Nested ROM Folders and Game List

[SaltMountain]

Hello,

I have some nested folders that require me to double-click in the Emulation Station to actually see the game's box art and start the game. So to set the scene, I have the following folder structure:

roms
\
 - psx
 \
  - Chrono Cross (USA)
  \
   - Chrono Cross (USA) (Disc 1).bin
   - Chrono Cross (USA) (Disc 2).bin
   - Chrono Cross (USA) (Disc 1).CD1
   - Chrono Cross (USA) (Disc 2).CD2
   - Chrono Cross (USA).m3u

On the emulation Station Main Menu, when I click into the PS1 Emulator, I see "Chrono Cross (USA)" with no metadata on the right hand side even though it's been scraped. It's showing me the top level folder, just below the psx folder. I have to click into that to see the actual game, and its metadata, and click again to actually start the game.

I organized it this way because I didnt want all those files just living in the root psx folder and unfortunately (as far as I can tell) I can't zip the folder up because Emulation Station doesn't see the .m3u file in the archive, and since it doesn't see any .cue files in the archive, ignores the folder entirely.

Is there any way around this or are my choices only:

• Have all 5 files in the root psx directory
• Click twice in the Emulation Station front end

Thanks for reading and any help/advice you're able to provide.

[Ashpool]

@SaltMountain said in Nested ROM Folders and Game List:

I can't zip the folder up

Maybe you could try CHDs instead?

[SaltMountain]

@Ashpool

Are you suggesting changing the .cue to all .chd files and then renaming/using the .m3u file to list those files out individually or are you suggesting creating one .chd file that compresses/merges all the discs together.

If you meant the latter, does that cause problems on games that want you to switch discs, or does the one combined/merged .chd still understand the concept of multiple disks?

[saccublenda]

@SaltMountain I would suggest to create a CHD file for each disc (getting rid of the bin cue duplication) and then a m3u file listing all the chd files. Then you can set the emulator in es_systems.cfg to only list m3u files. At least, that's what I do.

[SaltMountain]

@saccublenda

I'll try this but I'm not sure if this gets around the real issue, which is there being a folder in-between the psx and the game files themselves. The reason why I'm doing this is to try and keep the psx folder clean/readable.

[Ashpool]

@SaltMountain Ok... then... placing the folders to a different folder outside the psx one and adjusting the paths in the .m3u accordingly? Edit: If you haven't allready done so, I like to suggest reading the PSX-Docs.

[SaltMountain]

@Ashpool
I did, that's where I learned how to create the .m3u file. I think maybe this issue is maybe due to my inexperience with .m3u files in general. Based on your comment it sounds like maybe I can write the paths in the .m3u to point one directory down and have the .m3u file itself on the same level as the game directory, like so:

roms
\
 - psx
 \
  - Chrono Cross (USA)
  - Chrono Cross (USA).m3u # points to the directory below it
  \
   - Chrono Cross (USA) (Disc 1).bin
   - Chrono Cross (USA) (Disc 2).bin
   - Chrono Cross (USA) (Disc 1).CD1
   - Chrono Cross (USA) (Disc 2).CD2
   

If it can work like that, I can give that a shot first.

[Ashpool]

@SaltMountain AFAIK the .m3u files are just made of the relative paths to the chd/cue/whatsoever files holding the disc images, or am I wrong on this?
so creating a psx-mydiscs (or whatever you want to name it) within the roms folder and placing the content to be linked by the .m3u there (roms\psx-mydiscs[game.cd1,game.cd2,game.cd3 etc.]), then adjusting the path in the m3u accordingly, ie ..\psx-mydiscs\game.cd1, etc. should work.(?).

[SaltMountain]

@Ashpool

Yep, just tried it and it worked just fine. I feel a bit silly, but it's my first time working with .m3u files. Thanks for helping me and bearing with the ignorance on my part, this will definitely allow me to keep it organized/clean to how my weird brain might like it haha. This is pretty cool because, I think kind of what you were saying, you can have the psx folder basically be a list of .m3u files for the games, and the Discs are somewhere else completely. Again, I appreciate it.

@saccublenda Wanted to say thanks for the CHD point. If I'm reading some of the documents and Google results correctly, CHD should give me better compression than regular .cue, so it probably still makes sense to convert the files to that format. Let me know if I'm wrong there.

Thanks for the help!

[saccublenda]

@SaltMountain I think chd yields a little degradation of the audio due compression (if I remember correctly) but it makes up with a significant file size decrease wrt to bin.

[SaltMountain]

@saccublenda

Good to know. I'm starting with a 256GB SSD so I still have some room but maybe it becomes an issue at a later time where I can revisit this. Thanks!

[WhiteT982]

@SaltMountain
You could also convert to .pbp. Still degradation and is compressed saving some space but the big thing to me is that it takes multidisc games and makes them one file so it’s more like you would see in an snes roms folder. No .m3u lists or anything. Just something else to look into if you want.

[Ashpool]

@saccublenda said in Nested ROM Folders and Game List:

chd yields a little degradation of the audio due compression

Ain't chd meant to be lossless? AFAIK at least chd V5 uses Flac for audio compression, or am I wrong on that one? Edit: I really don't know, but I always assumed that it may be somethink like PCM/WAV or such (As only lossless wouldn't incorporate another step of degradation from whatever lossy source audio (mpa, whatsoever) may have been)?

[SaltMountain]

@Ashpool

The RetroPie docs that @saccublenda linked says its lossless, at least.

[SaltMountain]

@WhiteT982

I saw that format as well in my browsing on how to properly link multi-disc games together. Are you able to zip up the resulting file to save space or is it negligible?

[testudo]

I am not sure if this is what you where trying to achieve, but here is how I have my folders structured for .m3u files so I can get the meta data on the folder listing and also on the individual files:

Folder & Files

Gamelist listing entry structure for the folder and individual files

EmulationStation folder listing

EmulationStation folder contents listing

[WhiteT982]

@SaltMountain
No you wouldn’t zip them. Basically you put your .bin and .cue files into a program and it compresses and combines them into one .pbp. So your Chrono Cross (USA) Disc1.bin, Chrono Cross (USA) Disc2.bin, and Chrono Cross (USA).cue would all go into the program and would come out as one Chrono Cross (USA).pbp file. That would go in your /roms/psx folder and would contain everything to launch the game.

The compression isn’t as good as .chd though so I personally use CHD for all single disc games and PBP for multidisc games. Again I’ve heard people saying they aren’t as good a quality as uncompressed files but I would never be able to tell the difference and the space savings are huge.

[SaltMountain]

@testudo

This is exactly what I was looking for.

Can you explain how you did this, because I see that your .m3u is sitting alongside your files. Are you using a different top level file that points to the various .m3u files?

[testudo]

@SaltMountain said in Nested ROM Folders and Game List:

@testudo

This is exactly what I was looking for.

Can you explain how you did this, because I see that your .m3u is sitting alongside your files. Are you using a different top level file that points to the various .m3u files?

Here's the .m3u file contents:

Final Fantasy IX (USA) (Disc 1) (v1.1).chd
Final Fantasy IX (USA) (Disc 2) (v1.1).chd
Final Fantasy IX (USA) (Disc 3) (v1.1).chd
Final Fantasy IX (USA) (Disc 4) (v1.1).chd

It points to the files it is sitting alongside in the folder. Clicking on the .m3u listing will load the first file of it contents. I changed the EmulationStation file descriptions from the above image to better illustrate the setup.

When changing disks/discs/.cue/.chds, etc... under the Retroarch Quick Menu's Disc Control section, the .chds listed in the .3mu file will be displayed when you select "Load New Disc".

Depending on the scrapper used, you may have to manually input the <folder> entry meta data in the Gamelist file.

I just found a how to video for Duck Station that used the same FFIX example I used, but for various file types and folder structures. Same basic premise applies to RetroPie setup.

Did that answer your question?

[SaltMountain]

@testudo

Probably 98% of the way there. As a newcomer, I dont know where to find the equivalent "Game List Settings" he showed in Duckstation would be in Retropie.