Sometimes Quick Save/Load doesn't work

mitu

@hawkes_84 If you have access via file shares to RetroPie from your PC, just open up \\retropie\configs\ and you should be able to access the same files as /opt/retropie/configs.

hawkes_84

@sleve_mcdichael

Tend to just go to "Save Overrides" under quick options and then use "Save Core files" or something similar. Is this right?

will look into the other thing when Im home!

sleve_mcdichael

@hawkes_84 said in Sometimes Quick Save/Load doesn't work:

Tend to just go to "Save Overrides" under quick options and then use "Save Core files" or something similar. Is this right?

Unfortunately no. This is likely to lead to the overwriting of default settings that @mitu was talking about.

Most of the time when you use RetroArch, most things are not set. Only a handful of important settings are explicitly defined, and all the rest fall back to default values, or change dynamically like your controller preference. For example if you have two different controllers, each one is configured separately, and when you play a game RA looks at it and decides which profile to use.

Now when you save a configuration override, all of this gets thrown out. There are no defaults, there are no profiles. Everything gets explicitly written to a file exactly as it is today, and that's how it will remain tomorrow and that's how it will remain after you switch controllers and that's how it will remain next week and even ten years from now, unless and until you go in and manually change any of the settings that were written to the file. Better default graphics driver is included? Too bad, yours still says "use the old one" so you'll never see it. Switch controller? Your config says "button six is always left-trigger. A-L-W-A-Y-S..." Anything else that might change or improve in the future, your config has explicitly instructed itself to ignore those improvements and to just do how it did before, again.

By default, your per-system config "includes" (through the use of an #include line) the default global config, and only settings that are explicitly defined at the system level will override it.

Saving an override explicitly defines at the system level, every setting that exists.

So you can still write things to your global config, but it won't do anything; they won't affect the system(s) because the override is, well, doing its job and overriding the default. But it doesn't just override one or two things, it's the whole damn barrel.

When you do want to override just one or two things, use the configuration editor or manually edit the individual lines into your retroarch.cfg which is all the CE does anyway.

hawkes_84

@sleve_mcdichael a very detailed explanation which will prove very useful in my Raspberry Pi'ing future (although I may have to read it a few times) You only missed out one thing - how do fix it? :D

why would doing Save Overrides only change how the hotkey save and load shortcuts function (or in this case don't) and nothing else?

Do you know of a way I can change them back to how they were before within the RA menu or will this require logging in using my PC etc?

Many thanks for this

sleve_mcdichael

@hawkes_84 said in Sometimes Quick Save/Load doesn't work:

You only missed out one thing - how do fix it? :D

Well first we should take a look at your files to make sure this really is what the problem is. Your global config should look roughly like this (note how almost all the lines are commented with a # and only a very few are active):

https://retropie.org.uk/docs/RetroArch/#default-retroarchcfg

The per-system config should be really almost empty:

# Settings made here will only override settings in the global retroarch.cfg if placed above the #include line

input_remapping_directory = "/opt/retropie/configs/megadrive/"

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

If either of them are a 3000-line wall of settings, then you've got a problem. In that case, you should delete the offending file, and then if there's one in the same folder with .rp-dist extension, you can just rename that to replace it. If you don't have this rp-dist version, then you'll need to reinstall RetroArch and/or any Megadrive core (lr-genesis-plus-gx, for example) through the Setup script, to restore the default config.

why would doing Save Overrides only change how the hotkey save and load shortcuts function (or in this case don't) and nothing else?

It's hard to say, but viewing the config files might give a clue.

Do you know of a way I can change them back to how they were before within the RA menu or will this require logging in using my PC etc?

If your config is bad you can just delete it and reinstall the core or emulator to restore the default settings.

hawkes_84

@sleve_mcdichael thanks

config file says this

more or less what you put

thanks

hawkes_84

@sleve_mcdichael @mitu

Hi, I don't suppose you've any more advice on this now that I've shared the config file? Should I re-install RA again or possibly the Megadrive Core? Will re-installing RA have any affect on my ROMs etc?

Thanks

sleve_mcdichael

@hawkes_84 the megadrive config looks okay. Can you share the global one at

/opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch.cfg

Also if you can generate and share a verbose log of the error it might narrow down what is happening. How to generate a verbose log:

https://retropie.org.uk/docs/Runcommand/#launch-with-verbose-logging

hawkes_84

@sleve_mcdichael thanks, not home now so will do this next week and report back. Cheers

hawkes_84

@sleve_mcdichael now when I try and connect to my Pi from my PC using ssh pi@retropie.local (which you helpfully advised in another post) it just opens a black box for 3 seconds which then disappears before I can do anything. My PC and Pi are on the same network.