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RetroArch is a wonderful and expansive front-end for tons of emulators and other gaming engines, it's just had a fresh release that entirely replaces the user interface.

XMB was the name of what they were using before, which was an interface thoroughly inspired by Sony's inteface for the PlayStation where you slide along and pick various options. While it looked pretty, their XMB interface wasn't very accessible and relied on people really knowing what to look for.

Ozone is the interface that has replaced it, only by default though, you can change between interfaces in the Drivers settings page. Here's what it looks like now by default:

Definitely not as pretty, sure but far easier to understand for people only just grabbing it. Lots of bug fixes and quality of life features sorted in RetroArch 1.8.5 including DPI-based scaling for the new Ozone UI plus rudimentary pointer support, which together makes it feel a lot better.

The older XMB got some new colour themes, there's new date/time formats, mouse capture hotkey was fixed, the newer Disk Control system now has disk labels added to the 'disk inserted' notifications and a bunch of translations were updated, Two important Linux issues were solved too including a crash running it on startup, and threaded video should be more stable.

See more about RetroArch on the official site.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. Find me on Mastodon.
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3 comments

fmartingr Mar 23, 2020
Yeah, that's heavily inspired by the Switch. I like Ozone more to be honest.
ProfessorKaos64 Mar 24, 2020
As long as it scales well, seems good. I actually loved the XMB interface. Nice to look at. The problem I have with a lot of new interfaces, is they don't allow you to or auto-scale well. Say I have a massive resolution on a smaller screen, I don't want the icons to look like ants :)
ugly Mar 28, 2020
Ozone looks fine. I didn't really have a problem with the XMB interface.

The one thing that bothers me about Ozone is that there are no screenshots for save states.
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