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Jandalf81 edited this page Aug 17, 2018 · 2 revisions

Install RetroArch on Android

Set up the generic configuration

  • Start RetroArch
  • Configure it to your liking. Here's some settings I always set:
    • Settings menu
      • Video menu
        • Bilinear Filtering --> OFF (I like the pixellated look)
      • Input menu
        • Menu Toggle Gamepad Combo --> START + SELECT
      • Screen messages
        • Screen Overlay
          • Activate Overlay --> OFF (I use a Bluetooth controller)
      • Directory menu
        • File Browser --> Set the start directory to my main ROMS directory
  • Do not forget to save these settings
    • Navigate back to Main menu
    • Open the Configurations menu
    • Save Current Configuration

Configure the individual cores

Cores are essentially the separate emulators RetroArch uses to play the ROMs. These steps will have to be repeated for each and every core you wish to synchronize!

Install the core

If you just installed RetroArch there will be no cores. You have two options how these can be installed:

  1. Main menu --> Load Core --> Download Core...
  2. Main menu --> Online Updater --> Core Updater

Either way, search for your emulator of choice and install it from one of these menus.

Configure the core

In theory, you can start playing now. But first, we need to tell RetroArch where to look for your save files. Unfortunately, RetroArch only has one setting for the savefile_directory. It only allows an absolute path like /storage/emulated/0/RetroArch/saves. Since we have created system specific save directories, this setting will not work without re-setting it whenever you want to play a ROM from another system...

But there is a solution! We need to create Core Overrides. Basically, we can set parameters for each core individually. Whenever a parameter is found in the Core Overrides, it will be used, else the default setting will apply.

To create these Core Overrides follow these simple steps:

  • Start RetroArch
  • Open any ROM using the core you wish to configure (Main menu --> Load Content)
  • After the ROM has loaded, open the RetroArch menu (START + SELECT)
  • You'll land in the Quick Menu
  • Open the last item there, Configuration Override Options
  • There, Save Core Overrides. This will create a new file in / storage / emulated / 0 / RetroArch / config / <CORE NAME> / <CORE NAME>.cfg
  • Exit RetroArch now
  • Open the file you just created with any text editor. If you've followed these steps with the core 'mGBA' the file will be / storage / emulated / 0 / RetroArch / config / mGBA / mGBA.cfg
  • The file should be empty. Add the following lines into it (of course you'll have to enter the real path to your sync'ed files...)
savefile_directory = "/storage/emulated/0/RetroArch/saves/gba"
savestate_directory = "/storage/emulated/0/RetroArch/saves/gba"
  • Now, when you open the ROM with RetroArch, you'll see a notification in the lower left corner Configuration override loaded
  • You can also check if the paths we set with the Core Override have been applied by looking at Settings --> Directory --> Savefile and Savestate

Actually sync the files with Android

This one is up to you. RCLONE let's you use a multitude of cloud services and I can not describe each and every way these services interact with your local machine.

An example

I use DropBox to sync these files, so my Core Override files look like this:

savefile_directory = "/storage/emulated/0/RetroArch/saves/gba"
savestate_directory = "/storage/emulated/0/RetroArch/saves/gba"

The synchronization is done by an unofficial DropBox client, DropSync. The free version allows me to sync one directory (and everything in it). I set it up to sync the directory /RetroArch from Dropbox with the local directory /storage/emulated/0/RetroArch/saves. Obviously, this will sync the whole directory which takes some time. This client can automatically do a sync regularly but I prefer to start that manually.

Anytime I want to go on playing on my Android device I start the synchronization via DropSync manually. Then, I can use the savefiles locally and resume playing. After playing, I start DropSync again and let it do it's thing, so the files are synced back to my DropBox again.

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