Some questions about Emulation Station and Retroarch

PARALAX

After receiving the Rasperry Pi 4, I have been dealing with Retropie more and more in the last few days and have now found out a lot myself - but unfortunately not everything. So there are still a few questions for which I have not found a solution so far, as follows:

1.) The scrape function is a great thing and looks very nice, but it also takes up a lot of space on the memory card. The "Remove" function does not remove the downloaded data, as initially assumed, but the entire ROM. How is it possible to completely delete the data from the scrape function instead of the entire ROM file? Where is all the data for this stored and is it easy to safely remove with a file manager?

2.) Can deleted modules or systems also be safely deleted from the "opt/retropie/emulators" folder as well as "opt/retropie/libretocores" and "opt/retropie/configs" without Retropie getting into problems?

3.) When removing the ports, are the corresponding program folders or installations also completely removed, e.g. with "Kodi"? The corresponding folder in "ports" apparently only shows a configuration file, but not the entire program folder. I would like to check this and delete it myself if Retropie doesn't do this after removing the port from the configuration menu, especially since I don't know if I want to keep the player yet.

4.) Can I simply back up the configuration including all emulators, cores and other folders (approx. 700 MB) from the "opt/retropie" directory 1:1 with Midnight Commander onto my external exFAT formatted SD card and, if necessary, simply copy it back under the shell or the pixel file manager in case an update broke something or all my settings were lost due to an update? The latter is particularly important to me.

I was able to copy the data. The only question is whether all the file permissions were copied or whether they are important at all with Retropie and have a negative effect in some way.

5.) Where can I find all the update and menu scripts that are responsible for the settings of Retropie, Emulation Station and RetroArch? Or are they also in the "opt/retropie" folder? I want to save that too. And are there any other folders belonging to Retropie outside of the "opt" directory? I would like to back up everything that belongs to this platform so that I can start a new installation via the retropie script in an emergency without having to reinstall the entire system or format the SD card. Can this also be done using these instructions or with Raspbian instead of Ubuntu? https://retropie.org.uk/docs/Debian/#download-retropie

I would then simply copy the setup to the SD card myself or start it using the installation script: https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup

Or I use this tutorial: https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/install-retropie-app-raspberry-pi/

Then I would simply restore all the data that I had previously backed up using Midnight Commander and simply overwrite the data from the installation, so that I then have everything the way it was before the last update.

Also, I'm a bit confused about how to use Retroarch. After starting, I initially had a green menu and was able to conveniently save and load save states from the SNES9x with the controller by pressing the home button and one of the shoulder buttons on the controller at the same time. The remaining buttons were assigned the same way as you are used to from the SNES controller and as I had set it in Retropie in the controller menu. After updating Retroarch to the latest version, this no longer seems to be the case. Instead, I now get a completely different menu and the Start and Select keys are now on the keyboard at the same time, while the Select key calls up the emulations menu. How can you change it so that the old settings apply again? I thought that because of the one-time controller configuration in Retroarch for the emulators, which is already preset and adapted to the respective controller via Retroarch, or do I really have to set everything up again separately for each system and emulator? The strange thing is that it seemed to be working before the update. Now I can't seem to even set the shortcuts for fast save, turbo and reset. Also, I'd like to get back to the emulation menu via the home button instead of one of the in-game buttons.

Thanks in advance for your help!

mitu

1.) The scrape function is a great thing and looks very nice, but it also takes up a lot of space on the memory card. The "Remove" function does not remove the downloaded data, as initially assumed, but the entire ROM. How is it possible to completely delete the data from the scrape function instead of the entire ROM file? Where is all the data for this stored and is it easy to safely remove with a file manager?

The scraped data is not erased. Could be an interesting addition.
Depending on how you did the scraping (which program you used for scraping and options chosen), the scraped data is either in $HOME/.emulationstation/downloaded_images or in the Roms folder. See the docs.

2.) Can deleted modules or systems also be safely deleted from the "opt/retropie/emulators" folder as well as "opt/retropie/libretocores" and "opt/retropie/configs" without Retropie getting into problems?

When you uninstall an emulator/port, its installed data should be also deleted from /opt/retropie/emulators, /opt/retropie/libretrocores, /opt/retropie/ports. You don't need to delete it manually.

3.) When removing the ports, are the corresponding program folders or installations also completely removed, e.g. with "Kodi"? The corresponding folder in "ports" apparently only shows a configuration file, but not the entire program folder. I would like to check this and delete it myself if Retropie doesn't do this after removing the port from the configuration menu, especially since I don't know if I want to keep the player yet.

Just as with other installed emulator, user data from the ROMs folder is not deleted when uninstalling it. There may be folders left, created by the emulator/port, those you can delete manually if you wish.

4.) Can I simply back up the configuration including all emulators, cores and other folders (approx. 700 MB) from the "opt/retropie" directory 1:1 with Midnight Commander onto my external exFAT formatted SD card and, if necessary, simply copy it back under the shell or the pixel file manager in case an update broke something or all my settings were lost due to an update? The latter is particularly important to me.

I was able to copy the data. The only question is whether all the file permissions were copied or whether they are important at all with Retropie and have a negative effect in some way.

I've answered to this question in your other topic, I'm not going to repeat it here.

5.) Where can I find all the update and menu scripts that are responsible for the settings of Retropie, Emulation Station and RetroArch? Or are they also in the "opt/retropie" folder? I want to save that too. And are there any other folders belonging to Retropie outside of the "opt" directory?

The installation folder holds most of the TUI menus used for configurations - that's $HOME/RetroPie-Setup, which is a clone/copy of https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup. Not necessarily needed for a backup, since this is present already in an RetroPie image or can be easily added.

[...]

Or I use this tutorial: https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/install-retropie-app-raspberry-pi/

I'd advise on using the RetroPie Docs, 3rd party sites may contain outdated information or simply dubious advices on how to install and 'optimize' RetroPie.

Also, I'm a bit confused about how to use Retroarch. After starting, I initially had a green menu and was able to conveniently save and load save states from the SNES9x with the controller by pressing the home button and one of the shoulder buttons on the controller at the same time. The remaining buttons were assigned the same way as you are used to from the SNES controller and as I had set it in Retropie in the controller menu. After updating Retroarch to the latest version,...

Not sure how you 'updated' RetroArch - updating the RetroPie package does not modify any user made configuration. It looks to me you've used the advanced menu in RetroArch and you used the Online Updater to update the controller profiles (probably among other things ?), ovewriting the RetroPie-generated profile for your controller. You don't need to 'update' RetroArch this way - the only downloadable update that's recommended is the Cheats database, not installed by RetroPie automatically.

PARALAX

@mitu said in Some questions about Emulation Station and Retroarch:

I've answered to this question in your other topic, I'm not going to repeat it here.

I'm sorry, but your suggestion from the other topic is not a solution for me, because I would like to create an individual backup where I don't want to create a 1:1 image of the entire memory card with "sudo dd" (which also works for me but takes to much space). The same applies to the "image backup" tool from the "Image File Utilities", because it creates a pure 1:1 backup of the entire memory card, just like the above method, which still takes up a lot of storage space even with compression and shorten the SD card lifetime when restoring back completely. In the meantime I have found out that this can also be done with the included Retropie or Rasperry OS with the command: sudo dd if=/dev/mmcblk0 | gzip > /media/usb/backup.gz bs=1M status=progress

So I don't see any advantages that would justify using the "Image File Utilities". My goal is to backup the entire file system in such a way that, in an emergency, you can also access individual files that may have been damaged in the operating system during an update. The same also applies to the Retropie folder and all its subfolders. I'll probably try it with Midnight Commander root rights (sudo mc) and then simply add and compress all the files from the "opt/retropie" folder into one file on the external USB drive using the TAR packer provided. All file attributes and the symlinks you explain should also be included there, so that they can also be restored, or am I seeing it wrong?

@mitu said in Some questions about Emulation Station and Retroarch:

Not sure how you 'updated' RetroArch - updating the RetroPie package does not modify any user made configuration. It looks to me you've used the advanced menu in RetroArch and you used the Online Updater to update the controller profiles (probably among other things ?), ovewriting the RetroPie-generated profile for your controller. You don't need to 'update' RetroArch this way - the only downloadable update that's recommended is the Cheats database, not installed by RetroPie automatically.

Yes, that can be, because I actually downloaded some updates within the Retroarch menu and after that nothing was the same with the controller assignment as before. But how can I undo this without completely resetting Retropie or reinstalling everything? Is there some config file I can delete and have Retroarch go back to using the Retropie controller settings? I definitely want my old controller assignment and the key combinations for the save states and menus back! :-(

mitu

@PARALAX said in Some questions about Emulation Station and Retroarch:

Yes, that can be, because I actually downloaded some updates within the Retroarch menu and after that nothing was the same with the controller assignment as before. But how can I undo this without completely resetting Retropie or reinstalling everything? Is there some config file I can delete and have Retroarch go back to using the Retropie controller settings? I definitely want my old controller assignment and the key combinations for the save states and menus back! :-(

Just re-configure the controller again in EmulationStation and it will generate/overwrite the controller profile that you downloaded via update.

YFZdude

@PARALAX said in Some questions about Emulation Station and Retroarch:

... My goal is to backup the entire file system in such a way that, in an emergency, you can also access individual files that may have been damaged in the operating system during an update.

I believe that if you use the dd command to create a backup.img file, you can then mount it in a modern Linux distro and you should be able to browse the entire contents and find any files you wish individually. At least that is how it works with my Ubuntu 22.04 PC. All I did was double click the .img file and it opened up as if I had inserted the card.

EDIT: On second thought, you may have to right click a .img file and select to open it with a disk mounting program. But then it should be readable.

PARALAX

@YFZdude said in Some questions about Emulation Station and Retroarch:

you can also access individual files that may have been damaged in the operating system during an update.

I believe that if you use the dd command to create a backup.img file, you can then mount it in a modern Linux distro and you should be able to browse the entire contents and find any files you wish individually. At least that is how it works with my Ubuntu 22.04 PC. All I did was double click the .img file and it opened up as if I had inserted the card.

EDIT: On second thought, you may have to right click a .img file and select to open it with a disk mounting program. But then it should be readable.

That's not the only problem. In principle, I would like to backup the entire card with all partitions and data - at least once everything is set up. Another backup, on the other hand, should only contain the retropie configuration and the emulator cores, so that in the event of a misconfiguration or updates with faulty emulators, you have the option of reversing this, because unfortunately there is no option for this in the configuration script (a Backup of the last cores with undo function would be very useful here). I was honestly quite shocked at how poorly and inefficiently "sudo dd" or gZip work (or both). I'm using a 32 GB SD card, which at the time of my backup with "sudo dd" still had well over 25 GB free. Even with the help of gZip, the backup ended up being over 21 GB. That can't be right somehow and I'm wondering where all this (fake) data is supposed to come from. Unfortunately, the Raspberry Imager on the PC does not yet support 7zip. I'm pretty sure that this compression method would have reduced the backup to maybe 3-5 GB in the end.

@mitu said in Some questions about Emulation Station and Retroarch:

Just re-configure the controller again in EmulationStation and it will generate/overwrite the controller profile that you downloaded via update.

I've already tried that. Unfortunately this doesn't work. The configuration is still such that I can only get into the Retroarch menu with the "Select" button and "Start" has no effect. The dedicated home button on my controller is not used at all, nor do the key combinations that I had at the beginning work. Does it help if I uninstall the entire core or even Retroarch and then reinstall it? Or can I delete any other configs?

mitu

@PARALAX said in Some questions about Emulation Station and Retroarch:

. Does it help if I uninstall the entire core or even Retroarch and then reinstall it? Or can I delete any other configs?

Go into /opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch/autoconfig and delete every file, then re-configure again the controller in EmulationStation.

PARALAX

@mitu said in Some questions about Emulation Station and Retroarch:

Go into /opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch/autoconfig and delete every file, then re-configure again the controller in EmulationStation.

Including all subdirectories (android, dinput, etc.)? Otherwise I only have a "Logitech Gamepad F310".cfg there, as well as a backup file of the same name.

mitu

@PARALAX Yes, delete all folders and files.