Load archive as folder from command line?

RetroArch Windows devices
#1

For example I have my rom collections archived in .7z because it saves space and keeps things tidy. Each archive contains multiple variations of whatever game

From the retroarch interface I can go to load a file as usual and when i select the archive it gives me the option to “open archive as directory” or something along those lines, then choose the rom I want to play from within.

The problem is that I would now like to launch these roms from a third party program “Emulation Station”, which of course requires setting up commands to launch the games.

Is this possible on windows, and if so how? I wouldn’t mind even if it launched the retroarch gui with the prompt to select the file, so long as it goes right to that prompt.

#2

After thinking it over for a bit I came up with the idea to make a script that would run 7-zip with a filter for “*(U)\ [!].smc” and if it fails filter for (E) [!].smc, then (J) [!].smc etc…

I could probably pull it off in linux with some bash albeit probably after hours of research and tinkering, but I’m so lost in windows I don’t see it happening.

#3

I don’t know if this will get you what you need, but you can navigate into archives from cli like this: retroarch -L /path/to/core.so -c /path/to/config.cfg /path/to/rom.7z#rom.smc

#4

ohhhh, that does get me what I need! Thank you :slight_smile:

#6

I don’t think you can. To my knowledge, you can either load a file within an archive directly or you can point to a zip file and it will try to load a single file therein, but you can’t point to an archive and then get prompted for the file you wish to load.

#7

Is that a limitation of RetroArch or LaunchBox? Because it seems that tjwoosta managed to do it using this parametter (retroarch -L /path/to/core.so -c /path/to/config.cfg /path/to/rom.7z#rom.smc) that you already mentioned.

#8

It’s a RetroArch thing, but perhaps I misunderstood what you’re trying to do. That is, tjwoosta launched a specific game inside of an archive that he knew the path to, whereas I thought you were trying to load an archive using LaunchBox variables that point to the archive(s) and then browse for the game inside that archive using RA’s menu, which isn’t possible.

Am I mistaken?

#10

No, unfortunately RetroArch can only do 2 things: 1.) load content using a direct path or 2.) use the menu to navigate and find things to load. You can’t do a combination of the two.