RetroPie – EmulationStation

EmulationStation is the graphical front-end and game launcher for RetroPie. It allows users to select a system, and then a game ROM within that system, and loads the relevant emulator with the ROM to play the game.

Configuration files

• ~/.emulationstation is symlinked to /opt/retropie/configs/all/emulationstation/
  • lots of documentation refers to ~/.emulationstation, but this can be accessed by going to the /opt/… directory directly
• /opt/retropie/configs/all/emulationstation/es_settings.cfg
  • EmulationStation initial settings on load
  • Also has list of Collections in use (see below)
• /opt/retropie/configs/all/emulationstation/es_systems.cfg [custom], or
• /etc/emulationstation/es_systems.cfg [default] overwritten if update RetroPie
  • Defines all the systems that should be scanned when EmulationStation runs. If there are no ROMs in a particular systems folder it will not appear in the list in the GUI
  • Note: the order in which game system emulators are displayed in the user interface is determined by the order in which the corresponding entries appear in this configuration file
  • Defines:
    • Name & full name of the system
    • Path to the ROMs, usually /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/<sys_name>
    • File extensions of the ROMs, case sensitive
    • Command to run when a ROM is selected
    • Platform name for scraping artwork
    • Theme name for system specific themes
• /opt/retropie/configs/<sys_name>/emulators.cfg
  • Define the paths and commands to the specific emulator(s) for a particular game system. The default identifies which is the default to choose if more than one emulator can be used. If more than one then the launch system will request the user to select which emulator to run the selected ROM in
• /opt/retropie/configs/all/emulators.cfg
  • Pairs a particular system ROM with a specific emulator, e.g. arcade_invaders = “lr-mame2010”
    says that for ROM “invaders” in system “arcade” use the MAME 2010 emulator
  • This can be used where a particular emulator is wanted that differs from the default in the …/<sys_name>/emulators.cfg file

Themes

• /etc/emulationstation/themes
  • Location for themes which determine the visual “look” of EmulationStation
  • Refer to Themes notes for more information

Gamelists

• TODO …

Collections

• Refer to EmulationStation docs “Custom Collections”
• Optional collections cane be setup and need to be supported by the theme in use. Goto Main Menu -> Game Collection Settings to make changes
  • Auto Collections : there are three automatic collections for All Games, Favorites and Last Played and can be individually selected in the Automatic Game Collections menu option. For theme support there must be folders auto-allgames, auto-favourites and auto-lastplayed with theme information
  • Custom collections
    • Placed in /opt/retropie/configs/collections/ and comprise of a number of files called custom-<collection_name>.cfg and list the games in that collection
    • Can be enable and disabled individually as required through the Custom Games Collections menu option
• A new custom collection can be created via the Game Collection Settings menu, add games to the collection with Y button (as per adding/removing favourites), then when complete go back to the collections menu to stop adding to the collection
• The config file es_settings.cfg has the list of current collections in use, and must match any folder names in the collections folder (case-sensitive)
• If the name of a collection matches an unused theme folder, it will be shown in the main carousel as a new system entry. If there’s no matching theme folder for the collection it will be grouped under a “Collections” carousel system entry

References / Resources

• Official EmulationStation docs on the RetroPie website
• YouTube video about adding collections and artwork

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>> RetroPie – EmulationStation
RetroPie – Themes