Retroarch menu opens with SELECT-Button

sleve_mcdichael

@PARALAX said in Retroarch menu opens with SELECT-Button:

So enter the whole stuff by hand. Serious?

No, just the individual line or lines that you want to change. The rest of it is already there in the default config. Unless you keep clobbering it.

I sometimes have to make other settings depending on the system/emulator.

That's why there are the different config files. Settings common to all cores and systems go in all/retroarch.cfg. Those unique to a particular system in [system_name]/retroarch.cfg. Those unique to a particular ROM go in ~/RetroPie/roms/[system_name]/[rom_name.ext].cfg.

In all cases you should only change or add the lines that you want to change from default or previously-defined settings.

In addition, I don't want to have the same controller assignment for every system.

This is one of the very few (two?) things you can and should save through the RGUI menu. Quick menu > controls > port {n} controls < controls > save {game | core} remap file.

I looked again at the configuration files and the only one that has the setting config_save_on_exit = "true is the snes9x_libretro.cfg in the opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch/config directory

That file shouldn't even exist.

Why there are several configurations of this kind is a mystery to me.

So you can have different settings for each system. Games launched from the menu are ultimately passed to command-line with an option that sets the [system]/retroarch.cfg as the config path; each individual system config then in turn applies the global settings from all/retroarch.cfg through the use of:

#include "/opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch.cfg"

Gamepad controls are not defined in either of these files, so that the autoconfig profiles instead may be dynamically applied at runtime for the gamepad you are using. Otherwise, you would have to reconfigure each time you switched out your controller.

All of this is thrown right out the window the moment you save configuration through the RGUI menu. Current values for all 3,000+ RA settings are written to a custom config that either replaces or supersedes (depending on how you saved) the default config in configs/[system], removing the #include line and the core or system becomes "disconnected" from the global hierarchy of configs, existing in its own little bubble.

PARALAX

@sleve_mcdichael

Thank you for the detailed explanation! It wouldn't be a problem if Retroarch adopted the changes made in the menu when you exited, which unfortunately isn't the case. It doesn't matter whether I make joypad or video filter settings, I always have to make the settings via "Main Menu > Configuration File > Save Configuration File".

sleve_mcdichael

@PARALAX said in Retroarch menu opens with SELECT-Button:

It doesn't matter whether I make joypad or video filter settings, I always have to make the settings via "Main Menu > Configuration File > Save Configuration File".

Right, settings changed through the RGUI menu are never permanent. (Unless you manually save a configuration, which you shouldn't do for the reasons outlined above. Find the setting you like, then paste that line or lines into your global or system retroarch.cfg file, instead.)

It wouldn't be a problem if Retroarch adopted the changes made in the menu when you exited, which unfortunately isn't the case.

That's what config_save_on_exit does but you don't want to do that either, for the same reason.

dankcushions

retropie is a way of centralising various emulator configurations, so when you start configuring them directly, the centralisation falls down and retropie is out of the loop, and you're now the 'retropie' in this situation, trying to unpick an existing configuration heirarchy and bend it to your will. to use this approach you'd be better off not using retropie at all, and manually installing the emulators in raspbian.

it should rarely be necessary to hack files directly, though. there's the configuration editor which allows settings to be edited for one or all libretro emulators, without breaking the config hierarchy.

@PARALAX said in Retroarch menu opens with SELECT-Button:

since I also want to make a few settings like "Video Filter", for which Retropie doesn't offer me any options at all.

if by 'video filter' you mean shaders, there are documented instructions for this here: https://retropie.org.uk/docs/Configuration-Editor/

PARALAX

Unfortunately, due to various issues, I'm still forced to use Retroarch's local configuration save option. This starts, among other things, on in the PlayStation emulation. Although the BIOS files are in the correct folder on the external USB stick, they are simply not found and I always get the corresponding message from Retroarch that they are missing. Only after I explicitly specified the BIOS folder under Settings > Directories does everything work as expected. However, now I have the problem that Retroarch always starts my controller with the "Dualshock" profile, even though I set it to "Standard" before saving. Can anyone tell me the reason for this and how I can fix it? The settings should actually be in opt/retropie/configs/psx/retroarch.cfg, but I just can't find the relevant line.

Otherwise, I have found that Retroarch takes over the controller assignments of most systems as they are usually assigned and that the retroarch.cfg files saved in the respective system only contain the changes that I have made that deviate from the Retropie config. With a few exceptions, this doesn't seem to be a big problem, so that you can actually use it and recommend it, at least from my point of view.

dankcushions

@PARALAX yeah, we can't really support you if you're using your own configuration - eg the "correct" BIOS folder for retropie is so because retropie's config heirarchy sets it - if you make your own config it will be whatever you set/retroarch defaults to.