Release: RetroFlow-Launcher 6.0 for PS Vita – Wololo.net

Developer jimbob4000 has released RetroFlow-Launcher 6.0. This new release adds Custom Categories support, support for ScummVM, PICO-8, and PlayStation Mobile, as well as bug fixes and quality of life improvements.

RetroFlow-Launcher is a nice little GUI for browsing and launching your Retro games on the PS Vita, and is originally a fork of HexFlow-Launcher by VitaHEX.

What is RetroFlow-Launcher for PS Vita

If you need a nice looking GUI to browse and run your Retro games on the PS Vita, RetroFlow-Launcher is for you. From the Readme:

This is a modded version of HexFlow Launcher; a 3d coverflow like launcher for PS Vita.

Main features added since forking from HexFlow:

• No need to create bubbles for games
• Retro game categories added
• Create your own categories (Collections)
• Favourite games category
• Recently played category
• Ability to search for games
• Ability to rename games
• Support for game backgrounds images
• Support for multiple music tracks
• Support for multiple wallapers
• Load from cache for faster startup
• File browser added for setting up game directories
• Smooth scrolling of game covers
• Fully translated

Supported systems: PS Vita, PSP, Playstation, Playstation Mobile, Nintendo 64, Super Nintendo, Nintendo Entertainment System, Game Boy Advance, Game Boy Color, Game Boy, Sega Dreamcast, Sega CD, Sega 32X, Sega Mega Drive / Genesis, Sega Master System, Sega Game Gear, PC Engine, PC Engine CD, TurboGrafx-16, TurboGrafx-CD, Commodore Amiga, Commodore 64, WonderSwan, WonderSwan Color, MSX, MSX2, ZX Spectrum, Atari Lynx, Atari 600, Atari 5200, Atari 7800, ColecoVision, Vectrex, FBA 2012, MAME 2003 Plus, MAME 2000, Neo Geo (FBA 2012), Neo Geo Pocket Color, ScummVM and PICO-8.

• Adrenaline is required for Playstation and PSP games.
• DaedalusX64 is required for N64 games.
• RetroArch is required for other retro systems.
• Flycast is required to play Dreamcast games. Also see the compatibility list as not all games are playable yet.
• FAKE-08 is required for PICO-8 games.
• ScummVM is required for ScummVM games.

RetroFlow 6.0 – What’s new

New

• Custom categories (Collections): Added support for custom categories, create a collection by pressing the triangle button on a game, press triangle again to bring up the mini menu. Collections can be renamed/deleted by going to the main settings menu ‘Other settings > Edit collections’.
• New systems: ScummVM, PICO-8 and PlayStation Mobile added.
• New languages: Portuguese (Brazilian) and Hungarian.
• Smooth scrolling: Game cover transitions are smooth when browsing games. Can be turned off by going to the theme settings.
• Adrenaline: Option to include games from all available partitions. (This is now the default setting).
• D-Pad Up: Jump to the recently played / favourites category, or filter categories to only show collections.
• Hide missing covers: Setting to hide games with missing covers. Go to the main settings menu ‘Other settings > Show missing covers’. The first time you do this it may rescan.
• N64 and SNES: Support added for portrait Japanese N64 and SNES boxes (delete your old N64 and SNES covers and download again).
• Vita: Option to extract background images. Achieved by integrating a modified version of copyicons by cy33hc. The normal functions of copyicons are also performed.
• PICO-8: Option to extract PICO-8 background images (uses the image in the centre of the game cart).

Improvements

• Better launch method: Removed dependency on repatch plugin and launch bin files.
• Box art sizes: New approach, the image size is checked and the closest box size is assigned (adding your own covers should give better results).
• Box art cassette tapes: Boxes now appear larger in their own categories (C64, MSX, MSX2, Spectrum).
• Box art reflections: Improved game reflections, small gap removed.
• PSTV: Battery icon and percentage removed.
• PSP: Image extraction now only gets missing images, speeding up the process. Images are no longer shown whilst extracting to prevent a drain on resources.
• Improved translations: Polish and French.
• Languages: Sorted alphabetically.

Bug fixes

• File settings error: Fixed error saving when pressing buttons repeatedly very quickly.
• PSP and PS1: Fixed error with bad game titles which contained double quotes. (PES C19 fix).
• PSP: PSP background extraction, fixed C2-12828-1, images are no longer displayed when extracting.
• Hidden games: Hidden games were showing when rescanning, the overall approach was revised.
• Lots of minor fixes not worth mentioning, see the nightly build for more.

Download and install RetroFlow-Launcher

You can Download RetroFlow-Launcher from the project’s github here.

Reminder: you will need a hacked PS Vita in order to run this homebrew GUI as well as the underlying games and emulators.

Installation

1. Install the RetroFlow VPK’s.

• Install the latest version of RetroFlow
• Also install the ‘RetroFlow Adrenaline launcher’ VPK from the latest version of RetroFlow.
• ‘RetroFlow Launcher’ is the app you will use to browse games. ‘RetroFlow Adrenaline launcher’ is needed for launching Playstation and PSP games.

2. Install any other necessary apps

• Adrenaline is required for Playstation and PSP games.
• DaedalusX64 is required for N64 games.
• RetroArch is required for other retro systems.
• Flycast is required to play Dreamcast games. Also see the compatability list as not all games are playable yet.
• FAKE-08 is required for PICO-8 games.
• ScummVM is required for ScummVM games.

Important: If Adrenaline games aren’t launching after you have finished the setup, please install Adrenaline Bubble Manager. Or try installing AdrBubbleBooterInstaller.

3. Check your PS1 and PSP are in the right Adrenaline folders

• PS1 and PSP games with eboot files should be saved here: ux0:pspemu/PSP/GAME/
• PSP ISO and CSO games should be saved here: ux0:pspemu/ISO/
• uma0, ur0, imc0 and xmc0 partitions are also supported.
• The partition you use for Adrenaline will also need to be selected in the ‘Scan settings’ in RetroFlow.
• Tip: PS1 games can also be launched using RetroArch, helpful for games which don’t run well in Adrenaline.

4. Add your retro games to RetroFlow

For best results it’s recommended that your games are named using the no-intro file naming convention, e.g. “Game Name (USA)”, these names are used to download matching cover images.

Option 1 – Use the default folders

• Launch RetroFlow for the first time, RetroFlow will create the folders where you can save your games.
• Once it’s finshed loading; close RetroFlow and copy or move your favourite retro games into the relevant game subfolders here: ux0:/data/RetroFlow/ROMS/

Option 2 – Use your own game folders

• If you don’t want to save your games in the RetroFlow data folder, you can use your own directories.
• Go to ‘Scan settings’ and then ‘Edit game directories’ to change the path to game folders.
• Once you are done, select ‘Rescan’ to find the games.

Disc based games

• PC Engine CD and TurboGrafx-CD: RetroFlow will look for ‘.cue’ files for these CD systems. Please make sure all the games are loose with the system’s rom folder with .cue files.
• Dreamcast: ‘.gdi’ and ‘.cdi’ games are supported.
• PS1 using RetroArch – They will use the ‘PCSX ReARMed’ core, more information on supported extensions here: https://docs.libretro.com/library/pcsx_rearmed/

5. Rescan to find your games

• Press ‘Start’ and go to ‘Scan Settings’, select your Adrenaline location, and if you are using custom game folders, select those too, then select ‘Rescan’.
• Your retro games should now appear when you restart the app.
• ‘Startup scan’ can be turned off once you have finished adding your games, the app will startup faster when it’s turned off.

6. Download covers & backgrounds

• To download cover images, press start, go to ‘Artwork’ then choose which covers or backgrounds you would like to download.
• From version 5 onwards you can also extract background images for PSP games from PSP iso files.