News: RetroArch 1.8.4 released with Lakka update imminent, the Switch gets a Torrent client with nxTransmission 0.2.3 & 3 new homebrew games land for the PSVita!

Similar to modern web browsers like Chrome and FireFox, RetroArch is on a rapid-release cycle although today’s release, version 1.8.4, makes it look like they’re on a very very rapid release cycle with it having been released a mere 6 days after RetroArch 1.8.3! In this article, we’ll also be looking at a Torrent client for the Nintendo Switch and 3 new homebrew games for the PSVita.

Emulation: RetroArch 1.8.4 released with Disk Control improvements, a ‘Clean Playlist’ feature & a promise to release a Lakka update soon

RetroArch is a front-end for many emulators and game-engines including ones for the SNES, Dreamcast, Nintendo 64, PlayStation 1, DOOM and the list goes on. With a good deal of dedicated people contributing to it, the front-end has managed to end up ported to a wide variety of hacked consoles like the PlayStation Vita, Switch, PS3, PSP, Wii and 3DS among others with new project-wide features coming in quite frequently; a fairly recent one being an overhauled user interface for mobile devices like smartphones and tablets.

If you’re playing games that come on multiple CDs/floppies and require swapping between, then RetroArch 1.8.4 will surely be a worthy update!

Now, RetroArch 1.8.4 has been released following the release of RetroArch 1.8.3 last weekend and it brings along:

• Disk Control features, which are sometimes used when you need to change CDs/floppies in games, have received numerous quality-of-life improvements such as:
  • The menu for managing it is more context-aware now with the text shown on-screen being more reflective of the current state
  • Current Disk Index can now be set through a drop-down list
  • The notification system now works better and outputs much less messages thus eliminating notification spam
  • Other small improvements
• A feature to ‘clean’ playlists which effectively analyses playlists, checks if the files for the games inside them are still on your computer/device and remove playlist entries if they aren’t. Duplicate entries are also removed with this newly-introduced feature
• The release post brings a promise to update Lakka on Tier 1 platforms soon, a Linux distribution made specifically for running RetroArch
  • The current version of Lakka is 2.3.1 and it comes with RetroArch 1.7.8 from August of last year
• Some minor updates/fixes like the updating of libnx integration to version 3.0.0 on the Switch

To read the full release post, follow this link. If you wish to download RetroArch 1.8.4, head over to this page and select the platform of your choice.

Switch and PSVita Releases: Torrent client (nxTransmission 0.2.3) for the Switch and 3 new homebrew games for the Vita

Ever wanted to download torrents on your Switch? Well, now you can albeit with some limitations!

Moving onto console-specific homebrew, both the Switch and PSVita have seen some love in the last few days. Nintendo’s latest console received nxTransmission by developer ‘t-flo’ last week, a port of Tranmission 2.94 which is an open-source torrent client. This port is currently in a WIP state and currently only supports FAT32 as using it on an exFAT microSD cad may lead to data corruption and torrent management isn’t done on device but through a web interface accessible on any device on your local network. Some hours ago, version 0.2.3 was released which fixes UDP trackers and the replacement of non-ASCII characters in filenames.

You may grab nxTransmission 0.2.3 from this link and make sure to read its GBATemp thread for more information.

Despite the Vita being hacked for a little under 3.5 years, it’s still receiving a healthy dose of homebrew thanks to Team CBPS and other developers!

Last but not least, the PSVita received 3 new homebrew games which include:

• Mad Bomber Vita (GitHub for more info), a port of Bill Kendrick’s Mad Bomber, by SonicMastr who is a Team CBPS member
  • dots-tb helped with compilation errors and getting graphics to display on-screen
• A port of Vectoroids (GitHub for more info), yet another title by Bill Kendrick, by dots-tb who is a Team CBPS member
• V-Cube by Anchitpatra which is a Rubik’s Cube game

Other than these games, Graphene (GrapheneCt) of Team CBPS has released Affinity Changer which lets some PSVita system applications, like Settings, use all cores for better performance and loading times.

Conclusion

In other news, Google’s planning on adding 120 games to the Stadia’s lineup and more than 10 of these are said to be exclusive at launch but only time will tell whether these exclusives will really shake up the system’s rocky start. For iOS users, DolphiniOS 2.0.0 will probably be released publicly (and for free) tomorrow which brings controller support, full control customisation, an option for haptic feedback and more which can be read about on OatmealDome’s Discord channel. The Switch also received Game Card Installer by TotalJustice letting you install game cards directly on your Switch.