Pickles and Wasabi

Pickles Pickles loads a Libretro core directly and presents its controls through MustardOS, styled by the active theme.

Core optionsSave statesSRAMInput mappingController profiles MacrosHotkeysAchievementsGame LinkNetplayPatches ManualsShadersColour filtersOverlaysVideo corrections

Wasabi Wasabi is the muxmedia module, assigned to media folders through Core Assignment like any other launcher and styled by the active theme.

VideoAudioPlaylistsLive televisionLive radioBookmarks HistoryCollectionsVisualisersShadersOverlaysVignettes Gapless playbackCross-fadeHotkeys

How settings are saved

When you leave a settings screen after changing something, both players ask where the change should apply:

This ContentOnly the game or piece of media that is playing.

This CoreEvery game played with the same core. Pickles only.

This DirectoryEverything in the same folder.

This Session OnlyKeep the change until you stop playing, without saving it.

DiscardUndo the change.

Wasabi starts from its built-in defaults, then applies folder settings and finally content settings, so content settings always win. In Pickles, missing or invalid values fall back to the defaults, so nothing ever needs migrating. Wasabi keeps its settings, bookmarks, history and downloaded filters, shaders and overlays with its save data.

Softpatching

Pickles applies .ips, .bps and .ups patches, such as translations and fixes, as a game loads, without changing the original file:

SNES/Super Metroid.ipsA patch with the game's name, minus its extension, always applies. Number more to stack them, such as Super Metroid1.bps.

SNES/Super Metroid.sfc/A folder named exactly like the game, extension included. Put the game and any patches inside, and choose which ones to use from the Patches screen in the Pickles Menu.

Patches in the Grand Tour explains both methods in full.

How Wasabi plays audio

Playback runs through a static FFmpeg build with only the decoders Wasabi uses, so it does not depend on the system’s own media libraries. Every audio extension belongs to exactly one backend:

SDL_mixerMIDI, played with the selected soundfont.

Game Music EmuConsole chiptunes.

libsidplayfpCommodore 64 SID music.

vgmstreamConsole game audio streams.

FFmpegEverything else, including tracker modules through libopenmpt.

Files that contain several songs list them as Tracks.

Read more

The Pickles Grand Tour and Wasabi Grand Tour cover every menu, and Supported Formats lists every file type Wasabi can play. The community article Pickles vs RetroArch introduces both ways to run Libretro cores.