RetroXR v0.12 and v0.13: arcade cabinets, power, and over twenty new cores

Nov 10, 2026 - 9 min read

Full changelog · Download · SideQuest · Discord

v0.12.0 shipped two days after the last post and never got one of its own, so this post covers it along with v0.13.0. Most of what follows is v0.13, which is the biggest release so far.

🕹️ Arcade cabinets (v0.13)

The Arcade and Neo Geo systems were reworked to look more like the real thing. Arcade and DICE games now come out as JAMMA boards rather than generic cartridges, Neo Geo games as MVS cartridges, and they go into cabinets:

The Morphing Arcade Cabinet, for MAME and Arcade games
Simpler cabinets for the Neo Geo, DICE and Laserdisc systems

A cabinet skins itself from the game inside it, using the scraped art for its top and sides. Its bay holds a disc reader for MAME CHDs and a JAMMA docking board, and the simple cabinet has two controller plugs that take any controller-type device.

It morphs

The Morphing Arcade Cabinet reads MAME’s lists and rebuilds its hardware for the game you insert. Put in a shooter and it grows guns; put in a racer and it grows a wheel. It also knows motorbikes, boards, dance pads, taiko drums, guitars, DJ stations, a rifle with a scope, a plane cockpit and rolling balls. Some cabinets get racing seats, and some of those seats move.

That should cover all the non-standard hardware arcades ever used, and every combination was tested, but some may have slipped through. If a cabinet morphs wrong or is missing something, please open an issue. The shapes are approximations of the real cabinets, and 3D artists who want to make them better are very welcome.

Attract mode and a component input

A switched-on cabinet plays the game’s scraped video until someone grabs a controller, presses a button or drops a coin. Only then does the emulator start, which keeps an arcade full of cabinets cheap to run. Attract mode can be turned off per cabinet or in OPTIONS.

Each cabinet also has a component input, so any other console can use its screen. It is bypassed while the JAMMA or Neo Geo bay has a game in it.

🔌 Power (v0.12, v0.13)

v0.12 laid the groundwork: regional wall outlets (pick yours in OPTIONS → General and the room’s sockets and plugs change to match), AA and AAA batteries, and battery covers.

v0.13 makes it do something. Turn on Options → General → Enable Power Simulation and devices only run when power actually reaches them. Handhelds take AC adapters in their DC IN, as do the 32X, Sega CD, Disk System drive and Game Boy Printer. Each region has its own power strip, and there is a universal travel adapter too. The original Game Boy gets C batteries and the DMG-05 Battery Case. Every powered object’s menu says what it runs on.

💿 New cores (v0.13)

Download them from the BIOS / Extras view in CORES. New platforms get their own tiles and icons.

Sony PlayStation 3 (RPCS3). PS3UPDAT.PUP goes in system/rpcs3/, and a game can be a folder dump.
Microsoft Xbox 360 (Xenia Edge)
Sony PlayStation Vita (Vita3K)
Sony PlayStation 2 (ARMSX2), Quest only
Sony PocketStation (Pokket)
Nintendo 64 (n64emu), Windows only
Sega Dreamcast / Naomi (ParaLLEl DC)
Sega Hikaru (Odin) and Sega Lindbergh (linuxloader), Windows only
Daphne laserdisc arcade games (HypseusHW)
MSX, MSX2, MSX2+ and turbo R (openMSX)
Fujitsu FM Towns (Geartowns)
Atari ST, STE, TT and Falcon (hatariB, Hatari 2014)
Playdia, HyperScan, GameTank, Wenquxing and Coolbar
DOS (rust-dos), Doom, Heretic, Hexen and Strife (UZDoom), Duke Nukem 3D (EDuke32)
Internet radio

mGBA, Gambatte, PCSX ReARMed and Flycast were all updated as well. Each core has a Download all button on the BIOS page now. The PS3 and Xbox 360 cores are offered on Quest too, to try, and on Quest the PS2 tile recommends Play! and hides PCSX2.

Some cores the libretro buildbot does not build yet (ParaLLEl GameCube/Wii, PSP and Xbox among them) already have their info in RetroXR, so they will show up in the list as soon as the buildbot builds them.

New hardware (v0.13)

🦔 Sonic & Knuckles

The lock-on cartridge, spawned from the Genesis card. Put another Genesis cartridge in the slot on its top. It needs sk.bin and sk2chip.bin in genesis_plus_gx’s system folder, and it also fits a 32X. See Sega Genesis.

🐾 The PocketStation

Spawned from the PlayStation card: a memory card that is also a handheld, built from Sony’s own measurements. Out of the console it runs on Pokket, and what you save on it goes back to its card. Docked in a PlayStation running PCSX ReARMed, it is a real PocketStation to the game, so games can download their minigames to it, and its screen shows and is kept in savestates. It needs system/pokket/pocketstation.bin. See PlayStation.

👥 The Game Boy four-player adapter

The DMG-07 is a core and an object in the room. Plug up to four Game Boys into it, on Gambatte or mGBA, for four-player link games. It is powered as long as player 1’s plug is in a Game Boy. Download it from BIOS / Extras under Game Boy. See Game Boy.

The Game Boy Player, spawned from the GameCube card. A seated Game Pak can be pulled straight out by hand.
The SNES Super Scope, with its infrared receiver and sight, on snes9x. The receiver goes in the second controller port, and the scope needs batteries, its switch on, and a clear line of sight. See light guns.
Multiplayer adapters: the NES Four Score, the NES Satellite, the Famicom 4 Players Adaptor, and the PlayStation and PlayStation 2 Multitaps.
The 32X is wired like the real one. The Genesis’s picture now goes through it: run the Video Link Cable from the Genesis’s A/V OUT to the 32X’s A/V IN, and the TV from the 32X’s A/V OUT. That closes the known issue from the last post.
The Sega CD Model 2 (a stand-in for now), and the Model 1 Genesis’s 8-pin A/V OUT with its lead and the 32X Conversion Cable.
Console stands for the Wii and the PS2.
Expansions that need a BIOS are always spawnable. They used to stay hidden until the firmware was installed. Now they show a red BIOS missing line, and switching one on without it tells you which file is missing.

📺 A new shelf of appliances (v0.13)

New RETRO XR models with live displays and buttons you press with a fingertip, the laser or the mouse: a TV (now the spawn menu’s default, with a push-push key door), a 26-key universal remote, a vinyl player with an RCA line out, a cassette player and a CD player with working headphone jacks, a surround amp, a DVD player and a VCR.

There is also an AV switch with four composite inputs and one output to the TV. Click a number to switch, click the slide’s tab to step, or drag it.

Cassettes and LPs now have two sides. Put a #SIDE B line in the album’s .m3u before the first track of side B, then flip the tape or the record to play it. See music.

The TV gained IPTV channels from M3U playlists and a 90s volume display. Handhelds and TVs have headphone jacks, and there are RETRO XR headphones to plug into them.

🧩 Modding (v0.12, v0.13)

Any labeled mod prop can be spawned from SPAWN → Objects. Before, a mod prop that was not a controller, a gun or a lead could not be spawned at all.
Mod platforms get a Games tile, and can declare their BIOS and pin core options.
New calls for dressing the Morphing Arcade Cabinet, adding AC adapters and battery labels, and adding console stands, plus hooks for remote control, menu rows and fingertip buttons.
Installed mods show their version. v0.12 can install and enable mods automatically.
Netplay tells a peer that was refused over its mods which ones it is missing, and lets it download them from mod.io.

v0.12 also changed RcaPort and LinkPort to extend Port, so mods built on the old classes need updating. See mods and the modding guide.

👓 Passthrough that knows your room (v0.12, Quest only)

Passthrough can now use Meta’s room data: furniture mode by default, or the full room mesh on a Quest 3. Quest asks for permission the first time you enter passthrough. The libretro camera can use Meta’s depth too, so the Game Boy Camera works in passthrough, as long as what you point it at is visible in passthrough. The options are on the General ribbon.

Smaller things worth knowing

Press any button with a fingertip: every button on every controller, handheld, VMU, Nunchuk and light gun. D-pads take a press on each arm. Turn it off with Press Controller Buttons by Touch in OPTIONS.
The bedroom has a street outside: swaying trees, lit windows and porch lamps, new blinds with a working tilt wand, and a three-gang switch that also runs the ceiling fan. On a headset its lighting now follows the time-of-day lever and the blinds.
A welcome page at startup, with a console hookup clip and a Quest upload guide. It can be turned off.
Searching Games now covers every game, by system name and by regional title.
Menus can be resized, warn about crossed cords, and have a Debug tab on every machine. SCENE → Objects finds or deletes what you have spawned, and the SCENE cards now show pictures.
Chairs: a chair, stool, cushion, sofa and bed, all freely spawnable.
Desktop runs faster on Windows, and a second laser no longer drags the frame rate down.
The Game Boy Printer (v0.12) has more accurate motor sounds, paper that can run as long as you like, thermal paper in the official colors, and paper physics.
Deleting things (v0.12): drag an item onto the trash can in the spawn menu, or use the delete button on its menu.
Game Boy LCD settings, handheld screens lit by the room, posters up to 8x, and folder creation in the Web File Manager, which also explains why a ROM is not showing up.

Fixes

Objects no longer hang in the air after you let go (the known issue from the last post), or jitter while moving in VR. VLC audio no longer plays slow and flat on devices whose sample rate differs from the engine’s, which affected VHS, DVD, CD and TV on Quest. Book pages stop clipping, the Systems tab no longer freezes on Quest, and a netplay joiner no longer times out before the host’s room loads.

Known issues

Some cores for later generations may struggle on Quest.
Netplay is still experimental.