Nested ROM Folders and Game List

[SaltMountain]

@Ashpool
I did, that's where I learned how to create the .m3u file. I think maybe this issue is maybe due to my inexperience with .m3u files in general. Based on your comment it sounds like maybe I can write the paths in the .m3u to point one directory down and have the .m3u file itself on the same level as the game directory, like so:

roms
\
 - psx
 \
  - Chrono Cross (USA)
  - Chrono Cross (USA).m3u # points to the directory below it
  \
   - Chrono Cross (USA) (Disc 1).bin
   - Chrono Cross (USA) (Disc 2).bin
   - Chrono Cross (USA) (Disc 1).CD1
   - Chrono Cross (USA) (Disc 2).CD2
   

If it can work like that, I can give that a shot first.

[Ashpool]

@SaltMountain AFAIK the .m3u files are just made of the relative paths to the chd/cue/whatsoever files holding the disc images, or am I wrong on this?
so creating a psx-mydiscs (or whatever you want to name it) within the roms folder and placing the content to be linked by the .m3u there (roms\psx-mydiscs[game.cd1,game.cd2,game.cd3 etc.]), then adjusting the path in the m3u accordingly, ie ..\psx-mydiscs\game.cd1, etc. should work.(?).

[SaltMountain]

@Ashpool

Yep, just tried it and it worked just fine. I feel a bit silly, but it's my first time working with .m3u files. Thanks for helping me and bearing with the ignorance on my part, this will definitely allow me to keep it organized/clean to how my weird brain might like it haha. This is pretty cool because, I think kind of what you were saying, you can have the psx folder basically be a list of .m3u files for the games, and the Discs are somewhere else completely. Again, I appreciate it.

@saccublenda Wanted to say thanks for the CHD point. If I'm reading some of the documents and Google results correctly, CHD should give me better compression than regular .cue, so it probably still makes sense to convert the files to that format. Let me know if I'm wrong there.

Thanks for the help!

[saccublenda]

@SaltMountain I think chd yields a little degradation of the audio due compression (if I remember correctly) but it makes up with a significant file size decrease wrt to bin.

[SaltMountain]

@saccublenda

Good to know. I'm starting with a 256GB SSD so I still have some room but maybe it becomes an issue at a later time where I can revisit this. Thanks!

[WhiteT982]

@SaltMountain
You could also convert to .pbp. Still degradation and is compressed saving some space but the big thing to me is that it takes multidisc games and makes them one file so it’s more like you would see in an snes roms folder. No .m3u lists or anything. Just something else to look into if you want.

[Ashpool]

@saccublenda said in Nested ROM Folders and Game List:

chd yields a little degradation of the audio due compression

Ain't chd meant to be lossless? AFAIK at least chd V5 uses Flac for audio compression, or am I wrong on that one? Edit: I really don't know, but I always assumed that it may be somethink like PCM/WAV or such (As only lossless wouldn't incorporate another step of degradation from whatever lossy source audio (mpa, whatsoever) may have been)?

[SaltMountain]

@Ashpool

The RetroPie docs that @saccublenda linked says its lossless, at least.

[SaltMountain]

@WhiteT982

I saw that format as well in my browsing on how to properly link multi-disc games together. Are you able to zip up the resulting file to save space or is it negligible?

[testudo]

I am not sure if this is what you where trying to achieve, but here is how I have my folders structured for .m3u files so I can get the meta data on the folder listing and also on the individual files:

Folder & Files

Gamelist listing entry structure for the folder and individual files

EmulationStation folder listing

EmulationStation folder contents listing

[WhiteT982]

@SaltMountain
No you wouldn’t zip them. Basically you put your .bin and .cue files into a program and it compresses and combines them into one .pbp. So your Chrono Cross (USA) Disc1.bin, Chrono Cross (USA) Disc2.bin, and Chrono Cross (USA).cue would all go into the program and would come out as one Chrono Cross (USA).pbp file. That would go in your /roms/psx folder and would contain everything to launch the game.

The compression isn’t as good as .chd though so I personally use CHD for all single disc games and PBP for multidisc games. Again I’ve heard people saying they aren’t as good a quality as uncompressed files but I would never be able to tell the difference and the space savings are huge.

[SaltMountain]

@testudo

This is exactly what I was looking for.

Can you explain how you did this, because I see that your .m3u is sitting alongside your files. Are you using a different top level file that points to the various .m3u files?

[testudo]

@SaltMountain said in Nested ROM Folders and Game List:

@testudo

This is exactly what I was looking for.

Can you explain how you did this, because I see that your .m3u is sitting alongside your files. Are you using a different top level file that points to the various .m3u files?

Here's the .m3u file contents:

Final Fantasy IX (USA) (Disc 1) (v1.1).chd
Final Fantasy IX (USA) (Disc 2) (v1.1).chd
Final Fantasy IX (USA) (Disc 3) (v1.1).chd
Final Fantasy IX (USA) (Disc 4) (v1.1).chd

It points to the files it is sitting alongside in the folder. Clicking on the .m3u listing will load the first file of it contents. I changed the EmulationStation file descriptions from the above image to better illustrate the setup.

When changing disks/discs/.cue/.chds, etc... under the Retroarch Quick Menu's Disc Control section, the .chds listed in the .3mu file will be displayed when you select "Load New Disc".

Depending on the scrapper used, you may have to manually input the <folder> entry meta data in the Gamelist file.

I just found a how to video for Duck Station that used the same FFIX example I used, but for various file types and folder structures. Same basic premise applies to RetroPie setup.

Did that answer your question?

[SaltMountain]

@testudo

Probably 98% of the way there. As a newcomer, I dont know where to find the equivalent "Game List Settings" he showed in Duckstation would be in Retropie.

[SaltMountain]

Found a helpful Reddit comment that seems to point to the right location. I have SSH access on my Pi so I'll try editing the respective <path> and <extension> lines.

[saccublenda]

@SaltMountain said in Nested ROM Folders and Game List:

@Ashpool

The RetroPie docs that @saccublenda linked says its lossless, at least.

I guess I did not remember correctly then.

[testudo]

@SaltMountain said in Nested ROM Folders and Game List:

@testudo

Probably 98% of the way there. As a newcomer, I dont know where to find the equivalent "Game List Settings" he showed in Duckstation would be in Retropie.

You just need to create the .m3u file for your .chds like shown in this section starting at 1:20. You do not need to follow any of the additional steps displayed in the video.

• Make sure the .m3u file you create is saved in the same game rom folder as the .chds.

• The gamelist where you may have to manually create the <folder> entry is an .xml file is located in your rom folder. For the Pi I believe the path would be: /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/psx/gamelist.xml

• Make a back-up of the .xml file.

• To create the gamelist folder entry, just search the .xml file for the game rom name.

• Copy the lines for that Game from <game> down to </game> and paste to make a duplicate entry. Then

• Replace <game> with <folder> and </game> with </folder>

• Then you need to change the <path> entry from the the game rom file to match the folder name:

<game>
<path>./Final Fantasy IX/Final Fantasy IX (USA) (Disc 1) (v1.1).chd</path>

Delete game rom file path portion, leaving only the folder name and save the modified file.

<folder>
<path>./Final Fantasy IX</path>

[SaltMountain]

@testudo

Yeah this is the step that I need to do. For whatever reason, my psx folder has no gamelist.xml

[testudo]

@SaltMountain said in Nested ROM Folders and Game List:

@testudo

Yeah this is the step that I need to do. For whatever reason, my psx folder has no gamelist.xml

Your gameslist.xml file is probably located in the Emulation Station folder then: /home/pi/.emulationstation/gamelists/psx/gamelist.xml

It is fine there as well.

[SaltMountain]

Wanted to close this off after I thought about how I wanted to organize this.

Here's what I've done.

1. I converted all the .bin files into .chd files to save on a little bit of space all around.
2. In roms/psx/ I created a hidden .chd folder where I have subfolders for each game and their respective .chd or .CDX files.
3. In roms/psx/ I have a several .m3u files, one for each game, that each point to the .chd directory, and the individual game folder where the relevant game files are located. This allows me to keep the roms/psx/ relatively clean which is what I was going for.

I really appreciate everyone's help in getting me to clean up the roms directory!