Hi everyone,
In recent weeks, I have added m3u and disk control support from within RetroArch for several classic computers cores.
For now, it’s done for:
- Amiga (p-uae), available in nightly repo,
- Amstrad CPC (cap32), available in nightly repo,
- Atari ST (hatari), available in nightly repo,
- Commodore 64, 128, … (vice), available in nightly repo.
I tested all the core myself with several games and had no problem.
Several other peoples tried it from a personnal windows build of p-uae (see UAE core for Retroarch).
I would be glad if you could give them a try and tell me if it work for you.
Over time, I plan to add it to classic computers cores whenever it’s possible as it greatly enhance their usability.
Of course, other devs can use my helper functions (retro_disk_control, retro_files, retro_strings) and take example on what was done to implement this for other cores (it’s not that difficult).
For information, other classic computers cores already supports m3u and disk control interface:
- MSX (blueMSX), done by @msheehan79, available in nightly repo.
Usage
When you have a multi disk game, you can use a m3u file to specify each disk of the game and change them from the RetroArch Disk control interface.
A M3U file is a simple text file with one disk per line (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M3U).
Example (for Hatari):
Simpsons, The - Bart vs. The Space Mutants.m3u
Simpsons, The - Bart vs. The Space Mutants_Disk1.st
Simpsons, The - Bart vs. The Space Mutants_Disk2.st
Path can be absolute or relative to the location of the M3U file.
When a game ask for it, you can change the current disk in the RetroArch ‘Disk Control’ menu :
- Eject the current disk with ‘Disk Cycle Tray Status’.
- Select the right disk index.
- Insert the new disk with ‘Disk Cycle Tray Status’.
Note : zip support is provided by RetroArch and is done before passing the game to the core. So, when using a m3u file, the specified disk images must be in uncompressed form.