Loading multiple cores from the same playlist

RetroArch General
#1

I am not sure if this is even possible, but here is my scenario.

My SNES playlist has its entries assigned to bsnes, as it’s my de facto SNES core for local playing. However, when netplaying, Snes9x is my de facto SNES core, but loading content for netplay hosting requires to manually load the core and the ROM; simply loading the core and then selecting the entry in the playlist will load it with bsnes.

Is there a magical way where I can load those SNES entries with Snes9x WITHOUT getting rid of bsnes as the default core?

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#2

AFAIK, you have two not-quite-what-you-want workaround possibilities:

1.) never associate the playlist with a core and make the playlist read-only and it will ask you to pick the core on each launch (bit of a hassle)

2.) create a second SNES playlist that is associated with your snes9x core and just use it for netplay.

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#3

Yeah, both of these workarounds are meh/ugly.

Thanks for confirming that I am not missing something obvious though.

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#4

Editing each playlist entry from the windows desktop menu allows this. Other OSs would probably require manually editing the playlist file.

#5

This does not solve the issue I’ve presented. See:

Is there a magical way where I can load those SNES entries with Snes9x WITHOUT getting rid of bsnes as the default core?

This requires editing the playlist manually each time I want to change from bsnes to snes9x and vice versa. Much easier to use a script to do that automatically, which is sort not what I want either.

#6

Create a second playlist specifically for hosting that has that emu set as the default.

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#7

Already suggested in the second post: Loading multiple cores from the same playlist Replied below that I didn’t like either of those ideas; maintaining two identical playlists is simply too hacky/troublesome for me.

#8

The solution would be to be able to add more than 1 core in the playlist and add a “launch with” feature where you can choose one of the added cores in the playlist.

This is a feature that a few frontends have and its very useful.

#9

Considered that myself; an “alt_core” entry to playlist entries. Two things to consider though:

  1. How do we add that in a way that the user can select an alt core inside RetroArch without having to add a bunch of new code?
  2. How many alt_cores entries do we allow?
#10

  1. I don’t think this is possible without adding some code. Should be an improvement as RetroArch evolves.

  2. As many as someone wants.

After you add all the cores you want to use with a playlist, there should be another option to choose which one you want as the default. This will be used with the regular “launch” option as it is now. The others can be selected with the new “launch with” option.

The “launch with” can be used even without adding any core. Like in the “favorites” playlist where you have games from various systems, a “launch with” option can be used to launch something with an alternative core from your whole core list. It should be faster than associating a core every time manually.

#11

AFAIK, the playlists already have capabilities to do this, it’s just not exposed in the RetroArch menus, which are not great at things like multi-select (i.e., so you could select a group of games and then change their association in bulk). I would personally think it’s niche enough to not really need to be directly available in RA and is a perfect feature for an external playlist editing program instead.

#12

I don’t think they have capabilities to do this. Or at least i don’t know how to do it.

I don’t use custom playlists, i use other frontends and RA as the “emulator”. But i do have a big favorites list that i sometimes use. The only way to select which core you want to launch a game with is to associate a different core every time. It works but it’s too many clicks. And you will still have to change the core to your default, after you did your testing with a different core.

A “launch with” option that allows you to quickly select any core other than the default one (without changing it) would make this much faster and easier for testing games with different cores.

I don’t agree its a niche thing. When you have so many different cores for each system, like for the Game Boy, SNES, Genesis, etc, i’m pretty sure a lot of people would want to do quick testings and comparisons to see how each core performs.

#13 
{
  "path": "/media/smbshare/Emulation/SNES/snesroms/Secret of Evermore.sfc",
  "label": "Secret of Evermore (USA)",
  "core_path": "DETECT",
  "core_name": "DETECT",
  "crc32": "A5C0045E|crc",
  "db_name": "Nintendo - Super Nintendo Entertainment System.lpl"
},

core_name and core_path can be changed to whatever there. When you associate a core, it sets it for the whole playlist, but some other playlist editor (or a text editor) could hypothetically be used to set them on an entry-by-entry basis.

I don’t actually have any problem with the ‘run’ menu having another entry that pops up the core picker, but OTOH this is already what happens if you just ‘load content’, which is what I do when testing things.

#14

A core picker submenu would only be shown if core_alt is not empty.

I just don’t know an intuitive way to allow the user to set alternative cores yet.

#15

Yeah but if you use the “load content” option you also have to browse through your games again and pick the rom.

A “run with” menu option, in a playlist where you already have a bunch or roms picked, would completely skip that step and send you immediately to the core picker list, to choose what core you want to use without browsing for the rom again. Which would be nice, especially if you have a ton of roms and systems.

Basically, the solution is pretty easy. Just add a “launch with” under “Launch” after you pick a rom, that sends you to the core list instead of launching the game with the core you set as the default.