The v4.8 release publishes four images (Amlogic-ng, GameForce,
OdroidGoAdvance, OdroidM1, read from its asset names). The metapackage
(packages/sx05re/emuelec/package.mk:8-77) builds the S922X cores, dolphinSA
and mame only on Amlogic-ng, Amlogic-no, RK356x and OdroidM1, and removes
duckstation on the handhelds with a sed that replaces the first match only:
pcsx_rearmed, written twice, keeps its 64-bit build. Each package is mapped
to its cores by the .so or program its install step copies, PKG_ARCH is
applied as scripts/build:28-30 does, and es_systems.cfg is edited per
device as emuelec-emulationstation/package.mk:114-143 does. Amlogic-ng and
OdroidM1 list 124 cores, the handhelds 117.
RetroPie was the only platform with status: archived, which kept it out
of verify --all, slots, the pipeline and list_platforms unless
--include-archived was typed. release_pack already decides which packs a
release publishes and the installer serves every platform, so the status
set nothing apart. The field, its schema entry and the flag are gone, and
RetroPie is covered by every full run like any other platform.
AmberELEC's metapackage adds LIBRETRO_CORES_EXTRA (bsnes, Mesen, melonDS, geolith) only on RG552, RG353 and RG503, and deletes those cores from es_systems.cfg on every other device (packages/amberelec/package.mk:23-31, 45-58 at a21975bf). The new target scraper reads the Makefile's device images, that test and es_systems.cfg the way the platform scraper does: RG351P, RG351V and RG351MP list 125 cores, the other three 136. The installer reads the device from COREELEC_DEVICE in os-release (scripts/image:168).
game_dat_importer and arcade_parent_importer each kept an exact-text
copy of write_if_changed, so a redump refresh rewrote every catalog for
its fetched date alone. Both now use artifacts.write_if_changed, which
treats fetched as a timestamp. A No-Intro rebuild still rewrites its
catalogs, since asset_updated_at moves with it, so check_freshness keeps
reading a fetched date no older than the pack.
The target scraper kept its own copy of the EmuScripts table and took
.ps1 files the platform scraper never read, so emudeck-we's template
skeleton was published as a core and removed afterwards by an override.
Both scrapers now read emulator_of_script, and the platform scraper
lists the installers at the pinned revision, as launchers: and the
SteamOS target already did. Targets rescraped, override dropped.
The target scraper stripped -sa from every standalone package while the platform scraper keeps both spellings. vice-standalone, scummvm-standalone and supermodel3 answer to vice-sa, scummvm-sa and supermodel-sa only, so every targeted ROCKNIX build left them out. Both now read standalone_emulators(), and the targets are rescraped at tag 20261001.
The platform scraper kept lr-dosbox-pure as dosbox-pure, which matched the standalone DOSBox Pure Unleashed profile, while the target scraper wrote dosbox_pure. Both now read core_name(), and platforms/retropie.yml is rescraped at its pinned revision 46128cd2: only the libretro core names change, and six Unleashed files leave the RetroPie manifest.
Batocera and KNULLI write the image name, not the board, to the card's board file (post-image-script.sh). The target scraper now records each board's images from Config.in, the target lists carry them, and the installer maps a card's image to its board. KNULLI's boot/knulli.board is read too.
KNULLI builds per board on Batocera's Kconfig model from its own tree (knulli-cfw/knulli-linux at the tag platforms/knulli.yml pins): configs/knulli-*.board, package/system/knulli-system/Config.in, knulli-es-system/es_systems.yml and the knulli-cfw/buildroot submodule. Ten boards, the armhf library builds excluded.
Continued if-conditions were cut at their first line, so GLES3 held on every board, and selects guarded by a negation stayed on once fired. Derived flags are read line by line, each pass rebuilds the symbol set from the board, and the architecture comes from the board's BR2_<arch> choice.
GitLab refused the hundred raw reads per IP. A GitLab directory is now
read from one archive request, else a shallow sparse git fetch, and the
cache keeps its file list so offline runs know what is absent.
Each board builds system.ini against its defconfig: a core whose package
the board does not enable is dropped (pisnes was the SNES default
everywhere), and a system with no core is not built. The row names the
default most boards share, board_defaults the others. A files: list
names whole files and is carried as files through the index and the
installer.
A folder no name resolves, run by a core of several machines, now holds
those machines: thomson, multivision and pcv2 had no fallback, so their
games got no file. Arcade-indexed cores keep naming files per set.
board_cores walked only the plain [core.N] sections and replaced a board
section whole. romfs2 systemholder.py reads a slot present as
[core.N.<board>] alone (gb and gbc bsnes on x86_64) and each key from the
board section, then <key>.<board>, then the plain key. The committed
target lists are unchanged on all seven boards.
The games importers wrote through fixed .part names, the new options had
no help text, and romfolders stopped on the first setup the offline cache
lacked. RetroArch's rom folder map is regenerated from its source spec
(path null, as the schema says). The installer's Python 3.8 job imports
the games tests without pyyaml, so the region rules load lazily.
mame2000, mame2003 and mame2003-plus carry a DAT their code moved past. Their parents and BIOS sets now come from src/driver.c and src/drivers/ at the pin, named by the src tree sha. The DAT is still read to report gaps. FBNeo DATs are read one namespace each, console sets keyed by driver. A BIOS with no dumped ROM is no longer listed.
The games index now names, per arcade core, the game sets that load no
BIOS set and every BIOS set, so a set on a card the DAT does not know is
told apart from one that needs nothing. Each board default core of a rom
folder gets its own fallback set, and index.json maps every folder name
a setup uses to its systems, for a games folder on a computer.
934 of the 1,563 mame.yml entries named no system and so served every
system of the profile: each MAME-run system's set was the whole profile.
The 65 BIOS root sets written by hand take the system groovymame.yml
gives the same 0.289 archive (sega-systemsp, konami-gx, taito-gnet and
41 more ids, added to systems:). The 19 XaviX sets take tvgames, the
directory MAME keeps xavix.cpp in. They seed the device walk.
mame_hash_scraper --devices files a device set under arcade when a
machine no entry places loads it: MAME starts such a machine from its
set name, as an arcade folder passes it. 1,106 of the 1,254 device sets
now carry arcade, alone or beside the systems of their placed machines.
qsound, ym2413 and ym2608, written by hand, take the same answer.
Left without a system: 41 device sets no machine of the listxml
instantiates (a software list slot selects them), and the hash/,
plugins/ and floppy/ trees every machine reads.
redump.info moved its BIOS DAT links from /static/bios/<name>.dat to one
route per system (/bios/PSX, /bios/PS2, /bios/GC, /bios/XBOX), served as
an attachment. The scraper matched only the old shape and found nothing.
Both shapes are read now.
Refreshed snapshot: the PS2 DAT moved from 2026-06-16 to 2026-10-10,
191 entries become 225 (34 mechacon, DVD and font ROMs added, the
ps2-dvd-302c.bin sha1 corrected, five descriptions completed). Only
the provenance fields of database.json change.
install/<platform>.json wrote the constant "1.0" as the version of the
list it was built from. The manifest now carries the version the platform
YAML records, and generate_pack refuses a YAML without one.
inherits: no longer passes a parent's version to a child: Lakka was
published as RetroArch v1.22.2 in its manifest, pack name and site page.
lakka.yml records v6.1, the Lakka-LibreELEC tag its target list is read
at. The MiSTer scraper refuses a BiosDB without a timestamp instead of
writing an empty version.
A pack's manifest.json records list_version, so an install from the pack
alone knows it too. Manifests regenerated twice and compared: only
version and generated changed.
FBNeo bumps src/burn/version.h without tagging: the scraper wrote the
last tag, v1.0.0.02, while the source said 1.0.0.03. It now reads the
header the way the libretro core prints it. The merge no longer writes
core_version: the hashes come from finalburnneo/FBNeo's tip, which the
libretro/FBNeo pin does not name, so the version stays the one
version_basis reads at that pin. A MAME release profile is written with
its version_basis.
mame_hash_scraper --release rewrote the whole profile and dropped the
pin_frozen that mame0258 and mame0278 carry: libretro/mame HEAD is a
later release, so without it profile_sync compares their refs with code
the Recalbox build never had. A release profile now states it, from
built_by, and keeps the reason a reader wrote.
batocera.linux 6b08b873 lets a biosFiles item declare its md5 as a
list of strings, and checkBios accepts a file matching any of them.
The scrapers join the values with commas, as for Recalbox, and record
md5_list so the export writes the list back as a list, byte for byte.
RetroDECK listed every component standalone only. Azahar, Cemu, Dolphin,
MAME, melonDS, PCSX2 and PPSSPP also run through RetroArch: RetroDECK/ES-DE
es_systems.xml at 15e1b236 loads <name>_libretro.so beside each standalone
command, and the cores ship whole from the buildbot nightly
RetroArch_cores.7z (retroarch/component_recipe.json:250-262). Their
libretro layouts, Azahar's save-dir files among them, now reach the pack.
A set whose every ROM is NO_DUMP or ROM_OPTIONAL only warns in
handle_missing_file, so the machine runs without it. The parser now
keeps undumped and optional ROMs for that decision, the merge and the
release profiles write required false for such sets, and the text
patcher rewrites the required line it used to leave. A curated false
over a set with dumped ROMs is kept, except over no contents, which is
what an undumped set leaves once a later release dumps it.
pSxMAME builds mamedev/mame itself at 0.133 and left the current
refresh, which would have moved it onto 0.289 refs. Release profiles
keep their citations double-quoted on regeneration.
EmuELEC's ports system has one emulator, `ports`, the dispatch to a
script ports.yaml generates. The scraper now reads each port's engine
(the libretro core handed to emuelecRunEmu.sh with -C, else port_exe),
so devilutionx, sonic2013, soniccd, sonic-mania, reminiscence and
rigelengine are examined. Standalone emulators keep the spelling the
launch code dispatches on instead of invented lowercase forms, and
media players and runtimes go to the overrides' remove_cores.
Each system of the AmberELEC, EmuELEC and KNULLI lists now carries the
cores its ES list offers it, in menu order, under `cores:`.
minarch hands every core SDCARD_PATH/Bios/<TAG> as its system directory
and opens no file in it. The scrapers read each pak's launch.sh (core,
tag, devices), each device's core makefile (the project a library is
built from: MyMinUI's dosbox_libretro.so is dosbox-pure) and the minarch
statement, at a pinned commit. The installer recognises the card from
.system/version.txt and refuses a folder inside it.
Each OS publishes Batocera's systems dict (knulli-systems, and
batocera-systems at AmberELEC's newest prerelease commit and EmuELEC v4.8),
read with the shared parser. Cores come from each OS's own ES list.
AmberELEC and EmuELEC declare neogeo/ and ports/ beside bios/ from
/storage/roms, so their packs extract there and core_destination puts
core files under bios/.
extract_systems_dict, requirements_from_systems, platform_systems and
configgen_cores move to module level so the scrapers of lists with the
same shape read them with the same code.
Both branches extracted RetroBat's Flycast BiosPath: value_folders
already produces the record, so the dedicated extractor is dropped and
its test reads the generic one.
RetroArch_installCores (emuDeckRetroArch.sh) downloads flycast, mame,
melonds, mgba, mupen64plus_next, ppsspp and scummvm as libretro cores
next to their standalone apps. Listed as standalone only, they got one
layout: once Flycast's standalone files moved to flycast/bios/, the
libretro core lost dc/airlbios.zip, dc/naomi2.zip and dc/segasp.zip.
The scraper now writes them as dual_mode_cores.
DraStic opens nds_bios_arm9.bin, nds_bios_arm7.bin and nds_firmware.bin and checks their size. Its nine aliases are in none of its binaries, and neither platform launcher passes them: ROCKNIX links the two BIOS names from its bios folder, and RetroPie runs DraStic from $md_conf_root/nds/drastic (drastic.sh:48), now a passes_path record. The collection answers DraStic's names with its DS dumps in generate_db, where repository names belong.
The launcher layer now reads the Saturn emulators whose option replaces
the default path, DeSmuME's pair and firmware, the melonDS DSi files and
NAND region, jzIntv arguments, BlastEm's SetBiosPath, Dolphin, Raine,
GSplus, the DOSBox and capsimg copies, Tsugaru's folder chain, RPCS3,
EKA2L1, BizHawk's GB switches and the folders that MAME, FBNeo, Snes9x,
Flycast, ScummVM, XRoar, XM6 Pro, ArcadeDuck, Demul and B-Syndrome get.
Every line of these generators that names the bios folder must be read
by a record or a stated exception, or the scrape stops.
standalone_path is relative to the directories a standalone build
resolves it against, now declared per profile (standalone_directories).
A launcher record that links or passes a whole folder of the BIOS tree
under one of them gives that folder, and platform_layouts rebases the
standalone view once for the builder, the manifest, verify and slots
(launchers.standalone_root, common.standalone_destination).
Flycast on RetroPie and ROCKNIX reads bios/dc, on EmuDeck
bios/flycast/bios, on Batocera (FLYCAST_BIOS_PATH) and RetroBat
(Dreamcast.BiosPath) bios/dc. The ROCKNIX, Batocera and RetroBat
scrapers now record the patched data directory, the environment
variable and the setting that say so.
The -listxml names the software lists each machine and slot card
declares and the floppy drives it can instantiate. --devices now writes
one entry per hash/<list>.xml the release ships under the systems of its
placed machines (111 lists, 666 stay with hash/), and files each floppy
sample under the systems whose drives select its form factor
(floppy.cpp:1428-1473, 1759-1767).
Machines a registered platform declares under one of the profile's
systems seed the walk too: bbcb, cdimono1, cdimono2, dragon32, ep64 and
ep128. Unplaced device sets go from 903 to 861.
Abdessamad Derraz