Systems, formats and BIOS

CabinetOS plays 33 systems, from the Atari 2600 to the Xbox 360, Switch, PS3 and Wii U. Everything comes from your RomM server: games, BIOS, firmware and keys. CabinetOS ships none of them.

How the console finds your games

• One Library tile per RomM platform. The console matches RomM’s platform slug (the left column below). The tile’s name is RomM’s own name for the platform.
• A platform the console cannot play gets no tile. Its games still show in Search and in collections.
• A tile whose emulator is still being set up is greyed, with Emulator not installed. Eden (Switch) and xemu (Xbox) come from Flathub on the first boot with internet, so they can take a few minutes to appear. RomM on your own network is not enough for these two.

How BIOS, firmware and keys reach the console

Put them in RomM as firmware for that platform (in RomM’s library, the bios/<platform>/ folder; see RomM’s documentation). Then do nothing: every launch asks RomM for that platform’s firmware and downloads anything new into the console’s shared BIOS folder.

• Files already on the console at the same size are not fetched again.
• For the systems marked any name below, the console recognises the file by its size or contents and copies it under the name the emulator expects. The names given are the usual ones.
• Offline, the console uses what it already has.
• When a required BIOS is missing, the game does not start and the screen says so, for example No Sega Saturn BIOS on your server. For Switch, PS3 and Xbox it says keys, firmware or BIOS.

File formats in short

• Single files play as they are, whatever their extension: .chd, .rvz, .iso, .sfc and so on.
• Zip, 7z, rar and gz are unpacked before the game starts, except for arcade, Dreamcast, GameCube, Wii and Saturn, which are handed the archive unopened. Do not zip Dreamcast, GameCube, Wii or Saturn discs: use CHD for Dreamcast and Saturn, RVZ or ISO for GameCube and Wii.
• CD systems: prefer CHD. A zipped cue/bin set works when the .cue comes first in the archive.
• Multi-disc games play their first disc. Changing discs in a game is not built yet.

Every system

Arcade

• One arcade folder just works. Name it arcade, or anything else RomM maps to its arcade platform (mame, fbneo, cps). Each game runs in FinalBurn Neo if FinalBurn Neo has its set, otherwise in MAME 2003-Plus if that has it. A game neither has shows greyed: Not supported on this console.
• Two folders let you choose the emulator yourself. A folder named after an emulator runs every game in it with that emulator: FBNEO, fbneo, fba or FinalBurn Neo for FinalBurn Neo; MAME2003, mame2003plus or MAME 2003-Plus for MAME 2003-Plus. Capitals, spaces, dashes, underscores, dots and + do not matter. Map the folder to RomM’s arcade platform if RomM does not do it by itself. Each folder is its own tile.
• FinalBurn Neo: non-merged sets for FinalBurn Neo 1.0.0.03, with any BIOS inside each game’s zip.
• MAME 2003-Plus: MAME 0.78 sets.
• The zip must keep its set name, for example sf2.zip. The set name is what picks the emulator in an arcade folder.
• Saves belong to the emulator the game ran in.

Wii and Wii U

• A Wii game that takes a Classic Controller gets one on every pad. One that takes a GameCube pad gets that. Anything else needs a real Wii Remote (see Controllers) and is greyed with Needs a Wii Remote until one is paired.
• Your Miis from the Mii Channel are copied into every Wii game.
• Wii U games that need a Wii Remote or the GamePad are greyed: Needs a Wii Remote, Needs a Wii U GamePad.

Not supported

• Game & Watch is left out on purpose: the games are too small to play on a television.
• Platforms not in the table above (for example Jaguar, ColecoVision, Vita) get no tile.

What works where

Saves sync for every system. See Saves, states and sync.

Something wrong or missing here? See this page on GitHub or open an issue.