RetroArch

Installing RetroArch and its cores, the launch behaviour this plugin sets, the menu combo, and achievements.

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Installing RetroArch and cores

You don't need either of them set up beforehand.

RetroArch installs from Flathub for your user only (flatpak install --user), so nothing asks for a password. You get a progress bar rather than one long wait.

Cores come from the libretro buildbot — the same place RetroArch's own Core Downloader uses.

The catalog knows about every core that exists, not just the ones you have installed. That's what makes this work: pick a ROM nothing installed can run and the plugin offers you the cores that could, then carries straight on into adding the game.

Note: about a third of what the buildbot publishes isn't a game system — media players, image viewers, tech demos. You're only offered cores that declare both a database and supported_extensions and aren't in an excluded category.

Uninstalling RetroArch

You're only offered this when the plugin can honestly do it — a user-scope flatpak, removed with flatpak uninstall --user.

You won't get the option for:

• A system-wide flatpak, which is root-owned. That's what you get if you installed it from Discover or from another setup tool.
• A native package, which would mean unlocking SteamOS's read-only filesystem.
• An AppImage, which is a file the plugin never installed.

Each of those tells you the reason rather than showing you a dead button.

Your configuration and saves are kept unless you tick the separate toggle, and games you've already added work again the moment you reinstall RetroArch.

Fullscreen and RetroArch's on-screen chatter

Launch custom emulators fullscreen applies each emulator's own fullscreen switch. There's no flag they all share — Dolphin has none at all, PCSX2 uses -fullscreen, RPCS3 uses --fullscreen — so it's stored per emulator and suggested for the ones we recognise.

It stays an editable field because several emulators ignore arguments they don't know without saying anything, which would make a wrong guess invisible to you.

RetroArch announces itself when content loads: a load animation, then notices about controller autoconfig, refresh rate and config overrides. RetroArch notifications shuts that up for games launched from this plugin.

Mode	What you get
Hide the startup banner	No load animation, and none of the notices after it
Hide all on-screen messages (default)	Also sets video_font_enable = false, so save-state confirmations and errors go quiet too
Keep RetroArch's notifications	RetroArch behaves exactly like it does on its own

These get passed per launch rather than written into your own retroarch.cfg, and the override turns RetroArch's save-on-exit off so they can't settle in as permanent defaults.

Trade-off: changes you make from RetroArch's own menu during a game launched from here aren't saved either. Use Save Current Configuration if you want them kept.

Launch behaviour is baked into each game's launcher script, so changing this rewrites the launchers of games you've already added.

Getting into RetroArch's menu

RetroArch menu shortcut binds a controller combination that opens RetroArch's menu mid-game. It defaults to Select + Start.

It's on by default because otherwise you usually have no way in. RetroArch sets no combo of its own, and the Guide button its autoconfig binds never reaches it on a Deck — Steam claims that button first. That leaves F1 on a keyboard you don't have.

This is for libretro cores only. Games launched through a custom emulator aren't affected. PCSX2, Dolphin and the rest each have their own menu binding, and nothing here can set it.

RetroArch takes a fixed list rather than a free-form binding, so your choices are exactly what it supports:

Setting	Also available
Select + Start (default)	L1 + R1 + Select + Start, L3 + R3, L1 + R1, L2 + R2, L3 + R
D-pad Down + Select	D-pad Down + Y + L1 + R1, Hold Start, Hold Select
Off	Writes nothing, so whatever's in your retroarch.cfg applies

Pick one your games don't use themselves. Hold Start and Hold Select fire on a single button and are the most likely to get in the way. The four-button combos are safest.

Like the notification setting, this goes into the --appendconfig file, so changing it rewrites the launchers of games you've already added.

RetroAchievements

RetroArch has achievement support built in. This turns it on for games launched from here and signs you in.

Signing in asks for your retroachievements.org password once, and only the Connect token it gives back is stored. Their API offers no way around that one login.

Already have a login stored in RetroArch? You get a one-tap adopt instead, with nothing to type.

Hardcore mode is off by default, which is a deliberate disagreement with RetroArch — it defaults to on. Hardcore disables save states, rewind, slowdown and cheats, which is most of how a handheld gets played. Turning achievements on isn't a request to give that up. Switch it on yourself if you want unlocks to count on the hardcore leaderboard.

Why some of my cores can't do achievements

Achievements work by watching emulated memory, so a core that publishes no memory map has nothing to read.

Cores declare this in their .info file, so the tab lists yours as supported, unsupported, or not declared. That last one means the core says neither way, which older cores often do.

Note: your token is treated like your SteamGridDB key — stored in the plugin's settings, never sent to the frontend, and the launch override file carrying it is 0600.