Tips on insuring that RetroPie will save battery games & Metadata changes?

MortalWombat

Hey all! First post in awhile, & bear with me as I didn't seem to see this covered while searching previous topics, but has anyone here using RetroPie noticed issues with it not saving? And have any tips on improving your chances that it'll do so?

I had 2 incidents recently where the Pi (or RetroPie) frustratingly didn't seem to save info after I'd spent a lot of time using it. The first was a game of classic Legend of Zelda. As most retro gamers know, this was a game with a battery, not a password system to save your game. I started a new game, made a little progress (basically just got some bombs and I think the candle) and it managed to save, I think I died and it asked me.

I played extensively on another occasion, beating a dungeon, getting a piece of the TriForce, the boomerang etc, journeyed too far and got killed by a centaur. I'm FAIRLY certain that I was prompted to save, but when I returned to the game, none of that progress had saved (thankfully I'd already beaten Zelda before ages ago, but still, it was kinda disappointing). So I'm not sure if it was my mistake and I accidentally missed a prompt, or is this can happen??

So far I've mainly been playing shorter, arcade-style games on the Pi just because I don't have a lot of time to waste, I have been meaning to add/get into more extensive games like the Final Fantasies, but certainly don't want to waste time if there's any risk of losing progress again.

Alternately I've recently been going through and adjusting the metadata on some of the games I'm less familiar with, like those where I'll see the name but not even remember what type of game it is, if it's a shooter/shmup, platformer, beat-em-up etc. I've been able to save this sort of info before, but I recently tried saving it for a NUMBER of different games, only to return and find that NONE of that info had saved. So, I don't know if it's my mistake, or if I just shouldn't rely on RetroPie saving this info after a point? Do I just need to edit the ROMs themselves to say what I want them to say (i.e., Willow (Capcom platformer).zip instead of just willow.zip), or will that prevent them from working??

I think I'm using the same MSD card that I upgraded to shortly after getting the Pi during the pandemic quarantine, so I don't know if this is a matter/risk of it just becoming less reliable since then(?).

Anyway, any tips-- or just shared stories of people who've experienced this same problem-- would be very much appreciated, again, I just don't want to waste time playing epic quest-type games or editing the info on the games if it's more likely than not that the info's not going to be saved.

Sorry for the long post, and thanks!!

abj

Normally the saving happen you are exiting from the emulator. You can enable autosave_interval in the retroarch.cfg file to save during the gameplay.

Path of retroarch file : /opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch.cfg

Remove the bracket (#) from autosave_interval and add a time you want the emulator to save in the .srm file in seconds

Also, from retropie-setup, try to reset permissions in rom dirs. :

retropie-setup => Configuration /Tools => resetromdirs.

MortalWombat

@abj Thank you, but to be clear-- it's been so long since I've done anything that complex on RetroPie-- at what level am I supposed to access that file, within RetroPie? (and from which menu?). Or by using the MSD on my computer? (in this case, a Mac using Finder).

Hopefully that second technique you mention-- about removing the bracket and adding a time-- is something you only have to setup once? Because it'd seem pretty complicated if you had to set that every time before starting a game; hopefully you could just set it once to save games like every 5 mins. or so / 300 seconds, or however it works...

Also, would any of these techniques help for saving the metadata on the menu/description of the ROMs themselves?? Just would like it if I could add/save more info when a game just says, say, "Assault (World)" etc, to add what kind of game it is, what year it was released, that sort of thing.

Thanks!!

abj

@MortalWombat

The most easy way, is to connect a keyboard in the Pi, then :

While you are in the Emulationstation menu press the F4 button. This will send you in a black screen, this the terminal window.
In the terminal window type this command :

nano /opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch.cfg

Find this line # autosave_interval = and remove the "#" , add the time, in seconds, each time the emulator will write to the save file.
Press CTRL+O to save the change and CTRL+Χ to exit
To go back to RetroPie, type

emulationstation

The above doesn't help with the metadata. If you have issue and with the metadata then something doesn't look ok with your sd-card. Generally , it is possible to write data in your sd card ?

From Emulationstation menu => other settings, is metadata option : save to exit ?

retropieuser555

One thing that's worth noting are you using an SD card or a SSD/NAS for storage? SD cards can't handle constant writing so there's a chance you might wear it down a tad quicker

sleve_mcdichael

@abj said in Tips on insuring that RetroPie will save battery games & Metadata changes?:

In the terminal window type this command :
sudo nano /opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch.cfg

You don't need sudo for this, it's just a regular file.

MortalWombat

@retropieuser555 Yes an SD card, I get that an SSD might be ideal for a cabinet setup where you can connect a stationary drive via one of the 4 USB inputs, but since portability/convenience has been a priority for me with this-- being able to connect the system to my or potentially anyone's HDTV-- an MSD has always been the most sensible option (and even if I could get some sort of large enclosure that'd fit/protect both the Pi and a hard drive, I'd likely have to get some sort of USB expander so I could keep both the external drive and a keyboard plugged in, since being able to run 4-player arcade games has been another thing I want this to be able to do).

So if there's a more durable MSD card, I suppose that'd be the only option.

MortalWombat

@abj said in Tips on insuring that RetroPie will save battery games & Metadata changes?:

@MortalWombat

Find this line # autosave_interval = and remove the "#" , add the time, in seconds, each time the emulator will write to the save file.

Press CTRL+O to save the change and CTRL+Χ to exit

To go back to RetroPie, type
emulationstation
The above doesn't help with the metadata. If you have issue and with the metadata then something doesn't look ok with your sd-card. Generally , it is possible to write data in your sd card ?

From Emulationstation menu => other settings, is metadata option : save to exit ?

Thank you so much Abj for this detailed response, well, I got all the way up to #3 but got lost in the sheer wall of scroll that came up. Is there anyway to search the results?? Hopefully by searching just "autosave" or "interval"??

abj

@MortalWombat If you have difficulty to find it, you can add it in the beginning of the retroarch.cfg file. Example:

## Skeleton config file for RetroArch

autosave_interval = add your value here in seconds

# If set to a directory, the content history playlist will be saved
# to this directory.
# content_history_dir =

sleve_mcdichael

@MortalWombat said in Tips on insuring that RetroPie will save battery games & Metadata changes?:

Is there anyway to search the results?? Hopefully by searching just "autosave" or "interval"??

You can use ctrl-w to search within the document while it's open in nano.