A new software update is available, would you like to update now? No, not for one of your consoles, but for RetroArch! The first new version of the year, in fact. RetroArch v1.8.3 has just been released, and this version makes some major additions to our favorite emulator frontend. The most notable new feature in 1.8.3 is ANGLE support, which helps platforms that don't have good OpenGL core support get better performance, by converting OpenGL to Direct3D. ANGLE is available for two platforms initially: UWP (Xbox One) and Windows 64bit. This will help out users that have older integrated graphics cards or use RetroArch on the Xbox One.

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• For the regular Windows version, there are two binaries from now on – one with ANGLE (retroarch_angle.exe), one without (retroarch.exe). The non-ANGLE version will use your system-provided OpenGL driver, while the ANGLE version will use the ANGLE version of the OpenGL dynamic libraries.
• ANGLE works over OpenGL ES. This means that ANGLE requires separately compiled cores targeting OpenGL ES 2/3 instead of desktop OpenGL. What this means is that 1) you need separate cores for every Libretro OpenGL core you want to run, since the current OpenGL cores available for Windows assume that desktop OpenGL will be targeted, and 2) a libretro core has to have a working OpenGL ES 2 or 3 implementation in order for it to work. This will mean that currently, cores like Quake 2/3/Doom 3 won’t work since there are no working OpenGL ES 2 codepaths in those cores. However, Mupen64plus Next and Flycast do have OpenGLES 2 codepaths.

That's not the only improvement, though! Netplay has also gotten some lovely fixes and refinements. A major bug that had plagued netplay users--disconnecting all players from a server when one player quits the game--has been solved, after a year. A memory leak has also been patched out, meaning netplay should just be more stable, overall.

You can see the changes for yourself, by grabbing the latest version of RetroArch from the Libretro site, linked in the source.

Changes
1.8.3

• ANDROID/BUGFIX: Fix ‘Install or Restore Core’ regression
• BUGFIX: Ensure core info is always initialised when calling ‘drivers_init()’. This bug could prevent cores from doing content runtime logging
• BUGFIX/MENU: History size can only be set to 1 at a minimum
• BUGFIX/MENU: (XMB/OZONE) Fix ‘quick menu’ detection. XMB would not display savestate thumbnails in the quick menu if it was accessed via the main menu
• BUGFIX/CRASH/CORE UPDATER: Fix potential double free error
• BUGFIX/CRASH/OPENGL/WINDOWS: Fix regression in 1.8.2 that would cause GL-based cores to fail because it would try to erroneously load libGLESv2.dll instead of OpenGL32.dll (cores affected: VitaQuake 2/3/Dhewm3, possibly more)
• BUGFIX/MENU/DESKTOP UI: Show desktop menu on startup does not launch Qt UI on Linux
• CHEEVOS: Don’t disable achievement when AddAddress generates an out-of-range address
• CHEEVOS: Don’t reset triggers/leaderboards that failed to load
• CHEEVOS: Don’t count unsupported achievements as unlocked
• CORE UPDATER: Display number of cores updated when updating installed cores
• DINGUX: Initial port
• D3D11: Block FL9_3 devices from D3D11 driver because they don’t work anyway (current D3D11 driver uses SM4.0 which requires FL10_0 and up)
• D3D11: Fallback to GL driver when D3D11 fails
• EMSCRIPTEN: Fix assets
• HISTORY/FAVORITES: Bump up default to 200 entries from 100
• FFMPEG CORE: Implement packet buffer, fixes MP4 video playback for many files
• LOCALIZATION: Update Italian translation
• LOCALIZATION: Update Polish translation
• LOCALIZATION: Update Russian translation
• LOCALIZATION: Update Spanish translation
• MENU: Added ‘Hosting’ menu under Netplay menu
• MENU: Added ‘Subsystems’ menu
• MENU/FILEBROWSER: Fix file selection issues when starting from (or navigating to) the top level directory
• MENU/WIDGETS: Prevent looping of task title text
• RASPBERRY PI: Fix BGRA8888 color inversion issues in the menu and elsewhere with VideoCore GL drivers
• NETPLAY/RELAY: Add Sao Paulo (Brazil) relay server
• NETPLAY/RELAY: Fix the “spectator” bug when using the relay server – When a player switches into the spectator mode (pressing “i”) while using the relay server, all players will disconnect.
• NETPLAY/RELAY: Overall stability has improved. Fixed a memory leak that would cause the relay server to become unresponsive after some time
• NETPLAY/RELAY: Fixed critical bug that would cause all players to be disconnected from the relay server if one player was leaving the game. That bug had been open for one year and we were finally able to fix it
• SWITCH/LIBNX/BUGFIX: Fix onscreen keyboard input regression
• UWP: Add ANGLE support
• UWP: Wire up get_metrics to the fake context of D3D9/10/11/12 driver, enabling proper scaling and mouse/touch gestures
• VITA: Re-add Online Updater
• VULKAN: Fix font driver ‘vulkan_get_message_width()’ function
• VIDEO FILTERS: Only use threads when the number exceeds 1. Fixes race conditions with some CPU filters on Vita
• WINDOWS: Add ANGLE support for x64, separate binary (for now?)

Source

 

[Mythical]

Yes, that works. But I can't get Fullscreen on my TV. It keeps the Title Bar as well as the Taskbar and the mouse pointer.

Show both screens via extension, make your big tv the MAIN screen, then go back to showing only one screen (your large tv). You might also want to stop windows from fixing blurry apps as well as make a custom resolution using invidia control panel, amd settings, and/or intel display settings

 

[MadMax4Q2]

Nice noticed Hakchi 3.7 just dropped for Sega Mini will uninstall Project Luna and check this out with Retoarch 1.8.3.

 

[anhminh]

Not sure if it relate but what is the difference between retroarch run on Switch CFW and the one run on Switch Linux OS?

 

[ZachyCatGames]

Not sure if it relate but what is the difference between retroarch run on Switch CFW and the one run on Switch Linux OS?

Better performance in some cases. Switch Linux has proper GPU divers, an additional CPU core that can be used (in Horizon one is reserved for system stuff), and higher CPU clock speeds (if you enable 2ghz)