# Pocket_Updater: a Windows tool for updating openFPGA cores on the Analogue Pocket > Pocket Updater is a free Windows application that updates the openFPGA cores, Pocket firmware, required BIOS and arcade ROMs on an Analogue Pocket, can organise core names and categories, and can fetch asset image packs. It runs from the Pocket's SD card or from anywhere on your machine, and its settings decide how much of your existing setup it preserves. **RetroDriven/Pocket_Updater** — Windows GUI Application to Update Cores for the Analogue Pocket - Repository: https://github.com/RetroDriven/Pocket_Updater - Stars: 606 · Forks: 27 - Language: C# - License: MIT - Published: 2026-10-22 · Updated: 2026-10-22 · Language: en - Canonical page: https://hysenlabs.com/projects/retrodriven-pocket-updater ## What the updater actually updates The application is described as a free Windows application for updating the openFPGA cores, Pocket Firmware, Required BIOS, and Arcade ROMS for your Analogue Pocket, and the README adds that you can also organize your cores and download or install asset image packs. That is a wider scope than firmware flashing, and the distinction matters. openFPGA is the open hardware project that provides the FPGA bitstreams, so a core is a piece of hardware description rather than a ROM file, and the tool deals with three different kinds of artefact in one run: the cores themselves, the Pocket firmware that runs on the console's own microcontroller, and the required BIOS and arcade ROM images that a given core needs in order to boot a game. The tool also carries a set of housekeeping operations that are easy to overlook and easy to need: preserving custom core images, deleting cores you have unchecked, generating the PCECD JSON files, fixing up Jotego core names, and compressing your saves. The whole thing is a maintenance console for a device that has no native update mechanism of its own. ## Two ways to write to the SD card The update flow offers a choice of destination, and the choice is about risk rather than convenience. The Current Directory Location option updates everything locally first and lets you manually copy over all the files and folders to the Pocket's SD card after the updater has finished. The Removable Storage Location option updates directly to the Pocket's SD card, either by plugging the SD card into the machine or by connecting the Pocket over a USB cable. The direct path is the convenient one, and the local path is the careful one, because the second stage of the local route is a copy you control. Both the pocket update and the asset image pack download follow the same pattern, so the same decision applies twice. The README also flags a small practical point about the removable route: if the SD card drive letter does not appear in the drop down, use the Refresh button, which is the kind of detail that only appears in documentation written by someone who has hit it. ## The settings that decide how much of your setup survives The Settings table is where the interesting behaviour of this tool lives, and it is worth reading as a set of decisions about what to overwrite. Download Pocket Firmware and Download Roms/Bios are the two switches that determine whether the updater fetches the console firmware and the arcade ROM and BIOS files at all. Preserve Platforms keeps any custom core images you are using instead of the stock ones, and it also preserves the entire Platforms folder, which holds core names and categories, so your own naming survives an update. Delete Skipped Cores is the opposite lever: it removes from the SD card the cores you have unchecked for updating or downloading, which is how the tool reconciles the card with your selection. Generate PCECD JSONs auto-creates the required JSON files for the PCECD games on the card. Fix Jotego Core Names renames Jotego cores to more friendly names. Skip Alternative Arcade Files avoids downloading the alternative arcade files an arcade core may have. CRC Checks enables or disables CRC checking for ROMs and BIOS, and the README notes that disabling it should speed the update process up. ## Backup saves and the archive.org caveat Two settings deserve their own attention because they are the ones that protect you or slow you down. Backup Saves compresses the Saves and Memories directories from your Pocket into a Backups folder, which is the difference between a firmware update that costs you an afternoon of progress and one that does not. Use Alternative Location lets you supply your own download URL or location for the ROMs and BIOS, and if you leave it unchecked, Archive.org is used instead. The README strongly recommends using your own location over Archive.org because that has very slow download speeds. The reason to know this is that the speed problem is not a minor annoyance: the update set for a full core library is large, and the two settings interact, because a CRC check that you disable to speed things up and a source that is slow anyway are two different ways of solving the same problem, and the second one is under your control. ## Running it, and building it from source The application can be run from the Pocket's SD Card or from any location on your Windows Machine, based on what fits your needs best, and it ships as a downloadable Windows executable through the project's releases, with a Current Release badge linking to the latest. The update sequence itself is a menu. You select the Update Pocket option, choose between the local and the removable destination, then select the Update Cores option, at which point a status window appears along with a message popup box when the updates are done. The other top-level entries are Manage Cores, where you pick and choose the cores you want to download, Organize Cores, where you customize the core names and categories to your liking, Asset Image Packs, which downloads the most popular image packs from their creators with more to be added as they become available, and Logs, the update log, which you can clear from the same screen. Building from source is a Visual Studio job, and the README lists the two dependencies required if you plan to edit or build the EXE from source: the Crc32.NET NuGet package and the Guna.UI2.WinForms package, the latter being the WinForms UI toolkit behind the interface. ## Where this tool is the wrong choice Three limits are structural. The first is the platform. This is a Windows application, and the Analogue Pocket is connected to a PC over USB or through a separate SD card reader, so updating from macOS or Linux means finding a Windows machine or a different workflow entirely, and the README does not describe a cross-platform build. The second is the dependency on where the assets come from. The tool fetches ROM and BIOS files from a URL, and the default is Archive.org with its slow downloads, so a user who has no alternative source and no patience for a slow transfer has a poor experience, and the ROM availability itself is outside the tool's control. The third is what the update does to your own customisation, and this is where the settings earn their keep but also where the risk sits. Delete Skipped Cores actively removes content from the card, and the update writes into a directory the tool has also been asked to preserve, so an unchecked combination can undo work that took a while to do. The mitigation is the settings, not the tool, and the sensible order is to enable Backup Saves and Preserve Platforms before the first run. ## Where the project stands The release history shows a project that has been actively reworked recently. The newest tag is v2.0, described as a UI revamp, on 2026-09-18, preceded by v1.6.4 on 2026-09-16 with the specific change of keeping unsaved cores unselected, and v1.6.3 on 2026-09-15. The last push to the repository was on 2026-09-18. So the tool was being revised on a daily basis in the middle of September 2026, with the 1.6.x line carrying small behavioural fixes and the 2.0 release carrying the interface rewrite. The licence is MIT, with a LICENSE file at the repository root, and the project accepts sponsorship through GitHub Sponsors. The repository layout is a classic Windows Forms solution, with Pocket_Updater.sln and Pocket_Updater.csproj at the root, a Forms/ directory for the windows, a Controls/ directory for the custom controls, a Lib/ directory, a Resources/ directory, a UI/ directory and an app.manifest for the application manifest, plus a Sceenshots/ directory, misspelled, that holds the images the README embeds. ## Conclusion Pocket Updater suits an Analogue Pocket owner who has accumulated custom core images, renamed cores and saved files, and who wants to update the firmware and core set without losing that customisation, since the Preserve Platforms and Backup Saves settings exist for exactly that situation. It is the wrong tool if you want the console to update itself, because this is a Windows application you run from a PC, and it is the wrong tool if your arcade ROMs are not available from a source the tool can reach. Verify first where you want the downloads to come from, because the default path is Archive.org and the README strongly recommends supplying your own URL instead because of the download speeds, and note that the newest release is v2.0 for a UI revamp on 2026-09-18 with the last push on the same day. ## FAQ ### What does Pocket Updater update on the Analogue Pocket? The openFPGA cores, the Pocket firmware, the required BIOS and the arcade ROMs, and it can also organize cores and download or install asset image packs. The README describes it as a free Windows application for all of that. ### What is the difference between the two update locations? Current Directory Location updates everything locally first and lets you copy the files to the Pocket's SD card yourself afterwards. Removable Storage Location updates straight to the SD card, whether you plug the card in or connect the Pocket over a USB cable. ### Which settings protect my custom core images and saves? Preserve Platforms keeps your custom core images instead of the stock ones and preserves the entire Platforms folder with its core names and categories. Backup Saves compresses the Saves and Memories directories into a Backups folder. ### Where does the tool download ROMs and BIOS files from? By default from Archive.org, and the README strongly recommends using your own download URL or location instead, by enabling Use Alternative Location, because Archive.org has very slow download speeds. CRC Checks can also be disabled to speed the update process up. ### What do I need to build Pocket Updater from source? The README states that editing or building the EXE from source via Visual Studio requires the Crc32.NET and Guna.UI2.WinForms NuGet packages. The project is a Windows Forms solution with Pocket_Updater.sln and Pocket_Updater.csproj at the root. ## Sources - [Issues](https://github.com/RetroDriven/Pocket_Updater/issues) - [License: MIT](https://github.com/RetroDriven/Pocket_Updater/blob/master/LICENSE) - [README](https://github.com/RetroDriven/Pocket_Updater/blob/master/README.md) - [Releases](https://github.com/RetroDriven/Pocket_Updater/releases) - [RetroDriven/Pocket_Updater on GitHub](https://github.com/RetroDriven/Pocket_Updater) --- Hysen Labs editorial analysis, written from the project's own repository and release notes. Cite the canonical page: https://hysenlabs.com/projects/retrodriven-pocket-updater