openbor - RetroBIOS

Type	standalone
Classification	Game engines
Source	https://github.com/DCurrent/openbor
Version	4.0 Build 7949
Profiled	2026-08-12
Cores	openbor, openbor4432, openbor6330, openbor6412, openbor6510, openbor7142, openbor7530
Systems	openbor

Technical notes

Sprite based side scrolling engine continuing Senile Team's Beats of Rage, built for beat em up and shooter style 2D games. A game is a module: a .pak archive carrying its own data tree, and that archive is what the frontends hand over as content. ES-DE runs the .pak on macOS, the game's own AppImage, .exe or .lnk on Linux and Windows, and opens the engine UI on Android since the package takes no file argument. Batocera runs OpenBOR after reading a four digit build tag out of the file name in openborGenerator.py, which is why it packages several engine versions side by side. RetroDECK launches the 4.0 Linux AppImage, RetroBat runs OpenBOR.exe from a per build folder.

packfile holds "bor.pak" until argv[1] names a path that exists, and with no such argument the built in menu lists Paks/ and the player picks one (engine/sdl/sdlport.c:25,124-135, engine/sdl/menu.c:172-203,802). packfile_supported accepts any name containing .pak and skips menu.pak (engine/source/gamelib/packfile.c:1577-1584).

Everything read for a running game comes out of that module. buffer_pakfile tries the real filesystem first through fopen, then the same path inside the archive (engine/openbor.c:921-965,969-1018), so data/models.txt, data/levels.txt, data/video.txt, data/menu.txt, the scene scripts and the sprites and sounds under data/ resolve either from an unpacked data/ directory beside the binary (engine/source/gamelib/packfile.c:781-810) or from the pak. Four names take precedence over their in-pak copy when they exist on disk: translation/translation.txt and translation/menu.txt over data/translation.txt (engine/source/gamelib/translation.c:102-106, engine/openbor.c:5975,53240), saves/lifebar.txt over data/lifebar.txt (engine/openbor.c:4965-4972), and on Android Saves//touch.txt then Saves/touch.txt over data/touch.txt (engine/android/app/jni/openbor/video.c:210-218). Each holds text or a control layout written for one module. The engine/translation.txt copied into the release folder by CMakeLists.txt:239 is a blank msgid template whose own first line sends it to the module data folder, and the published Windows archive for v7533 contains only OpenBOR.exe.

Startup reads nothing. Logo, menu and log viewer artwork are PNG byte arrays compiled in from engine/resources (engine/sdl/menu.c:20-27), menu text draws from the embedded hankaku face (engine/sdl/menu.c:16,228), the GLSL fragment shaders are string literals (engine/sdl/opengl.c:45-116), and the Android touch skin is a header (engine/android/app/jni/openbor/video.c:49). No gamepad mapping file is read, nothing is dlopened at runtime, the Android package ships an empty assets directory, and the SecurePAK paths compile out of every build because no build file defines SPK_SUPPORTED (engine/source/gamelib/packfile.c:36, engine/source/gamelib/packfile.h:9,135).

Files the engine writes rather than expects: Paks, Saves, Logs and ScreenShots are created at startup when missing (engine/sdl/sdlport.c:30-33,119-122), settings and progress land in Saves as .cfg, .sav, .hi, .scr and .inp alongside default.cfg (engine/source/utils.c:284-312, engine/openbor.c:2675-3040), and the viewer reads back Logs/OpenBorLog.txt and Logs/ScriptLog.txt (engine/source/utils.c:47-62, engine/sdl/menu.c:652-700). paks/logoff.txt is a marker whose existence alone skips the startup logo, so the player creates it empty (engine/sdl/menu.c:707-716). Module script can open any path it names through openfilestream (engine/openborscript.c:10505-10600).

No BIOS or firmware files required. Generated on 2026-08-23T16:12:06Z