Development Suggestions

General Development
#584

I woud like to request a new feature. Probably something that will only be useful to me and a handful of people I suppose but…

My games are stored on a local server. However for disk-based systems like the Playstation I have to copy each game on my PC (for performance issues, disk-reads during emulation are sometimes slow if I load the game from the server). What I’d like to do is having the games from the server referenced in my game library (those are the ones I use “Import Content” with) and each time I try to load such a game RetroArch would check if it’s present locally. If it’s not, download it and run it from there. Kinda like Steam or GOG: your library is visible but you need to download & install a game before playing it.

#585

Some cores, such as beetle-psx, support pre-caching the game to memory at launch. I think this is your best bet. You can find it in the core options.

1 Like
#586

Yes it works great with Beetle, but I can’t find an equivalent option in PCSX2 unfortunately. Besides the bigger the medium the more troublesome it becomes to keep it in memory. (That and having to load it from the network everytime since it’s not cached on disk between sessions).

Edit: Or maybe I could find a way to make a plugin/script to do that, is this supported?

#587

Would it be possible to include microphone support in RetroArch? Then it could be exposed to cores (Nintendo DS cores specifically). Most of those cores use a binding to generate noise but there are a few fringe games that actually require speaking words. Brain Age for example requires the player to say “Red” or “Blue” etc.

#588

I would love a thumbnail view instead of a list view for playlists using ozone. Like the desktop menu does. Forgive me if this is already possible, but I did not found how to do it.

#589

How about a “Pick Random Game/Core” Button in the Main Menu.

Basically, for people who can’t decide what they want to play, and just want to “roll the dice”.

If that’s even possible that is.

3 Likes
#590

How would you feel about an option to build separate playlists per region when importing games in your library? Something like “Nintendo - GameBoy (Japan)” and “Nintendo - GameBoy (USA)” etc. The motivation behind this is twofold.

a) Boxarts are usually very different between regions, especially between Japan and the rest of the world. It’s not just art, it’s a whole different packaging format. GameBoy games in the west were released in square boxes, but in Japan they are thinner. When all those games are in the same playlist it just doesn’t look that great jumping from one format to the other. I know it’s minor but… I’m a perfectionnist haha.

b) More importantly, language differences are a pain to handle. As someone who can actually read Japanese I have a strong aversion to romanization. I want my Japanese games in Japanese, just like the Emperor intended. :grin: Seriously though, Japanese names and Latin names don’t work well together with lexicographical ordering…

Of course this raises a few questions. Like what to do with (USA, Europe) games for instance. Perhaps a priority list, perhaps allow having them in both playlists etc.

Speaking of sorting, I’d love to see a proper support of Unicode sorting. “Pokémon” shouldn’t be sorted after “Poketto”. Would also be great to have some sort of control over the ordering like… hm I wish “Turok: Dinosaur Hunter” would come before “Turok 2” and not after. It would require stripping special characters before sorting and using the numbers’ natural ordering. Not a simple task I know, just a thought.

1 Like
#591

A focus on stability and compatibility with hardware. In the past there was issues with some 4K TV’s from Samsung

#592

I’ve been thinking…

If Sony (xmb) and Nintendo (ozone) can have their own replica console menu drivers, why can’t Microsoft?

More specifically, the old x360 Dashboard.

I’d call it the “xboard” if any of you are open to the idea. But there must be a reasonable reason why it hasn’t been done yet.

1 Like
#593

the main reason is that it’s just a really big job to write a menu driver. There was a preliminary function-alike of the old “blade” menu called “stripes” but it was never finished and got removed altogether a year or so ago.

3 Likes
#594

Hi, I’m new here, so don’t hang me if I’m posting in this the wrong place. My question is, how can I stop RetroArch from changing the file names of my ROMs and just display the actual file name I gave it?

I don’t want to see “(USA)” or whatever country at the end of the game name in the menu. I also don’t want to see file names changed like “The Legend of Zelda” to “Legend of Zelda, The”, it is really annoying as I have spent a long time renaming all the ROMs I have and would like them displayed as such.

#595

The manual scan will just dump your files into a playlist without matching them to our database (including names). Boxart isn’t going to work, though. Not ours, at least.

2 Likes
#596

Excellent, thank you for your response. When I do this, some of the icons are rocket ships while others are associated with console type. For example, The NES games have a rocket ship icon while the Game Boy games have an actual Game Boy for an icon. Is there any way to fix this so all games will have the icons of the consoles/handhelds they are associated with?

#597

All of the images (including boxart and icons, etc.) are determined by matching playlist names to the images’ filenames. In the case of the icons, the playlist needs to have the same name/title as the icon filename.

When you do the manual scan, there’s a field where you can put in a name and you can choose from among a premade list, which will ensure you name it correctly for the icons.

#598

A suggestion for helping devs is to ship Retroarch builds with a shortcut or something that launches it with logging to file, so users won’t need support for giving back support, in this screenshot I created a shortcut to launch Retroarch in verbose-logging mode, but I’m not sure how to activate “log to file” directly, or if there’s a way to do it from the shortcut, this idea works fine for windows, but there may be other solution that works across other OSes.

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2 Likes
#599

A suggestion just hit me!

A Barebones Web-view integrated Browser

For browsing the internet, opening links, looking up information, maybe even directly downloading some necessary assets, or watching YouTube.

But that’s just me…

EDIT: I made a similar suggestion to this a while back. I just forgot about it.

#600

I wonder if it’s possible to use widescreen cheat codes along with retroachievements, some games will only be displayed properly in widescreen using these codes, while others work fine using the cores widescreen hacks, but since hardcore mode for retroachievements disable cheats entirely, is there anything that could be done to keep this functionality?

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#601

I need say thanks very much for Retroarch creators. Retroarch does an good work for controller autoconfig, but unhappily has an detail not having priority being about input mapping. For an long time is default for emulator allow configure an console controller input button for multiple controller button. Retroarch allow bind an console button only for one button. That feature is default for all emulators. For users having PS3-4 controllers playing NES-SMS-PCE-Genesis-SNES-GB-GBC-GBA the controller has buttons free to be used. NES and others consoles with few buttons has games need press 2 buttons at same time. Example NES Double Dragon need press B+A for jump. Retroarch not allow bind NES buttons B and A to 2 controllers buttons. Bizhawk allow multiple binds. the console buttons are used in controller Retropad map “XYBA” and also can be used in L1-R2-R1-R2 Example for NES button B in B and R1 button A in A and R1 autofire A and B in X and Y

Have games (NES-PCE Double Dragon 2 is tiresome every time to press 2 buttons for jump and yet in sequence another button for jump kick attack) need press 2 buttons at same time that I not play in Retroarch.

For Genesis-SNES creating an A+B+C bind in controller L1 help when need to do an game code or other action because not is simple press 3 buttons with precision in an PS3-4 controller.

Another problem is not is possible configure autofire for all buttons for all cores. Few cores has autofire buttons and some has only 1 or 2 autofire buttons being that use more than 2 buttons. Retroarch need has other few features, but allowing multiple binds for same button and autofire for all buttons in any core are default features for any emulators that are in top list for add in Retroarch.

Is much strange Retroarch not having both features. Is much priority to all features less for input.

#602

That’s something that I’ve always felt was a part of the charm, uniqueness and core gameplay of those games.

Interesting to hear someone complain about that specifically.

#603

Ninja on the Master System uses two buttons for your character to turn into smoke/become invulnerable for a few seconds, having the ability to assign such combinations are really a welcome addition.