Usage🔗
Getting Started🔗
Read before continuing!
NextUI officially supports the TrimUI Brick and the TrimUI Smart Pro.
The steps outlined here only apply to these two devices running the stock operating system.
Before beginning, please upgrade to the latest version.
What You Will Need🔗
- A TrimUI Brick or TrimUI Smart Pro running the stock operating system.
- A fresh micro SD card from a reputable vendor (SanDisk, Samsung, etc.)
- The size of the card depends on the size of the ROMs you plan to play
- Software on your computer to format the SD Card
- On macOS, use built-in Disk Utility application
- On Windows, use SD Association's SD Memory Card Formatter
- The latest release of NextUI from the GitHub Repo .
- At minimum, you will need the
base.zipfile. - If you want additional goodies, download
extras.zipas well (or downloadall.zipto get both files in one).
- At minimum, you will need the
Installation Instructions🔗
Formatting will erase all data from the SD card. If there is anything important on the card, please back it up.
Do not unzip MinUI.zip! Copy it to the root of the SD card as is.
- Insert the micro SD card into your computer.
- Ensure that the SD card is formatted as a FAT32 or exFAT filesystem.
- If not, use the specified tools in What you will need to format the card as FAT32/exFAT.
- Find and unzip the file you downloaded from the GitHub Releases Page (
all.ziporbase.zip). - Open the unzipped directory and copy all content to the root of your SD card.
- Eject your SD card safely from your computer and insert it back into your device.
- Power on your device. A screen will display stating NextUI is being installed.
- Be patient while it installs. Do not turn off the power to your device during installation.
- Your device may turn off after installation is complete.
- Turn on your device and enjoy NextUI!
Updating an Existing Installation🔗
Do not unzip minui.zip! Copy it to the root of the SD card as is.
- Eject your NextUI SD Card and insert it into your computer.
- Download a fresh copy of
base.zipfrom from the GitHub Releases Page. - Find and unzip
base.zip. - Open the unzipped directory and copy
miniui.zipand thetrimuidirectory to the root of your SD Card. You can safely overwrite / replace thetrimuidirectory when performing the copy. - Eject your SD card safely from your computer and insert it back into your device.
- Power on your device. A screen will display stating NextUI is being updated.
- Be patient while it updates. Do not turn off the power to your device during the update.
- Your device may turn off after the update is complete.
- Turn on your device and enjoy the update!
Adding ROMs🔗
NextUI creates a Roms folder at the SD Card Root containing folders for each console currently
supported.
You can rename these folders as you like; however, you must keep the uppercase tag name in parentheses in order to retain the mapping to the correct emulator.
Example: Nintendo Entertainment System (FC) can be renamed to Nintendo (FC) or NES (FC) or Famicom (FC)
If multiple folders share the same name, eg. Game Boy Advance (GBA) and Game Boy Advance (MGBA), they
will be combined into a single menu item containing the ROMs from both folders.
A ROM selected from this combined menu item will launch using the emulator in the tag of the folder is lives in.
Disc-based games🔗
To streamline launching multi-file disc-based games, place your BIN / CUE files in a folder with the same name as the CUE file.
NextUI will automatically launch the CUE file instead of navigating into the folder when selected.
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 (USA)/
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 (USA).bin
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 (USA).cue
For multi-disc games, follow these steps.
- Create a folder for your disc files.
- Put all the disc files into this folder.
- Create a
.m3ufile that matches the name of the folder created in step one. - Edit the
.m3ufile and add the relative path to each disc's .cue file, one file per line.
NextUI will automatically launch the CUE file instead of navigating into the folder when selected.
For example, Final Fantasy VII has three discs:
Final Fantasy VII (USA)/
Final Fantasy VII (USA).m3u
Final Fantasy VII (USA) (Disc 1).bin
Final Fantasy VII (USA) (Disc 1).cue
Final Fantasy VII (USA) (Disc 2).bin
Final Fantasy VII (USA) (Disc 2).cue
Final Fantasy VII (USA) (Disc 3).bin
Final Fantasy VII (USA) (Disc 3).cue
The .m3u file for FF7 would contain:
Final Fantasy VII (USA) (Disc 1).cue
Final Fantasy VII (USA) (Disc 2).cue
Final Fantasy VII (USA) (Disc 3).cue
When you are playing a multi-disc game, the NextUI in-game Menu will display the current disc.
Use left or right on the D-Pad to change discs.
NextUI also supports .chd files and .pbp files under 2GB.
Multi-disc games share the same memory card and save state slots across all discs.
Collections🔗
A collection is just a text file containing an ordered list of full paths to rom, cue, or m3u files. These text files
live in the "Collections" folder at the root of your SD card, eg. SDCARD_ROOT/Collections/Metroid series.txt might
look like
this:
/Roms/GBA/Metroid Zero Mission.gba
/Roms/GB/Metroid II.gb
/Roms/SNES (SFC)/Super Metroid.sfc
/Roms/GBA/Metroid Fusion.gba
If you disable all visible folders under 'Roms', the 'Collections' folders contents will populate the main menu instead of being nested in the 'Collections' folder in the UI.
Display names🔗
Certain (unsupported arcade) cores require roms to use arcane file names. You can override the display name used
throughout NextUI by creating a map.txt in the same folder as the files you want to rename. One line per file, rom.ext
followed by a single tab followed by Display Name. You can hide a file by adding a . at the beginning of the display
name. eg. The 'Collections' folder needs its own map.txt file as well.
neogeo.zip .Neo Geo Bios
mslug.zip Metal Slug
sf2.zip Street Fighter II
Doom PWADs🔗
Warning
The PrBoom core requires the prboom.wad IWAD file - which is treated as a Bios file - and that file is available
for download here.
It can be placed in /Bios/PRBOOM.
NextUI supports Doom via the PrBoom Libretro Core, and loads Doom PWAD - or patch wad - files as it's game format. It also uses IWADs (internal Doom WADs) as the Bios files.
Note
The following documentation will use the fictional NextUI Doom.wad (Doom 1) and NextUI Doom 2.wad (`Doom 2)
as the PWADs Megawads being loaded.
To setup a PWAD, place it in the /Roms/Doom (PRBOOM) folder on your SD Card.
/Roms/Doom (PRBOOM)/NextUI Doom.wad
PWADs all depend on a particular IWAD as the base for running the PWAD. IWADs are placed in the /Bios/PRBOOM folder,
and a list of them is available in the Required BIOS section. If all your PWADs use the same IWAD - for instance,
doom1.wad then the IWAD can be placed directly in the /Bios/PRBOOM folder, and PrBoom will load the PWADs as expected.
/Bios/PRBOOM/doom1.wad
Note
All IWADs must be named using lowercase characters, including for the file extension.
In many cases, you will want to load specific PWADs with specific IWADs. Due to how PrBoom detects IWADs and lacking
information about which IWAD is required by a PWAD, PrBoom may load the incorrect IWAD for your PWAD. To combat this,
NextUI supports using a doom.version file to specify the correct /Bios/PRBOOM subdirectory to reference. Omitting
a doom.version text file will result in the default PrBoom using the default IWAD detection algorithm. It is recommended
to use a doom.version text file in conjuction with the m3u text file format commonly used for Disc-based games
to tie PWADs to have a clean directory structure.
Using NextUI Doom.wad as an example, we would have the following directory structure in our Roms folder:
/Roms/Doom (PRBOOM)/NextUI Doom/NextUI Doom.wad
/Roms/Doom (PRBOOM)/NextUI Doom/NextUI Doom.m3u
/Roms/Doom (PRBOOM)/NextUI Doom/doom.version
The contents of the newly created NextUI Doom.m3u text would contain:
NextUI Doom.wad
While the newly created doom.version text file would contain the following:
doom1
The doom.version text file maps to a subfolder in the /Bios/PRBOOM folder that should be used to load dependencies, such as
the IWAD or custom mp3 files. In the case of Doom 1 (Commercial), the commercial IWAD would be placed on the disk like so:
/Bios/PRBOOM/doom1/doom1.wad
Music for particular IWADs can also be customized by placing the correctly named files into the correct /Bios/PRBOOM subdirectory:
/Bios/PRBOOM/doom1/intro.mp3
/Bios/PRBOOM/doom1/e1m1.mp3
To load our NextUI Doom 2.wad megawad with only the title music changing, the following would be a sample file structure:
/Roms/Doom (PRBOOM)/NextUI Doom/NextUI Doom 2.wad
/Roms/Doom (PRBOOM)/NextUI Doom/NextUI Doom 2.m3u
/Roms/Doom (PRBOOM)/NextUI Doom/doom.version
/Bios/PRBOOM/doom2/doom1.wad
/Bios/PRBOOM/doom2/dm2ttl.mp3
The contents of NextUI Doom 2.m3u text file would be:
NextUI Doom 2.wad
And the doom.version text file would have the following as it's contents:
doom2
Required BIOS🔗
Some emulators require or perform better with the official BIOS.
NextUI is strictly BYOB and will not provide them nor links to them.
Google is your friend.
Use the table below to help you find and install the BIOS files you need.
BIOS file names are case-sensitive!
| System | Tag | File Name(s) | BIOS Directory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Doom | PRBOOM | prboom.wad doom.wad doom2.wad doomu.wad plutonia.wad tnt.wad freedoom.wad freedoom1.wad freedoom2.wad |
SDCARD_ROOT/Bios/PRBOOM/prboom.wad SDCARD_ROOT/Bios/PRBOOM/doom/doom.wad SDCARD_ROOT/Bios/PRBOOM/doom2/doom2.wad SDCARD_ROOT/Bios/PRBOOM/doom-ultimate/doomu.wad SDCARD_ROOT/Bios/PRBOOM/plutonia/plutonia.wad SDCARD_ROOT/Bios/PRBOOM/tnt/tnt.wad SDCARD_ROOT/Bios/PRBOOM/freedoom/freedoom.wad SDCARD_ROOT/Bios/PRBOOM/freedoom1/freedoom1.wad SDCARD_ROOT/Bios/PRBOOM/freedoom2/freedoom2.wad |
| Famicom | FC | disksys.rom | SDCARD_ROOT/Bios/FC/disksys.rom |
| Game Boy | GB | gb_bios.bin | SDCARD_ROOT/Bios/GB/gb_bios.bin |
| Game Boy Color | GBC | gbc_bios.bin | SDCARD_ROOT/Bios/GBC/gbc_bios.bin |
| Game Boy Advance | GBA | gba_bios.bin | SDCARD_ROOT/Bios/GBA/gba_bios.bin |
| Game Boy Advance | MGBA | gba_bios.bin | SDCARD_ROOT/Bios/MGBA/gba_bios.bin |
| Mega Drive / Genesis | MD | bios_CD_E.bin bios_CD_J.bin bios_CD_U.bin |
SDCARD_ROOT/Bios/MD/bios_CD_E.bin SDCARD_ROOT/Bios/MD/bios_CD_J.bin SDCARD_ROOT/Bios/MD/bios_CD_U.bin |
| Amiga | PUAE | kick33180.A500 kick34005.A500 kick34005.CDTV kick37175.A500 kick37350.A600 kick39106.A1200 kick39106.A4000 kick40060.CD32 kick40060.CD32.ext kick40063.A600 kick40068.A1200 kick40068.A4000 |
SDCARD_ROOT/Bios/PUAE/kick33180.A500 SDCARD_ROOT/Bios/PUAE/kick34005.A500 SDCARD_ROOT/Bios/PUAE/kick34005.CDTV SDCARD_ROOT/Bios/PUAE/kick37175.A500 SDCARD_ROOT/Bios/PUAE/kick37350.A600 SDCARD_ROOT/Bios/PUAE/kick39106.A1200 SDCARD_ROOT/Bios/PUAE/kick39106.A4000 SDCARD_ROOT/Bios/PUAE/kick40060.CD32 SDCARD_ROOT/Bios/PUAE/kick40060.CD32.ext SDCARD_ROOT/Bios/PUAE/kick40063.A600 SDCARD_ROOT/Bios/PUAE/kick40068.A1200 SDCARD_ROOT/Bios/PUAE/kick40068.A4000 |
| PC Engine | PCE | syscard3.pce | SDCARD_ROOT/Bios/PCE/syscard3.pce |
| Pokémon Mini | PKM | bios.min | SDCARD_ROOT/Bios/PKM/bios.min |
| Sony PlayStation | PS | psxonpsp660.bin | SDCARD_ROOT/Bios/PS/psxonpsp660.bin |
| Super Game Boy | SGB | sgb.bios | SDCARD_ROOT/Bios/SGB/sgb.bios |
Managing Saves🔗
NextUI places all save files by system in SDCARD_ROOT/Saves.
RetroArch .srm Support🔗
By default, NextUI uses the emulator's default save file format.
RetroArch .srm save support can be enabled in Settings.
After making this change any existing save files will have to be renamed.
Directories and files that start with a period are hidden by default.
Windows Users: Open File Explorer, click the View Tab, look for the Show / Hide group and check the "show hidden files" box.
macOS Users: With a Finder window open, use the keyboard shortcut Command + Shift + A.
Managing Cheats🔗
Cheats use RetroArch .cht file format. libretro maintains a database of cheats.
Cheat filenames needs to match the ROM name, including the ROM extension.
Place the cheat file in SDCARD_ROOT/{System}/.
Cheat filepath example
ROM filename: Super Mario Land (World).zip
ROM location: SDCARD_ROOT/Roms/GB/
Cheat file path: /Cheats/GB/Super Mario Land (World).zip.cht
When a cheat file is detected, it will show up in the "cheats" menu item in game.
Cheats are not supported by all cores.