Adding your games

RetroXR ships no games, films, music or books. Everything you play, you supply.

Bring your own

No ROMs and no BIOS files are included, and none can be downloaded from inside the app. Dumping games you own is your responsibility and depends on where you live.

The folder tree

Everything lives under one folder:

• Directoryretroxr/

  • Directoryroms/

    • Directorynes/ one folder per system

      • …
    • Directorysuper_nes/

      • …
    • Directoryplaystation/

      • …
  • Directorybooks/ .pdf and .cbz

    • …
  • Directoryvideos/ .mp4 .mkv .avi .webm .mov

    • …
  • Directorydvd/ a VIDEO_TS folder, or .iso / .img

    • …
  • Directorymusic/ audio for the CD player and tape deck

    • …
  • Directoryposters/ images to stick on the walls

    • …

Where that tree lives:

Platform	Location
Windows	%USERPROFILE%\retroxr
Linux / macOS	~/retroxr
Quest	/sdcard/Android/data/com.xenu.retroxr/files

The system folder name under roms/ is what tells RetroXR which console a game belongs to, and it has to match exactly. Several are not what you would guess — the SNES folder is super_nes, not snes, and the PlayStation one is playstation, not psx.

Don’t invent the name: use the folder that is already there. RetroXR creates each system’s folder itself, so copy into an existing one rather than making your own. If a game does not appear in the menu, a folder named by hand is the first thing to check.

On Quest: the web file manager

A headset has no file manager, so RetroXR includes one. You copy files from any browser on the same network — phone, laptop, anything.

1. In the headset, open the menu and go to OPTIONS.

2. Turn on Web File Manager.

3. The address and a 4-digit PIN appear underneath it, like http://192.168.1.42:8080 PIN: 4817. Note them down.

4. On your computer, open that address in a browser. Enter the PIN.

   

5. You land on a root with two folders.

   

6. Your games go under media/. Open it and you get books, dvd, music, roms and videos.

   

7. Drag files — or a whole folder — onto the drop zone at the top. There are also choose files and choose folder links if you would rather browse.

Two branches, not one

That root is assembled by RetroXR rather than being a real folder. media/ is the retroxr tree above — your games and films. libretro/ is where downloaded cores and their system files live, and you generally have no reason to touch it: the core downloader fills it in for you.

Caution

Leave the file manager switched off when you are not using it. It serves your game folder to anyone on the network who has the PIN.

On Quest: over USB

If you already have SideQuest connected from installing, its file browser works too. The path is:

/sdcard/Android/data/com.xenu.retroxr/files/

Do not overwrite files the app writes

Copy game files this way by all means. Do not push over save files, config files or the .romm folders — files pushed from a PC land with permissions the app cannot write back to, and a config it can no longer update looks exactly like a config that was wiped. Let RetroXR own everything it creates.

On Windows, Linux and macOS

Copy files straight into the folder with your normal file manager.

The web file manager is a Quest-only feature — it does not run on desktop, and there is no toggle for it there. On a PC you have a file manager already.

Box art and manuals

Once a game is in place, RetroXR can fetch its box art, screenshots and scanned manual from ScreenScraper. Scraped manuals become books you can pull off the shelf and read while the game is running.

See box art and manuals.

Or skip all of this with RomM

If you already run a RomM server, you do not have to copy anything by hand. RetroXR connects to it directly, browses your whole collection from inside the headset, downloads only what you want to play, and syncs your saves back.

Pairing is a QR code you scan with the headset’s camera — see connecting RomM.