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Joseph MattielloandClaude Opus 5 07334ba645 release: v3.6.1

Patch release for the no-content boot fix (#726): booting with no content
now comes up in the CD BIOS, on its insert-disc screen, instead of a bare
console with an empty cart slot -- which made "launch bare, insert a disc,
reach the VLM" (#646 + #651, the headline of v3.6.0) unreachable by
construction.

Also flips supports_no_game in dist/info, left "false" when
SET_SUPPORT_NO_GAME shipped: RetroArch reads the info database rather than
the runtime environment call to decide whether to offer a contentless
launch, so the feature was never advertised to frontends.

Bumps CORE_BASE_VERSION and display_version to v3.6.1, adds
docs/RELEASE_NOTES_v3.6.1.md and the docs/WHATSNEW section.

Pre-tag gates, all run against this branch:
  - make test: exit 0, zero failures
  - C89 lint clean; check-info-version.sh OK
  - audio pair by hand: presence RMS 1174.2 (expected ~1175),
    clipping 0 saturated samples
  - acid baseline: Regressions: 0 (147/150; the 3 FAILs are baselined)

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <[email protected]>

2026-09-05 07:05:50 -04:00

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Virtual Jaguar libretro v3.6.1

A patch release for one thing: booting the core with no content now lands you in the CD BIOS, which is the screen you insert a disc from.

v3.6.0 shipped no-content boot (#646) and the disk-control interface (#651) so you could launch the core bare, put in a disc, and reach the Virtual Light Machine with an audio CD. That combination did not work. This fixes it.

The fix

No-content boot resolved to a bare console: the boot ROM running against a zeroed cartridge window. That is authentic for a Jaguar with no CD unit attached — and it is a dead end. The CD BIOS is what offers "insert a disc", and it is mapped as a cartridge at $800000, so nothing reachable from the empty-slot screen could ever get to it. The headline feature of v3.6.0 was unreachable by construction.

Starting with no content now boots the real CD BIOS, which comes up on its own insert-disc screen. No files are required: an external CD BIOS ROM in your system directory is preferred if you have one, and otherwise an embedded image is used.

Two smaller consequences of the same path, fixed alongside:

It reported cartridge mode rather than CD mode with an empty tray, which inverted the options menu against a machine sitting in the CD BIOS — CD Boot Mode and CD BIOS Type were hidden, and the cartridge-BIOS option was shown.
The Memory Track cart plugs into the CD unit and is present whether or not a disc is, but it stayed absent until the first insert.

`supports_no_game` was never advertised

dist/info still said supports_no_game = "false" after RETRO_ENVIRONMENT_SET_SUPPORT_NO_GAME shipped in v3.6.0. RetroArch reads the info database, not the runtime environment call, to decide whether to offer a contentless launch — so frontends were never told the core supports it. Now "true".

If your frontend does not offer "Start Core" without content, its info file is out of date; update it from the libretro info repository.

Why the tests did not catch this

Two tests asserted which boot strategy resolved and never checked what the machine did with it, so a correctly-resolved dead end passed cleanly. Both now pin the corrected behaviour.

One of them is worth noting for anyone reading the diff: test_disk_control case 1 compared strategy names either side of a disc insert. With no-content now resolving to "bios" — and a real-BIOS disc also resolving to "bios" — that comparison would have gone vacuous, passing while asserting nothing. It now pairs the strategy name with isCDGame, which is what actually moves: false for the bare BIOS on its insert screen, true once a disc is mounted.

Upgrading

Nothing to do beyond installing the core. Savestates, per-title defaults, hooks and cheats are unchanged from v3.6.0.

If you reported the v3.6.0 no-content boot as broken, check which core you have installed. The original report for #726 was made against a v3.5.1 core — a version that predates the feature entirely — which is worth ruling out before anything else.

Known limitations

Unchanged from v3.6.0:

Inserting a disc restarts the console. A continuous swap depends on CD BIOS disc-presence polling that has not been verified.
The enhancement profile governs internal_resolution and true_color only.
docs/WHATSNEW has no sections for v3.1.0 through v3.5.1; the per-release notes in docs/RELEASE_NOTES_v*.md are authoritative for those.

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