lr-pscx-rearmed and M3U files

[MasinAD]

Since a few years I try to complete the Final Fantasy series. And always on disc change I have the same problems of getting my memory card to the next disc. Everytime I search for a better solution I stumble upon either using PBP files or M3U playlists. As my attempts on using PBP files were without success I tried the M3U method.

When I ripped the CDs I had multiple images in bin+toc format. I tried setting up the M3U using those but it didn't work.

ls -1 gamename*.toc > gamename.m3u

I tried renaming the .toc files to .cd{1..n} which didn't work as libretro seems to expect cue files. To be fair, I tried it with my pre-buster Retropie, so that might have changed since. I tried converting the toc files to cue files but I cannot be sure if that's possible at all if there are any information missing the cue files need.

toc2cue input.toc output.cue

It didn't work either, neither with extension cue nor with cd{1..n}. Then I read about using chd files and I tortured my pure Raspi 3B to compress the bin+cue files to chd.

chdman createcd -i input.cue -o output.chd

Later, I decided to copy the images to my NAS, compress them there and copy them back as it's still faster than compressing on the Raspi itself. Didn't work either.

I moved the images to a directory next to roms/psx (roms/psx-md) and changed the relative path in M3U, I moved them to a subdirectory (roms/psx/discs).

Well, this last step at least allowed me to test if the chd files work at all – they don't.

I experience two different kinds of "does not work":

1. Emulationstations starts runcommand.sh but it returns back to game selection after a few moments without libretro starting (log shows "unsupported or invalid file"). This is my problem with m3u files referencing toc or cue files.
2. libretro launches and shows a black screen. And stays there. The log shows it does something. This is my problem with chd files and m3u files referencing chd files.

Basically I tried everything I can find in the web.

Any hints what it is I still do wrong? Any information I can provide?

[mitu]

Rip your CDs as cue/bin files directly. Verify the files are correct by comparing the checksums for the .bin files and the .cue file's contents with the ones published on redump.org. You can use ImgBurn on Windows to rip the disc to .cue/.bin files.