We are very pleased to announce RetroPie 4.6 with beta support for the Raspberry Pi 4.

It’s been some time since we last updated our pre-built images. However development has been ongoing in the background, and a lot of changes have been made since the last release. Note that we update RetroPie constantly, and you can update your system at any time. We wanted to wait until we were happy with the Raspberry Pi 4 support before putting out some new images though, but RetroPie has been working on the Raspberry Pi 4 for some time for those wanting to manually install or try a weekly development image.

You can see what emulators are available for our supported platforms thanks to a new stats module included in RetroPie – https://retropie.org.uk/stats/pkgflags/.

For RetroPie 4.6 we have moved to Raspbian Buster as a base for our pre-built Raspberry Pi images. Raspbian Stretch is no longer supported by Raspberry Pi Trading Ltd. We will continue to support Stretch for a while longer, but will likely stop updating binaries for it later this year.

We are marking the Raspberry Pi 4 image as beta for now – primarily as there are still some things to improve on, but most packages run well. Please do try it, and report any issues to our forum https://retropie.org.uk/forum/. If you are running a weekly Buster development build from https://files.retropie.org.uk/images/weekly/ you can just update within RetroPie-Setup – no need to start from a new image.

Please see the changelog below for more information on the changes since RetroPie 4.5.

You can download a 4.6 image from https://retropie.org.uk/download/. For first installs please follow the Installation Instructions.

You can also install RetroPie on top of an existing Raspbian Buster set up, or on top of Ubuntu on a PC/Odroid-C1/C2/XU3/XU4. Links to the relevant instructions can be found on the Download area.

If you want to support the project, donations are always appreciated and can be made on our Donation Page. The main developer Jools Wills also has a Patreon page up at https://www.patreon.com/retropie.

We hope you enjoy this update, and wish everyone the best at these difficult times. Happy gaming x.

Changes since 4.5

Raspberry Pi 4 support! Support is labelled as beta currently as there are still things to improve, but most emulators now run well.

The RetroPie images are now based on Raspbian Buster – Stretch is no longer supported by Raspberry Pi (Trading) ltd. RetroPie will stop updating pre-built binaries for Stretch later in the year.

Improvements to RetroPie packaging system and core RetroPie-Setup code so package state is remembered and binary updates will only be done if an updated binary is available. Source installs won’t be overwritten by a pre-built binary when updating also. We started providing pre-built binaries for the packages in the experimental section for the supported platforms.

RetroArch updated to v1.8.5. New notification system with cheevos badges support. RGUI can be themed. Support for real CD ROM, with the ability to dump the disc image. Improved disk control system, with support for labeling disks in .m3u files. RetroAchievements support for PS1/Sega CD/PCEngine CD.

EmulationStation updated to v2.9.1. Scraper fixes for the TheGameDBNet. Grid view improvements and bugfixes. Theming improvements. New options for “disable system name on custom collections” and “save gamelist metadata after each modification”.

Added videomode switching support to runcommand for KMS and X11 targets. SDL2 applications only.

Added ioquake3 module for platforms other than Raspberry Pi 1-3.

Replaced zdoom with lzdoom as zdoom is no longer maintained.

amiberry – updated to 3.1.3 including ipf support.

stella – updated to 6.0.1.

SDL updated to 2.0.10 with rpi4/kms fixes.

solarus – lots of updates to modernise the port.

eduke32 – major overhaul including adding package for IonFury.

zesarux – updated to v8.0.

cgenius – updated to v2.3.6.

drastic – update to 2.5.0.4 with RPI4 compatibility.

scummvm – updated to v2.1.1.

atari800 – updated to v4.2.0 (lr-atari800 config has been moved to lr-atari800.cfg to avoid conflicting)

lr-mupen64plus / lr-mupen64plus-next – enable GLES3 support on rpi4.

lr-opera – renamed from lr-4do.

Sonic Robo Blast – updated to 2.2.

Lots of other fixes and improvements. Added new experimental modules. vvvvvv – Port of the popular platform / puzzle game VVVVVV. lr-neocd – Neo Geo CD emulator. redream – Dreamcast emulator for the Raspberry Pi 4.



Raspberry Pi 4 image from – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raspberry_Pi#/media/File:Raspberry_Pi_4_Model_B_-_Side.jpg – released under CC BY-SA 4.0