Hiding multi-disk entries in Emulationstation

looper

Raspberry Pi5
Official Power Supply
Manually installed (5 days ago)

Hello, I have many multi-disk games from various platforms, all with M3U files in CHD format. I want to hide the multi-disk entries in EmulationStation to avoid having the same metadata for all disks during the scraping process with Skyscraper.

I found an older topic where it suggests that I can do this by placing a dot before the disk name. Is this the preferable method, or am I missing a setting?

Nash

@looper With the dot method, they will be hidden in the retroarch menu when you need to load them.

With the application Skraper, you can auto-hide or ignore files with string in their name, like "CD 2", CD 3".

looper

@Nash
Thank you! I checked the Skyscraper Wiki and found this option that did the work.

Here is the link with the instructions: https://gemba.github.io/skyscraper/CLIHELP/?h=ignore#-excludepattern-pattern-1-pattern-2

Update: Ok, the above method is excluding the metadata but the entries are still in the gamelist.xml and visible.

testudo

@looper said in Hiding multi-disk entries in Emulationstation:

@Nash
Thank you! I checked the Skyscraper Wiki and found this option that did the work.

Here is the link with the instructions: https://gemba.github.io/skyscraper/CLIHELP/?h=ignore#-excludepattern-pattern-1-pattern-2

Update: Ok, the above method is excluding the metadata but the entries are still in the gamelist.xml and visible.

Not sure if this is a solution for you, but I create folders for multi-disk games and a cooresponding folder entry in the gamelsit.xml, copying the scraped metadata to the folder entry. In the Emulationstation game listing I only see the folder's metadata. If you drill into the folder you do see the metadata duplicated on the individual disks.

<folder>
		<path>./Asuka 120 Percent Burning Fest (1994)(Family Soft)</path>
		<name>Asuka 120 Percent Burning Fest</name>
		<desc>The game's limited story takes place at the...</desc>
		<releasedate>19940101T000000</releasedate>
		<publisher>Family Soft</publisher>
		<genre>Fight</genre>
		<image>./media/images/Asuka 120 Percent Burning Fest (1994)(Family Soft)/Asuka 120 Percent Burning Fest (1994)(Family Soft)(Disk 1 of 2).png</image>
		<genreid>262</genreid>
</folder>

       <game id="47147" source="ScreenScraper.fr">
		<path>./Asuka 120 Percent Burning Fest (1994)(Family Soft)/Asuka 120 Percent Burning Fest (1994)(Family Soft)(Disk 1 of 2).dim</path>
		<name>Asuka 120 Percent Burning Fest</name>
		<desc>The game's limited story takes place at the... </desc>
		<releasedate>19940422T000000</releasedate>
		<developer>Fill in Café</developer>
		<publisher>Family Soft</publisher>
		<genre>Fight</genre>
		<players>1-2</players>
		<image>./media/images/Asuka 120 Percent Burning Fest (1994)(Family Soft)/Asuka 120 Percent Burning Fest (1994)(Family Soft)(Disk 1 of 2).png</image>
		<genreid>262</genreid>
	</game>
	<game id="47147" source="ScreenScraper.fr">
		<path>./Asuka 120 Percent Burning Fest (1994)(Family Soft)/Asuka 120 Percent Burning Fest (1994)(Family Soft)(Disk 2 of 2).dim</path>
		<name>Asuka 120 Percent Burning Fest</name>
		<desc>The game's limited story takes place at the... </desc>
		<releasedate>19940422T000000</releasedate>
		<developer>Fill in Café</developer>
		<publisher>Family Soft</publisher>
		<genre>Fight</genre>
		<players>1-2</players>
		<image>./media/images/Asuka 120 Percent Burning Fest (1994)(Family Soft)/Asuka 120 Percent Burning Fest (1994)(Family Soft)(Disk 1 of 2).png</image>
		<genreid>262</genreid>
	</game>

looper

@testudo
Thanks for your suggestions! I stick to the first approach for now. I hide the disks with the dot, and only the m3u file is visible in EmulationStation and Skyscraper.

Nash

@looper But how can you load next CD when game need it ? I tried with dot method and I can't see the dotted CD in retroarch menu.

sleve_mcdichael

https://retropie.org.uk/docs/Playstation-1/#m3u-playlists-for-cue-bins-or-chds

EmulationStation parses the .cue, .chd, or other files as menu entries.

The purpose of renaming the .cue or .chd is to hide them from this parsing. This way only the multi-disc .m3u is parsed and not the individual discs.

The choice of .cd1, .cd2, etc extensions are merely aesthetic, you could call it .foo, .bar, or anything else you want*. They don't need to be different than each other either, you could make them all the same .cd or whatever (disc1.cd, disc2.cd works fine instead of disc1.cd1, disc2.cd2).

*anything that isn't one of:

<extension>.cue .cbn .chd .img .iso .m3u .mdf .pbp .toc .z .znx .CUE .CBN .CHD .IMG .ISO .M3U .MDF .PBP .TOC .Z .ZNX</extension>

Skyscraper is not a requirement but if you choose to use Skyscraper it will read the .m3u file as the sole game entry and ignore the unrecognized .cd (or whatever) files, just like EmulationStation does.

sleve_mcdichael

some emulators (lr-duckstation) don't accept the renamed disc files even with the M3U. In this case you can hide the discs by keeping them in a different directory, and make sure the M3U points back to that other location.

roms/psx/A Game.m3u:

../psx-multi/A Game (disc 1).chd
../psx-multi/A Game (disc 2).chd

looper

@Nash

I don't know what could be wrong with your setup. I have multi-disk games with extensions .bin, .cue, .chd, .dsk, and .rvz, and disk swapping is working correctly in RetroArch. I have created .m3u files for all of them.

Example of a PSX game:

Chrono Cross (Disc 1).bin
.Chrono Cross (Disc 1).cue
Chrono Cross (Disc 2).bin
.Chrono Cross (Disc 2).cue

.m3u file:

.Chrono Cross (Disc 1).cue
.Chrono Cross (Disc 2).cue

And sleve_mcdichael suggestion is a very good solution that I didn't know