Frequently Asked Questions

Ultra Loader is a native arcade execution engine for PC. Unlike traditional launchers or compatibility wrappers, it hosts game execution directly inside its own process, speaking each arcade board's hardware language natively, the way the original cabinet did. Because everything runs inside the same runtime, enhancements like 4K upscaling, frame generation, save states, and universal input support apply across every supported system automatically, with no per game setup or plugin hunting required. Ultra Loader does it all for you. You just select your game, and run it. But if that still doesn't resonate, then think of it this way. Ultra Loader is a newer and better teknoparrot...but without the paywalls and the gatekeeping. Boom. There you go.

Yes. Completely and permanently free. No subscriptions, no tiers, no patreon paywall, no "patrons get games first." Every person who downloads Ultra Loader gets the exact same software with the exact same capabilities, regardless of whether they have ever donated a single dollar or plan to. The decision to never make a paywall for game access is the whole point of this, and we will NEVER do it. It is a foundational commitment and one of the core reasons Ultra Loader exists. There is nothing against those who can afford a monthly subscription, but arcade preservation only works if the games are accessible to everyone, not just the people who can afford a monthly subscription.

The core difference is architectural. TeknoParrot is a launcher that sits outside your game and applies per game compatibility plugins to make things work. It is a meaningful piece of software that helped keep a lot of titles playable, and credit is due for that. Ultra Loader takes a different approach entirely: it is a runtime that hosts game execution directly inside its own process. That single architectural shift is what makes universal enhancements possible. 4K upscaling, frame generation, and input support do not need to be configured per game because they operate at the runtime level, not the game level. Ultra Loader is also completely free with no tiers, no paywalled features, and no gatekeeping of any kind.

Yes. Ultra Loader does not distribute, bundle, or host any game files, and it never will. The preservation mission is about keeping games playable, not about being a source for copyrighted content. What you need are the original game dumps for the titles you want to run. How and where you source those is entirely up to you, and we leave that part of the journey in your hands. Arcade dumps are easily findable! That being said, we want you to keep in mind, that this is just the beginning. Currently Ultra Loader only runs a handful of games, not the full catalog that is currently available with TeknoParrot. But this will quickly change over time, as we catch up. We are ten years behind! But we won't stay behind forever. With the community's help, we will get there. For now, follow along and support, and test like crazy. This is what we need. Test those games and send us reports. Grab the games you wanna play, and once you have your files, point Ultra Loader at them and see if they load. Some may, most may not. Either way, Ultra Loader is here, and it will only get better with time. Ultra Loader takes care of board detection, input mapping, upscaling, the whole thing. The goal is to get every single game playing...and we will.

Ultra Loader itself is legal software. It contains no copyrighted game code, no extracted assets, and no proprietary firmware. It is an original runtime built entirely from the ground up through clean room development. The question of legality around running arcade game dumps is a separate matter that varies by jurisdiction, the source of the files, and the stance of individual rights holders. Ultra Loader does not take a position on that and does not distribute any game content whatsoever. We are just the engine. Where you take it, what you run with it, and how you sourced your files is your responsibility. We built the tool. You decide how to use it.

Ultra Loader is still very much in its early release stages, and we don’t want people to be confused about how many games are currently playable. As it stands now, we roughly have between 10 to 20 good, solidly playable games, including a few titles unlocked from the permanent paywall of TeknoParrot. We currently have some of the popular genres covered: racing, shmups, and light gun games, along with a sprinkling of shooters, a fighter, and even a rhythm game, all meant to show the breadth and width of what the loader can do. These games were picked for exactly that reason, and brought up to play on the loader. The whole point was not to simply support a few easy boards, because if we did only that, no one would have confidence that the loader could actually natively execute the harder ones, like Lindbergh and Raw Thrills. So the goal was to support a wider breadth of what ran in real arcades. That being said, as each day goes by, more and more games will be supported, and they will always be free. The complete game-by-game compatibility list lives on the website for anyone to check and comment on, and will be constantly updated as games are made playable and supported.

For launch, Ultra Loader targets the major modern arcade PC platforms: Taito Type X, Sega RingEdge, Namco ES3, Sega Lindbergh, Raw Thrills, and more. These boards make up a huge portion of the arcade library from the 2000s and 2010s. On top of that, hardware based Retro systems like Chihiro, PS3 and Model 3 have custom in process cores in active development. Ultra Loader intends to be the ultimate one-stop-shop for loading all your arcade games, both Retro and Modern. The list of supported arcade boards is growing steadily.

No installation needed. Ultra Loader ships as a single portable executable: no installer, no registry entries, no Visual C++ redistributable hunting, no dependencies to track down. Drop it in a folder alongside your game files, fill in your ultra.ini with the relevant paths and settings, and run it. That is the entire setup process. Basic operation does not require administrator rights. If you have ever wrestled with a finicky launcher that demands you install three separate runtimes before anything boots, you will appreciate that Ultra Loader has none of that.

Yes, and this is one of the features people are most surprised by. Ultra Loader supports save states across every supported platform, including hardware based systems that have never had them before. The implementation goes deeper than a simple memory snapshot: it captures and restores audio state, vsync timing, and clock state so that resuming a save feels like the game never stopped. You can save at any point mid game and come back exactly where you left off. For anyone who has ever lost a long run in House of the Dead because of a power flicker, this feature alone is worth the download.

For upscaling, any GPU with FSR support will do. That covers AMD RX 5000 series and newer, Nvidia RTX 20 series and newer, and any card with Vulkan 1.3 support. Frame generation uses FSR 3 frame interpolation, which requires a slightly more recent card. The good news is that most of the arcade titles Ultra Loader supports are not particularly demanding to begin with, so a solid mid range GPU from 2015 onwards will handle the vast majority of the library without breaking a sweat. Fun fact, Ultra Loader was fully developed and tested on an AMD RX580, so yeah. Any GPU of recent years is fine.

Ultra Omni Track supports RetroShooter RS3, AimTrak, Sinden, Gun4IR, OpenFIRE, Blamcon, ACT Labs, Wiimote IR, and generic HID mouse based lightguns, with support for up to 8 players simultaneously and full mixed brand co op. Two players can use completely different gun models in the same game at the same time, which is genuinely a first for arcade lightgun support on PC. Sinden users also get one nice bonus: the Sinden border overlay is built directly into Ultra Omni Track, so you do not need the Sinden software running in the background.

Yes, and they work the way you would hope. Ultra Omni Play auto detects fight sticks, zero delay USB encoder boards, Xin Mo encoders, Brook boards, and Ultimarc I PAC/J PAC encoders by their USB VID/PID at plug in time. Ultra Loader also works perfectly with Pactotech encoders as well, and will let the Pactotech encoder do its thing. Button layouts map to each game's original cabinet wiring through the firmware profile, so your buttons line up the way they should without any manual remapping. If you have built a proper arcade cabinet or authentic stick setup, Ultra Loader is designed with you in mind.

Yes. Trackballs enumerate as HID mice and are handled by Ultra Omni Play's mouse device pipeline, so they map correctly to games that expect relative mouse input without any extra configuration. Spinners work the same way. Both are recognized automatically at plug in time alongside any other devices you have connected. If you are running a full cocktail cabinet with a trackball, spinner, buttons, and a coin door wired to a zero delay encoder, Ultra Loader sees all of it and assigns each input to the right slot. No special drivers, no workarounds.

Both, depending on what you want. By default, Ultra Omni Play maps buttons to each game's original cabinet wiring through the firmware profile, so if you have a proper arcade stick or encoder setup your buttons should line up correctly out of the box without touching anything. If your hardware does not match the original layout, or you just want a different feel, you can override any binding in your ultra.ini on a per game or global basis. The default behavior is meant to be correct for people who built their setup to spec. The override system is there for everyone else.

Absolutely. Ultra Loader supports up to 10 players simultaneously across any mix of gamepads, arcade sticks, zero delay encoders, and lightguns, all at once, all in the same session. Every device is assigned its own dedicated player slot and managed independently, so nothing steps on anything else. A lightgun on port 1, a fightstick on port 2, a zero delay encoder board on port 3. They all just work with no special configuration to make them coexist. Whether you are running a full multi player cabinet rig or just putting two different gun brands through their paces on a single machine, Ultra Loader handles the whole room.

Start with the Manual, specifically the Troubleshooting chapter, which covers the most common setup issues and error states in detail. If you have gone through that and the problem persists, bring it to the community. The Discord is active, and the more detail you can provide (game name, board type, error message, and the contents of your ultra.ini), the faster someone will be able to help. No issue report is too small. If something is broken, we want to know about it.

Absolutely, and it would be genuinely appreciated. The per board modules that make each arcade platform work are source available on the site, meaning you can read the code, open pull requests, and contribute fixes or improvements directly. If you have reverse engineering experience, hardware knowledge, embedded systems background, or even just a willingness to test games and file detailed reports: there is a place for you in this project. Reach out on Discord and introduce yourself. The community is small but serious, and good people are always welcome.

Absolutely. The compatibility list grows based on a combination of what the team is actively working on and what the community is loudest about. If a game you care about is missing, the best thing you can do is bring it up in the Discord. The more people asking about a specific title or board, the higher it moves in priority. We also instituted a community voting system, (you can find it on the "Vote!" page) where you can go and place a ballot (up to 3 votes per week) for a game the community wants unlocked from behind the teknoparrot paywall. This will give us an indication on what the community wants to play. Also, if you have access to the hardware, technical knowledge of the board, or a game dump you can test against, that makes you even more valuable to have in the conversation.

Yes, and honestly non-developer contributions matter just as much, because we need the community to test these games against a wide range of scenarios and hardware. Gaming PC's, Regular PC's, HTPC's, Mini-PC's, Home NAS Boxes, Workstations, Media PC's, SFF PC's, freaking Potato's, Virtual instances, heck, even the Steam Deck...you name it, we would like you to test on it. The more people playing and testing, the better. Truly, the most useful thing you can do is actually test the games and file detailed compatibility reports, along with sharing and making videos about the project, and talking to people in the arcade community who might not have heard of it yet. Word of mouth is more valuable than gold. Please feel free to post about it on social media, and stick around in the Discord or Reddit to help answer questions from people who are just getting started. You can also help by financially supporting the project, by donating whatever you can. Any and all gifts will be appreciated. Even if its not financial, spare or extra hardware is also great too! Having a large hard drive to store and place all the games in one place is just as valuable as sending over a few dollars. Any help would of course be appreciated, whether big or small. The idea is just to begin to build a strong and healthy community around this, and if we do this right, we can change the narrative. In this regard, a healthy community around a project like this is not just nice to have, it will be what keeps development moving. If you love arcade games and want to see them preserved, you are already the target audience for this work, and any help you give us, whether by monetary or social or otherwise, is deeply appreciated.

Definitely. It is a genuine goal, not just a wishful talking point. The vast majority of arcade cabinet operators and setups run on Windows, which is why Ultra Loader was developed on Windows first, but the community is broader than that, and many users (including myself) use Linux. The folks over at Linux Loader are also working in parallel on the Linux side of arcade preservation, and we share the same mission and ideals as them. We do hope to eventually work together, rather than build competing solutions that each only cover half the ecosystem, although it is also true that the more "players" in this space, (pun intended) the better for everyone. They currently focus on Linux, but have started branching into Windows, which is not bad at all. We also focus on Windows currently, and there is a preliminary Linux build myself and a very knowledgeable friend of mine is currently working on, so hopefully we can bring it all to you soon. Suffice it to say, there are many dimensions of people working on keeping things free and open for everyone. We will of course, share any developments and releases as they happen in real-time.