Confused on Multi Disc Games

AlphaBetaPie

I'm going to be setting up Sega CD, PlayStation and Saturn on my Retropie soon, but the multi disc thing has me scratching my head on how to load them. With a single ROM in Retroarch, it's obviously easy. But with games that have Disc 1 and 2 (sometimes up to 4 in Panzers case), how does that work? Can I just load Disc 1 from my EmulationStation list, then in-game swap out the ISO as needed in the Retroarch menu? Or do I need to have each disc set up in my game list as a separate entry in EmulationStation that I load manually (that share one save file)?

mitu

@AlphaBetaPie said in Confused on Multi Disc Games:

Can I just load Disc 1 from my EmulationStation list, then in-game swap out the ISO as needed in the Retroarch menu?

Yes, you can do that, RetroArch has a disc control menu for ejecting/inserting discs.

Or do I need to have each disc set up in my game list as a separate entry in EmulationStation that I load manually (that share one save file)?

The recommended alternative is to create a .m3u playlist for the game, referencing its discs. You can then use the disc control menu to load/eject the discs, choose between the game's discs instead of browsing for the .cue file, while in EmulationStation you have only 1 entry for the game.

Both features are described in the pPS1 multi-disk info](https://retropie.org.uk/docs/Playstation-1/#m3u-playlist-for-multi-disc-games), but apply to most of the disc based games run through RetroArch.

pscotto1234

@mitu said in Confused on Multi Disc Games:

@AlphaBetaPie said in Confused on Multi Disc Games:

Can I just load Disc 1 from my EmulationStation list, then in-game swap out the ISO as needed in the Retroarch menu?

Yes, you can do that, RetroArch has a disc control menu for ejecting/inserting discs.

Or do I need to have each disc set up in my game list as a separate entry in EmulationStation that I load manually (that share one save file)?

The recommended alternative is to create a .m3u playlist for the game, referencing its discs. You can then use the disc control menu to load/eject the discs, choose between the game's discs instead of browsing for the .cue file, while in EmulationStation you have only 1 entry for the game.

Both features are described in the pPS1 multi-disk info](https://retropie.org.uk/docs/Playstation-1/#m3u-playlist-for-multi-disc-games), but apply to most of the disc based games run through RetroArch.

@mitu is this method woking on flycast as well?

mitu

@pscotto1234 said in Confused on Multi Disc Games:

@mitu is this method woking on flycast as well?

Yes, it should work.

AlphaBetaPie

@mitu Just circling back around on this and my other Saturn based posts (as I'm getting close to getting this all wrapped up now). So my setup right now is I'm running all my Saturn games from zip files. The zip will have a folder that contains the bin and cue file, and there is no need to unzip all of them (Retroarch just digs in and finds what it needs to launch). And while painfully slow, it does work.

So how would a .m3u file factor into this setup?

Would I have a zip file with four Saturn files (a bin/cue for disc 1, then another bin/cue for disc 2), plus just the .m3u thrown in there? How will it know to grab that first and find what it's looking for. Or will I need a different setup for multidisc games than zip files?

mitu

For multi-disc games, I don't think a single .zip file would work - but it depends on how the core implements loading of the files. I'm not familiar with lr-yabause, so I can't say if .zip loading is baked in.

For multi-disc setups, a .m3u list is preferable, since it allows for easier disc switching and also because the save files will have the same name and will not depend on disc name. If you also want compression, most Libretro cores have .chd support, so you can convert the .cue + .bin (s) disc to a single .chd file and create a m3u playlist with them.

quicksilver

Multi-disc ps1 .pbp files also seem to work for disc switching as well

AlphaBetaPie

Thanks everyone. Let me ask this.

If I was wanting to just simplify the whole process (and I didn't mind having some multidisc games having more than on entry in my EmulationStation menu), could I just have the one save file saved on my Pie, then when I get to the end of disc one, back out to the ES menu, select disc two from the main list and pick up from there? That seems like a pretty quick and easy fix. Is that do-able? Would it work as well as any other method?

Zering

As far as I know you can't do that exactly, but you can quit ES, copy your save, change its filename to match Disc 2, then boot Disc 2 directly from ES. At least on PS1.

mitu

One of the advantages of using an m3u file is that the save (save state or game save file) is per-game, and not per-disc. The new version of RetroArch also remembers which disc you had inserted last and loads it automatically (when using an m3u file). As far as saves are concerned, using separate discs will be more cumbersome and confusing.

AlphaBetaPie

Thanks for all the great help so far. Been toying with this over the weekend. Not got it perfect yet, but making progress. Still having some issues, so here the breakdown thus far.

So I took a two disc Saturn game as a test (in this case it was Street Fighter Collection), which had four discs:

Street Fighter Collection (Disc 1 of 2) (USA) (DW0470) <====This is a Bin File
Street Fighter Collection (Disc 1 of 2) (USA) (DW0470)<====This is a Cue File
Street Fighter Collection (Disc 2 of 2) (USA) (DW0470)<====This is a Bin File
Street Fighter Collection (Disc 2 of 2) (USA) (DW0470)<====This is a Cue File

It said to rename the cue files to .CD1 and .CD2. I added those extensions to the end of the file names, and created a text file with the following text in it:

Street Fighter Collection (Disc 1 of 2) (USA) (DW0470).CD1
Street Fighter Collection (Disc 2 of 2) (USA) (DW0470).CD2

I changed around some things in my XML file and my es_systems so it would read/load the .m3u. But it still just crashes back to the main system (the emulator would play the first disc before when I just loaded it as a .zip).

I also tried rename the actually file extension from .cue to .CD1 in the FTP file manager, as I was able to see the real file name extension there. But not sure what might be a wrong here. I have these four disc files and the .m3u right in the root of my roms/saturn folder. Any thoughts on what might be wrong?

IyonUK

@AlphaBetaPie said in Confused on Multi Disc Games:

It said to rename the cue files to .CD1 and .CD2. I added those extensions to the end of the file names

Did your remove the cue extension? It seems that you’re saying you added the CDx to the end.

AlphaBetaPie

Yes, I didn't at first, but then I figured out how to replace it all together. Still not working. Here are some screenshots of my setup, if that helps...

IyonUK

@AlphaBetaPie

Is there anything useful in the runcommand.log? Which I think is in /tmp or in /dev/shm

mitu

@AlphaBetaPie What emulator are you using ?

pscotto1234

The method described in psx section doesn’t work in flycast, maybe it’s the same with psx emulator.
I solved renaming with .CHD extension. For example: shenmue is a 4 disc game and I renamed them in
Shenmue Disc 1.CHD
Shenmue Disc 2.CHD
Shenmue Disc 3.CHD
Shenmue Disc 4.CHD
and I made .m3u file.

Single discs have .chd extension so I can hide .CHD file just modifying es_system.cfg
This way works fine form me.
For psx multigame I used PBP format. You can create a single PBP from a multidisc game.

AlphaBetaPie

I'm testing the PSX version of this method described in the walkthrough from the link above, just to get some clarity before trying to fix it on Saturn. So far so good getting it to load in the PSX core, except I don't know how to change discs. If I go into the quick menu under disc control, it lets me cycle disc 1, 2 or 3....but then what? How do I get it to swap the disc? None of my commands are working after I change the disc number. If I back out, it just puts me back at my normal game that was already loaded. What am I doing wrong there?

mitu

Depending on your RetroArch version, the disc control menus are different. Which version are you using ?

AlphaBetaPie

@mitu said in Confused on Multi Disc Games:

Depending on your RetroArch version, the disc control menus are different. Which version are you using ?

Not 100% sure, which ever one comes default in the retropie-4.5.1-rpi2_rpi3.img file I used. The RetroArch menu says the following (when launching the PSX emulator):

build date feb 4 2019
git version: 9750719
1.7.6 - PCSX-ReARMed r22 cabd885

mitu

For older versions, I think the documentation is still accurate - https://retropie.org.uk/docs/Playstation-1/#m3u-playlist-for-multi-disc-games. Newer version have an easier menu, where it know if you need to insert or eject a disk. I recommend updating the retroarch package for the new version and also update the lr-pcsx-rearmed core.