Specific retroarch emulator settings are being over written after i quit the game.

mediamogul

I've never understood the redundancy of RetroArch's configurability in RetroPie unil your post. I've had 'save on exit' set for some time now, but have not noticed any of the issues you've described. I take it that's because I only make changes by invoking the Rgui from the 'RetroArch' menu option in the 'RetroPie' ES menu listing? From there, no core is loaded and I assume the changes are made to the global file. I'm glad I read this as I'm going to want to look over the individual core config files and perhaps rethink my setup here.

meleu

@mediamogul said in Specific retroarch emulator settings are being over written after i quit the game.:

(...) I only make changes by invoking the Rgui from the 'RetroArch' menu option in the 'RetroPie' ES menu (...)

Yeah! I think this is the best way to use RGUI on RetroPie, but it's still dangerous. Because if you change one single config during a game, you'll overwrite the current system retroarch.cfg. The user must keep in mind that he/she have to exit the game, and launch the RGUI via RetroPie menu.

Concat

@meleu
Interesting. I obviously need to trace how the configs are being called to determine the problem. What you've described does shed some light on things because my /opt/retropie/configs/SYSTEM/retroarch.cfg files do not have the #include line.

That said, I could have sworn that when I edit the global config and launch into a rom, the changes made will flow through, even though I don't have an #include line. And when I edit via RGUI while in game, and it saves to /opt/retropie/configs/SYSTEM/retroarch.cfg (confirmed via yellow text at bottom left), the changes DON'T stick when I relaunch the ROM.

It's as if the only config being called is the global one. It's very confusing if RetroPie is managing the configs differently than the way RetroArch intended. I've been using RetroArch for a couple years now on Android, so it's been a maddening experience not to have my old methods work properly... and to not understand why.

The wiki needs a flowchart for this config circus... it's got to be one of the most common sources of confusion in RetroPie.

herb_fargus

@Concat like this: https://github.com/retropie/retropie-setup/wiki/RetroArch-Configuration

A visual flowchart would be cool though

meleu

@Concat said in Specific retroarch emulator settings are being over written after i quit the game.:

@meleu
Interesting. I obviously need to trace how the configs are being called to determine the problem. What you've described does shed some light on things because my /opt/retropie/configs/SYSTEM/retroarch.cfg files do not have the #include line.

I think the file was overwritten. Try to find an /opt/retropie/configs/SYSTEM/retroarch.cfg.rp-dist. This file contains the default config.

And when I edit via RGUI while in game, and it saves to /opt/retropie/configs/SYSTEM/retroarch.cfg (confirmed via yellow text at bottom left), the changes DON'T stick when I relaunch the ROM.

Pay attention at the filename when the yellow text appears. Maybe it is not retroarch.cfg (if the "configuration per core" is on).

Take a look at the /opt/retropie/configs/SYSTEM/emulators.cfg and search for the line that begins with "default=". And then look for the line that begins with the string after "default=". This is the command that will launch RetroArch. See that it calls a specific retroarch.cfg. This is the config file that will be used when executing the respective system.

I've been using RetroArch for a couple years now on Android, so it's been a maddening experience not to have my old methods work properly... and to not understand why.

Same here. My luck is that I'm an old Linux user, and I was noticing these details as I was facing these problems.

The wiki needs a flowchart for this config circus... it's got to be one of the most common sources of confusion in RetroPie.

fully agree.

Concat

@herb_fargus
Honestly, I've read that page multiple times now. The missing piece, for me anyway, is how making changes via RGUI (and saving) will affect everything. Everything on that page talks about manually editing the config files.

It seems I wrongly assumed Retropie plays nice when saving settings via RGUI. Hell, as soon as I got my RPi I turned on Per Core Config and went to work changing settings and saving via RGUI... just like I do with my Android tablet.

Thankfully Remapping seems to work the exact same as I've come to expect, so I didn't have much issues with controls.

Concat

@meleu

Pay attention at the filename when the yellow text appears. Maybe it is not retroarch.cfg (if the "configuration per core" is on).

I'm 100% positive it is. I watched it like a hawk when troubleshooting. :)

But I did not analyze the contents of emulators.cfg and follow the chain of events. I'm going to do exactly that to understand where it's going wrong for me. If I need to restore all the defaults and just manually edit the configs from now on, I will just have to do that.

Thanks for all the info!

Floob

@Concat Did the video above help explain what gets written and why? I tried to show how RetroArch makes saves back to the RetroPie directory structure and how to avoid creating conflicts.

As you can see by reading the emulators.cfg file in a given system directory, it is the system retroarch.cfg that is read by Retroarch, this in turn reads the global setting, but can be overridden by a game/rom specific config.
So the priority is

Game specific retroarch.cfg
System specific (everything above the #include line will take priority over the global file)
Global Settings

This allows a high level of control over exactly what settings each system (or game) will apply. By updating settings in RGUI it just wont/cant? re-apply those in the correct config files quite so specifically. You can of course use RGUI to do this, but its not quite as elegant as using the config files yourself as it results in one big mashed up config - but then if it does what you need I'd run with it. As shown in the video, its a pretty quick one time tweak to set your custom RetroArch settings without screwing up the way RetroPie wants to process the configs.

Plus, if you dont want to manually edit anything, the config editor will let you easily make changes that will be saved in the correct manner:
https://github.com/retropie/retropie-setup/wiki/Configuration-Editor

Concat

Yes, and no.

In your video you are missing a RetroArch option. I actually see 2 save options while in RGUI.

Save Configuration
Save New Configuration

The option to Save a New Configuration file will create a "SYSTEM-1/2/3.cfg" much like your video. However, I never use this option because I've always known that RetroArch won't autoload it. I use Save Configuration File, which saves to /opt/retropie/configs/SYSTEM/retroarch.cfg and overwrites the existing file.

It was a helpful video though. I've had a number of aha moments in this thread, and I did watch the entirety of your video, so thank you :)

Floob

@Concat Ah - ok, so by overwriting your existing config you are effectivly doing this bit from my post above

You can of course use RGUI to do this, but its not quite as elegant as using the config files yourself as it results in one big mashed up config - but then if it does what you need I'd run with it.

So that would work, but then you are sort of opting out from being able to fine tune your setups. I'll try to cover this in more detail in a future video.
And thanks for the comments :)

herb_fargus

@Floob don't forget to make a visual flowchart ;)

dankcushions

the 'proper' way of doing this is to edit these files using the retropie config editor:
https://github.com/retropie/retropie-setup/wiki/Configuration-Editor

can't go wrong with that!

mediamogul

This is the type of complexity that only a puppet show can fully illustrate. Too bad the price of felt and googly eyes has skyrocketed in recent years. I blame trade relations.

Floob

First attempt. Plenty of room for correction and improvement.

alt text

herb_fargus

@Floob oo very fancy you work fast. You using draw.io?

Floob

@herb_fargus Yep!! Its great isnt it! :)

mediamogul

@Floob

Very illuminating. Jim Henson himself couldn't have done better.

Concat

You rock Floob. Fast indeed.

Other things that (could) affect the config structure:

Core Remap files
Configuration Per Core = ON
User per-game Core Options = ON
Load Override Files Automatically = ON

It sounds to me like RetroPie has it's own way of managing at least the last three items, so there could be conflicts and unexpected results.

meleu

I think the new users must know that editing configs using RGUI on RetroPie is contraindicated. But maybe it's is only my personal opinion... So I'm not sure if this should be written on the wiki.

Floob

@Concat Thanks.
The core remap is largely covered here

Buzz added "auto_remaps_enable" to be true in the global retroarch.cfg to support it. But yes, I could add details of the file and directory it creates.

Yes, the last 3 are largely dealt with by RetroPie/RetroArch config setup really, so I wouldnt tweak those in RGUI myself.