@billymild by default retropie uses the RGUI menu driver:
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it sounds like you're talking about the XMB menu driver:
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you could set it to the latter via https://retropie.org.uk/docs/Configuration-Editor/ -
advanced config configure libretro options all/retroarch.cfg menu_driver = xmbnote that RGUI is the menu that is referenced in all our docs, and may be more performant on low spec machines like Pis.