Newbie need some help: Shaders, "configuration per core" option, and many more!

RetroArch General
#1

Hello everyone,

I have a few questions about RetroArch and the way it work. Some og my questions are probably stupid, but, hey, I’m not fluent in english and perhaps I misunderstood some stuff in the various tutorial or video I’ve seen.

1.How to “'call” (or pop-up) the menu once a game is launch? I found “F1” seems to be the hotkey to use, but, in previous versions of RetroArch, I had to simply press the Xbox Button on my xbox 360 Controller. Is it normal that this functionnality is not working anymore? If I press the Xbox button, the screen is “blinking lighty”, nut nothing more.

  1. I would like to configurate each emulator separately. For exemple, I would like to set up a Game Boy emulator (Gambatte) with the “dot matrix yellow color” (found in the shaders folder). I would like to have this shader launched everytime I launch a Game Boy game. Then, I would like to do the same thing but without the dot matrix yellow color shader, but with a shader specific to the Game Boy Color.

On a fresh Retroarch install, I’ve turn the “Configuration per core” ON. If I exit RetroArch, the setting is not save. So, I select “Save new config”, then rename it to the name I want: “GameBoyColor.cfg” instead of “gambatte_libretro.cfg” I’m doing this for all the emulator I want. But the emulator will understand which core to launch with the right setting? I don’t want a Gameboy color game to be lauched with a GameBoy Yellow dot matrix shader, for example… I’m a bit lost to be honest. My goal is to integrate retroArch as my default emulator in order to run hyperSpin smoothly.

  1. Is the “File Browser” directories = Roms directory? I’m a bit lost with this one…

  2. Any visual gallery of the famous shader folder to pick up the right one? I’m still looking for a Game Boy Color shader… and don’t know where to find the right one.

5.What’s the difference between retroarch-core-options.cfg (in the config folder) and the retroarch.default.cfg and retroarch.cfg file? Which one will be launched when I start RetroArch?

Thanks for your help. I hope I will not bother you with this silly question, but I’m really struggling and need some help, especially for the n°2.

Have nice day.

#2

  1. You can bind the menu to that xbox button in settings > input > hotkey binds.

  2. If you want everything else to be the same except for a handful of options (shaders or some button mapping or whatever), your best bet is to use config overrides. You can learn about them here: http://blog.andressm.org/new-retroarch-features-2/

  3. yep, you got it :slight_smile:

  4. Look at the ‘handheld’ subdirectory. The ‘lcd’ shaders look pretty good, and the console-border > gbc shader is nice, if you’re into that sort of thing.

  5. retroarch-core-options.cfg is where it saves core options that you set (mupen64plus’ internal resolution, 3/6-button controllers in genplusgx, etc.). retroarch.cfg is where your settings go and it gets loaded when you launch RetroArch. retroarch.default.cfg is a skeleton config that pre-sets the directories (if you ever need to delete your retroarch.cfg to get back to default settings, copy/rename retroarch.default.cfg to retroarch.cfg to keep from having to re-set the locations again by hand)

#3
  1. You can bind the menu to that xbox button in settings > input > hotkey binds.

I found it, thanks. I’ve tried to set up “menu toggle” with the xbox button. The screen blink, but no new numbers appears. I heard it was an issue with Windows 10. So I need to find another solution.

The ‘lcd’ shaders look pretty good

There’s no LCD folder. But I’m pretty sure you mean “CRT” folder,isn’it?

Moreover, I have some issue with the .lpl (playlist). I add a CSP, CSP1, and CSP2 content, but not playlist is created. Is there “pre-set” playlist somewhere? Cause no new icons appears in my RA menu. :frowning:

#4

For the Xbox button: We need to turn off Game DVR in the Xbox settings in Windows 10. Hope it will helps people with the same issue that me.

#5

The scanning feature doesn’t work with arcade ROMs yet. You have to load them manually, still.

The LCD shaders are in shaders/handheld. There’s lcd3x.cg, lcd_cgwg and lcd-shader. The console-border shaders are in there, too.

#6

Thanks (again) for your help. I’m pretty sure we can create a playlist manually for this system. However, it will take ages with the MAME set!

Thanks for the shaders hint. :wink:

#7

There are some scripts floating around the forum that will scan for you, I think. I don’t know if they’ll make nice names (e.g., Street Fighter 2 instead of sf2.zip) but they’ll at least get them into a playlist.

#8

I’m trying to find this script on the forum, but I can’t found nothing. Perhaps I’m not searching for the right terms…

#9

Ok, I’ve been struggling a lot with the “overrides” configuration. Honestly, I’m lost. What I want to do is pretty simple:

-Use Gambatte (or another Game Boy Emulator) for Game Boy roms, and use spécific shaders. -Use Gambatte (or another Game Boy Color Emulator) for Game Boy Color roms, and use spécific shaders.

Currently, if I launch Game Boy game, everything will be fine: nice shaders, perfect. Then, if I launch Game Boy Color games, I still have the monochrome screens of the traditional Game Boy launched previously. I’m do this both way, in an infinite loop.

I didn’t understood the way Overrides works. I’ve read several times the post on http://blog.andressm.org/new-retroarch-features-2/ , but didn’t understand well how it works. I know it sounds stupid.

Currently, my config folder have some gambatte_libretro.dll.cfg, genesis_plus_gx_libretro.dll.cfg etc… Do I have to create specific folder for this?

Any example would be great and pretty helpful for me but for everyone I guess.

Thanks for your help.

#10

The names are wrong, take a look at this file, it has the folders and cfg files with the right names. Just use your settings instead.

#11

Thanks a lot! I’ve downloaded the file.

You need to configure Settings --> Directory --> Config Dir to something writable (i.e. somewhere you can extract these config overrides)

Can I put the folders inside the config folder? Sorry, I’m sure it’s pretty simple, but it’s clear to me. It seems to be overlay, so It won’t works the way I want, no?

I think I’m lost.

#12

You have to put in the config folder yeah. On linux, it’s ~/.config/retroarch/ by default, for example. On android I changed the path, like in the quote.

Those overlay settings are MY settings, you should delete them and put yours :wink:

#13

[QUOTE=Mydriaze;32293]Currently, my config folder have some gambatte_libretro.dll.cfg, genesis_plus_gx_libretro.dll.cfg etc… [/QUOTE] These configs are created after you load a core (e.g. Gambatte), and then choose to Save New Configuration (resulting in gambatte_libretro.dll.cfg). Beyond this, I have no idea what purpose these configs serve, or if they are designed to be loaded automatically or not. I only use the dated configs (which can be created before any core is loaded), as I’m still learning how to use the others.

#14

Yesterday I played around with all of the configs and now understand how they work.

retroarch.cfg is the configuration that Retroarch always loads on startup, it’s your “Vanilla” setup. Any changes made to Settings are saved to this file on exit, unless that feature is turned off in Settings. This file does not include settings from Core Options, Remaps, and Overrides–these are stored separately. When you save configuration, Retroarch spits out a copy of the retroarch.cfg as a backup for later use (appears in dated form if no core is selected, and is named after a core if one is selected). When you load one of these backed up configs, they do not overwrite your Vanilla config, they temporarily replace it until you exit RA.

retroarch-core-options.cfg is a list of all your Core Options settings. Like the other configs, this list can be manually configured with a text editor (e.g. Notepad) just incase you make a mistake and cannot access a core (e.g. changing Mupen’s CPU core). This file appears when you first open a core for the first time, and eventually updates itself with all cores as you open them. I would back this file up manually for later use.

retroarch.default.cfg is the default configuration that appeared when you first installed RA for the first time. It’s available just incase you want to completely start from scratch.