flyinghead
Separate saves and BIOS instead of all in a data directory
I'd like to have my BIOSes, Roms and saves to separate places. For now there is only a "Data directory" configuration in Flycast, where we can put BIOSes but then saves will be also put.
For now, I place the BIOS along the roms, which is not ideal. Another use case, in addition to organizational purposes, is to have the BIOS directory as read-only, to prevent any accidental modification.
As a reference, Retroarch has a system_directory, which acts like a data directory where both BIOS and saves can land. However, both savefile_directory and savestate_directory can also be set, which then will allow the corresponding files not to land into the BIOS directory.
MAME natively has a distinction between nvram saves, but not between BIOS and roms. However, a list of directory, through -rompath, can be defined, which still allows to have roms and BIOS in different places.
I agree with data directory should be done away with.
I also propose better directory structure in general. (I.e. flycast should automatically generate a folder called flycast. In android this would be in /storage/emulated/0 and within this folder will be subfolders like saves, bios, system, cheats, textures, etc -- this is essentially how ppsspp does it). Where the systems folder is where stuff like emu.cfg and Android_Virtual Gamepad.cfg go. I also suggest making it a fixed path location (atleast on android), there really is not many places a user would want to install anywhere else and giving more options just makes things unnecessarily complicated for the average default user. The only prompt that should appear, is on first flycast install, it should prompt the user to give android access to this path location or just files and media permissions in general really, not even needed to specify. (again lol atleast on android since I mainly test on it).
Lastly, it'd be great if atomiswave bios is not needed by default (just like it is not necessary for a DC bios to play DC games). Again, just less hassle / confusion for the casual user and better user experience.
I was gonna make my own issue for this but didn't wanna create duplicate posts especially if there are already similar issues open.
be great if atomiswave bios is not needed by default
It means implementing HLE emulation, which requires lots of work.
be great if atomiswave bios is not needed by default
It means implementing HLE emulation, which requires lots of work.
I asked flyinghead on discord about this and he said "it shouldn't be very hard for atomiswave games since the BIOS is very light". But yea, I'm sure there are many other higher priority things to work on, just putting it out there...
Maybe I should edit my message and put this in a new GitHub issue for in future to be worked on.
If possible, would be awesome to have all paths customizable by the user, not only the data directory 😍 Something structured like that:
- games (for arcade
.ziproms and dreamcast.gdi/.chdimages) - bioses (for arcade
.zipand dreamcast.bin) - VMUs saves
- savestates
When you enable Dump Textures and then start a game (e.g., Crazy Taxi), a double-nested MK-51035 folder will be created in the specified folder.
