User Experience Feedback

RetroArch General
#1

I just tried out the new OSX version 1.2 on my late 2009 MacBook Pro with 10.10.4 Yosemite with an Xbox360 controller on a wireless module. I had a previous version that I haven’t touched in a while.

I have also have had it on a Windows 7 desktop since it came out. I overwrote a previous version and I’ve been keeping up with RA for a while now. I run it with HyperSpin using wireless 360 and bluetooth PS3 controllers (masquerading as xbox controllers).

The new user interface is attractive, intuitive, and user friendly (since it was borrowed from PSP). It still has the same issues as before though, and there were a couple other things that probably aren’t noticed by those up close to its development. I’ll list them out and hopefully other people will follow suit so the developers can get a perspective from non power users and perhaps make revisions to the UX.

The biggest frustration for new users is that RA doesn’t seem to respect configs or treat them as expected. When you change settings in an app and click save (why should I even have to save?), it should stick and be that way the next time you open it. Instead, it creates a new file using the date as a filename and you have to find the cfg (location not clear), erase retroarch.cfg and name the new one to that. This one behavior magnifies any other issues you may have by repeatedly sending you back to square one.

Lots of options that I just don’t know what they do. No documentation and much of the info doesn’t seem to be set up still. It’s not clear to me if RA detects the best settings for things like drivers, if the default is probably the best, or if I should know what these are and change them for better performance.

Default font size is far too big. I’d like to preview it as I change it so I don’t have to find out by restarting. Combine the need to restart with the problem of RA not treating saved configs as expected, and it’s a huge hassle to get right. The default could be closer to being usable.

Selecting directories is cumbersome. When setting up my default paths, I have to back out of the Applications folder, then go back down into user, library, application support… Then the next one and repeat the whole process. Get them all set up, shut down RA, restart it (or suffer a crash), and all of that is lost. In other instances, I navigate to a folder, then to get back to the UI menu I have to back out of all the folders.

The first couple times I tried scanning a directory for content it didn’t seem to work. I tried scanning a folder full of folders. You have to drill down and do each system folder individually. The process takes forever and you have to wait because you can only do one folder at a time.

Updating each core this way is great, but it’d be better if I could just check off all the cores I’m interested and periodically hit a button that updates them.

Customizable backgrounds, box art etc are very cool, but where can I get all that stuff? Is each person going to create their own or is there going to be a central repository and a way to download them all?

That’s all I can think of off the top of my head at the moment.

Thanks to all the devs for making this awesome software.

#2

k, thanks for the constructive input. Much more helpful than “the menus sux” :smiley: I’ll try to address some of them:

You shouldn’t need to manually save configs. If the ‘save config on exit’ option is turned ON, which it should be by default, it will save any changes to your default config when you exit. It would probably be a good idea to have a ‘save config’ button that doesn’t write to another file, though, so you don’t have to exit to commit changes to file.

Yes, there are a lot of options and it would be better if we had the tooltips filled in better. Defaults are set to a compromise between safe and functional (i.e., SDL video would probably be safest most of the time, but SDL sucks).

Yeah, we’re still working on the DPI stuff. Expect it to improve in the future.

In 1.2.2, we changed a lot of the default paths in osx to make more sense. Before, some of them were pointing to a weird, hidden .RetroArch directory in Application Support, which was bad. Let me know if those new ones treat you any better.

Yeah, no recursive scanning yet. I think that’s on the roadmap. While you can’t scan more than one directory at once, you can play games while you scan. :slight_smile:

Agreed, bulk core downloading would be good. Or, maybe a ‘get them all’ option.

The box art and stuff isn’t really ready for primetime yet, so most of those questions don’t really have answers. We are hoping to put in automated scrapers and improve the current stretchy-square behavior on the box art, as well as adding spots for more fine-grained searching among collections based on various metadata (e.g., “I want to see all of the games from Capcom”) and more.

#3

I love how much RetroArch has progressed!

#4

Hey, glad you like it! :smiley:

There are still some rough edges, of course, and some things that are yet to be implemented, but it’s encouraging to hear that you’re liking it better these days.

#5

I was thinking this very thing today! I want to second suspendedhatch’s sentiment. I love how much RetroArch has progressed!

#6

Another Ergonomy/User Experience feedback from a newcomer I use Retroarch on Android Fairphone 2 Thanks to all the contributors that make it possible! Installed it today to play zelda ooa (gambatte). Here’s a few things that frustrated me, to say the least: -I thought all the cores where immediately availables, so when i trid to load the contents of a zipped gbc game, I was wondering why he don’t find a game. why not detecting some roms types automatically and proposing to download a corresponding core? -I tried to change the overlay opacity. Spend too much time searching between sub-menus that seems promising. Didn’t get the option file thing, so when i exited and relaunched retroarch, my preferences were gone. Whaaaaat? IMHO the default behavior should be to have a defaut config that you can edit and for the most advanced users only, a saving/loading conf file -The in-game overlay: if you click on the “keyboard”? button, the overlay dissappear and you’re stuck, how can you go in the retroarch menu (tried the 3 android buttons) or display the overlay again, beside exiting/relaunch?