RetroArch and custom configs

[Newlander]

hey guys! i added some systems to my setup ages ago and they work perfectly with bezels ect. have been trying to add more and they do not boot from launchbox , if i boot retroarch load the config/core then the game itself it works fine , so im thinking theres an issue with launchbox or maybe launchbox has changed the way it operates with custom configs? theres some examples below, i've made sure naming of files ect is all correct every new system i add has the same issue

the "Core" section is blank for each platform both working and not working and "Default emulator" is enabled for each platform

WORKING

-L "cores/nintendo NES.dll" -c "config\nintendo NES.cfg"

-L "cores/turbografx16.dll" -c "config\turbografx16.cfg"

 

NOT

-L "cores/gameboy color.dll" -c "config\gameboy color"
-L "cores/gambatte_libretro.dll" -c "config\gameboy.cfg"

[fromlostdays]

I'm having a little trouble understanding exactly what you're saying.

Basically, NES and Turbo16 launch with bezels and other stuff in place through launchbox, but gameboy color and gameboy.... do not launch at all? Or launch without the bezels?

You said you did this a long time ago now? Instead of using command lines to point to the cores and configs, you should use the Associated Platforms tab under the retroarch emulator to define your core, and once launching you should use the onboard retroarch overrides system to define system specific options. Check your associated platforms tab under tools, manage emulators, retroarch. 

 

 

 

[Newlander]

1 minute ago, fromlostdays said:

I'm having a little trouble understanding exactly what you're saying.

Basically, NES and Turbo16 launch with bezels and other stuff in place through launchbox, but gameboy color and gameboy.... do not launch at all? Or launch without the bezels?

You said you did this a long time ago now? Instead of using command lines to point to the cores and configs, you should use the Associated Platforms tab under the retroarch emulator to define your core, and once launching you should use the onboard retroarch overrides system to define system specific options. Check your associated platforms tab under tools, manage emulators, retroarch. 

 

 

 

sorry , yep working cores launch with bezels + custom controls , the cores that aren't working doesn't even launch retroarch , it does nothing. i tried retroarch gui but i find it very unintuitive and alot harder then it needs to be, these custom config files make things alot easier as this is on a cab, retroarch is just a real pain to use from my experience. yeah the working platforms were setup maybe 6 months ago.

[fromlostdays]

Can you take a screenshot of your retroarch associated platforms tab for me?

[Newlander]

[Newlander]

sorry one of those photos wasn't very good , hope this helps i'm wrecking my brain trying to figure out why the newer ones won't work.

[fromlostdays]

This is the newest version of LB correct?

So the first thing I notice is that ALL of the cores have a status of missing. I'm not exactly sure how launchbox grabs that information, and that certainly doesn't explain why some systems seem to work and some do not, but try this:

• If you do indeed have all the cores in your RA folder, move to the next step, if you don't, download them now. If you have multiple RA installs, make sure they are in the "cores" folder of the Retroarch install that is designed as the exe in the screen previous to Associated Platforms. 
• If you're using the newest version of LB, you should be able to click a drop down menu under "Core" for say gameboy, and renavigate to the VBA gameboy core. See if that missing message disappears. If it does not, stop here and report back. 
• Next, copy the command line for gameboy somewhere to a text document (so you don't lose it) and then delete it out of launchbox. This isn't the final solution, but I need to see if the games are launching with just the bare minimum correct setup.
• Launch a gameboy game.
• Report back.

 

 

 

Edited February 11, 2020 by fromlostdays

[Newlander]

yep correct , latest version of launchbox , which is why i might of assumed they've change the interaction of Launchbox/RA , also did update RA and that changed nothing , will try that but when i click on the missing core hyperlink it opens a blank dialogue box with cores using command line parameters. its only cores which are truly missing a core which actually gives an error message in the dialogue box.

 

I tried that myself earlier not sure what it does but it seems to force download a version of that core (no new core in the cores folder ) because when it opens for the first time it says it saved a new config but no new config is added to the configs folder , seems to be ignoring all my parameters

Edited February 11, 2020 by Newlander

[Lordmonkus]

Remove the -L "core etc from your extra command line, that is messing things up in a big way. The core column passes that command line parameter along to Retroarch. You only want the -c "config" stuff in the extra command line parameters box.

You also do not need to do extra command line parameters anymore since Retroarch added in per core, per game and even content directory config saving.

You can still do the -c configs if you really want to but they are not necessary anymore like I said.

If Launchbox is saying you are missing cores when you actually do have them then you may want to first restart Launchbox and if that doesn't fix it try rebooting your system.

Edit:
Also from that pic you posted that is completely the wrong syntax, the core name should not have a space in it, no cores have any spaces in their naming.

[Newlander]

11 minutes ago, Lordmonkus said:

Remove the -L "core etc from your extra command line, that is messing things up in a big way. The core column passes that command line parameter along to Retroarch. You only want the -c "config" stuff in the extra command line parameters box.

You also do not need to do extra command line parameters anymore since Retroarch added in per core, per game and even content directory config saving.

You can still do the -c configs if you really want to but they are not necessary anymore like I said.

If Launchbox is saying you are missing cores when you actually do have them then you may want to first restart Launchbox and if that doesn't fix it try rebooting your system.

so that should work? when i boot a game its not using my bezel/full screen ect that i have setup in my cfg and its even saying that its created a new cfg even though theres no new one created in the cfg folder. still dont know where its pulling the gamebatte core from as its not in my cfg

Edited February 11, 2020 by Newlander

[Lordmonkus]

That should work if your config file is named that way and is located in the \config folder.

Retroarch stores its per core configs in the \config\core name folder, there is also a setting you need to enable in Retroarch for it to load custom overrides if you aren't using the command line to load them.

 

[Newlander]

1 minute ago, Lordmonkus said:

That should work if your config file is named that way and is located in the \config folder.

Retroarch stores its per core configs in the \config\core name folder, there is also a setting you need to enable in Retroarch for it to load custom overrides if you aren't using the command line to load them.

 

yeah its still not loading the cfgs , for example my cfgs are in RetroArch\config\gameboy color.cfg , pretty sure i have that RA setting enabled as my working systems wouldn't be working otherwise? im loading my cfgs through command line so i don't understand why they aren't loading

[Lordmonkus]

I'm not sure, that should work but I also have not used custom configs loaded in that way in a very long times since like I already said, there is no reason to do that anymore with per core, per game and per content directory over rides. Just make changes and save an over ride and done. Just be sure to turn off save config on exit in Retroarch or else you will run into issues.

[Newlander]

ok so out of curiosity i capitalized the C and that somewhat worked , except gameboy has the atari2600 bezel for whatever reason not the correct bezel

[Lordmonkus]

You probably have something in the config file telling it to load that bezel then, you would have to check it in notepad and see.

[Newlander]

launchbox still doesn't want to load my custom cfgs though , really wish retroarch was more straight forward like a regular emulator, when retro arch is open and i try and save a new cfg it doesn't save to the CFG folder any ideas what could be causing that? and could that be the issue why its not loading my cfgs?

 

[Newlander]

i'm trying to move away from rocketlauncher but RL seems so much more straight forward

[Lordmonkus]

I'll repeat it again, you don't need to do the manual custom config loading anymore, you can set it all up in Retroarch and it will autoload, you can do it per game, per core or even per content directory so you can have multiple configs for the same core depending on the folder the roms are located.

[Newlander]

2 minutes ago, Lordmonkus said:

I'll repeat it again, you don't need to do the manual custom config loading anymore, you can set it all up in Retroarch and it will autoload, you can do it per game, per core or even per content directory so you can have multiple configs for the same core depending on the folder the roms are located.

how can i do that? is there a tutorial or something to follow for that. i assume i can do custom controls bezels shaders ect on a per platform/directory basis?

[fromlostdays]

Rocketlauncher allowed you to automatically launch a config that was named after the system and placed in the /config folder. At the time, it was really awesome. 

Now, though, Retroarch supports custom configs on a per core, per game, and per directory level, so that RL system of managing configs is honestly obsolete. I loved Rocketlauncher, but you're wasting your time trying to keep those configs alive at this point. As stated above, you should learn to use the RA method of config saving.

It works like this where ">" equals "overrides"

Per Game > Per core > Retroarch.cfg

Step 1, open retroarch navigate to the options tab (second tab) go to "Configurations" and turn "Save on Exit" off, then before exiting Retroarch, navigate to the first tab, go to "Configuration File" and click "Save current config".

(What you just did was save a setting in the main Retroarch.cfg. You CAN override this setting on a per core, per game basis but this is a setting you want to apply to ALL systems, so you never should override that setting. Incidentally, this method of saving options to the Retroarch config is how you should save any settings that you want to apply to ALL games. There aren't that many settings like that, but Save on Exit (off) is definitely one of them.)

Step 2: launch a game for the system through launchbox. Go to quick menu, set your bezel, any other options you want to apply to ALL the games for that specific system. Once that's done, just go to overrides and select "Save per core override". From that point on, all of those settings will apply to all games that use that core. You don't have to use command lines or tell Launchbox anything. Retroarch will load the override automatically every time the core is launched. 

Step 3: Optional: Repeat set 2 but instead of saving per core, save as a Per Game Override, and those settings will only apply to the game. And if you remember from earlier, per game settings override per core settings which override the Retroarch.cfg. In this way if you set a bezel and save it per core, but you want a different bezel for just one game, you would just launch the game, set the bezel and save a per game override. The per game override takes precedence over the per core override and thus the bezel you set will show on that game only while the rest of the games will still show the initial bezel. 

It really is that simple. You might have to do the leg work again in terms of settings, but you can probably do it all in the time you've been trying to get those old configs to work.

One last thing, you may want to go ahead and move all of those existing configs out of the configs folder before you start. Clean slate. Don't have to delete them, but every time you save a change or override if the folder isn't cluttered you'll be able to see how RA is saving what and where.

 

Edited February 11, 2020 by fromlostdays