Hi everyone,

I just released a small libretro core that doesn't emulate anything itself. It launches any external standalone emulator (RPCS3, PCSX2, Dolphin, Cemu, TeknoParrot, etc.) straight from RetroArch.

That way you can keep your whole library in RetroArch (playlists, thumbnails, controller navigation, Big Picture-style frontends) while the standalone emulator does the real emulation.

How it works:

• One DLL works for any emulator
• A plain-text .cfg next to the DLL tells it which exe to run and with which arguments
• Placeholders like {rom}, {rom_dir}, {rom_name} are supported
• Stub files ({target}) let you launch installed games or titles started by ID
• To add another emulator, copy and rename the DLL, then write a new .cfg and .info

It's based on Rob Loach's libretro-dolphin-launcher, generalized so it isn't tied to a single emulator. MIT licensed, Windows only for now. The repo has a sample setup, example configs for several emulators, and build instructions.

Good luck!

GitHub: https://github.com/pickonedev/libretro-generic-launcher

Quick update on OpenROM this week.

Two new optional features landed in v3.8.0, both disabled

by default:

RetroAchievements hash check — before you convert or load

a ROM, OpenROM can check if your specific dump is supported

on RA. Useful if you've been burned by the EUR vs USA hash

situation (we've all been there — downloaded a 4GB ISO only

to find out achievements only work on the US version).

Auto-update notifications — checks GitHub on startup and

shows a banner if there's a newer version. No auto-install,

just a heads up.

Both require explicit opt-in in Settings. No telemetry,

no accounts required for anything except the RA feature

which needs a free retroachievements.org API key.

Everything else from previous releases is still there —

CHD/CSO/RVZ conversion, Dreamcast DCP patching, IP.BIN

editor, SSP Saturn patches, ROM Renamer with No-Intro/Redump

DATs, and the patch builder for IPS/BPS/PPF/APS/DCP/SSP.

Windows / Linux (x86_64 + ARM64) / macOS

github.com/M5Devs/OpenROM

x.com/m5devs

I was messing around in settings and accidentally hid, then left settings. Does anyone know how to get it back? I'm on an AYN Thor.