Offline RetroAchievements arrive in spruceOS 4.5, and Powkiddy and Miniloong handhelds reach stable
The community firmware for Miyoo, TrimUI and Anbernic handhelds now queues casual achievements earned without WiFi. Version 4.5.4 adds a Cheevos app to browse them.
AI-drafted from 5 sources. This story was written with AI from the outside reporting listed under Sources, and checked by automated tools before it went up. The originals have the full detail.
spruceOS, the community firmware for Miyoo, TrimUI and Anbernic handhelds, released version 4.5.0 on 4 October and version 4.5.4 on 10 October. The headline feature is RetroAchievements without a connection: the release notes say you can "play cached games without WiFi and sync later".
Achievements on the bus
The offline mode is RAOfflineProxy by misantronic, now built into spruce. Its README describes a small local proxy that sits between the emulator and the RetroAchievements server, saves game and achievement data for offline use, queues anything you unlock and sends it when you reconnect. It only handles casual achievements; hardcore mode is not supported. Version 4.5.0 also renames RetroAchievements' Softcore mode to Casual. Cached games are marked in the game list and managed in the RetroAchievements settings, and 4.5.4 adds pending awards, the option to keep the whole library or one system offline, and automatic caching of recently played games.
Version 4.5.4 also ships Cheevos, an app by abalakh for viewing achievements on the device. Its README lists profile, game progress, badges, an awards wall and the screenshots RetroArch took at each unlock, all cached on the SD card, with unlocks still waiting in RAOfflineProxy shown as "Pending sync". It needs a RetroAchievements Web API key, and spruce's settings gained a field for one. The README says it was tested on the Miyoo Mini family.
Powkiddy and Miniloong join, MagicX in testing
The Powkiddy RGB30, RGB20SX and Miniloong Pocket 1 are now stable. They run on dArkMoss, spruce's fork of christianhaitian's dArkOS, which goes on the first SD card while spruce lives on the second, as it already does on Anbernic devices with BaseOS. The installer's TF1 Image tab writes that first card. The MagicX XU20, Zero 28 and Zero 40 are in development on oakMOSS, and the notes ask for testers.
Elsewhere in 4.5.0, Bluetooth was reworked to pair, connect, forget devices and switch audio to a headset, and the Game Nursery now offers Grout, a RomM client for syncing games and saves between devices. The DS emulator DSperate moved to version 3.0, then 3.0.3 in 4.5.4 with fixes for many graphical issues. Version 4.5.4 adds USB headsets and DACs on the Flip, TrimUI A133P devices and some Anbernic XX models, and caps the Smart Pro S GPU at 600 MHz while lifting the fan cap from its firmware 1.0.2.
Sources
- Release spruceOS v4.5.0 · spruceUI/spruceOS (GitHub)
- Discussion: Release spruceOS v4.5.0 · spruceUI/spruceOS (Reddit)
- spruceOS v4.5.4 (GitHub)
- RAOfflineProxy (GitHub)
- Cheevos: your RetroAchievements hub on SpruceOS (GitHub)
Image: abalakh