Cores are essentially other programs and games that run through RetroArch. RetroArch requires cores to run any content. Many game console may have multiple emulator cores, the question of which one is the best may come up. Emulators can be designed to be more accurate at the cost of a performance hit, check out the Emulation General Wiki.
To download a core, open Retroarch, and from the leftmost icon (Main Menu), go to “Load Core,” then “Download Core.” Your choices for N64 cores are Mupen64Plus and Parallel 64. Both are good options, with the latter being renowned for better accuracy, while the other has better overall performance, more customization, and broader.
Starting with v1.3.6, RetroArch users can download compatible freeware content, such as the shareware release of Doom, right from the app. This video goes th.

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Reah here as well: https://www.libretro.com/index.php/libretro-cores-updates-pcsx2-alpha-release-fo..

SONY PlayStation Classic RetroArch cores. If you want to try out the latest nightlie builds built directly from Libretro sources Click here. 'What retroarch core should I be using?' Has come across my lap MANY times. I hope this video can clarify some things for those of you looking to find out wh.

PCSX2 Alpha core available for Windows now!

Today we’re releasing an alpha version of the PCSX2 libretro core on the buildbot. It’s available for Windows only right now, but the same core has been tested to work on Xbox One/Series systems as well.

Important things to know

Create the following directory in your system directory – “pcsx2”. You can put all the asset files there from your regular PCSX2 install. See pic below for an example.

You need a working BIOS inside /pcsx2/bios. PCSX2, unlike Play!, will not work without a real BIOS.

It’s still an alpha version. Things are rough around the edges. Expect bugs and things to be incomplete.
There’s a working OpenGL renderer and a Direct3D11 renderer option. Direct3D 11 renderer can be faster than OpenGL but also has less features. Pick whichever works best for you. On Xbox you will only be able to use Direct3D11 anyways.
This core uses the x86_64 dynarec which was added to PCSX2 a year ago. It is still less compatible than the 32bit x86 dynarec in PCSX2, so keep that in mind. It’s for similar reasons that the software renderer right now won’t work (it’s not compatible yet with x86_64, not in upstream either).
There’s a bug that can happen right now upon closing content or exiting RetroArch with the PCSX2 core on Windows – the RetroArch process might not completely cleanly shut itself off and you might still be able to see a 0% CPU process remaining in the Task Manager. We have not been able to figure out how to fix that yet as the PCSX2 codebase is a definite case of ‘here be dragons’, but for now when this happens, you can just bring up the Task Manager and close it manually. It shouldn’t have a real detriment on performance but it is of course far from ideal and hopefully something we can fix soon with the help of some contributors. We have found this happens the most with the Direct3D 11 renderers.
Switching resolution at runtime right now can be a bit unstable, so does switching fullscreen resolution. We might just make resolution switching require a restart since this tends to be too unstable for now.

Update policy for this core

Hard-forked core for now. Govanify is going through many (necessary) refactors in PCSX2 upstream to make the code more portable, and he has also expressed his interest in an upstreamable libretro core somewhere down the line when the final refactoring of the GUI is complete. So either of two things can happen when that happens, if this is more closely aligned to upstream core is better in every way including performance, this will be replaced. If not, we will likely have two cores, one being the upstream-friendly core and this being the hard-forked one. As of this moment a lot of work remains to be done on PCSX2 to sort out all the internals that are chockful of nonportable code. Therefore, for now, the experimental PCSX2 core kinda is doing its own thing. PCSX2 still has a lot of inherently nonportable code in it, from QtWidgets to libglib. It’s for that reason that we don’t have a Linux core yet on our buildbot. We hope that we will be able to figure out a proper portable core for Linux users soon.

Expect a lot of Quality of Life enhancements to this core soon. We wanted to share this with you now rather than sit on it for even longer, now that it’s on the buildbot we can at least push regular updates to it, people can report issues and developers can contribute. Everyone wins.

Play! (experimental PlayStation2 emulator) is back on the buildbot!

The Play! libretro core is back on our buildbot! It took some time for this to be readded to our modern new buildbot but here it is!

Available right now for: Android (AArch64/ARMv7/x86), macOS (Intel), Linux (32bit/64bit), and Windows (32bit/64bit).

Update policy for this core

Upstream. Updates are pulled straight from the upstream repository.

DuckStation/SwanStation core updated

The DuckStation/SwanStation core has been updated to a build from a week ago.

Update policy for this core

This will remain a shallow fork and attempts are being made to make the surface area for patches small so that we can easily pull in updates. Some new contributors have jumped onboard and they want to ensure this core remains updated.

Mainline MAME available for iOS11 and up/tvOS !

The mainline MAME core is now available for iOS and tvOS users! It is also available for Mac Intel x64 users, and we hope that we can make it available for ARM Mac users soon as well.

Also important to note we will be updating to version 0.330 soon.

Update policy for this core

This is pretty much a shallow fork. It just attempts to pull in the latest changes from upstream without making many changes.

gpSP (Game Boy Advance emulator)

Many changes have been made under the hood to significantly increase performance of gpSP. One of the big changes that led to at least a 5-6% performance improvement was the removal of libco (a library used for cooperative threading). 3DS users especially should be in for a treat with gpSP, but realistically everyone benefits across the board, whether you’re on an ARM or x86 system. We can quite comfortably state you will be hard pressed to find a better and more well performing version of this emulator anywhere else right now.

Support for generic MIPS (including Dingux)
Built-in BIOS that ships internally and requires no external files/dependencies
Removal of libco (5-6% perf or so) and some performance fixes for x86/arm/mips (for perf)
Fixed the x86 dynarec and the ARM dynarec, that were pretty much broken. Good speedups (or power savings on portable devices)

Immediate roadmap for gpSP: PS2 support (coming soon (TM)), rumble and tilt sensor support, AARch64 dynarec (mid-term goal)

One caveat right now is that these changes have unfortunately caused it to no longer work on PS Vita. However, the plan is to fix this soon, and for this to be only a temporary thing.

Update policy for this core

Hard fork, self-maintained.

Picodrive (Sega Mega Drive/Master System/Sega CD/32X emulator)

This has received many speed improvements and enhancements courtesy of irixx, 32X support has seen plenty of improvements, and the results speak for themselves. Works wonderfully on OpenDingux-based devices and PS Vita, some of the lower end systems out there.

A separate blog article might be written about all the changes soon.

Update policy for this core

Hard fork, self-maintained

FCEUmm (Nintendo Entertainment System emulator)

Some important new updates from New Rising Sun that adds more mapper support (PR notes are his):

Add features to mapper 332/BMC-WS:

implement additional outer bank bit to support multicarts twice as large as WS-1001 (“Super 40-in-1”)
implement CNROM-128/-256 mode using two or four inner banks switched via CNROM-like latch at CPU $8000-$FFFF
implement solder pad/DIP switch change via soft-reset, resulting in different multicart menus
soft-resetting resets to menu as on real hardware, not just the currently-select

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