separating snes/super famicom games
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Much appreciated.
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@groviar
Here's the info to connect to your RPi via SSH like what FlyingTomahawk was talking about:
https://github.com/retropie/retropie-setup/wiki/ssh -
Thanks. Will I need to log in as root to make the changes I would need? If so I'll have to re-read that part of the doc a couple times to make sure I don't set anything wrong.
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Will I need to log in as root to make the changes I would need?
No, you login as "pi" but if you need to do anything as "root" you just preface
sudo
in front of your command.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudo -
I am still writing this from my phone so I apologize for not going too much into detail.
The RPi 3 has WiFi activate that by accessing the setup through the RetroPie menu in Emulationstation.
Once you set that up you'll be able to access some of the RPis folders using the network in your PC. Create a new folder and name it themes or do that through FTP (/home/pi/.emulationstation/themes)
Assuming you use Windows, download a program called Putty and also Filezilla or other FTP program.
Check your RPis IP address by going again into the RetroPie menu in Emulationstation. Write that down.
Back in the FTP program input that IP address and use SSH as connection type and pi as username and raspberry as password. Save that connection setting.Now open Putty and type retropie into the input field and hit enter.
Same as before username is pi and password is raspberry.
Now you should see the linux command prompt.
There you'll have to do the following.
Typesudo nano /etc/samba/smb.conf
Scroll all the way to the bottom and add the following:
[themes] comment = themes path = "/home/pi/.emulationstation/themes" writeable = yes guest ok = yes create mask = 0644 directory mask = 0755 force user = pi
Hit ctrl+x then y hit enter to save.
After that, you will need to restart the samba service:sudo /etc/init.d/samba stop sudo /etc/init.d/samba start
Now you can put any theme into that new themes folder and access it through the network access of your PC.
Sounds like a lot right? Don't be afraid. Just do one step after the other and once this is set up you'll have it very easy to work and edit your roms, gamelists, images and theme data.
Tell me if you have this all set up till here then we continue.
Now I'll have to go cool down my finger. Typing on a phone ain't much fun. -
I really appreciate all the help. I'll try to tackle this but I might not get to it until tomorrow. I have a nasty cold right now and today has been hectic so I'm going to try and relax for the rest of the evening. I've got Putty and Filezilla installed. I'll be connecting via ethernet since I don't have my wireless enabled currently. The Raspberry Pi is connected to my gigabit switch via ethernet cable and should be part of my network.
EDIT: Okay, I'm giving it a try now, but I'm already stumped - you said "Create a new folder and name it themes or do that through FTP (/home/pi/.emulationstation/themes)". Silly question probably but how do I create that new folder?
Also, I've never used Filezilla before. I've got it open but I'm stumped here too since I've never used it. I don't know where to put the Retropie's ip in or how to connect.
I think this is more than I had planned. I don't mind doing a bit of work but I'm totally lost here. I really wasn't planning on tinkering too much with this. I just want to play my systems and keep it simple. I was almost tempted honestly to go with Recalbox due to the ease of use I keep reading about, but the lack of ColecoVision and Intellivision support (and a couple smaller systems) was a huge drawback, and Recalbox sounds too restrictive honestly. But Retropie seems very daunting to do even seemingly simple things. Maybe it's a lot easier if you know what you're doing (like anything I guess), but right now I'm pretty lost. I really would like to keep my Japanese games separated in a different system from US games, which I would think should be simple, but it seems I'd need to find artwork, create a new theme, change config files...it's just too complicated. I know you've given me some good advice here but really I feel like I need my hand held literally 1 step at a time because even the few steps you've typed above has me lost. Which is weird because I'm pretty good with Windows stuff. Retropie seems intimidating to me.
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Don't give up just yet.
I will write you a better tutorial with images for visual help as soon I get access to my PC. Here in Japan it is 10 am right now and I am currently working and therefore got no access to a PC at the moment.Until I can write a better tutorial take a rest. But before you do so tell me what theme you want to use and what systems you intend to run?
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@groviar
You probably need to get some rest if you've got a nasty cold and when I'm sick like that I can't think clearly. Drink plenty of fluids and maybe takes some vitamin C. After you're feeling better you can revisit this and when you get stuck, just post something about here. -
Thanks guys. Yeah, I think I just need to put this to bed for the night and take it easy. It's been a trying day - my cold woke me up every 90 minutes last night, then I realized this morning I had a doctor's appointment (they didn't call and confirm) so I rushed out and then discovered they sent me to the wrong office, then they told me the doctor was out and couldn't see me anyways. So it's been a tiring day for sure. Sorry, just venting.
Anyways, I'll check back in here tomorrow after I get some rest.
I've got the basic systems all set I think, since all I really need to do is copy the games over to the respective folders. Like I said, I was using the USB method for starters so I just have the folder structure copied over to my PC currently, and I'm moving games to the directories, then I was planning to copy the structure back to the USB thumb drive and put it back in the Retropie to copy over the data.
The theme right now is the default theme for 4.1 (is that Carbon I think?) and I guess I'm pretty happy with that for now. I've installed a few additional systems from the optional systems folder, but none from the experimental folder. Here are the folders in my retropie>roms folder:
amiga
amstradcpc
apple2
arcade
atari800
atari2600
atari5200
atari7800
atarilynx
atarist
coco
coleco
dragon32
fba
fds
gameandwatch
gamegear
gb
gba
gba
intellivision
mame-libretro
mame-mame4all
mastersystem
megadrive
msx
n64
neogeo
nes
ngp
ngpc
pcengine
psp
psx
sega32x
segacd
sg-1000
snes
vectrex
videopac
virtualboy
zxspectrumMany of those folders are already taken care of, but the amiga, amstradcpc, msx, atari800 and atarist folders need a lot of sorting so I may deal with those later. Those are headaches due to the large amount of games in various formats. Some systems look like a headache to run - the Amstrad CPC seems like it may have a lot of issues loading games. I'm not sure about the apple2 yet. I'm using the mame-libretro folder for MAME 2003 (0.78).
Basically I'd like to be able to have separate systems/locations for:
nes
famicom (not the disk system)
snes
super famicomEven better if I can also separate:
pcengine
Turbografix-16I'm not going to complicate things with Supergrafix since there's only a few games anyways.
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@groviar btw I made a FDS page just for you!
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I thought fds was a disk system and separate from the Famicom? No? Do I have that confused? Isn't the fds a disk add-on for the Famicom? I thought the Famicom base system was the Japanese version of the NES?
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@groviar no my apologies I had it confused. Depends on how you prefer to theme it. You are correct.
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Ah, okay then. I wanted to make sure I had that part right at least. Thanks for that link!
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So here we go...
This is a small tutorial with images that should help you to connect to your RPi so that you can later add or edit themes, even themes that are only available on github or other sources. I will use the words ES and RPi which stand for EmulationStation and Raspberry PiWhat we need:
- WiFi connection or ethernet cable
- Putty
- Filezilla
- Notepad++ or any other text editor
- Carbon theme (files from github) https://github.com/RetroPie/es-theme-carbon
- If you're not British try to find an image of a UK keyboard layout might be useful later in Putty
Plug in your Ethernet cable and power on your RPi or power on your RPi and setup your WiFi through the RetroPie menu in EmulationStation.
Now find out what IP address your RPi has by going to the RetroPie menu in ES under show IPThen install or/and open Filezilla.
Follow these 6 Stepsonce you did that and could create the connection you should see this on your right side
double click on the emulationstation folder
create a directory and name it themes
Now open Putty.
Under Host Name (or IP address) enter the word retropie and hit enter.
login as: pi
pi@retropie's password: raspberryyou should see something like this
Type
sudo nano /etc/samba/smb.conf
Scroll all the way to the bottom and add the following:
[themes] comment = themes path = "/home/pi/.emulationstation/themes" writeable = yes guest ok = yes create mask = 0644 directory mask = 0755 force user = pi
Ctrl+x then y hit enter to save.
After that, you will need to restart the samba service:sudo /etc/init.d/samba stop sudo /etc/init.d/samba start
Access your RPi through the Network in Windows. You should be able to see these folders.
You could access the carbon theme folder that is already inside your Pi but I like to keep them separated since I customize the themes a bit to my liking.
You should have the carbon theme files already so open the themes folder and create a new folder and name it to what you like for this example we call it carbon-custom
Put the files in that new folder.Now we need to create a new es_systems.cfg file which contains the system launch data. here you will enter the codes for all the systems that you want to use in future.
In your case you want the SNES and stuff separated so you could use something like this.<?xml version="1.0"?> <systemList> <system> <name>megadrive</name> <fullname>Sega Mega Drive</fullname> <path>/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/megadrive</path> <extension>.smd .bin .gen .md .sg .zip .SMD .BIN .GEN .MD .SG .ZIP</extension> <command>/opt/retropie/supplementary/runcommand/runcommand.sh 0 _SYS_ megadrive %ROM%</command> <platform>megadrive</platform> <theme>megadrive</theme> </system> <system> <name>nes</name> <fullname>Nintendo Entertainment System</fullname> <path>/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/nes</path> <extension>.nes .zip .NES .ZIP</extension> <command>/opt/retropie/supplementary/runcommand/runcommand.sh 0 _SYS_ nes %ROM%</command> <platform>nes</platform> <theme>nes</theme> </system> <system> <name>snes</name> <fullname>Super Nintendo</fullname> <path>/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/snes</path> <extension>.bin .smc .sfc .fig .swc .mgd .zip .BIN .SMC .SFC .FIG .SWC .MGD .ZIP</extension> <command>/opt/retropie/supplementary/runcommand/runcommand.sh 0 _SYS_ snes %ROM%</command> <platform>snes</platform> <theme>snes</theme> </system> <system> <name>snes</name> <fullname>Super Nintendo</fullname> <path>/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/superfamicom</path> <extension>.bin .smc .sfc .fig .swc .mgd .zip .BIN .SMC .SFC .FIG .SWC .MGD .ZIP</extension> <command>/opt/retropie/supplementary/runcommand/runcommand.sh 0 _SYS_ snes %ROM%</command> <platform>snes</platform> <theme>superfamicom</theme> </system> <system> <name>nes</name> <fullname>Nintendo Entertainment System</fullname> <path>/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/famicom</path> <extension>.nes .zip .NES .ZIP</extension> <command>/opt/retropie/supplementary/runcommand/runcommand.sh 0 _SYS_ nes %ROM%</command> <platform>nes</platform> <theme>famicom</theme> </system> <system> <name>pcengine</name> <fullname>PC Engine</fullname> <path>/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/pcengine</path> <extension>.pce .ccd .cue .zip .PCE .CCD .CUE .ZIP</extension> <command>/opt/retropie/supplementary/runcommand/runcommand.sh 0 _SYS_ pcengine %ROM%</command> <platform>pcengine</platform> <theme>pcengine</theme> </system> <system> <name>pcengine</name> <fullname>PC Engine</fullname> <path>/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/turbo16</path> <extension>.pce .ccd .cue .zip .PCE .CCD .CUE .ZIP</extension> <command>/opt/retropie/supplementary/runcommand/runcommand.sh 0 _SYS_ pcengine %ROM%</command> <platform>pcengine</platform> <theme>turbo16</theme> </system> <system> <name>retropie</name> <fullname>RetroPie</fullname> <path>~/RetroPie/retropiemenu</path> <extension>.rp .sh</extension> <command>sudo /home/pi/RetroPie-Setup/retropie_packages.sh retropiemenu launch %ROM% </dev/tty >/dev/tty</command> <platform/> <theme>retropie</theme> </system> </systemList>
If you want to know the definitions for other systems open the original es_systems.cfg file, but don't edit that file just copy&paste code from there into your es_systems.cfg file.
Save that file on to your desktop. Of course name it es_systems.cfg
Now back in Filezilla again access that emulationstation folder from before (/opt/retropie/configs/all/emulationstation) and transfer the es_systems.cfg file. This file now has priority over the other cfg file that is already inside the Pi.
In this cfg you can edit things add or remove systems as you please.Now access your Pi through the PC Network again and go into the roms folder to create the famicom, superfamicom, turbo16 and all other roms folders that you need and are not there yet.
The last task for now would be to create the themes for those systems. So either you copy&paste an existing system and replace the logos with Famicom, Super Famicom, Turbografx16 and so on or you contact the creator of the carbon theme and ask him if he could do that for you. He is a busy guy though so don't hold your breath.
I took the freedom to create the Famicom and Super Famicom logos so if you need them just tell me any time. Other logos like Turbografx are sometimes included in varous themes as alternative logo, sometimes named as system2.svg. You can find the turbografx16 logo in my theme for example in the pcengine folder.I hope this will help you a bit. I know it's a lot for just wanting separate systems but that is how it works with RetroPie & Co.
I didn't know more than you, I never touched Linux before 3 months ago when I first time registered here in this forum but I had certain basics regarding file transfer and access to other devices.
Within those 3 months I created a theme, converting PNG logos to SVG format and are helping out people. So hang in there. Anything is just ask in the forum there are plenty of skilled, kind people around. -
the following is the terminal version of the guide above
It is not recommended to make any direct edits to any themes installed from the setup script or the default
/etc/emulationstation/es_systems.cfg
More details why here:
https://retropie.org.uk/docs/EmulationStation/#editing-es-configs
If you aren't afraid of the terminal you can start here:
Theme
Create custom theme directory:
mkdir ~/. emulationstation/themes
Copy theme:
sudo cp -r /etc/emulationstation/themes/carbon ~/. emulationstation/carbon_custom
Change custom theme to owner pi:
sudo chown -r pi:pi ~/.emulationstation/themes
Then you should be able to edit your custom theme over samba from the configs folder without messing with samba share configs as I believe the theme will be editable from the
/configs/all/emulationstation
folder or something like thates_systems.cfg
Copy es_systems.cfg
sudo cp /etc/emulationstation/es_systems.cfg ~/. emulationstation/es_systems.cfg
Chang owner to pi:
sudo chown pi:pi ~/. emulationstation/es_systems.cfg
Again as above now it can be modified from the config folder on samba shares
More notes here:
https://retropie.org.uk/docs/EmulationStation/#es_systemscfg-edits
There's also a guide on the docs: https://retropie.org.uk/docs/Add-a-New-System-in-EmulationStation/
Formatting is a bit off and I need to fix that but basically summarises everything on this thread
Multiple ways to do things through Linux.
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Okay, I just checked in and saw that you guys posted a bunch of stuff here. Thanks so much. I may not get to it until tomorrow since my cold is still dragging me down and I had another rough night of sleep and I want to give this a fresh start. So I'll post back after I give it a whirl and see what happens. I'm getting ahead of myself here but I'll definitely want those logos for the Japanese systems. Thanks again!
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@groviar - I've done this too, separated our famicom from nes, sfc from snes, etc. Following this link (like @herb_fargus said) is what you need to do:
https://retropie.org.uk/docs/Add-a-New-System-in-EmulationStation/I find it nice to keep this organized. The only pain is that not all themes have the japanese systems configured by default. Pixel definitely has famicom, sfc, megadrive, pcengine, tg16, tg-cd, etc.
Basic steps:
- make the copy of the default es_systems.cfg:
sudo cp /etc/emulationstation/es_systems.cfg /opt/retropie/configs/all/emulationstation/es_systems.cfg - in the new copy of es_systems.cfg copy the < system > tag and change its info so you now have (for example) a nes and famicom entry
- don't forget to change the 'nes' word in the < command > line of your new system entry to be 'famicom':
<command>/opt/retropie/supplementary/runcommand/runcommand.sh 0 SYS nes %ROM%</command>
should be
<command>/opt/retropie/supplementary/runcommand/runcommand.sh 0 SYS famicom %ROM%</command> - make a copy of the nes folder in /opt/configs/ and rename it famicom so you have /opt/configs/famicom
- edit the emulators.cfg in /opt/retropie/configs/famicom to change any references from /opt/retropie/configs/nes to /opt/retropie/configs/famicom
- double-check the retroarch.cfg in the same folder for similar things.
- done!!
One thing I do too (this is just for bonus points) is make a folder called " All" in the rom folder for a system and put all the roms in there. So, for nes all my roms are in "/home/pi/Retro-Pie/roms/nes/ All/". The space before the A in " All" is just to make sure that it would always be at the top of the list. Then I make a 'sym-link' for my favorite roms from the " All" folder back to the /home/pi/Retro-Pie/roms/nes folder. That way my favorites show up when I navigate to the NES system in emulation station, but I always have access to every rom if I need it! You use the 'ln -s' command for this, it's not too bad:
ln -s "/home/pi/Retro-Pie/roms/nes/ All/mario3.zip" "/home/pi/Retro-Pie/roms/nes/mario3.zip"
If you do this, you'll need to make sure to change the default save state folder in the /opt/retropie/configs/nes/retroarch.cfg file - it's super-easy to do:
https://www.reddit.com/r/RetroPie/comments/3dyki2/changing_the_location_of_savefile_directory_and/ - make the copy of the default es_systems.cfg:
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Okay, I'm following your guide since I'm more comfortable working within Windows a bit more currently. All is going well so far, but I'm stuck here:
"If you want to know the definitions for other systems open the original es_systems.cfg file, but don't edit that file just copy&paste code from there into your es_systems.cfg file."
I can't find that file anywhere. I was going to copy all that data and paste it into my new es_systems.cfg file, and just make the necessary changes for the additional systems, but I can't find the file. I searched the entire RETROPIE folder (bios, configs, roms, splashscreens, themes) and it's nowhere. Is it hidden or in a different location?
Also, I downloaded "es-theme-carbon-master.zip" from your link and extracted all the carbon folders for each system into my new "carbon-custom" themes folder. There were 84 total folders. Is it okay to copy them all in there or just the systems I plan to use? And there are 5 additional files in that zip file:
- .gitattributes
- .gitignore
- carbon.xml
- readme.txt
- theme.xml
I'm guessing I should leave those out, and just copy the folders, but I wanted to make sure?
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Ok, so I figured out what I was doing wrong with finding the es_systems.cfg file. I went into putty and typed:
sudo cp /etc/emulationstation/es_systems.cfg /opt/retropie/configs/all/emulationstation/es_systems.cfg
which made a copy, then I copied that copy over to my desktop through Filezilla so I could edit it.
That's where I'm at now.
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@groviar - now that you've copied it to /opt/retropie/configs/all, you should be able to find it in Windows Explorer by going to
\RETROPIE\configs\all
you can edit it directly there, but I'd make a backup copy first just in case!
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