Can LaunchBox recognise BIOS files that aren't in RetroArch's default system folder

[Isoku]

Thanks for your answer, that helps me a lot  i hate the default anarchy from retroarch, so i try make a better sorting  

Another question from me is a little offtopic because this feature is already in the stable releases are the bios checks. Does the checks works too when the bios files are in subfolders?

f.e. RAfolder/system/Super Nintentendo/Snes9x/biosfiles

[AstroBob]

Hey @Isoku, I split your post out here so I can follow up, as I was also curious about this. 

So, unfortunately, it seems like you cannot have BIOS files organized by subfolders. LaunchBox will expect the BIOS files to be in the `system` location, and if you browse to a BIOS outside of this location using the `browse` option, it will simply copy that BIOS back into the `system` folder. 

I imagine this is a limitation with RetroArch, where it expects BIOS files to be in this location. I just ran a test whereby if you have your BIOS in subfolders, RetroArch won't find it correctly.

I can't say if that's the case for ALL BIOS, as each core could be different, but unfortunately that means you're going to have to keep your BIOS in the default `Retroarch > system` folder. I agree, that it's a nice way to organise things at all,  but I do find that the Manage Dependencies option in LaunchBox at least let's me identify which BIOS is related to which system.

Hope that helps to clarify. Let me know if you have any further questions. 

[Isoku]

Thanks mate. A little bummer for my inner monk but i think its not a deal breaker to switch to a managed retroarch emulator by launchbox.

I changed in every custom core configs the system folder to the subfolders by system/core. Never had an issue with recognizing bios files.

edit: Yes you have to change the path in the config to the subfolder otherwise retroarch wont find the bios.

Big thanks for looking into that.

Maybe some day the launchbox devs have boring days and will look into this ☺️ 

Edited September 4 by Isoku

[AstroBob]

2 minutes ago, Isoku said:

I changed in every custom core configs the system folder to the subfolders by system/core. Never had an issue with recognizing bios files.

Ah so that's how you do it, I was wondering if that was possible, good to know.

But yeah, I imagine since a LaunchBox-managed RetroArch instance uses default RetroArch, which expects them in the system folder by default, that's what we went with.

But I totally agree, it would be great to have a bit of order to RetroArch's BIOS folder, it can get a bit unruly in there XD

[C-Beats]

@Isoku I've not messed with that setting. Is that a core configuration then, or a system one? Do you know where RetroArch saves that configuration setup to disk? I know we look in the global config for various features already, curious if that same file can be used for this request or if we'd need to start hunting for the core override file.

[Isoku]

Ok i try to get you in my setup cause i fiddled a good amount of time to have the automation level i want in the end 😅

You see here my folder structure of retroarch. First of all i create a new subfolder in the system folder with the name of the used core and put all bios files for that specific core inside the folder. In my example Beetle PCE.

Next i create a subfolder in the config folder with the same name as in system folder. In here i write my override configs.

On this image is my generally core override config for pc engine, supergrafx, turbografx etc. (config must named after the core to load automatically). In the override config you see the line with the system directory where i dropped the bios files in step 1. When retroarch starts it takes this path as the new default system folder. Normally i have here the saves and states override too but for Beetle PCE i have multiple systems.

So i create a config override file with the name of the content folder to load up automatically, In other words that folder where your roms are present. In this case for NEC PC Engine. Here i set the rest of overrides for the system specific like saves, states and bezels.

Retroarch have a well documentation of the override configs in which order the files are loaded. See here https://docs.libretro.com/guides/overrides/

But i believe in the end the point of interest for you is the override line system_directory = ":\system\MyPreferedFolder" where can set retroarchs behavior to look up for files.

I dont know if this is relevant for the most users here. It is just thing of stay all clean and ordered. More thing for "enthusiasts"