova System Toaplan 1, 2 Taito F2, X, Z and others
Multi-system	MAME 2015, 2016 MESS 2015 UME 2015
Virtual machines	CHIP-8 DOS (DOSBox, DOSBox SVN/Glide) Java ME Palm OS TIC-80
Game engines	ChaiScript Lutro (LUA Game Framework) RPG Maker 2000, 2003 ScummVM
Game ports and clones	2048 Boom3 (Doom 3) Cannonball (Out Run) Craft (Minecraft clone) Dinothawr ECWolf (Wolfenstein 3D) FloppyBird (Flappy Bird clone) Mr. Boom (Bomberman / Dynablaster clone) NXEngine (Cave Story) OpenLara (Tomb Raider) PrBoom (Doom) REminiscence (Flashback: The Quest for Identity) The Powder Toy TyrQuake (Quake) vitaQuake 2 (Quake II) vitaQuake 3 (Quake III Arena) vitaVoyager (Star Trek: Voyager - Elite Force) XRick (Rick Dangerous clone)

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System	Location
Windows	<path-to-game>\retroarch.cfg^{[Note 1]} <path-to-game>\config\<core name>\.opt^{[Note 1]} <path-to-game>\config\<core name>\.cfg^{[Note 1]}
macOS (OS X)	<path-to-game>\retroarch.cfg <path-to-game>\config\<core name>\.opt <path-to-game>\config\<core name>\.cfg
Linux	<path-to-game>\retroarch.cfg <path-to-game>\retroarch-core-options.cfg

General program settings are stored in retroarch.cfg, whereas specific core (emulator) options are saved in <path-to-game>\config\<core name>\*.opt. Specific game or core override options are saved in <path-to-game>\config\<core name>\*.cfg.

Save game data location

System	Location
Windows	<path-to-game>\saves\^{[Note 1]} <path-to-game>\states\^{[Note 1]}
macOS (OS X)	<path-to-game>\saves\ <path-to-game>\states\
Linux	<path-to-game>\saves\ <path-to-game>\states\

Emulated in-game saves are stored in the saves directory, whereas manual "snapshots" in states.

Save game cloud syncing

System	Native	Notes
Steam Cloud		In order for the Steam Cloud sync to work correctly, default directories shouldn't be changed to other locations.^[1]

Video

Main menu (default ozone skin.)

Auxiliary desktop menu.

Graphics feature	State	Notes
Widescreen resolution
Multi-monitor
Ultra-widescreen
4K Ultra HD
Field of view (FOV)		Core dependent.
Windowed
Borderless fullscreen windowed
Anisotropic filtering (AF)		Core dependent.
Anti-aliasing (AA)		Core dependent.
Vertical sync (Vsync)
60 FPS
120+ FPS
High dynamic range display (HDR)		^[2]
Color blind mode		Various color schemes can be selected.

Supports FidelityFX Super Resolution.

Input

Keyboard and mouse, touch	State	Notes
Remapping
Mouse acceleration		Core dependent.
Mouse sensitivity		Core dependent.
Mouse input in menus		The default UI is optimized for gamepads. The GLUI skin is much more mouse-friendly.
Mouse Y-axis inversion		Core dependent.
Touchscreen optimised
Controller
Controller support
Full controller support
Controller remapping
Controller sensitivity
Controller Y-axis inversion		Core dependent.

Controller types

XInput-compatible controllers
Xbox button prompts		Core dependent.
Impulse Trigger vibration

PlayStation controllers		Core dependent.
PlayStation button prompts		Core dependent.
Light bar support
Adaptive trigger support
DualSense haptic feedback support
Connection modes

Generic/other controllers
Button prompts		Generic for menu. Others are core dependent.

Additional information
Controller hotplugging
Haptic feedback		Core dependent.
Digital movement supported
Simultaneous controller+KB/M

Audio

Audio feature	State	Notes
Separate volume controls		Core dependent.
Surround sound		Core dependent.
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost		Listed as "Don't run in background" in User Interface options.

Localizations

Language	UI	Audio	Sub	Notes
English
Dutch
French
German
Greek
Italian
Japanese
Korean
Norwegian
Polish
Portuguese
Brazilian Portuguese
Russian
Spanish
Latin American Spanish
Swedish
Turkish
Vietnamese

The optional AI Service feature can grab a screenshot of the emulated content and translate the in-game text between 63 languages.

Network

Multiplayer types

Type	Players	Notes
Local play	16	The number of players and multiplayer modes depend on the emulated game.
LAN play	32	The number of players and multiplayer modes depend on the emulated game.
Online play	32	The number of players and multiplayer modes depend on the emulated game.

Connection types

Type	Native	Notes
Matchmaking
Peer-to-peer
Dedicated
Self-hosting

Ports

Protocol	Port(s) and/or port range(s)
TCP	55355, 55400, 55435

This game supports Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) for automatic port configuration.

Other information

API

Technical specs	Supported	Notes
Direct3D	9, 10, 11, 12
OpenGL
Metal support		Metal 2 version available for High Sierra (10.13) or higher.
Vulkan
DOS video modes

Executable	PPC	32-bit	64-bit	ARM	Notes
Windows
macOS (OS X)					32-bit was discontinued after v1.7.3. PowerPC pre-built binaries were discontinuted after v1.9.0, but later versions may be possible to build for PPC from source code.
Linux

Middleware

	Middleware	Notes
Audio	Platform dependent	DirectSound, WASAPI, XAudio2, CoreAudio, OpenAL, SDL, ALSA, JACK, PulseAudio
Interface	Platform dependent	DirectInput, SDL
Input	Platform dependent	DirectInput, XInput, HID, SDL

System requirements

Windows
	Minimum	Recommended
Operating system (OS)	95	10
Processor (CPU)	Intel Pentium 4 AMD Athlon 64	Intel Core series AMD Phenom II series
System memory (RAM)	32 MB	512 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD)
Video card (GPU)	Intel HD Graphics 4000 OpenGL 2.0 compatible DirectX 9 compatible Shader model 2.0 support	DirectX 11 compatible Shader model 3.0 support

macOS (OS X)
	Minimum
Operating system (OS)	10.5
Processor (CPU)	PowerPC G4 867 MHz
System memory (RAM)	512 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD)

Notes

↑ ^1.0 ^1.1 ^1.2 ^1.3 ^1.4 When running this game without elevated privileges (Run as administrator option), write operations against a location below %PROGRAMFILES%, %PROGRAMDATA%, or %WINDIR% might be redirected to %LOCALAPPDATA%\VirtualStore on Windows Vista and later (more details).

References

↑ store.steampowered.com - last accessed on June 2023
↑ RetroArch 1.9.9 released! - last accessed on 2021-09-14
"We have now added HDR (High Dynamic Range) support to RetroArch’s Direct3D 11/12 driver thanks to a generous contributor!"

[gamedir-1] 1.0 ^1.1 ^1.2 ^1.3 ^1.4 When running this game without elevated privileges (Run as administrator option), write operations against a location below %PROGRAMFILES%, %PROGRAMDATA%, or %WINDIR% might be redirected to %LOCALAPPDATA%\VirtualStore on Windows Vista and later (more details).

[2] store.steampowered.com - last accessed on June 2023

[3] RetroArch 1.9.9 released! - last accessed on 2021-09-14
"We have now added HDR (High Dynamic Range) support to RetroArch’s Direct3D 11/12 driver thanks to a generous contributor!"

[Note 1]

[1]

[2]

Developers

	Libretro
Release dates
Windows	May 26, 2010
macOS (OS X)	2011^{[citation needed]}
Linux	2013^{[citation needed]}
DOS	Unknown