es-de/emulationstation-de v2.2.0 on GitLab

Version 2.2.0

Release date: 2023-11-02

Release overview

The 2.2 release adds many new features like cleanup tools for orphaned data, file hash searching for the scraper, clipboard paste support, ability to change systems sorting from the GUI and more complete Unicode support. It's now possible to rescan the ROM directory and to update/create the ROM directory tree from the new Utilities menu, both without restarting the application.

New theme engine functionality has been implemented such as rounded corners for images, videos and animations, horizontally scrolling text containers and stationary elements. Rendering accuracy has been improved, especially font rendering which now has a higher quality across all types of devices and screen resolutions.

Support has been added for many new systems and emulators, and on Linux there is now support for running Windows emulators using Wine or Proton.

On the infrastructure level a significant portion of the homecooked filesystem code has been replaced with functionality from the C++ Standard Library and a large amount of refactoring has been made to clean up and simplify the codebase. As part of this cleanup legacy theme support has been completely removed.

In addition to the above many bugs have been fixed and the application has received a lot more polish as well as numerous quality of life improvements.

Detailed list of changes

Completely removed support for legacy EmulationStation themes
Added support for MD5 file hash searching when scraping using ScreenScraper
Added a utility for removing orphaned data (game media, gamelist entries and custom collection entries)
Added a "Systems sorting" option to the UI settings menu to select between the bundled systems sorting configuration files
Added support for downloading the Windows and macOS packages via the application updater (manual installation still required)
Added support for pasting text into the application (when a text input field is focused)
Added support for using most characters (including multi-byte Unicode characters) in custom collection names
Added key repeat support to the media viewer
Added a new Utilities menu to the main menu
Added an entry to the Utilities menu for rescanning the ROM directory
Added an entry to the Utilities menu for creating/updating the game system directories
Added a "Debug mode" option to the Other settings menu (which is equivalent to starting with the --debug flag)
Added support for a %PRECOMMAND% launch command variable (useful for launching emulators via Wine or Proton)
Added support for a %GAMEDIRRAW% launch command variable (useful for launching MESS systems using the MAME RetroArch cores)
Added support for defining multiple %INJECT% launch command variables
Added more debug log output when launching games
Duplicate es_systems.xml command label entries are now ignored on application startup
Added support for placing images in a "custom" folder in the downloaded_media directory and view these using the media viewer
Enabled the setting "Show hidden files and folders" to be changed without requiring an application restart
Enabled the setting "Show hidden games" to be changed without requiring an application restart
Enabled the setting "Only show ROMs from gamelist.xml files" to be changed without requiring an application restart
Renamed the setting "Only show ROMs from gamelist.xml files" to "Only show games from gamelist.xml files
Added event polling when suspending ES-DE on game launch to avoid various issues primarily on Windows
Adding and removing controllers when a game is launched is now always handled directly rather than on return to ES-DE
Added support for deleting installed themes from the theme downloader interface
Added support for the Coleco Adam (adam) game system
Added support for the Acorn Archimedes (archimedes) game system
Added support for the Console Arcade Systems (consolearcade) game system
Added support for the Acorn Electron (electron) game system
Added support for the Fujitsu FM-7 (fm7) game system
Added support for the Bit Corporation Gamate (gamate) game system
Added support for the LaserDisc Games (laserdisc) game system
Added support for the Sega NAOMI 2 (naomi2) game system
Added support for the Nokia N-Gage (ngage) game system
Added support for the PC Arcade Systems (pcarcade) game system
Added support for the Commodore Plus/4 (plus4) game system
Added support for the Sega Titan Video Game System (stv) game system
Added support for the Funtech Super A'Can (supracan) game system
Added support for the Symbian (symbian) game system (was previously a placeholder system)
Added support for the Namco-Sega-Nintendo Triforce (triforce) game system
Added support for the Taito Type X (type-x) game system
Added support for the Microsoft Windows 3.x (windows3x) game system
Added support for the Microsoft Windows 9x (windows9x) game system
Removed support for the Cave Story (NXEngine) (cavestory) game system
Removed support for the MAME4ALL (mame-mame4all) game system
Removed support for the Moonlight Game Streaming (moonlight) game system
Removed support for the Stratagus Game Engine (stratagus) game system
Added support for the AdvanceMAME (mame-advmame) system on Unix and Windows
Added Mesen standalone as an alternative emulator for the famicom, fds, gb, gbc and nes systems on Unix and Windows
Added Mesen standalone as an alternative emulator for the pcengine, pcenginecd, satellaview and sfc systems on Unix and Windows
Added Mesen standalone as an alternative emulator for the sgb, snes, snesna, tg16 and tg-cd systems on Unix and Windows
Added Flycast Dojo standalone as an alternative emulator for the arcade, atomiswave, dreamcast, mame, naomi and naomigd systems
(Linux) Changed the Flycast AppImage find rules so that they don't collide with the Flycast Dojo AppImage
Added the MAME - Current RetroArch core as the default emulator for the apple2gs, arcadia, crvision, fmtowns and gamecom systems
Added the MAME - Current RetroArch core as the default emulator for the gmaster, pv1000, scv and vsmile systems
Added MAME standalone as an alternative emulator for the atari7800, fmtowns and x1 systems
Added ares standalone as an alternative emulator for the gamegear, gb, gba, gbc and satellaview systems
Added SkyEmu standalone as an alternative emulator for the gb, gba, gbc and nds systems
Added FS-UAE standalone as an alternative emulator for the amiga, amiga1200, amiga600, amigacd32 and cdtv systems
Added Amiberry standalone as an alternative emulator for the amiga, amiga1200, amiga600, amigacd32 and cdtv systems on Linux and macOS
Set %STARTDIR%=%GAMEDIR% for the X Millennium RetroArch core as it created temporary files in the ES-DE directory
Added the ECWolf, NXEngine, OpenLara and Super Bros War RetroArch cores as alternative emulators for the ports system on Unix and Windows
Added the ECWolf, NXEngine and Super Bros War RetroArch cores as alternative emulators for the ports system on macOS
Added TIC-80 standalone as an alternative emulator for the tic80 system
Added the MAME - Current RetroArch core as an alternative emulator for the apple2 and atari7800 systems
Added the MAME - Current RetroArch core and MAME standalone as alternative emulators for the channelf, daphne and intellivision systems
Added the MAME - Current RetroArch core and MAME standalone as alternative emulators for the megaduck, odyssey2 and supervision
Added the MAME - Current RetroArch core and MAME standalone as alternative emulators for the vectrex and videopac systems
Added the DirkSimple RetroArch core as an alternative emulator for the daphne and laserdisc systems
Added MAME standalone as an alternative emulator for the fmtowns system on Unix and Windows
Removed the Supermodel [Fullscreen] standalone emulator entries from the arcade, mame and model3 systems on Unix and Windows
Removed the explicit -force-feedback flag from the Supermodel emulator entries for the arcade, mame and model3 systems
(macOS) Added the MAME - Current RetroArch core as the default emulator for the fmtowns system (was previously a placeholder system)
Added QUASI88 standalone as an alternative emulator for the pc88 system
Changed the configuration for the astrocde system to no longer require a manually installed MAME hash file
Added the Retro8 RetroArch core as an alternative emulator for the pico8 system
Added the .88d, .cmt and .t88 file extensions to the pc88 system
Removed the .7z and .zip file extensions from the pc88 system
Removed the .cdi, .cue, .gdi, .m3u and .iso file extensions from the atomiswave, naomi and naomigd systems
Added the .7z and .zip file extensions to the apple2gs and daphne systems
Added the .cdr, .chd and .gdi file extensions to the fmtowns system
Added the .arcadedef file extension to the ps2 system
Added the .chd file extension to the psp system
(Linux) Added support for the Microsoft Xbox 360 (xbox360) game system by running xenia via Wine or Proton
(Linux) Added support for the Atari Jaguar CD (atarijaguarcd) game system by running BigPEmu via Wine or Proton
(Linux) Added BigPEmu Wine and BigPEmu Proton as alternative emulators for the atarijaguar system
(Linux) Added Model 2 Emulator Wine and Model 2 Emulator Proton as alternative emulators for the model2 system
(Linux) Added 3dSen Wine and 3dSen Proton as alternative emulators for the famicom and nes systems
(Linux) Added support for the Visual Pinball (vpinball) game system
(Linux) Added support for using the RetroArch AppImage release in portable mode (added corepath find rules)
(Linux) Added support for the AppImage release of Snes9x
(Linux) Added support for the Flatpak release of Cemu and Supermodel
(Linux) Added support for the Snap release of Dolphin
(Linux) Added the PCSX2 Flatpak release to the non-legacy PCSX2 find rule configuration
(Linux) Updated the DuckStation find rules as the AppImage release filename has changed
(Linux) Updated the Citra find rules as the AppImage release filename has changed
(Windows) Removed %RUNINBACKGROUND% from all MAME standalone entries as it no longer hangs on exit
(Windows) Added %STARTDIR%=%EMUDIR% for the Vita3K and xemu emulators
(Windows) Added Demul as an alternative emulator for the atomiswave, dreamcast, naomi and naomi2 systems
(Windows) Added 3dSen standalone as an alternative emulator for the famicom and nes systems
(Windows) Added Altirra standalone as an alternative emulator for the atari5200, atari800 and atarixe systems
(Windows) Added the .url file extension to the epic system
(Windows) Added the .lnk file extension to the steam system
Removed atarijaguarcd as an extra platform for the atarijaguar system as it actually made scraping worse
Added arcade as an extra platform to the daphne system (to improve scraping)
Removed the videopac platform ID entry as it's identical to odyssey2
Changed the platform for the ags system to pcwindows to improve scraping
Changed the platform for the videopac system to odyssey2 to improve scraping
Added the snes-msu1 platform so that these games can be scraped using ScreenScraper (requires custom system config)
Changed the fullname for the vectrex system from "Smith Engineering Vectrex" to "GCE Vectrex"
Changed the fullname for the tic80 system from "TIC-80 Game Engine" to "TIC-80 Fantasy Computer"
(modern-es-de) Replaced the carousel images for the c64 and dos systems
Changed the screensaver to never show the same game again until all games have been cycled through
Reduced the slideshow screensaver fade-in time
Removed the annoying warning message when selecting the video screensaver from the UI settings menu
Removed the back button option from some confirmation dialogs
Changed the button text for some dialogs to display "Proceed/Cancel" instead of "Yes/No"
Increased the font size for the "Create new custom collection from theme" interface
Set scanline rendering as disabled by default for the slideshow screensaver
Changed the sort types "filename, ascending" and "filename, descending" to "name, ascending" and "name, descending"
Changed the "no games" dialog to no longer save the ROM directory to es_settings.xml if its value hasn't changed
When editing custom collections with really long names, the "Y" button helpsystem text now gets abbreviated
Removed the "Legacy gamelist view style" and "Legacy theme transitions" settings
Removed the "Display pillarboxes for gamelist videos" and "Render scanlines for gamelist videos" settings
Removed Linux DEB package support from ApplicationUpdater as these packages are no longer provided
Changed ComponentList to fixed row heights which fixed many alignment issues
Improved the layout for the scraper and theme downloader to look more consistent across different display aspect ratios
When an invalid media file is detected by the scraper, the media type is now included in the error message
Added a download percentage indicator to the application updater
Made the miximage offline generator GUI sizing more consistent across different display aspect ratios
Removed the es_log.txt entry when an es_systems.cfg legacy systems configuration file was found on startup
Improved font rendering quality and always enable linear texture interpolation for both minification and magnification
Improved the blur shaders to run faster at higher resolutions and to look nearly identical regardless of display resolution
Improved the blur shaders rendering quality when rotating the screen 90 or 270 degrees
Added rounded corner support to the image, video, animation, carousel and grid elements
Added a "stationary" property to all secondary elements to set them as stationary during slide transitions
Added a "containerType" property to the text element to select between vertical and horizontal containers
Added a number of carousel, grid, textlist and text properties to control horizontally scrolling text
Added a "textRelativeScale" property to the carousel to size text smaller than the overall item size
Added an "imageInterpolation" property to the grid element
Added "rotation" and "rotationOrigin" properties to the video element
Changed the "interpolation" property for the video element to also apply to the video texture
Added debug overlay rendering for the actual video stream in addition to the static image
Added an "interpolation" property to the badge element
Added support for the "interpolation" property to the animation element when using Lottie files
Changed default interpolation to linear on arbitrary rotation for the image, video, animation, badges and rating elements
Added "iterationCount" and "onIterationsDone" properties to the video element
Changed the "path" property for the video element to consider the set value even if it points to a non-existing file
Made it possible to set the defaultImage property for the carousel and grid elements using variables
Added theme support for the "manual", "physicalName" and "physicalNameExtension" metadata types for the text element
Added support for binding multiple texture units for use in the shaders
Added the device serial number to the es_log.txt entries when adding or removing controllers
Improved resilience to buggy controller drivers which could previously crash the application (mostly relevant on macOS)
Changed the application updater to not use the scraper's transfer and connection timeout settings
Added support to MathUtil::md5Hash() for streaming files in chunks
Replaced a number of homecooked functions in FileSystemUtil with those from the C++ Standard Library
Added support for defining an explicit back button function for GuiMsgBox
Added support for fragment shader clipping to Font and TextComponent instead of using glScissor
Added horizontal text scrolling functionality to TextComponent
Removed all horizontal text scrolling code from ComponentList and TextListComponent
Refactored TextListComponent to work more like the other primary components
Added conversion of some additional HTML character codes when scraping using ScreenScraper
Added a lot more debug log output to the scraper
Changed a number of stream operations to open files for writing in binary mode (to always create proper Unix line breaks)
Changed the concept of "theme set" to simply "theme" everywhere in the code and documentation
Added a ~5 MB log output size limitation for launched games on Unix and macOS
(Linux) The regular AppImage release is no longer built to use the bundled TLS/SSL certificates
(Windows) Removed a launch command hack that deleted double quotation marks
(Windows) Added a warning dialog on startup if an unsafe upgrade of the portable release has been made
(Windows) Improved the README.txt file for the portable release
(Windows) Defined UNICODE and _UNICODE in the CMake configuration to force Unicode support for the Win32 API
(Windows) Added proper Unicode support to the Windows Registry find rules "winregistrypath" and "winregistryvalue"
(Windows) Set the subsystem to WINDOWS when building with MSVC to avoid displaying a console window on application startup
(Windows) Bundled the C++ dependency libraries when building with MSVC
(Windows) Now only redirect the standard input/output streams to the console if there is actually a console available
(macOS) Changed the minimum required OS version from 10.14 "Mojave" to 10.15 "Catalina"
(macOS) Completely removed support for the legacy OS build
Updated the MAME index files to include ROMs up to MAME version 0.258
Bundled the August 2023 release of the Mozilla TLS/SSL certificates
Updated SDL to 2.28.4 on Windows, macOS and the Linux AppImage builds
Updated RapidJSON to commit a95e013b97ca6523f32da23f5095fcc9dd6067e5
Updated rlottie to commit f969abf62c8df773e3951a1176000e70fcde637f
Updated LunaSVG to 2.3.6
Updated CImg to 3.2.6
(Windows) Updated curl to 8.2.1

Bug fixes

Repeatedly enabling and disabling auto collections could crash the application if the theme used the gameselector element
Parsing of theme include files would stop if non-existing include files were defined using variables
The video player would not play the last couple of frames for any videos
Starting the media viewer did not pause fallback game videos (defined using the "default" video property)
Quotation marks in the launch command were not always handled correctly when combined with the %CORE% variable
The %STARTDIR% variable could not be combined with running ES-DE in the background when launching games on Linux and macOS
Directories interpreted as files entries could not be removed from custom collections
Duplicate ScreenScraper game entries could show up in the interactive scraper if multiple platforms were defined for the system
ScreenScraper API calls were slightly malformed for systems where multiple platforms were defined
If multiple games had the same thumbnail in the interactive scraper, then this image would not get displayed for all entries
Scrollable text containers were sometimes not updated correctly which led to text being cut off vertically
Slider knobs were sometimes not correctly positioned horizontally
The background was too dark when opening a menu with the dark menu color scheme selected and the option to blur the background disabled
The lowercase .xdf file extension was not defined correctly for the pc98 system
(Windows) Lack of event polling when suspended led to various strange problems like OS audio mixer issues and emulators refusing to exit
(Windows) If the ROMDirectory setting had a value then all custom collection files contained absolute paths instead of relative paths
(Windows) The media viewer could crash if attempting to display corrupt or invalid PDF game manuals
(Windows) Wide string conversions were not done correctly which caused issues when filenames contained 4-byte Unicode characters
(Windows) Attempting to capitalize multi-byte Unicode strings crashed the application if built using the MSVC compiler
(Linux) Flatpak systempath rules were missing for bsnes, Gargoyle, Hatari, Nestopia UE, openMSX, PCSX2, Play! and Snes9x
The camera offset in ComponentList was not correctly calculated when reaching the bottom of a list
The textlist properties selectedBackgroundColor and selectedSecondaryBackgroundColor were not offset by selectorVerticalOffset
SDL_StartTextInput() was sometimes set when not actually inputting any text
There were some minor memory leaks related to gamelist.xml entries when the file extension was no longer configured in es_systems.xml
Some theme loading warning messages for the gamelistinfo element were not formatted correctly