i figured as much
as far as i understand he installed retropie 4.1 and attract 2.0 the only thing it has is some themes and art files added for attract mode and a few sections pre set up in attract mode ...no roms or bios files included ...i guess it was worth a shot of seeing if it mattered or not ...

i would still like to know with just a normal install of retropie 4.1 and attract mode 2.0 when you add the emulator in attract mode, which is working and playing roms in emulation station,
could it be that a .cfg file in attract mode just is not listing the start command properly ?

from what i understand attract is just an overlay and alternative that still references retroarch to run the emulators ?...or is this just a problem with supported emulators in attract mode thing?

thanks for the answer though as i may try just that with full clean installs