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Zaparoo Core v2.6.0 released

· 5 min read
wizzo
wizzo
Lead Developer

Zaparoo Core v2.6.0 is now available! This release significantly expands Batocera support with over 100 additional systems plus Kodi integration, adds support for TV shows and music to Kodi, new experimental TTY2OLED display support, major NFC performance improvements plus heaps of other features and bug fixes.

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Expanded Batocera Support​

We've significantly expanded Batocera system support in this release, adding over 100 launchers which should just about match Batocera's own count. This change also added 17 new system definitions that work with custom launchers including Atari ST, CPS1-3, Coleco Adam, Commander X16, FM7, FM Towns, GP32, PC88/98, Pico-8 and TIC-80. Special thanks to Anime0t4ku for compiling all the information required to add these!

Kodi Improvements​

Kodi is now also supported on Batocera! On top of that, we've also added support for playing music through Kodi, and improved support for playing collections so you can now also launch TV shows (instead of just individual episodes) and albums/artists. The Kodi module is also shared now, so these changes also apply to LibreELEC/CoreELEC plus any other platforms we bring Kodi support to. You can also now configure authentication settings for Kodi launchers for those who prefer to keep its API service locked down.

TTY2OLED Display Support​

Core now ships with experimental support for the TTY2OLED project. This generally works fine already, but I will need more people to test it out and provide feedback. You need to manually enable auto-detect in the config to use this feature, but once it's enabled, your TTY2OLED will be automatically detected and start working immediately. One of the cooler parts of this support is it's cross-platform, so you can also use your existing TTY2OLED on new platforms like Windows and Batocera.

Major NFC Performance Improvements​

We've switched over to a new NFC driver from libnfc for PN532 NFC readers. This change should be seamless and automatic, with these improvements:

  • MIFARE tags are now 100% supported, read and write, and they no longer need to be formatted beforehand
  • Windows now uses the same driver and has equal support (reading and writing)
  • Slightly more responsive feel when scanning tags (especially tags with a lot of data)
  • Uses one third of the CPU resources compared to the previous driver
  • Experimental support for FeLiCa tags (I followed the spec but I don't own any of these cards so I don't know if it works!)

If you use these NFC readers, one thing you will notice is it blinks way less. Don't be alarmed, it's still working as expected, it's just a side effect of offloading some work to the device itself.

Media Database Performance​

Thanks to some tweaks in the database indexing process, updating the database is now around 3 times faster, which brings us close to about as fast as the storage speed itself.

Platform Support Improvements​

Batocera Package Support​

There are now pacman packages built for Batocera, available in the GitHub releases page if you want to try them out. Hopefully we can get these officially listed in the official Batocera content downloader.

RetroBat Support​

RetroBat is now supported as a launcher on Windows. Support should be automatic as long as RetroBat is running while you updated the media database.

Steam Integration Improvements​

Steam (Windows and SteamOS) support has been significantly improved:

  • Steam shortcuts now appear in scan results
  • Automatic Steam path detection via registry
  • Configurable Steam install directory override

MiSTer Improvements​

We've added MiSTer improvements:

  • Support for the /media/fat/_DOS Games folder for 0MHz game detection, in addition to the existing AO486 folder
  • Experimental support for Amiga CD32 (needs some further testing but it's better than the completely broken support before)

Bug Fixes​

And a handful of bugs fixed which were reported by the community:

  • Fixed custom launcher functionality issues
  • Fixed several Batocera platform bugs including system metadata display and path normalization
  • Fixed launch.random commands with arguments in format "system/*"
  • Fixed system default overrides to properly respect configuration
  • Fixed TUI improvements including media DB update page freezing
  • Fixed Batocera API connection retry logic for better reliability

And that's about it! Thank you everyone who uses and supports Zaparoo, I hope you enjoy this release. As always, feedback and bug reports are welcome on our Discord or GitHub.