[Theme Changes] Attention Theme Makers: Upcoming Game Collections in ES

hansolo77

I'm patient. I have a working system, so anything NEW is just a bonus. I'm just posting support/testing results. :) What exactly does adjusting the VRAM do? When I was getting the video screenshots update to work, I remember putting it all the way up and was told to put it back. So I'm just curious what that setting actually changes.

TMNTturtlguy

@hansolo77 I am not 100%in this terminology but I believe it is "virtual memory". Adjusting the VRAM adjusts how much memory is dedicated to ES, but how it works is kind of a mystery, one persons vram setting may not work the same on someone else's setup. When adjusting VRAM you want to make small adjustments, 10 or 20 at a time. I would never go under 70 or over 130, but anything in between is probably ok.

hansolo77

See, that's just backwards thinking to me. Virtual Memory to me sounds like a page file. A designated file or something on your storage device that is set aside to be used as extra RAM. So if you have 1gb of RAM, but set aside 1gb of "virtual memory" on your SD card, you're essentially giving yourself 2gb of RAM. If you have an 8gb SD card, but are only using 4gb of it, giving ES use of 3gb's of it should make your system a very happy camper. That's why I thought increasing the VRAM setting to it's max available would be the best thing I could do. But then you say only go about +/-30, as if doing more would make it unstable. I just don't understand what it is then. And I'm not dissing you're explanation.. I'm just trying to explain how I perceived it. In all honesty, we're probably both wrong. :) It's gonna take somebody who understands it to explain it lol.

jdrassa

@hansolo77 @TMNTturtlguy I believe VRAM refers to Video RAM. What the setting controls is how much VRAM is used to store image textures. The reason it is a setting is that the best value will vary based on your GPU split. If you are dedicating more memory to the GPU, then you can increase the VRAM more. What likely was happening, is that if you set VRAM too high, ES will try to keep more textures in memory then it has space to store. This will result in the white boxes that you were seeing.

TMNTturtlguy

@jdrassa thanks for the explanation. With the new updates to favotrites and last played I actually had to increase from 100 to 120 to get rid of the white boxes. Running ES prior to the update I run perfectly at 100.

hansolo77

Ahh makes a little more sense then. :) So if it's based on the memory split, somebody should come up with an easy equation and figure out what setting you should use. Post that up in the docs.. saying If Memory Split = X, Set VRAM to Y. Make a little table or something.

This ties into another setting I never could figure out how to do either. The Memory Split setting has 3 options, like 128, 256, and 1028. And you're supposed to change the setting for the one you have. Now, being that it's a Raspberry Pi, and a lot of people have that device, why include those unnecessary settings? If you're only supposed to change one, why have the other 2 even in the config file? It only over complicates things. As an aside, I don't even think I've changed that setting on my system. Gonna have to go back and check.

pjft

Thanks all for the explanations here. @jdrassa and @TMNTturtlguy were spot on on the VRAM explanation.

That being said, I'm certainly keen on learning more about the lock up and what else.

Can you please open a new topic and add me to it, so not too derail this one? My first recommendation for the blank screens would certainly be to reduce VRAM to 80, as effectively there are now three more systems in use, but this would not have any bearing to any sort of lock up behavior. In the new topic let me know more details, namely library size, how many games in favorites, or relevant systems, etc. Also if you can SSH into the Pi and run 'top' when it locks up, I'd like to see if either memory or cpu usage are in any way high.

Also, favorites are a metadata element in the existing gamelists.

Thanks!

hansolo77

@pjft Done!

cyperghost

@pjft Where are the favourites stored? Is there a own gameslists.xml? I wasn't able to locate it.

pjft

@cyperghost They're in the actual games' metadata.

cyperghost

@pjft - Thank you
Okay... I see it via "Edit Metadata"! Got It!
But where is the metadata stored?
I always thought it's ~/.emulationstation/ which is a symlink that leads to /opt/retropie/configs/all/emulationstation/ and there the overlays, marquees, videos.... are stored for game description :)

pjft

@cyperghost No - they're stored with the actual games' metadata. In the gamelist files.

cyperghost

@pjft Thank you for patience
I must be deaf, dumb & blind....
Of course it's in the gameslist of the system under the tag <favorite>true</favorite>

pjft

@cyperghost Not at all! Sorry if I wasn't clear in the first place.

lilbud

@cyperghost said in [Theme Changes] Attention Theme Makers: Upcoming Game Collections in ES:

I must be deaf, dumb & blind....

Do you play a mean pinball?

cyperghost

@lilbud said in [Theme Changes] Attention Theme Makers: Upcoming Game Collections in ES:

Do you play a mean pinball

Don't know what you mean :)

Capeman

I'm slacking off at work today. I liked the style of the recalbox favorites logo, but i feel like it's kind of simple and boring, so i'm working on my own.

mediamogul

@capeman

Very nice! I especially love the hearts being blasted away. I found a little of time to rework mine a bit too. 'All Games' is still a tough nut to crack, but I think this approach gets a little closer to the idea.

alt text

Capeman

@mediamogul I very much enjoy your logo for last played! Bravo!

Question to anybody on here. When i activate favorites on here, it shows the logo on the carousel, and if i add a game by editing it's meta data it shows on the favorites menu, which is all great... BUT when i restart emulation station, favorites goes away and games i tagged as favorites dont show up after i re-enable it.

~~I use custom gamelists, is it because i dont have the <favorite> tag on my meta data? Do i need to add it to every entry to make it work? Would that explain why it disappears every time I restart?~~

I tested the part i crossed out, and having <favorites> tags for each game in my gamelist doesnt seem to help.

In fact, editing the metadata isnt even saving in my gamelists, would using a custom created gamelist cause this issue? I edited an NES game to be favorite YES, and in my gamelist.xml, it still says <favorite>false</favorite>... So im currently googling how to fix that...

Also do i need to add an entry in es_systems.cfg to make it so the favorites menu doesnt disappear on reboot? - Dang, i usually dont have issues like this haha.

HurricaneFan

@capeman Do you have "save metadata on exit" turned off?