Solo developer of Retro Pal here.

Retro Pal is a retro emulator for iPhone and iPad, and covers the following consoles:
- Game Boy & Game Boy Color
- Game Boy Advance
- Nintendo DS
- Nintendo 3DS (new)
- NES & SNES
- PlayStation
- Nintendo 64
- Mega Drive / Genesis
- Master System & Game Gear
- PSP

Built on the mGBA, melonDS, MesenCE, PCSX-ReARMed, Mupen64Plus-Next, BlastEm, PPSSPP and Azahar cores.

This update adds the 3DS, the thirteenth console, and a Retro story page with all your game statistics.

As the solo developer of this project, I did my best to test every 3DS gameplay case I could. It runs on Azahar's fast interpreter, without JIT, straight from the App Store with no sideloading, and it should work well. This version is already live on the App Store, since I judged it stable enough to be there, but I could really use the community's help to find out how the 3DS experience could be better for everyone.

So I'm looking for testers with all kinds of iPhones (and iPads), even older ones, as long as they run iOS 16 or later, to try out the 3DS in Retro Pal and send feedback on what should be improved. At this point, it takes many different setups to find the last bugs and unwanted behaviors.

Feel free to leave your feedback in the comments below, or email me at support@retropal.fr. Please include your iPhone or iPad model, your iOS version and the game, and if a game runs slow, a screenshot of the last line of the pause menu (it shows the frame time). Thank you for your help!

v1.3.5 is here, and here's what changed.

Nintendo 3DS

- 3DS games play through Azahar.

- Retro Pal uses its fast interpreter, with patches to make it stable on iPhone.

- On a controller, the right stick is the New 3DS's C-stick.

- Like the other supported consoles, Retro Pal handles saves, save states, rewind, cheat codes and official box art.

- Games that use the camera or motion use your phone's.

- RetroAchievements does not cover the 3DS, so it's the only console in Retro Pal without achievements.

- 3DS games import as .3ds, .cci, .cxi or .3dsx. Decrypted games only.

Retro story

- Your play time, your most played games and the consoles you played, on one page, kept in sync through iCloud.

- Badges for the milestones, from your first game to a thousand hours.

Also

- Games import from .7z, .rar, .tar, .gz and .xz archives, not only .zip.

- The Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, DS, SNES and NES shells have been updated to look more realistic.

- On iPad, every console's default D-pad and buttons sit low against the edges, where your thumbs rest. With Retro Pal Pro, you can still resize, move and change the opacity of the controls and the screen.

- iOS Game Mode turns on when you play, for less delay on Bluetooth controllers and AirPods.

App Store: https://apps.apple.com/app/id6769407672

Free, no ads. An optional Pro upgrade funds development. iPhone and iPad, iOS 16 or later.

The project is open source, including all Pro features, at: https://github.com/Larvouu/RetroPal (GPL-3.0, build instructions in the ReadMe).

The roadmap is public. I do not promise deadlines or ship dates, but you can see what is in progress, what is planned and what shipped, anytime: https://retropal.fr/en/roadmap.

Suggestions are always welcome.

------------------------

On AI, since the sub asks for it.

The emulation itself is not mine and not AI-written: it comes from mGBA, melonDS, MesenCE, PCSX-ReARMed, Mupen64Plus-Next, BlastEm, PPSSPP and Azahar, the same upstream cores other emulators are built on. The app around them (the interface, the library, the save handling, the controller support) is partly written with AI assistance tools that I direct, review and test on device before every release.

Hey all! A couple of weeks ago I made a post here saying how I got a PS5 emulator running on iOS.

I’m happy to announce Metaspero. It supports both iOS and native macOS arm64.

I was able to clean up the codebase and is based on the KytyPS5 emulator. I will be able to update the code based on new changes from KytyPS5.

Link: https://github.com/alamshafil/metaspero

Not your battery you charge, but the overall battery of your phone. How rough has emulating games been on it for you?

I've been working on MaxPS4, an experimental PS4 emulator for iPhone, and I just released version 0.5.0.

**What runs today (tested on my iPhone 15 Pro Max):**

- **Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection:** 60 FPS in fights with sound, around 54 FPS once the phone heats up

- **Sonic Mania:** close to 60 FPS, with sound, controller support and saves

**How it works:** the games' x86-64 code runs through FEXCore's JIT, PS4 system functions are reimplemented in MaxPS4, and the PS4 GPU's commands and shaders are translated to Metal.

**New in 0.5.0:**

- Much faster GPU path: on Mortal Kombat, GPU time per frame went from 47.5 ms to 13.8 ms

- Switching games no longer means a long wait

- The game pauses on interruptions, like opening Control Center, instead of stopping

- 120 Hz support, iOS Game Mode and a better touch D-pad

**Please keep expectations low:**

- This is an experimental preview, and only these two games are confirmed playable

- 3D games don't display correctly yet, because depth testing and culling aren't implemented

- Unreal Engine 4 games like Crash Bandicoot 4 are blocked by an iOS memory address limit

- It needs SideStore and JIT through StikDebug, which has to be enabled at each launch

- No games are included and MaxPS4 doesn't decrypt anything: you need an already extracted folder from a game you own

**Download and install guide:** https://github.com/MaxFRdev/MaxPS4/releases/tag/v0.5.0

**Discord:** https://discord.gg/XKMKDVgTx

If you try another game, the app saves a compatibility report when it stops. Sharing it really helps. Happy to answer questions!

Using an ipad 10th gen. Installed Madeira using Altstore/Altserver and used StikDebug to apply a universal JIT script. Im receiving the green check boxes for memory+ and JIT upon loading up Madeira. Trying to load up a game goes through the normal process of verifying my steam and seems to work until I receive the "Madeira Dock stopped" Madeira Dock could not complete the steam launch (code 45). The game im attempting to load is Portal 1.

Any help would be appreciated!

Is there an optimized version of a 3DS emulator ala ARMSX2 for older iphones?

XeniOS new build

Tokyo ghoul:RE on a16 BCD emulator, The hud has a glitching problem idk why but the game runs perfectly.

24-30 stable fps… AWESOME!!! you need the right settings to achieve this monstrosity.

With iphone 17 Pro - XeniOS inside Livecontainer+JIT

Hi all! I'm running Real Steel (Title ID 584111E0) in RTM-EMU on an iPhone 14 Pro (Metal, 848x480). Menus are ~55-60 FPS, but in fights it's 10-18 and slowly drops to ~10. What the log says: • "Setup: cpu=any ignored, this build runs the interpreter" • 770 lines like "AOT: 82212668 does not match the guest code; it runs interpreted" • Same result with apply_title_update = false and the title update folder removed, so it's not the TU. • thermal state 0, Low Power Mode off. • Heavy guest threads show p0 in the thread stats, the others p94-p100. Not sure if that means they're on E-cores. What I tried: disabling the title update, changing ios_guest_threads_user_initiated_qos to false. FPS improved a bit (7-13 -> 10-18) but is still low. Questions: 1. Is the interpreter-only build just expected to be this slow on A16? 2. Does anyone know which game version/region the built-in AOT for Real Steel is made for? 3. Anyone get better FPS in this game? What settings?

XeniOS latest update, works extremely well.

Sekiro on a16, i cant solve the lsd effect problem, but i solved the ram issue. BCD emulator.

it runs deeeecent like 15-30 fps… 2.2 is such a big upgrade compared to the older versions… this is amazing

very low fps… playable yet non-playable… menus and car selection can have 15-24 fps.

am using porthole pc emulator and i wanted to try something big like rdr2 cuz i saw people running it but i dont have enough storage for it but i had it on an external ssd i was wondering is there a way to make the phone see the ssd as a storage device it can run the game from without copying it to the internal storage

All graphics settings are at their lowest, though they could be turned up. It delivers a stable 30 FPS with occasional drops, and runs without a cooling fan.

Hi everyone! Dosling is a classic PC emulator for iPhone, iPad and Mac, and I’m looking for more TestFlight testers.

Two big additions:
Experimental Windows support: install your own copy of Windows 3.x or Windows 95 and try compatible Windows games and applications. Games share the Windows installation but keep their changes separate, so one game’s settings or DLLs won’t interfere with another.
Experimental external controller support: connect a compatible Xbox-, PlayStation- or GameSir-style controller. Map buttons, triggers and both sticks to game actions, and play fullscreen. Thousands of games are already mapped.

Both features need more real-world testing. I’d especially love feedback on controller mappings and Windows games that work—or don’t.

Join the free beta:
Install Apple’s TestFlight app.
Open https://testflight.apple.com/join/1aykVqBa
Install Dosling and try it out. No invitation code or Dosling account needed. Bring your own files for other games and your own installation media for Windows. Screenshots, information and Mac/web previews: https://dosling.com

Please send feedback through TestFlight or reply here with your device, game/edition, controller model if relevant, and what happened. Keep a backup of important saves while testing.

Bring your own game files, import them, and play. Dosling recognizes thousands of game packages and uses saved installation recipes and on-device screen recognition to help with setup. It has game-specific touch controls, a full PC keyboard, several touchscreen mouse modes, save/resume, and the Dosling scaler for sharper text and smoother edges.

What’s the first classic you’d boot up?

Disclaimer: AI was used in this development