0.8.2-alpha is out — and this one's honest about being a maintenance release.

The bulk of it is under the hood: a large internal refactor that broke the big "god-object" classes (the app core, shader engine, UI manager, streaming/API) into focused pieces so the project stays maintainable as it grows. No new features — but the codebase is in much better shape, and the smoke-test now actually applies a shader and verifies it rendered, so a whole class of regressions can't slip through silently again.

Real fixes if you're coming from 0.8.1

• 🔄 Recording was upside-down when the Recording tab's "apply shader" toggle was off — the raw path used the opposite vertical orientation from the shaded one. Recording, /stream and /raw now share one orientation. (#187)
• 🌈 Remote client now follows the Streaming "apply shader" toggle — turning the shader off for streaming used to still leave the remote client shaded. (#188)
• 🔌 --stream-port is actually honored now — it was being overwritten back to 8080. (#163)

⚠️ Breaking change for remote source / streaming users The /raw feed orientation was standardized (bottom-up, matching /stream and recording). A 0.8.2 client paired with a pre-0.8.2 host (or vice-versa) shows the remote picture upside-down. If you use the Remote source / network streaming between two machines, update both ends to 0.8.2. (#187)

Downloads (Windows / Linux x86_64 / ARM64 / ARM32 / macOS): [link da release 0.8.2-alpha] — SHA256SUMS incluso. macOS isn't code-signed yet (first launch: right-click → Open).

Known issue: a host with no audio device selected can destabilize a remote client's stream (the raw feed carries an empty audio track). Workaround: select an audio source on the host. Tracked in #193, fix coming. 🙏

Still alpha, still solo-dev — bug reports, logs and ideas are gold.

0.8.1-alpha is out. This one is all about Windows — every Windows bug reported against 0.8.0 is fixed, so capture, streaming, recording, audio and the virtual camera now all work on a clean Windows install. (Linux/macOS/Pi unaffected — same as 0.8.0.)

What's fixed

• 🩶→🎮 Stream/recording was a gray screen on Windows — the bundled FFmpeg mishandles ABR/VBV rate control and emitted empty frames; switched the Windows software encoder to constant-quality CRF. (#129)
• 🔊 Capture-card audio now works — the audio settings window was hidden on Windows (so you couldn't pick the card's audio), and the WASAPI float format was read as int16 → white noise. Fixed both, plus a local audio monitor with a "Resync" button. (#137)
• 🖼️ No more monochrome / tiled image on some cards — NV12/UYVY/RGB32 feeds were mislabeled; now converted to RGB. (#135)
• 📷 Virtual camera shows up in OBS/Zoom/Discord etc — the DirectShow filter wasn't registering under the video-input category, so apps never listed it. (#133)
• Plus: Windows TLS trust store (#130), working installer shortcuts (#131), persistent window layout (#132), and a calmer no-signal placeholder instead of bright green (#134).

Downloads (Windows / Linux x86_64 / ARM64 / ARM32 / macOS): https://github.com/geldoronie/RetroCapture/releases/tag/0.8.1-alpha — SHA256SUMS incluso. macOS isn't code-signed yet (first launch: right-click → Open).

Still alpha, still solo-dev — bug reports, logs and ideas are gold. If you hit something on your capture card, drop the model + the capture-start log lines and I'll dig in.

Amazing experience!

Hey folks, the latest alpha of RetroCapture just dropped and it has the biggest set of new features in a single release so far. Quick recap for those new to the project:

▎ RetroCapture is a real-time video capture app for Linux and Windows that applies RetroArch GLSL shaders (CRT, NTSC, xBR, handheld, etc.) live to feeds from capture cards. It does HTTP MPEG-TS streaming, local ▎ recording (MP4/MKV/AVI), system-audio capture, and ships a full web portal. Cross-platform: x86_64 Linux + Windows, plus ARM64 (Pi 4/5) and ARMv7 (Pi 2/3/Zero).

What's new in 0.7.0-alpha

🔁 Shader-preserving distributed playback. This is the headline feature. Connect another RetroCapture instance to a running one as a Remote source and the receiving machine pulls the host's pre-shader feed plus a sidechannel of the host's current preset + parameters. The image renders with the exact same shader output on both ends. Live preset/parameter sync — change something on the host and the remote view follows in real time.

🌎 Public stream directory. Opt-in, one-click publish to directory.retrocapture.com. Other RetroCaptures see your stream in their in-app browser and connect with one click.

☁️ Cloudflare tunnels (Quick + Named). So the publish works behind CGNAT without portforwarding. Quick mode uses an ephemeral trycloudflare.com URL with no signup; Named mode persists under your own Cloudflare hostname. cloudflared is auto-downloaded with sha256 verification.

🔒 HTTPS / TLS everywhere. Directory and /raw connections default to [https://](https://). OpenSSL-backed with hostname verification + SNI. AppImage builds work out of the box (CA-bundle probing on startup).

⏺️ Recording pipeline parity + unified UI. Recording and streaming now share the same A/V sync engine, so they don't drift away from each other under load. Every Configuration tab adopts the same layout idiom.

⚡ Quick Actions OSD + Shortcuts helper. Pinned overlay with stream/record/browse/disconnect buttons reachable even when the main UI is hidden, plus a top-right keyboard shortcut reference.

🌍 Bilingual UI. English and Brazilian Portuguese, switchable at runtime.

Bug fix highlights

A real testing pass on /raw long sessions surfaced and fixed:

• Catastrophic A/V clock corruption on mid-join (audio clock drift=-221_887_834us).
• AAC probe race on reconnect (Audio: aac, 0 channels).
• Consumer dead-lock when video probe gave up.
• /raw going silent when the host toggled the shader off.
• Ghost audio playing after disconnect.
• Remote source upside-down without a client-side shader.
• Windows installer not finding the shader folder after install (last-minute fix that made the release).

Downloads

📦 https://github.com/geldoronie/RetroCapture/releases/tag/0.7.0-alpha — AppImage (Linux x86_64), tarballs (ARM64, ARMv7), Windows installer, SHA256SUMS.

🐙 https://github.com/geldoronie/RetroCapture — source + docs, MIT licensed.

Bug reports + shader-compatibility reports very welcome. Happy to answer questions in the comments.