Try to understand the custom shader bug

prog-amateur

Hello, batocera is great: it contains a lot of customizations, including shaders (4 modes in version 5.23). But sometimes, we wish to have our own favorite shader (in my case the crt-royal-ntsc-320px-composite.glslp).

I am in version 5.22 (but I think the problem is also present in 5.23). I go to the Retroarch Menu (Hotkey + B) and select Load Shader Preset > crt-royale-ntsc-320px-composite.glslp. Then I do Save Core overrides.

But when I restart: all my shader settings disappear and I fall back into the Scanlines mode of batocera.

I do the same operation as above except that I also go to Menu > Configuration > Save Current Configuration > Save Current Configuration but an error message appears Failed saving config to /userdata/system/configs/retroarch/retroarch/retroarchcustom.cfg.

Is it a permission problem? A folder location that doesn't exist?

There is already a discussion here:
https://batocera-linux.xorhub.com/forum/d/2129-5-21-beta2/51

But the @lbrpdx trick doesn't work because I can't find a /userdata folder (except batocera/system/.kodi/userdata)

So what do you think to solve this issue ? Thank you very much for your help !

prog-amateur

Hello, anybody have tried custom shaders to feedback ? Thank you very much.

@lbrpdx : si tu passes par ici, pourrais-tu m'aider stp ? merci

Jimmy

prog-amateur
I found the path that we can change the scanlines setting:
/usr/share/batocera/shaders/configs/scanlines/rendering-defaults.yml
you can see the scanlines setting for all machine. I tried to change one of the scanlines type, it works in game.
but the yml file will retunback when you restart the batocera. It look's you can't keep the setting after you restart it.
the /usr folder is read only.

lbrpdx

prog-amateur Jimmy The error Failed saving config... you experience in 5.22 should be fixed in 5.23.

You can change the shaders config in the files /usr/share/batocera/shaders/configs/scanlines/rendering-defaults.yml (and other parallel directories like .../retro/) but to keep the changes permanently on next reboot, you need to use the batocera-save-overlay script as described in https://batocera-linux.xorhub.com/wiki/doku.php?id=en:modify_the_system_while_it_s_running

Another option if you want to set a specific shader per system, or per game/per system is to add lines like:

snes.shaders=/usr/share/batocera/shaders/crt/crt-lottes-fast.glslp

in your /userdata/system/batocera.conf. No need for batocera-save-overlay for changes you make in /userdata/ as those are ... user data and not part of the Batocera firmware system.

redqueen

lbrpdx I used to do that since the early days of Batocera, but now it didn't work for me. I have some custom shadersets in a folder called "myshaders" on the Share partition. My path to it is:

snes.shaders=/userdata/myshaders/16bit-retro.glslp

but it didn't work for me. The example for snes in batocera.conf is "snes.shaders" like mine. But you say it's "snes.shaderset", and nadenislamarre said here: https://batocera-linux.xorhub.com/forum/d/2792-shaders-setting-problem/3 it's "snes-renderer.shader". i tried all of them without success.

So I think it's broken too. I mentioned this before in a 5.22 thread but none was interessted in that.

Jimmy The path should by default changed from /usr to the /userdata folder.

Jimmy

lbrpdx
Hi lbrpdx, thanks for the reply
Could you tell me more about the batocera-save-overlay script?
I checked the /boot, but I can't find overlay folder
I can't find how to do the script on the batocear wiki

Jimmy

redqueen
try this:
snes-renderer.shader=/userdata/myshaders/16bit-retro.glslp
or
snes-renderer.shader=/userdata/myshaders/16bit-retro

redqueen

I have tried almost every combination, and it doesn't work for me. 🙁

redqueen

Ok it seems like snes.shaders or snes-renderer.shader would eventually work, but I think Batocera didn't load the shader for some reason.

I think the path should be right, and the folders and files have the same permissions like the others.
Any suggestions for me to try, or someone willing to test this with custom shaders?

edu6455

redqueen
good morning and found a solution that at least worked for me to load the shading caligari. if anyone is interested I can help them

edu6455

redqueen https://mega.nz/#F!RYwzjSqZ!9h7Iogc5xJck968Khdo3iQ

redqueen

Thanks!
This will help me a lot.

edu6455

redqueen ok

prog-amateur

Thank you all, and sorry for my late reply, I came back from travel.
What I understand is that I can apply changes 2 ways :

by changing /usr/share/batocera/shaders/configs/scanlines/rendering-defaults.yml
by changing /userdata/system/batocera.conf

-> About point #1, I have added :

default: shader: crt-royal-ntsc-320px-composite.glslp scanline: false

but it doesn't work : were exactly to add this batocera-save-overlay sentence ? Same question with mount -o remount,rw /boot ?

-> About point #2, my /userdata folder is empty. Shall I make a new path/file /userdata/system/batocera.conf with the following content ? :

default: shader: crt-royal-ntsc-320px-composite.glslp scanline: false

Sorry for asking questions, but it is really unclear to me as it is the first time I try this. Thank you very much again for your help !

redqueen

prog-amateur What edu6455 means is simply what is in the wiki described: https://batocera-linux.xorhub.com/wiki/doku.php?id=en:modify_the_system_while_it_s_running

In other words he replaces /usr/share/batocera/shaders/configs/scanlines/rendering-defaults.yml with a bootscript.

But this didn't help me to understand why the shader isn't loaded from batocera.conf.

prog-amateur

Thank you, but I'm afraid I didn't understand it very well. Here's what I'm proposing: since I'm not an expert, I explain what I intend to do step-by-step based on your explanations and you (or anybody else) tell me if it's supposed to work.

At boot logo, I press Ctrl+Alt+F1 (or F2 or F3) to enter the terminal and I login (ID + Password).
Then I do mount -o remount,rw /boot to get writing permissions
Then I do sudo nano /usr/share/batocera/shaders/configs/scanlines/rendering-defaults.yml
And I fill exactly like this :
default: shader: crt-royal-ntsc-320px-composite.glslp scanline: false
Then, I press Ctrl+X to save and exit the nano editor
Finally I do batocera-save-overlay and I reboot.

Please, could you confirm we hjave the same understanding ? Thank you very much for your kind help.

redqueen

prog-amateur That sould be right so far. But in my understanding after reboot your changes are deleted, cause the image can't changed. For makeing this changes automatic at the bootprocess it is a script needed.
Usually I would write a bash script (something with the sed command to replace the lines) for a common Linux Distro like Arch, but with batocera I don't know if this would work or where it should be placed.

lbrpdx

prog-amateur As discussed on Discord: it should be shader: crt/crt-royal-ntsc-320px-composite (without .glslp)

prog-amateur

redqueen Thank you, I hope to try soon then feedback if it (doesn't) works.
Too bad that this fantastic OS does not allow such needed feature easily.

prog-amateur

Hello, just to make a feedback : it didn't work. And I want to share my opinion, because it is very frustrating.

I have tried a batocera-save-overlaycommand but couldn't find the script location (and the command does not work).
There is indeed the /recalbox/scripts/recalbox-save-overlay.sh script : that worked and allowed to override the rendering-defaults.yml file after reboot, but when I launch a game, I have something like configuration core loaded and the shader I want is not loaded.

In short, it's tiring. No one has a real solution to this problem. I have tried, for myself, but also for people like me, and I try to report, but I am not a developer, I can't do better.

There is indeed the Batocera Menu, where we have the choice between Shaders: None/Auto/Retro/Scanlines/Enhanced, but we would also like to have the rest (a world !) of libretro scanlines choice.

This is disappointing, yet it is a request made by many members here, and a necessary feature in the retro-gamers community easily configurable in retropie and recalbox. Why to ignore us like if this request doesn't exist?!

joinski

prog-amateur

try to contact one of the devs via discord chat (because they can not reply to everyone here in this forum. it would be too time-consuming).
but do not forget: they have a lot on their to-do lists already and they devolop batocera in their free-time (which is limited, because they also have a life (job, family etc.)), so do not expect too much.

redqueen

prog-amateur Sad to hear that, but my problem is editing batocera.conf didn't work too.

In my opinion all RetroArch save paths should go into userdata by default. And it would be a good choice to have a "pre-selecting shader" option in ES same as you can choose (border)Overlays.

I don't know if you have an RPI3 or not, but you may try a dev build of batocera. For RPI3 it's here: https://batocera-linux.xorhub.com/upgrades/rpi3/beta/last/

joinski I think we all understand this, but I think too they should make next a bugfix version, cause there is a lot of stuff broken after 5.20 and batocera should also cleaned from old, maybe unused recalbox legacy stuff. After that it makes sense to introduce new features and continue the development.