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    EmulationStation mod

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved Ideas and Development
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    • J
      jacobfk20
      last edited by

      In that build playing a game doesn't justify saving metadata. Times played, and last time played do not trigger metadata to save. Editing game metadata and scraping will trigger a save.

      Anyway, would you be willing to run two tests for me? It will require running two different builds though. I think I may have found the biggest cause of what makes saving metadata take so long and I would like to have a before and after comparison.

      meleuM 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • meleuM
        meleu @jacobfk20
        last edited by

        @jacobfk20 said in EmulationStation mod:

        In that build playing a game doesn't justify saving metadata. Times played, and last time played do not trigger metadata to save. Editing game metadata and scraping will trigger a save.

        Sorry if I misunderstanding, but then I think it's almost useless :-)
        I only scrape and/or edit gamelist.xml when ES is not running. I only see use cases for it when using the ES scraper and using the trick to scrape screenshots.

        Anyway, would you be willing to run two tests for me? It will require running two different builds though. I think I may have found the biggest cause of what makes saving metadata take so long and I would like to have a before and after comparison.

        Aye aye Captain!

        Since I don't have enough C++ skills to contribute with the code, I'm happy to help as a tester. :-)

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        • J
          jacobfk20
          last edited by

          @meleu lol, I could have it save when "times played" and "last time played" are updated.

          These two builds I want you to run save everything no matter what (unless you have "save on exit" turned off) but this time they log how long in seconds it took per system and how many loop cycles to terminal and es_log. So when you run the first build, save the es_log (~/.emulationstation) then run the next build and save it's log somewhere and send them both to me.

          The second build could potentially lower the save time by quite a bit.
          I'll post the builds and full instructions I want you to run here in a few.

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          • J
            jacobfk20
            last edited by

            @meleu Alright, The two builds are ready. First thing: They are pretty safe but PLEASE backup your gamelists just to be 100% safe. I've ran these a tests a good chunk of times but you can never be too sure.

            • Copy over the emulationstation in test1 and run it. (you can run this anywhere on your pi it doesn't have to overwrite what is in /opt/retropie/supplementary/emulationstation) You'll need to set it as executable with 'chmod +x emulationstation' (no quotes)
            • After ES loads, make sure you have "Save on Exit" turned on and exit ES. It'll save normally (this will take the original wait time you normally would expect)
            • After its fully closed, grab a copy of the es_log and name it something like "es_log-1" or something (Log is located in ~/.emulationstation)
            • Copy over the emulationstation in test2, make it executable, and run it.
            • After loaded, Make sure save on exit is still enabled and close ES. ( This time should be reduced. It reports times as well.)
            • Copy and rename the new es_log.
            • Send me the two es_logs you saved.

            Grab the two builds from my drive

            You can email me the logs at my gmail. (My gmail is the same as my username here)

            No hurries :)

            meleuM 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
            • meleuM
              meleu @jacobfk20
              last edited by

              @jacobfk20 Done! The test2 build is much faster in updating the metadata! Tested both with just exiting ES, and exiting after playing 2 or 3 games. I hope it helps.

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              • J
                jacobfk20
                last edited by

                @meleu Thank you! It looks like I was correct. You went from a hair over 5 minutes to 9-10 seconds on exit now. It wasn't having much impact on my exit time (2 seconds to 1.4 seconds) but I'm glad to see it works on someone that has long exit times.

                I did the math with the data given from the es_logs and the new method saves you 2,967,762 cycles in a while loop. That's insane!!

                Is 10 seconds manageable? lol, I don't think I can get it any faster.

                Anyway, I'm going to clean this branch up and may do a PR. Thanks again for doing the test. :)

                meleuM 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                • lilbudL
                  lilbud
                  last edited by

                  Where would be able to theme the carousel bar rank on your to do list?

                  Creator of the Radiocade: https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/6077/radiocade

                  Backlog: http://backloggery.com/lilbud

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                  • J
                    jacobfk20
                    last edited by

                    @lilbud I have a branch that I work on occasion that will allow that. So far all it does is just allow you to move the little bar beneath that shows game count and change its color. As for priority... I'm not sure. GridView has calmed down a bit and I just got OSK running good so it may get moved up.

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                    • meleuM
                      meleu @jacobfk20
                      last edited by

                      @jacobfk20 said in EmulationStation mod:

                      Is 10 seconds manageable? lol, I don't think I can get it any faster.

                      10 seconds is great! :D

                      Could you put a message saying to the user that ES is updating the metadata or something similar? The first time I faced this problem I thought the RetroPie crashed ("Hey! It is not shutting down!"). A simple message would be enough to calm down the user. :-)

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                      • J
                        jacobfk20
                        last edited by

                        @meleu I will consider adding a message on shutdown. I'd like for you to do one final test for right now if you wouldn't mind. I cleaned the branch up and changed how it works slightly and I just want to make sure it still gets you down to 10 seconds. It doesn't keep time this time but it keeps cycles.

                        You can get this test build in the usual place.

                        Please send a copy of the es_log when done :)

                        meleuM 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                        • meleuM
                          meleu @jacobfk20
                          last edited by

                          @jacobfk20 Done! It took 8 seconds to exit and the lastplayed/timesplayed were correctly updated.

                          I have noticed some lvl1 warnings about data type:

                          lvl1:    requested mismatched theme type for [detailed.md_lastplayed] - expected "datetime", got "text"
                          

                          But the lastplayed info displayed in ES is correct.

                          You can see more details in the files I've sent.

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                          • J
                            jacobfk20
                            last edited by

                            @meleu I get a mismatch warning from the official retropie build but it's to do with ratings. This could be from the theme you're using. Does it report that warning when you run the official retropie branch?

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                            • meleuM
                              meleu @jacobfk20
                              last edited by

                              @jacobfk20
                              I checked more carefully now, with 3 different themes: Pixel, Simple and Carbon. The mismatch occurs only on Carbon. All the tests were made with the official RetroPie ES. So, it's not an issue with your branch. Phew~

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                              BuZzB 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                              • BuZzB
                                BuZz administrators
                                last edited by

                                I caused the error with carbon - will fix.

                                To help us help you - please make sure you read the sticky topics before posting - https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/3/read-this-first

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                                • quantum.heroQ
                                  quantum.hero
                                  last edited by

                                  Looking forward to all the features being worked on here! Keep up the great work.

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                                  • BuZzB
                                    BuZz administrators @meleu
                                    last edited by

                                    @meleu please can you update the carbon theme and let me know if the error is gone now ?

                                    To help us help you - please make sure you read the sticky topics before posting - https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/3/read-this-first

                                    meleuM 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                    • meleuM
                                      meleu @BuZz
                                      last edited by

                                      @BuZz updated and tested the Carbon theme. The type mismatch error is gone.

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                                      • A
                                        Arcuza @meleu
                                        last edited by

                                        How are things progressing with the grid view? I would love to have this game browsing mod installed.

                                        lilbudL 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                        • lilbudL
                                          lilbud @Arcuza
                                          last edited by

                                          @Arcuza What is that specifically?

                                          Also, I want folders to work in grid view

                                          Creator of the Radiocade: https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/6077/radiocade

                                          Backlog: http://backloggery.com/lilbud

                                          mediamogulM 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                          • mediamogulM
                                            mediamogul Global Moderator @lilbud
                                            last edited by

                                            @lilbud said in EmulationStation mod:

                                            Also, I want folders to work in grid view

                                            I've been hoping that folder support would be possible as well.

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