ticohq/tico 0.8.0

tico 0.8.0 - modules, accounts and the Store

on GitHub

tico 0.8.0 is the biggest update yet. Emulators are now modules that install and update from the new tico Store, every account on your Switch gets its own tico, and every emulator has been rebuilt, with eight new ones. Your friends can see what you're playing on Discord, and your games can sit right on the Switch home menu.

Full write-up on the forum: What's new in tico 0.8.0.

Highlights

• Emulators are modules. tico no longer has a built-in list of cores: each emulator installs from the Store, brings its own consoles and settings, and updates on its own.
• The tico Store replaces the core manager: emulators, apps, games, ports, soundpacks and console packs, from the official repository and any others you add, downloading in the background.
• Every emulator rebuilt, with a new quick menu, per-game settings, auto save and states with pictures. Eight new emulators bring the Nintendo 3DS (Dekopon), Nintendo DS, PlayStation 2, Virtual Boy, WonderSwan, Sega 32X, Atari 2600, MSX and ColecoVision.
• Every account has its own tico: look, sound, Home, saves, states, playtime and RetroAchievements belong to whoever is playing.
• Several game folders, USB drives and NTFS, and new games show up by themselves.
• Discord Rich Presence: the game you're playing, with its cover, on your Discord profile, in tico and outside it.
• Forwarders: put tico, or any of your games, on the Switch home menu.
• Playtime that works, counted per account by the emulators themselves.
• Console packs, a new lock screen, German and Russian, and a new logo.

Emulators are modules now

Until now, tico carried a fixed list of cores and consoles, and every new emulator needed a new tico. Now each emulator is a module: a package you install from the Store that tells tico everything about itself.

• Install only what you play. Pick an emulator in the Store, and its consoles appear in Games straight away, without restarting tico. Remove it and they're gone.
• Updates on their own schedule. An emulator can be improved and released without waiting for a tico update, and the Store tells you when one is ready.
• Each module brings what it needs: its consoles and file types, its settings, which BIOS files it needs, its game lists, colors and artwork, and whether it supports achievements. Some add the console's own menu, like the Wii Menu, at the top of its games.
• BIOS files per emulator, in a folder named after it (system/snes9x, system/dolphin…). tico moves your existing files there for you, without overwriting anything.
• Custom folders per emulator: a Paths tab for its own ROMs, system, saves and states folders, including on USB drives.
• Game Settings: Settings › Emulator lists each emulator's games and lets you give any game its own settings. In the game list, the + menu's Game Settings goes straight there.
• Open to everyone. Modules are a documented format: see Creating tico Modules and Creating a Store Repository.

The old core manager and the sdmc:/tico/cores folder are gone.

Emulators

Every emulator was rebuilt on a shared frontend, so they look and work the same way. Unless noted, all of them get:

• A new quick menu (press + and − together), full settings and per-game settings. See The In-Game Menu.
• Auto save and continue where you left off, and states with pictures.
• Button mapping, cheats and configurable fast forward.
• Zipped games, several ROM folders and USB drives.
• Per-account saves, states and playtime, and tico's own RetroAchievements sign-in.
• Most render with Vulkan and support RetroArch slang shaders. Several have frame generation.
• A tip when a game starts that + and − open the quick menu (Settings › General › Playing turns it off).

New emulators

• Dekopon (Nintendo 3DS): replaces Azahar. Faster 3DS emulation built for the Switch, with frame generation and fewer shader stutters. Your 3DS saves carry over: see Mods and Texture Packs in tico Dekopon and Using Cheats with tico Dekopon.
• DraStic (Nintendo DS): new screen layouts, a large-screen mode and screen overlays, cheats, auto save and per-game settings.
• NetherSX2 (PlayStation 2): needs a game's full memory, so start tico through an installed title (hold R) or a forwarder.
• Beetle VB (Virtual Boy): both D-pads on one controller, palettes and 3D modes.
• Beetle Cygne (WonderSwan and WonderSwan Color): vertical games rotate the screen and the buttons with Select.
• PicoDrive (Sega 32X): the SH-2 dynamic recompiler running on the Switch, and the six-button pad.
• Stella (Atari 2600): the console's switches on the controller, paddles on the left stick, palettes and phosphor.
• blueMSX (MSX, MSX2, ColecoVision, Spectravideo and SC-3000): MSX cartridges work out of the box on the free C-BIOS, plus an on-screen keyboard.

Updated emulators

• Dolphin (GameCube and Wii): draws with deko3d. Shake, Tilt and Swing on any button, Gecko cheat downloads and Riivolution mods, online play via Wiimmfi and WiiLink, the Skylanders portal, WiiWare, Virtual Console, Triforce, the Wii Menu and the official GameCube adapter. Saves move to tico's saves folder. See Dolphin: Mods, Texture Packs, Online Play and More.
• DuckStation (PlayStation): a much newer DuckStation, with deko3D and Vulkan renderers, RetroArch shaders and frame generation. Change Disc, with disc 2 reading disc 1's save, and more disc formats.
• PPSSPP (PSP): PPSSPP's latest development version. Network multiplayer, frame generation, the right stick as the D-pad, and a clock that follows your time zone.
• Flycast (Dreamcast, NAOMI and Atomiswave): based on Flycast 2.7, with shaders, frame generation, Change Disc, vibration and upright vertical arcade games.
• YabaSanshiro (Saturn): updated to 1.20.46, with OpenGL or Vulkan, AMD FSR upscaling, frame generation, Change Disc, multitap, cartridges and a BIOS per region.
• Mupen64Plus (Nintendo 64): rebuilt on GLideN64, with internal resolution, widescreen, large romhacks, and saves written while you play.
• Snes9x (SNES): Vulkan and shaders. PAL games run at the right speed, and games with a clock keep their time.
• FCEUmm (NES): Vulkan, shaders and HD texture packs. PAL games run at the right speed, and Famicom Disk System games get achievements.
• Gambatte (Game Boy and Color): Vulkan and shaders, and games with a clock keep their time.
• mGBA (Game Boy Advance): joins the shared frontend, with Vulkan, shaders, motion sensors and vibration.
• Genesis Plus GX (Mega Drive, Master System, Game Gear, SG-1000 and Sega CD): Vulkan and shaders, plus Change Disc for Sega CD.
• FinalBurn Neo (Arcade): Vulkan, shaders, upright vertical games and smoother frame pacing.

Also new for emulators: Dolphin loads games faster, shader caches live in each emulator's folder instead of sdmc:/.mesa, PPSSPP's overlay follows tico's theme, frame generation reads one Lossless.dll shared by every emulator (sdmc:/tico/system/lsfg/), and RetroAchievements now covers Game Gear, Master System and Sega CD.

Every account has its own tico

• Each Switch account keeps its own look, sound, Home layout, accounts and RetroAchievements sign-in.
• Saves, states and playtime are kept per account. A one-time welcome wizard moves your existing settings, saves and states to the account that has been playing.
• A new lock screen in tico's colors picks who's playing. It works even with a single user.
• Settings › General › Starting tico: select the user at start, or always start with a user you choose.
• Settings › General › Saves and states shows your account's folders by your name, and each account's folder on the SD card has a file named after the account, so you can tell them apart on a computer.
• Your settings are kept in one sealed file. Emulators only receive what they need, like a RetroAchievements token, never your password.

See Accounts, Saves and the Lock Screen.

The tico Store

Browsing

• Search, Discover, Apps, Games, Ports, Soundpacks, Console Packs, Installed and Sources, in a sidebar.
• Discover has a featured carousel and Updates and New shelves. Games and Ports have a shelf per console.
• View all opens a console's full list, with a letter rail (ZL/ZR jump between letters), search inside the list, sorting by name or size, and a switch for betas and demos.
• A game's regions and revisions show as one entry, with your console's region first.
• A game's page says which emulator plays it, and Y installs that emulator if you don't have it.
• Search remembers your last five searches and groups results by category.

Downloading and installing

• A Downloads tab: packages download in the background while you use tico. The queue pauses while you play and resumes later.
• Installed lists updates first. Y updates everything, including tico itself.
• Choose where packages install (Settings › Store), and uninstalling removes exactly what a package installed.
• Every file is checked before it's written, and large packages stream straight to disk.

Repositories and torrents

• Add any repository. Trusted and verified ones are marked, and only they can feature packages or ship emulators, unless you allow it in Settings › Store.
• Packages can come from torrents: through TorBox, Real-Debrid, AllDebrid or your own TorrServer, through tico-fetch in the background, or with tico's own engine, now much faster, with uploads, encryption and uTP.
• The Store, RetroAchievements and SteamGridDB keep working when the Switch's DNS fails.

Discord Rich Presence

Your friends see what you're doing on your Switch: the game, its cover, the console and how long you've been playing, or where you are in tico when you're not in a game.

• Install it from Settings › Accounts › Discord. It ships inside tico, so there's nothing to download.
• Log in by scanning a QR code with your phone. tico uses its own Discord app, which only asks to set your activity and see your name.
• It's off until you turn it on, and you choose what shows: activity outside tico, the screen you're on, core names, and your tico language.
• Switch games, forwarders and other homebrew outside tico show with their icon too: the eShop's, tinfoil's, or the app's own.
• Your login is sealed on the SD card and is never stored as plain text.

See Discord Rich Presence in tico.

Forwarders

Put tico, or any of your games, on the Switch home menu.

• Install tico Forwarder on Switch Home (Settings › General › Forwarders) puts tico on the home menu as a full application, with all of the console's memory.
• Create Forwarder, in a game's quick menu (+), puts that game on the home menu with its cover as the icon. Pick who plays it: a user of your choice, or the Switch's own user picker. The game opens straight away with that player's saves, settings and accounts, and quitting it takes you back to the home menu.
• Forwarders get the 3 CPU cores a game gets. Turn on Ask CPU Cores on Install to choose 4 when you install one.

Your library

• Several game folders per console: tico's ROMs folder first, then the ones you add.
• USB drives formatted as FAT, exFAT or NTFS (read-only). Folders on a drive are remembered even when its mount name changes, and plugging a drive in or out rescans the consoles that use it.
• Library watching: games added to or removed from your folders appear without a rescan.
• Game lists load 3–6× faster with about half the memory, read straight from DAT files (No-Intro, Redump, TOSEC, arcade).
• Disc games in .chd, .iso or .m3u get their real title and cover. Consoles without a game list simply list their files. See Supported ROM Formats and the BIOS Setup Guide.

Playing

• Playtime: emulators count the time they actually play, each account keeps its own log, and game cards show the totals.
• Change Disc in the quick menu for multi-disc games.
• Launches show the game's artwork, then "Fetching achievements" while badges download, then fade into the game.
• tico signs in to RetroAchievements and fetches badges itself.

Console packs

A console pack swaps your consoles' covers, backgrounds, logos, symbols and colors in one go. Find them in the Store's Console Packs tab, and pick one in Settings › Interface › Card settings › Console Pack. See Using Console Packs.

Settings, navigation and languages

• German and Russian, and every other translation updated.
• General is in sections, and the Store has its own settings category.
• Font Scale in Display, and Startup Screen, Navigation Type and Game Splash in Interface.
• Two-finger swipes move between Home, Games, Trophies and Store. Swipe up from the bottom edge for the dock.
• Faster start-up, and covers decoded at the size they're drawn.
• A new tico logo, on the home menu and in the Homebrew Menu.

Fixes

• Quitting or launching a game no longer hangs on a black screen.
• Fixed crashes at start-up, when leaving a game after its first session, when closing tico mid-download, and the "2162-0002" crash when starting a fourth game in a row.
• Fixed tico freezing after installing an emulator from the Store.
• File names that aren't UTF-8 no longer crash tico.
• Changing a Home card's size keeps editing the same card.
• Updating an emulator no longer fails with "could not be written to the SD card".
• Saturn no longer shows "Game List Not Found" when its emulator ships a list.
• The Store's product page sidebar responds to taps, and the torrent service settings can be reached again.

Breaking changes since 0.7.9

Everything below is in Upgrading to tico 0.8.0, with what to do:

• No built-in emulators: install the ones you use from the Store. sdmc:/tico/cores/ is removed.
• Saves and states per account: sdmc:/tico/saves/users/<account>/<console>/ and sdmc:/tico/states/users/<account>/<console>/. The welcome wizard moves them to the account you pick.
• BIOS folders per emulator: system/<console>/ becomes system/<emulator>/, moved by tico.
• 3DS: Dekopon replaces Azahar. Your saves, updates and DLC carry over; mods, texture packs and cheats from tico Azahar need moving once.
• Dolphin saves move from its own folder to tico's saves folder, and .chd games are no longer listed (convert them to RVZ or ISO).
• Settings are sealed: tico's .jsonc files in sdmc:/tico/config/ move into sdmc:/tico/data/tico.vault, so editing them by hand no longer works.
• Save names: Snes9x, FCEUmm, Gambatte, mGBA and FinalBurn Neo name saves <game>.srm; older .sav files are renamed by themselves.
• No automatic overclock: Dolphin and Dekopon no longer raise the clocks for the whole game. Boost mode is an option you can turn on, off by default; we recommend your own overclocking tool (sys-clk, sys-clk-OC or Horizon-OC) instead.

Installing

Copy tico.nro to sdmc:/switch/tico/ (over the old one) and start it from the Homebrew Menu. Then open the Store and install your emulators.

Want to Contribute?

Every emulator has its own repository under the tico GitHub organization, making development, issue tracking and contributions easier.

Bug reports, feature requests and pull requests are always welcome. Please respect each emulator's original license and attribution requirements.

Found something odd, or have an idea? Post it in the forum. Thank you for playing with tico!