# raylib 6.0 — raylib v6.0
- Product: raylib (https://whatsnew.fyi/product/raylib)
- Vendor: raysan5
- Date: 2026-04-23
- Version: 6.0
- Original notes: https://github.com/raysan5/raylib/releases/tag/6.0
- Permalink: https://whatsnew.fyi/product/raylib/releases/6.0
What's New is an index, not a publisher: every entry below links to the vendor's own release notes, which are the authoritative source. Entries are labelled where they are hand-curated sample data, pre-releases, or drawn from a secondary source such as a developer blog.
Reuse: the summaries, labels and curation here are © What's New. Quote freely with attribution and a link back; wholesale republication of the corpus is not permitted — terms: https://whatsnew.fyi/terms. The vendors' own release notes remain their publishers'.
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- **added** — Software Renderer (rlsw) backend allowing raylib to run purely on CPU with no GPU requirement
- **added** — Memory platform backend for platform-agnostic rendering to a memory framebuffer
- **added** — Win32 platform backend implementing Windows platform with direct Win32 API calls
- **added** — Emscripten platform backend for web with direct Emscripten/JS functionality and no other dependencies
- **added** — Support for software renderer backend on SDL, RGFW, and DRM platform backends
- **changed** — Fullscreen modes and High-DPI content scaling completely redesigned with priority on borderless fullscreen modes and automatic monitor content scaling detection
- **added** — 20 new functions added to raylib API
- **added** — 70 new examples provided for learning
#### raylib 6.0 release notes
A new `raylib` release is finally ready and, again, this is the **biggest `raylib` release ever**! Thanks to the support of many amazing contributors this release comes packed with many new features and improvements, also thanks to the financial support of [NLnet](https://nlnet.nl/) and the [NGI Zero Commond Fund](https://nlnet.nl/NGI0/) that allowed me to work on this project mostly fulltime for the past few months.
Some astonishing numbers for this release:
- **+330** closed issues (for a TOTAL of **+2150**!)
- **+2000** commits since previous RELEASE (for a TOTAL of **+9760**!)
- **+20** new functions ADDED to raylib API (for a TOTAL of **600**!)
- **+70** new examples to learn from (for a TOTAL of **+215**!)
- **+210** new contributors (for a TOTAL of **+850**!)
Highlights for `raylib 6.0`:
- **`NEW` Software Renderer - [`rlsw`](https://github.com/raysan5/raylib/blob/master/src/external/rlsw.h)**: The biggest addition of this new release. A new software renderer backend, that allows raylib to run purely on CPU, with no neeed for a GPU. It finally closes the circle of my search for a portable self-contained, with **no-external-dependencies**, graphics library, able to run on any device providing some CPU-power and some RAM memory. It has been possible thanks to the amazing work of **Le Juez Victor** ([@Bigfoot71](https://github.com/Bigfoot71)), who created [`rlsw`](https://github.com/raysan5/raylib/blob/master/src/external/rlsw.h), a single-file header-only library implementing OpenGL 1.1+ specification, tailored to fit into raylib [`rlgl`](https://github.com/raysan5/raylib/blob/master/src/rlgl.h) OpenGL wrapper, and allowing to run raylib seamlessly over CPU with **no code changes required on user side**. As expected, software rendering is slower than hardware-accelerated rendering but it is still fast enough to run basic application at 30-60 fps. Actually, it already proved it usefulness on a new [raylib port for ESP32](https://components.espressif.com/components/georgik/raylib/versions/6.0.0/readme) microcontroller by Espressif, useful for industrial applications, and opens the door to the upcoming RISC-V powered devices that start arriving to the marked, and many times come with no GPU. Along the new software renderer, some of the existing platform backends have been adapted to support it (SDL, RGFW, DRM) and also **new platforms backends have been created** to accomodate it (Win32, Emscripten), incluing a new `PLATFORM_MEMORY`, that allows direct rendering to a memory framebuffer.
- **`NEW` Platform backend: Memory - [`rcore_memory`](https://github.com/raysan5/raylib/blob/master/src/platforms/rcore_memory.c)**: This new platform has been added along the **software renderer** backend, allowing 2d and 3d rendering over a **platform-agnostic memory framebuffer**, it can run headless and output frames can be directly exported to images. This new backend could also be useful for graphics rendering on servers or process images directly using the memory buffer.
- **`NEW` Platform backend: Win32 - [`rcore_desktop_win32`](https://github.com/raysan5/raylib/blob/master/src/platforms/rcore_desktop_win32.c)**: A new **Windows platform backend** and the first step towards a potential replacement/alternative to the platform libraries currently used by raylib (GLFW/SDL/RGFW). This backend follows same API template structure than the other raylib backends, but directly implementing Win32 API calls. It allows initializing OpenGL GPU-accelerated windows and also GDI based windows, useful for the software renderer backend. This new backend approach, following a common template-structure and separating
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