RetroBat's Pico8 generator runs pico8.exe from AppConfig.GetFullPath:
the emulatorLauncher.cfg key, else the first existing of four folders of
the RetroBat install. The registry describes that search
(emulators_directory) and the manifest writes such a file as
root: emulators. The installer places it only when the BIOS folder sits
beside RetroBat's launcher config and the config does not move the
folder, and names it no_emulators_directory otherwise. Packs skip it as
they skip root: roms.
The PICO-8 0.2.7 Windows build (pico8.exe, SDL2.dll) is collected from
the archive.org copy of pico-8_0.2.7_windows.zip, its pico8.dat being
the 0.2.7 one already held.
A platform that binds part of a standalone layout leaves the entries no
binding covers in a folder outside the BIOS tree: they are no longer
packed at the BIOS root, and the manifest names them (root: emulator,
outside_bios_folder). A launcher that executes a profile's file binds
the program folder: in the BIOS tree, below the roms directory a registry
entry names (root: roms, installed into the folder holding the BIOS
folder), or nowhere a pack reaches. A moved entry resolves by its own
path as well as by its destination.
uae4all gains kick.rom and rom.key in its working directory and loses a
not_bundled_on that named Recalbox, which runs uae4all-rpi. lexaloffle
declares that its programs read beside their executable, lists the
Windows build RetroBat runs and the pico8_dyn ROCKNIX runs on x86_64.
_collect_emulator_extras recorded a losing claim's path without the
declared root, while the winner's was rewritten with it. On RetroDECK
verify --region kept Rustation and Mednafen STV copies of withdrawn
bios/ files in undeclared_files as packed (7 under japan, 4 under
north-america, 3 under europe).
_ships and _emulator_ships resolved without the data directories, the
archive index and the slot override the builder uses: 400 platform
declarations and 178 emulator entries read as missing while the pack
held them.
On a platform that writes bios/ in front of its destinations (RetroDECK, AmberELEC, EmuELEC), a core extra was grouped, dropped and held under its bare destination while the platform's declaration of the same file used bios/<name>. Beetle PSX's scph5501.bin was kept by the --region japan pack while the declaration was dropped and the installer dropped the path. extra_region_key keys every extra with the platform's declared root, in the builder, the manifest selection, verify's replay and the omissions. The same key gives the declared entries the systems of the core files at their path: every --system case of RetroDECK differed between pack and installer before, none does now.
PCSX2 stats <bios>.rom1 then <stem>.rom1, case-sensitive on Linux (BiosTools.cpp:214-229), and so does PCSX2 1.6 for erom. The pack wrote the stored SCPH-70004.ROM1, never found. A companion entry also seeded a scan of its own with a 4 MB bound and swept cheats, GameIndex.yaml and DVD firmware to the BIOS root. A companion now scans its image's folder for its own extension only, any size, since the code reads min(size, filesize), and is written as the code spells it.
The rom folder survey joined 463 folders to their default core's whole
profile, no system of it matching. SYSTEM_ALIASES, the one table
_norm_system_id reads, now folds ten more spellings of one machine:
apple2gs, astrocade, astrocde, creativision, gamepocketcomputer,
nintendo-super-game-boy, cps1, cps2, cps3 and pgm. The profiles that
used them take the canonical id (mame, groovymame, mamemess, mame0258,
mame0278, bsnes, mesen-s, mesence, jollycv, fbalpha2012 and its three
CPS cores, fbneo_cps12), as test_system_ids requires.
With bsnes and bsnes-hd now filing SGB1.sfc under one system, their
claims fold onto one report entry. _names_content read only the first
claim, hashless, and nSide's SGB1.sfc/ tree took the path before the
file. A hash on any folded claim now counts: every pack keeps the
destinations it had.
The site drops the eight display names the canonical ids replace and
names tvgames. README counts 533 systems instead of 541.
The collector deduplicated a destination already carrying the extras
prefix at prefix/prefix/name while the builder wrote it at prefix/name.
DuckStation's standalone bios/<name> on Recalbox and PCSX2's scan then
held one path under two keys, and --region withdrew only one. The
second pass also no longer claims a path another core's extra holds
for a name only that extra covers.
batocera-systems lists bios/saves/dolphin-emu/Triforce/segaboot.gcm, so the pack folder for the save directory is userdata-saves/. validate_schemas refuses a pack folder the BIOS tree already uses.
Batocera, KNULLI, Recalbox, RetroBat and RetroDECK hand a libretro core <saves>/<system> at each launch. Each copy lands below every system that runs the core. EmuDeck keeps one unsorted saves/retroarch/saves. The unsupported platforms record why.
load_from: save_dir entries of a libretro build were left out of every
pack. They now go below the platform's save folder (registry
save_directory: RetroArch saves/, Lakka savefiles/, by core), the
manifest marks them root: save, and verify replays the same placement.
Platforms keeping saves per system or per game list them as omitted.
A platform can hand each libretro core a system directory of its own
(core_system_dirs). platform_layouts then gives one view per directory,
so the gap report, the builder, the manifest, slots and cross_reference
place a core's files below each folder it is handed, and a core handed
none gets no file. Resolution strips the folder again and searches the
collection by the core's own path.
The -listxml names, for every machine, its parent (romof), the devices of its default configuration (device_ref) and the cards its slots offer (slotoption). A machine takes the system of the first set on its romof chain a written entry lists, and passes it to each device it can instantiate. A device set reached from one system gets system:, from several the new per-entry systems:, from none neither, and keeps serving every system of the profile. The gap report, the core extras and slots read the entry's own systems, so generate_pack --system and the installer pick by them.
After --all-variants, --verify-packs printed "hashes checked during the
build" for the platform-only, truth and required-only packs and compared
none of them, so one missing a file its narrowed list requires passed.
Each pack is now held to the platform list narrowed the way it was built:
source and required_only, read from its name, reach the baseline, the
region grouping and the replay of the core extras.
generate_pack and verify read --system beside --platform through common.resolve_system_arg, built on platform_system_names, the mapping the manifest's system_names comes from. verify --platform --system now reports on the narrowed pack. Unknown names are refused with suggestions before the database is read.
A core extra resolved by name shipped on existence platforms even when
the core's own size check turns the copy away. The RetroPie pack carried
the 128 KB Apple IIGS ROM as Basilisk II's ROM (min 512 KB). The builder,
the manifest and verify now read validation.core_size_refusal, which
accepts a copy any version of the same profile slot takes.
The pack integrity check rebuilt the core extras with no taken paths and
tested presence alone, so it credited core files at paths the platform's
own file holds and printed a core count the builder contradicted. It now
replays the builder's placement through packextras.hidden_extras and
compares each placed member with the copy the builder resolves.
The second pass, the archive-prefix pass and the agnostic scan built
extras without source_name or source_path, so verify found no gap report
entry for them and counted game data such as hiscore.dat as core files.
Every extra now carries its entry's category and key, and verify reads
the category from the extra the builder places.
verify resolved platform entries with common.resolve_local_file and put
the slot override first, and the region pass added a destination hint.
packresolve.resolve_declaration now serves the builder, the manifest,
verify and the region pass: release assets cached for a file absent from
bios/ count as shipped in all four, and a release asset keeps its answer
over a slot override.
Ranking contested core claims sorted the whole gap report, which
reordered every manifest. Only the claims on one contested path move now,
grouped where the first of them stood, and two spellings of a path are
one group where the filesystem folds case (RetroBat's 64DD_IPL_DEV.bin).
An entry without a destination (EmuDeck's system:md5 whitelist) no
longer counts as a pack path in verify, and step 5 prints one status for
counts and paths together. A full offline run compared all 12 archives
and 930 emulator packs path by path, every one equal.
A destination no platform declares went to the first claimant in profile
order whatever the proof: fbalpha2012 asks for hiscore.dat by name and
took the root of six packs over cores that pin it by sha1. Claims on a
contested path are now ranked by what the collection holds for each (a
held declared hash, then a path or every required archive member, then a
name, then a contradicted hash), and profile order only breaks ties.
Measured: 14 slots change file across the platforms, among them
hiscore.dat, kick13.rom on RetroPie, cgb_boot.bin and dmg_boot.bin on
EmuDeck, and ROCKNIX neogeo.zip and neocdz.zip.
emulator_region_drops counted as held any file that resolved. A regional
dump whose md5 the core's own check refuses won its region, the fallback
was withdrawn, and the emulator pack then refused the winner: no BIOS for
the system, and verify --emulator, reading the same drops, did not see
it. Held now means what the builder ships, as _ships decides on the
platform side.
The region grouping and phase 2 of each pack and manifest called
find_undeclared_files with the same arguments: 30 reports for the 15
manifests of --all --manifest, 2.8 s, now 15 and 1.7 s. The 15 manifests
are byte-identical before and after.
Step 5 compared (ok, total) and the core file count. RetroArch, Lakka
and RetroPie read 526/526 on both sides while verify credited four paths
below SGB1.sfc and SGB2.sfc that the pack never writes: a declared file
blocks them as a directory. verify now places the platform files in the
builder's order with the same path rules, and a user_provided or
external declaration keeps its slot on both sides, so no core file takes
it in the report only.
verify --destinations writes the paths each pack holds by the report,
and step 5 compares them with the archive members (notes and data tree
members set aside). Every emulator profile, in each build it has, is
built in memory (PackRecord, nothing read or written) and compared with
verify --emulator path by path. Cost measured here: about 1 s per
platform archive and 11 s for the 930 emulator packs.
A file a core reads at several destinations is added again at each one by a second pass that worked from the raw profile entries, so files the emulator or the platform's package installs came back into the packs and manifests by that route: the installer's per-target replay disagreed with the builder on six files.
A file or tree installed with the emulator is already on the user's machine, so packs, install manifests and verify's pack count leave it out. bundled is scoped by mode like any entry: Dolphin's Sys and PPSSPP's assets ship with the standalone releases, not with the libretro cores, so they now follow the libretro build only and still reach RetroArch packs. PrimeHack, standalone only, ships its own Sys.
The report counted claims, not files: several cores claim one path (rom.key by three Amiga cores, openbios.bin with and without a region) and the builder ships one file there. RetroArch read 1130 core files, 48 more than its pack. Game data ignored the in_pack marker, so RomM read 351 game data files in a pack that holds none. verify now takes both counts from its replay of the builder's placement, one per pack path.
verify replayed the builder's placement of core files with a bare name lookup, without the archive index, the data directories or the core's own choice of copy. It compared other bytes than the pack's (blueMSX's MSX2P.rom from bios/ against the data tree's copy) and let an unresolved file take a path the builder leaves free. ExtraResolver now holds the builder's lookup and both call it.
verify kept its own copy of the placement rule and missed the flat RomM folder, so the report still counted 543 unreachable files as packed. It now asks the builder's ExtraPlacement. The README fraction counted every held core file, including those a platform cannot place or that a same-named packed file hides. It now counts what the pack holds.
RomM lists a platform's firmware folder without descending (base_handler.py:1002, recursive=False) and EmulatorJS writes the chosen file, or each zip member, under its bare name. 543 files of the RomM pack sat below a folder where no core could read them. The registry now marks RomM's folder flat, and such files are omitted with the reason below_platform_folder in the manifest and the installer.
Profiles, the wiki, comments, docstrings, command output and schema descriptions carried em-dashes, clause-joining semicolons, unicode arrows, box-drawing banners and check-mark glyphs. Each sentence was rewritten rather than having its character swapped. Hashes, paths, source_ref values and every cited file:line are unchanged, which a comparison of each parsed profile against the previous revision confirms.
validate_pr comments now say PASS and FAIL in words, and source_ref values in a profile's structured blocks render as code. test_prose_style fails if any of these comes back, in tracked files or in the generated site.
LRPS2 declares only <bios>.bin, so its emulator pack shipped no PS2 BIOS. The images in the folder another PS2 profile proves by hash, of the declared size, now take the placeholder's place in the pack and in verify.
Batocera, RetroBat, Recalbox and ROCKNIX offer some emulators both as a
libretro core and standalone. Filed as standalone only, the libretro
layout was dropped: libretro Dolphin had no dolphin-emu/Sys/GC files.
Platforms now name dual-mode emulators and each gets both layouts.
A test isolated the extra collection by patching
resolve_platform_cores on packextras with create=True, while the
module imported it inside the function, so the real resolver ran.
The import is now module level, the test checks its stub was called,
and no test may create the attribute it patches.
Emulator mode reduced region groups without knowing which files the
collection holds, so a requested-region image nobody had collected
withdrew the held one and left the slot empty. Platform mode already
kept it; both emulator readers now pass the database.
Abdessamad Derraz