Recalbox 7.2 Released

There are tons of retro gaming emulation operating systems (OSes) for the Raspberry Pi. And Recalbox remains one of the easiest to use. Upon its launch, Recalbox differentiated itself from the ultra-popular RetroPie OS with various user-friendly elements. For instance, early builds of Recalbox didn't even require mounting an OS image to a microSD card. Instead, there was a drag-and-drop installation. Now, Recalbox does need to be mounted, but one thing hasn't changed: its onus on delivering a simple but robust emulation operating system. And with the release of Recalbox 7.2 comes a slew of updates and improvements!

Recalbox 7.2 Highlights

With Recalbox 7.0 came some of the biggest improvements to the awesome retro gaming platform yet including over 150 (legal) ROMs pre-installed and wider platform support. Now, Recalbox 7.2 adds a ton of new features ranging from controller support to more emulators cores.

Light Gun Support, Dual Joycon Support

Fans of on-rail shooters rejoice! Recalbox 7.2 now supports light guns out-of-the-box. As such, you can use Sinden light guns or a Dolphin bar light gun easily. For Nintendo Switch users, Recalbox now supports using both the left and right joycons separately or as a combined controller. 

New Retro System Support - PICO-8, Pocket Challenge V, Super Cassette Vision, Elektronika BK, Watara Supervision

Boasting support for over 120 retro gaming systems ranging from the Atari 2600 and the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) to the Nintendo 64 (N64) and PlayStation Portable (PSP), Recalbox has added new emulator cores. Notably, you can now run ROMs from systems including the PICO-8, Pocket Challenge V2, Elektronika BK, EPOCH SuperCassette Vision, and Watara Supervision. 

Additionally, several emulator cores for existing systems have been added. For DOS games, DOSBOX Pure is available while Libretro NeoCD can be used to run NeoGeoCD games. 

Bluetooth Audio

While many users may simply pipe audio out via HDMI, you can now take advantage of Bluetooth audio out for connecting to headphones, soundbars, and speakers. 

Performance Enhancements on the Raspberry Pi, Odroid-Go Advance, and Odroid-Go Super

Recalbox runs incredibly well on many single-board computers (SBCs) such as the Raspberry Pi and Odroid XU4. Plus, there's excellent support for handheld retro gaming consoles like the Odroid-Go Advance and Odroid-Go Super. With Recalbox 7.2 come many performance boosts for the Raspberry Pi 4, specifically to run N64, Sega Dreamcast, Naomi, and Atomiswave games at full speed. What's more, the Odroid-Go Advance and Super benefit from major performance gains with N64, PS1, and PSP titles. Overclocking the Raspberry Pi 4 even works better on Recalbox 7.2

...And More!

Plus, Recalbox 7.2 brings with it a slew of quality-of-life features. An enhanced installation tutorial provides a guided tour of Recalbox's capabilities. Its brand-new game clips screensaver lets you play videos of games with options to fast forward, rewind, and start games over. Since Recalbox comes with a ton of games pre-installed, there's now a menu item to hide pre-installed ROMs. Menu items are faster and consume less memory. You'll find various options such as a factory reset menu item that still keeps your games, saves, and scraped data. The internal scraper is more straightforward with options to select different image types. 

New/updated emulators:

● Dolphin updated to version 5.0-13178.
● Stella (A2600) updated to fix lots of bugs (Pitfall II, ...)
● Supermodel updated to version 839
● UAE updated to support CHD
● Np2Kai (PC98) updated to fix several issues
● Odyssey2 updated to add Europeans/French models (new Retroarch options)
● Mupen64plus-next updated for better compatibility and performance! This core is now
available on almost all platforms and performs very well!
● FBNeo updated to support latest game additions
● Libretro Duckstation is now available on all platforms!
● Beetle-Saturn updated to improve compatibility (PC only)
● Amiberry updated to version 3.3 for better performance & new options
● Libetro-Parallel-n64 updated and fixed on almost all boards (except low-end PIs)
● Vic20 is now shown as its own system, instead of only being available under C64
● Videopac+ is now available as its own system, instead of being available as Odyssey2
sub-model
● Libretro MAME has been optimized to run full-speed on low-end PCs.
● ScummVM updated to v2.3.0 and merged with ResidualVM

Bug fixes: 

● Fixed the ODROID-GO Advance v1 controller
● Fixed the 8bitdo NES30 Pro rev1 controller mapping
● Fixed missing BIOS MD5 & other minor errors in BIOS database
● Removed useless BIOS files (PalmOS)
● Fixed the Retroarch shortcut on ODROID-GO Advance
● Fixed shaders on ODROID-GO Advance
● Fixed lost support of open and WPA-PSK-SHA256 WiFi keys
● Fixed a fan issue with the NESPi 4 Case

Recalbox 7.2 Released!

There are loads of awesome features in Recalbox's latest update making it one of the best retro gaming OSes available. For beginners and experts alike, it's a solid operating system for emulation. 

Your turn: what retro gaming platforms are you using? Which Recalbox 7.2 features are your favorites?