If you’d like to learn more about upcoming releases, please consult our roadmap here. The next version of Lakka (with an updated RetroArch 1.9.4 version) is scheduled to be released a week from today.

Remember that this project exists for the benefit of our users, and that we wouldn’t keep doing this were it not for spreading the love with our users. This project exists because of your support and belief in us to keep going doing great things. If you’d like to show your support, consider donating to us. Check here in order to learn more. In addition to being able to support us on Patreon, there is now also the option to sponsor us on Github Sponsors! You can also help us out by buying some of our merch on our Teespring store!


Be sure to also read our Libretro Cores Progress Report – lots of work has gone into all of the various cores that are maintained (either by us or elsewhere), and it’d be a shame if the work goes unnoticed. Read it here.

There were some issues with RetroArch on PlayStation TV devices which should now be resolved. Additionally, it’s possible to run RetroArch at 720p now on a PSTV if you use the Sharpscale plugin.

Just like in version 1.9.3, we have been going back and improving code in RetroArch to improve file I/O performance, something that is very important for systems suffering from slow disk storage. Most game consoles would fall in this boat because all file I/O tends to be typically unbuffered on homebrew SDKs. In the process, we have discovered some parts where RetroArch was being inefficient when loading files from compressed files (such as .zip or .7z files). In the past, it would extract this file first to a temporary directory on the disk, and then it would read from this file and load it into the RAM buffer. Now we load it into the RAM buffer directly from the compressed file without first extracting it to disk. As if that wasn’t bad enough, on any platform that supports runahead, we would have to create another copy – even when runahead is disabled. And if cheevos are enabled, that’s another copy. All things combined, it would take 128MB of RAM to load one 32MB GBA ROM. As of 1.9.4, this RAM usage is severely cut down for cores that set ‘need_fullpath’ to false.

PlayStation2 users get a new core, prboom (a Doom 1/2 game engine). Thanks to a new and improved toolchain for PS2, this runs at a very impressive framerate, targeting 60 frames per second with stock settings. There might be some minor dips to the 50s in the busier scenes but nothing too serious, and disabling settings like ‘Wiggle Geometry Fix’ might help alleviate that.



In previous versions, when loading content from compressed files, RetroArch always extracts the archive to a temporary file – even when cores specify need_fullpath = false. This is incorrect behaviour. If a core does not explicitly need to load a file from disk via some internal mechanism, the frontend should merely provide it with a data buffer. RetroArch was doing this, but in absurd fashion, i.e.:

• Content is extracted to a temporary file on disk
  
• Temporary file is loaded into a memory buffer and passed to the core
  
• Temporary file is deleted when core is unloaded
  
• This is a huge unnecessary performance overhead, and it causes significant unnecessary wear and tear on flash storage devices…

1.9.4 fixes the issue. Now if compressed content is loaded into a core that sets need_fullpath = false, the file will be loaded directly into memory – no disk writes will occur.

Additional notes:

Previously, it was in fact impossible to load content inside zip files directly into RAM. This has now also been resolved.

The end result? Less read/write on disk storage, which will make a big difference in terms of game content loading time on systems with slow file I/O (typically game consoles).


The ‘Show Inputs on Overlay’ option was previously ‘broken’ when using remaps: the mapped button is highlighted rather than the pressed button, which is confusing for users and at odds with every other application (in existence) that has on-screen touch controls.

1.9.4 remedies the situation by changing the ‘Show Inputs on Overla’y option from a bool to an enum, with the following settings:

• OFF: No inputs will be highlighted
  
• Touched: The overlay element that is touched/clicked will be highlighted, regardless of which RetroPad button it corresponds to (default setting on mobile platforms)
  
• Physical (Controller): Actual inputs passed through to the core will be highlighted (including remaps). This is the default setting on non-mobile platforms, and can be used by streamers, speedrunners and suchlike to show the actual controls they are using

When Show Inputs on Overlay is set to Physical (Controller), the index of the ‘physical’ device to be monitored can be set via a new Show Inputs From Port option (this option did in fact exist already, but was hidden/disabled by a long standing bug)


1.9.4

• CHEEVOS: update rcheevos to v10.0.0
  
• CONTENT LOADING/FILE IO: Prevent unnecessary extraction (to disk) of compressed content files when need_fullpath is false
  
• CORE INFO/FILE IO: Enable core info cache by default now for all platforms
  
• CORE INFO/REGRESSION FIX: Fix regression caused by core info file caching – Downloads was no longer showing up in Load Content
  
• FILE IO/COMPRESSED: Ability to load content inside ZIP files directly into RAM
  
• INPUT/OVERLAYS: Add option to select between ‘touched’ elements and physical controller inputs when showing inputs on overlays
  
• INPUT REMAPPING/OVERLAYS: Prevent duplicate inputs when using remaps with input overlays
  
• LAKKA: Add brightness restore hook
  
• LOCALIZATION: Fetch translations from Crowdin
  
• MENU/OZONE: Added simple playlist entry enumeration
  
• MENU/XMB: Fix display of ‘Maximum Users’ menu entry dropdown list
  
• PS3/PSL1GHT: Joypad driver works again
  
• PSTV: Fix Vita input driver for PSTV
  
• PSTV: Support for 720p on PSTV when using ‘Unlock framebuffer’ in Sharpscale plugin
  
• RPNG: Fix some memory corruption if processing broken input PNG file
  
• SECURITY: Fix CVE-2021-28927

If you’d like to learn more about upcoming releases, please consult our roadmap here. The next version of Lakka (with an updated RetroArch 1.9.4 version) is scheduled to be released a week from today.

Remember that this project exists for the benefit of our users, and that we wouldn’t keep doing this were it not for spreading the love with our users. This project exists because of your support and belief in us to keep going doing great things. If you’d like to show your support, consider donating to us. Check here in order to learn more. In addition to being able to support us on Patreon, there is now also the option to sponsor us on Github Sponsors! You can also help us out by buying some of our merch on our Teespring store!


Be sure to also read our Libretro Cores Progress Report – lots of work has gone into all of the various cores that are maintained (either by us or elsewhere), and it’d be a shame if the work goes unnoticed. Read it here.

There were some issues with RetroArch on PlayStation TV devices which should now be resolved. Additionally, it’s possible to run RetroArch at 720p now on a PSTV if you use the Sharpscale plugin.

Just like in version 1.9.3, we have been going back and improving code in RetroArch to improve file I/O performance, something that is very important for systems suffering from slow disk storage. Most game consoles would fall in this boat because all file I/O tends to be typically unbuffered on homebrew SDKs. In the process, we have discovered some parts where RetroArch was being inefficient when loading files from compressed files (such as .zip or .7z files). In the past, it would extract this file first to a temporary directory on the disk, and then it would read from this file and load it into the RAM buffer. Now we load it into the RAM buffer directly from the compressed file without first extracting it to disk. As if that wasn’t bad enough, on any platform that supports runahead, we would have to create another copy – even when runahead is disabled. And if cheevos are enabled, that’s another copy. All things combined, it would take 128MB of RAM to load one 32MB GBA ROM. As of 1.9.4, this RAM usage is severely cut down for cores that set ‘need_fullpath’ to false.

PlayStation2 users get a new core, prboom (a Doom 1/2 game engine). Thanks to a new and improved toolchain for PS2, this runs at a very impressive framerate, targeting 60 frames per second with stock settings. There might be some minor dips to the 50s in the busier scenes but nothing too serious, and disabling settings like ‘Wiggle Geometry Fix’ might help alleviate that.



In previous versions, when loading content from compressed files, RetroArch always extracts the archive to a temporary file – even when cores specify need_fullpath = false. This is incorrect behaviour. If a core does not explicitly need to load a file from disk via some internal mechanism, the frontend should merely provide it with a data buffer. RetroArch was doing this, but in absurd fashion, i.e.:

• Content is extracted to a temporary file on disk
  
• Temporary file is loaded into a memory buffer and passed to the core
  
• Temporary file is deleted when core is unloaded
  
• This is a huge unnecessary performance overhead, and it causes significant unnecessary wear and tear on flash storage devices…

1.9.4 fixes the issue. Now if compressed content is loaded into a core that sets need_fullpath = false, the file will be loaded directly into memory – no disk writes will occur.

Additional notes:

Previously, it was in fact impossible to load content inside zip files directly into RAM. This has now also been resolved.

The end result? Less read/write on disk storage, which will make a big difference in terms of game content loading time on systems with slow file I/O (typically game consoles).


The ‘Show Inputs on Overlay’ option was previously ‘broken’ when using remaps: the mapped button is highlighted rather than the pressed button, which is confusing for users and at odds with every other application (in existence) that has on-screen touch controls.

1.9.4 remedies the situation by changing the ‘Show Inputs on Overla’y option from a bool to an enum, with the following settings:

• OFF: No inputs will be highlighted
  
• Touched: The overlay element that is touched/clicked will be highlighted, regardless of which RetroPad button it corresponds to (default setting on mobile platforms)
  
• Physical (Controller): Actual inputs passed through to the core will be highlighted (including remaps). This is the default setting on non-mobile platforms, and can be used by streamers, speedrunners and suchlike to show the actual controls they are using

When Show Inputs on Overlay is set to Physical (Controller), the index of the ‘physical’ device to be monitored can be set via a new Show Inputs From Port option (this option did in fact exist already, but was hidden/disabled by a long standing bug)


1.9.4

• CHEEVOS: update rcheevos to v10.0.0
  
• CONTENT LOADING/FILE IO: Prevent unnecessary extraction (to disk) of compressed content files when need_fullpath is false
  
• CORE INFO/FILE IO: Enable core info cache by default now for all platforms
  
• CORE INFO/REGRESSION FIX: Fix regression caused by core info file caching – Downloads was no longer showing up in Load Content
  
• FILE IO/COMPRESSED: Ability to load content inside ZIP files directly into RAM
  
• INPUT/OVERLAYS: Add option to select between ‘touched’ elements and physical controller inputs when showing inputs on overlays
  
• INPUT REMAPPING/OVERLAYS: Prevent duplicate inputs when using remaps with input overlays
  
• LAKKA: Add brightness restore hook
  
• LOCALIZATION: Fetch translations from Crowdin
  
• MENU/OZONE: Added simple playlist entry enumeration
  
• MENU/XMB: Fix display of ‘Maximum Users’ menu entry dropdown list
  
• PS3/PSL1GHT: Joypad driver works again
  
• PSTV: Fix Vita input driver for PSTV
  
• PSTV: Support for 720p on PSTV when using ‘Unlock framebuffer’ in Sharpscale plugin
  
• RPNG: Fix some memory corruption if processing broken input PNG file
  
• SECURITY: Fix CVE-2021-28927

We've updated to add a new mode: Co-Op.

See our announcement for more details.

Major update is live.

1: Tutorial improvements.
2: Nuclear war
3: Interface improvements
4: Major performance increase.
5: Almost all bugs out of the game.

We’ve updated Chex Quest HD with new features + content!

Co-Op Mode:
Battle waves of Flemoids with 1 to 4 players - how long can you last?

Character Abilities:
In Versus and Co-op modes, each CQ squad member now features a unique special ability:

• Fred Chexter: “I Packed a Snack!”: Spawn 1 water and a bowl of CHEX MIX
  
• Wheatney Chexworth: “Increased Chexterity”: Temporary ability to move faster and jump higher
  
• Dr. O Ryen: “The Ghost in Ghost Pepper”: Temporarily become invisible - Flemoids will not attack you
  
• NACL96: “A Few Spare Parts”: Drop some armor to share with the team
  
• P.R.E.T.Z.L.: “G.U.A.R.D.I.A.N. Protocol”: Create a temporary, impenetrable wall
  
• Shane ‘The Dread’ McBread: “Fastest Zorcher in the West”: For a limited time, shoot without consuming ammo

Updated Character Stats:
In Versus and Co-Op modes, each member of the team has re-adjusted stats, to encourage and enable different types of complementary play styles.

Achievements: We've added six achievements to the game.

New Music Track:
Exclusive new CO-OP track by original Chex Quest composer Andrew Benson and Street Cleaner.

ALPHA 1.5

BUG FIXES:
- Deadwood was missing animal AI
- Missing coin sound when buy/sell items

CHANGES:
- Replaced Blacksmith Workbench with Anvil. It can be crafted using ironbars and wood.
- Updated the primitive tools to appear stylized
- Updated some icons
- Placing objects on the ground will clear the grasses (until new tools get added to clear the grasses)

New
-Losing a battle restores HP/MP and teleports player to map entrance

Enhanced
-Darker backing on battle dialogues to mask turn order better
-Gave status effects in battle a border so they are easier to see
-Faces now pulse orange when players are injured in battle

Fixed
-Allies with Aid skill set lacking Cure and and Remedy abilities
-Enemies looping damage/attack animations after reaching "Injured" state

• With high reputation you can recruit higher-level units from cities, at a reduced gold cost and some drop to reputation
  
• Chain lightning now aims at the target you are aiming at directly, rather than with a radius
  
• Minor beneficial dialogue fixed and rewards tweaked
  
• Ancient weapon fragment reward now always gives exactly one fragment
  
• Fix dungeon quest not progressing if you first beat another mission on the same tile
  
• Remove enemy siege units from village defense
  
• Fix doubled roaming horde campaign map locations
  
• Fix Campaign_City_Army_MoveTowardsAvatarCity_FullHostility set to 99

A patch for an issue preventing some players from playing the game who had their computer language not set to English.

Hi!

Changelog:

• Bugfix - placed pipes changed place after being build
  
• Show unit activity in the unit management panel
  
• Don't stop music on Black Corp view
  
• Language fixes

Thanks for bringing up the pipes placement bug -={U.S.P}=- Tantheus !