Few days ago the launch of the new version of the popular Linux distro for retro game emulation "Lakka 3.0" which It comes after more than a year of development. The project is a modification of the LibreELEC distribution kit, which was originally designed for the creation of home theater systems.
Lakka is based on RetroArch game console emulator, It provides emulation of a wide range of devices and supports advanced features such as multiplayer games, save state, enhance the image of old games with shaders, rewind games, hot plug gamepads and video streaming.
Emulated consoles include: Atari 2600/7800 / Jaguar / Lynx, Game Boy, Mega Drive, NES, Nintendo 64 / DS, PCEngine, PSP, Sega 32X / CD, SuperNES, etc. Gamepads from existing game consoles are supported, including Playstation 3, Dualshock 3, 8bitdo, XBox 1, and XBox360.
Main new features of Lakka 3.0
This new version that is presented of Lakka 3.0 is based on the LibreELEC 9.2 package and stands out for the inclusion of Vulkan graphics API support on systems with AMD and Intel GPUs and Raspberry Pi 4 boards.
Another novelty that stands out from the new version is the added support for Nintendo Joy-Cons game controllers, as well as support for new devices was also added: Nintendo Switch, Odroid Go Advance, Anbernic RG351P / M, V / Gameforce Chi and plates with iMX6 chips.
On the part of the emulator retroArch, we can find that this has been updated to version 1.9.3 and among the main novelties that are presented, a screensaver, a menu to pair Bluetooth devices, improved search and universal search added for all playlists, simplified key reassignment and added a menu to configure the regulator of the CPU.
In addition, we can also find that Various emulators have been updated and also various game engines connected to RetroArch.
Of the new emulators that were added in this new version:
- Genesis Plus-GX Wide (widescreen emulator for SEGA Genesis / MegaDrive).
- Stella (Atari 2600 VCS emulator port)
- Supafaust (SNES emulator variant optimized for multi-core ARM platforms).
- Swanstation (PSX emulator).
- LowRes NX (retro game console programmed in BASIC language).
- Mu (PalmOS emulator).
- Opera (fork of the 4DO / FreeDO emulator).
Finally the developers mention that they will work harder to be able to offer kernel updates at least twice a month:
As part of the libretro org's new release strategy, we'll be rolling out new versions of Lakka with updated kernels and RetroArch more often than in the past, hopefully twice a month. Our goal is to use 64-bit (aarch64) whenever possible and we aim to offer a 64-bit version for Raspberry Pi 3 in future releases.
If you are interested in being able to know more about this new version released, you can consult the details by going to to the following link.
Download and try Lakka 3.0
Lakka is easy to install and use, so those who are interested in installing or testing this distro should download the system image by going directly to the website project officer in which in your download section They will be able to find the image of the system according to the device in which they want to test it. The link is this.
In the special case of those who are Raspberry Pi users as mentioned above if you are using PINN or NOOBS these can facilitate the download and installation of this on your SD card.
But in case it is not so When downloading the image, it can be recorded on your SD card (already formatted) with help from Etcher.
Once installed on your SD card or USB flash drive, you just have to copy your ROMs to the device, turn on the platform and connect your joypad and enjoy your favorite games.
Also, it is important to mention that Lakka builds are also generated for i386, x86_64 (Intel, NVIDIA or AMD GPU), Raspberry Pi 1-4, Orange Pi, Cubieboard, Cubieboard2, Cubietruck, Banana Pi, Hummingboard, Cubox-i platforms. , Odroid C1 / C1 + / XU3 / XU4 and etc.