Development Suggestions

General Development
#246

Hello :slight_smile: This is my first post.

My suggestion is making RetroArch/Lakka playlists and library compatible for multi system setups, where multiple clients can access the same game library from one central server. When updating metadata and playlists from one client, every other device should have the same uptodate data.

I am thinking of something similar, as you can see here for Kodi (but without the SQL):

http://kodi.wiki/view/MySQL

I have 3 RA devices in different rooms. My PC and my RPi3 can both access the “games” network share hosted on my Synology Diskstation. They also get the thumbnails from there and the saves are stored on it.

But the playlist are not compatible because of the paths.

Since the ROM base folder is configured in the retroarch.cfg, RetroArch could write relative paths in the playlists and interpret the backward or forward slashes itself depending on the running system. Cores could be defined by their name without path and extension. If one system doesn’t have the core from the playlist, you could define a fallback core separated with a comma.

My third device is a NVIDIA Shield running Android TV (not rooted). This is the most complicated to keep in sync with the others. It can mount network shares, but not writable. So I use FolderSync with Tasker to sync my Saves. The task triggers every time when I start or quit the Retroarch app and it runs just a few seconds. It would be great to configure Samba shares inside of the RA gui to bypass the limitations of Android TV.

Many thanks for your great piece of software!

steff

#247

First, I want to say thank you for this pretty epic software. Having one program for multiple emulation is absolutely wonderful. With that said, I do have a couple requests that would make things even better.

It would be awesome if there was a way to install or update all available cores instead of having to manually install or update cores.

With that said, it would also be nice to be able to do this with all available updates. This includes thumbnails, shaders, and so on.

It would also be useful for RetroArch to be able to detect your system settings and either block (as an extreme option) or inform you that your system doesn’t meet the requirements of a certain core (which would be the better option). It could also be possible to have a toggle to hide cores not supported by your system.

Finally, it would be nice to have an automatic update system. Maybe it could check for new versions once a week or so.

Again, thank you for this excellent software, and I look forward to great things in the future.

#248

I’m very impressed with how far Retroarch has come over the years, and would like to see a few new features on day.

I made a mockup of a change for Retroarch. I’d love to see our username pop up in the top right of the main menu screen when signed into Retroachievements. It would be even nicer to see your username followed by the amount of retro points earned - ex. KryPtAlIvIaN (1283) - that updates realtime :slight_smile:

[Album] Imgur

I do have a question. Will we eventually see in the XMB theme, a column with our “Retroarch” or “Retroachievement” Screename? In the column is a “Compose Message,” “Mailbox”, “Voice Chat”, “Game Requests” and “Achievements”?

1 Like
#249

I wrote an issue on the retroarch repo ( https://github.com/libretro/RetroArch/issues/5375 ), but i’ll ask about it here too :

“RETRO_ENVIRONMENT_SET_VARIABLES” handle both presenting variables to the user, and saving them to the retroarch-core-options.cfg file.

Having a way to present variables to the user, while saving them to a file destination of our choice, would be really nice.

I feel concerned by how every game in fbalpha store its own personal settings (dipswitches, macros, …) to retroarch-core-options.cfg (can be more than 50 entries for one game at the moment, could be a lot more if i didn’t restrain myself).

#250

I noticed that fba writes a lot in retroarch-core-options.cfg too.
It feels like those options would need their own menu and write to game ini files of some kind a bit like Mame does.

Is there something that exists in fba source for that?

#251

No, there is nothing convenient like the mame osd, everything in fba standalone is handled through windows style menu. Programming a mame-like osd is far beyond my skills, that’s why core options is convenient, except for the issue with the number of entries it generates for every single game (and the emulator support 10k+ games at the moment).

I don’t think we should modify the current “RETRO_ENVIRONMENT_SET_VARIABLES” behavior, but having some new calls, let’s say something like :

  • RETRO_ENVIRONMENT_SET_VARIABLES_ALT_DEST to set a destination file
  • RETRO_ENVIRONMENT_SET_VARIABLES_ALT to store the variables in this destination file
  • RETRO_ENVIRONMENT_GET_VARIABLES_ALT to get the variables from this destination file

would be awesome.

#252

I think it would be a good idea for a option to hide the box art when in the different menus because it can be anoying.

#253

I would like to know if it is possible to open a web page from Lakka.

It is a web page in which I have uploaded a few games and I would like to be able to download them from Lakka. Thank you!

#254

Hi guys, I would like to suggest that the default settings in retroarch follows a “human safe” standard or/and that the information about every single option in the menu gets updated/added to prevent situations like the one I experienced yesterday where savestates ovewrited a more recent save file after I naively loaded them to check something in a game. I also didn’t noticed that I could undo the state changes in the quick menu. So, despite never having such trouble with emulators before, I had this annoying surprise with retroarch yesterday.

Example: Add a warning notification/pop-up for the user when he decides to use save states, making it clear that data can be lost/corrupted in save files created before if the standard settings haven’t been changed yet.

I understand that all this is completely free and is the result of work done in your free time, but I think it is necessary to have some responsibility with a project that is not just a personal project anymore and it is widely known and it keeps being divulged as a solid emulation experience and such thing as save files that contains data resulted from a considerable time investment from the user base must be dealt carefully, even if it’s just the fun/entertainment point of view of things.

Tl;Dr: Data security and/or information about the options inside retroarch GUI should be improved/updated, specifically when it concerns about Savestates and save files.

#256

(I am writing this after using the Vita version but should pertain to other versions too)

It would be nice if the ROM path could also be saved per core like other settings when you “save core overrides”. I am sure most people have their ROMs in separate directories by system and not in one big pile in the same directory. Every time I change a ROM and load content I need to scroll around and open the ROM directory manually every time. So if in a SNES core I could set it to the SNES ROM path so it goes right there when I go to load a game. If I switch to PS1 core it would go straight to my saved PS1 ROM directory.

It would also be nice if after you load the ROM it just runs it instead of asking every time if you want to browse archive or run it, then ask again for you to confirm the core. There are too many steps needed to run a game. It would be nicer to cut that down.

#257

I think you could save the file browser path setting in an override if you wanted to, though it wouldn’t take effect the first time you loaded a game because overrides don’t kick in until content is actually loaded. It would let you, for example, play one SNES game and then load another from the location you specified.

Some cores support archives as games, others need to navigate into the archive to load the actual game. There’s not really any way to determine which is which without asking the user. The solution in that case is to stop archiving your games, which will cut out one of the steps. I’m not a fan of the core confirmation screen myself, but it is what it is.

#258

Could you then have an option for core specific content directories? As soon as the core is loaded it would load the config that contained the ROM path too. So if I load the SNES core it would know where I configured my SNES path etc. Most emulators allow this, RA is the only one I have used that makes you dance through the directory tree every time you load a ROM. It is really kind of irritating to be honest, not very intuitive. It doesn’t even remember the path while you are in the core, load one game, then go to load another in the same core and it forgets right away where you got the last game from.

For emulators I don’t see having to navigate into an archive. I suppose maybe for something like Quake or non emulator stuff maybe but like Atari, SNES, etc. emulators every one I have ever used expects one game per zip file. Could there maybe an option in the directory configuration to toggle such as “direct mode” or something like that? This would default to a ROM path you set and after you pick the ROM it would just run it, no more interrogation of the user needed.

Also where is a good place to report bugs? I made a post before but got no responses either way.

Thanks.

#259

Proper bug reports are best filed on github on either the core or frontend’s repo, depending on the issue. The problem is it can be hard for new users to know what’s a core issue and what’s a frontend issue, and what’s a bug vs intended behavior, for that matter.

For your question, you could add a line to your core override that sets the file browser to the location of your choice. It won’t help with the first ROM loaded, but it would help with the second. OTOH, you would have to navigate out of there if you wanted to load content from another system/core.

Re: archives, GoodSets are all one archive per game with sometimes dozens of hacks/dumps in the archive.

#260

Ok so I can edit the core override manually to include ROM paths? I didn’t know that and was assuming that if the UI didn’t have the option, it couldn’t do it. Hopefully I can figure out how to do it. It is not the ideal solution but better than the way it is now.

As far as the goodsets yes but I know on my PC it can take forever to pull out a random ROM, not sure if RA does it faster but on portable devices with limited RAm and CPU I can imagine that being painfully slow not to mention having to wade through hundreds of hacks, clones, etc. Still if there could be some sort of “direct mode” (with text describing individual ROMS only) that as I say just loads and runs without all of the questions to answer would be much nicer.

I am not on github as I am not a developer. I thought the forum would be ok but I suppose maybe not. I guess due to some systems not being popular enough (vita) that doesn’t help.

#261

Most of the forum responses come from me. If it’s something I can test/verify, I’ll usually make an issue about it or just discuss it with the other guys in IRC, but if I don’t have the hardware to test something, I don’t usually answer any questions about it.

#262

Ok thanks.

I havent found it but is there a way to play portrait games (PacMan) in MAME in portrait mode on portable devices such as Vita, tablets, phones, Android devices like GPD etc? What I mean is rotate the screen, fill it 3:4 (I had to mess with the width and XY pos manually there is no fit screen while rotated), then have the controls go with it? I tried it on the Vita and while I can rotate the screen the d-pad doesn’t go with it. I then tried to remap the dpad directions but then the menu was hard as it was all opposite etc even though unifiedmenu controls were set to off . After finally getting it to work, it just defaulted back to regular controls after I did a “saved game overrides”. Remapped controls will work for selected game as long as I don’t save the override (the screen was still as I set it though). Is this a bug or operator error?

#263

hmm, possibly a bug. I haven’t had any issues loading both an override and a remap file, but I haven’t tried doing your specific procedure.

#264

I thought there may be a setting I missed. Yeah binds work great, until I save the per game override, then it just defaults out.

Also in MAME if I load a game, then load a different one it just runs the previous ROM loaded (but uses the newly loaded game’s override). So If I run Pac Man that has a rotated screen in the override, then load Asteroids that is non rotated it will just load PacMan again but non rotated like Asteroids.

It seems MAME 2000 is kind of messed up on the Vita. I wonder if it is getting any fixes eventually? This is why I asked about bug reporting, I have some to report as you see.

Is there a way to manually edit the config to get what I want? if so how do I format it so that MAME understands?

#265

The Vita port is almost entirely maintained by a guy named frangarcj. I’ll mention these posts to him.

#266

Thanks much. Is there a place here that he reads? If I find other bugs I can report them.