Adding Roms to a collection

About Collections

On the frontends Batocera, Retrobat (since 1916 beta 5) and Retropie, it is possible to create collections that bring together several Roms and appear in the Frontend as a system in its own right

A collection is actually a file named 'custom-%NAME%.cfg' (where %NAME% will be the name of your collection) located in this folder:

Under Batocera: \share\system\configs\emulationstation\collections\
Under Retrobat: %player%:\retrobat\emulationstation\.emulationstation\collections\
Under Retropie: \configs\all\emulationstation\collections\

The file is then completed with the path of the Roms that you want

Example under Batocera with the “custom-shmups.cfg” collection

/userdata/roms/mame/1941.zip
/userdata/roms/mame/agallet.zip
/userdata/roms/atari2600/galaxian.bin
/userdata/roms/neogeo/sonicwi2.zip
...

Example under Retrobat with the “custom-shmups.cfg” collection

./roms/mame/1941.zip
./roms/mame/agallet.zip
./roms/atari2600/galaxian.bin
./roms/neogeo/sonicwi2.zip
...

Same example under Retropie

/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/roms/mame/1941.zip
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/userdata/roms/mame/agallet.zip
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/userdata/roms/atari2600/galaxian.bin
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/userdata/roms/neogeo/sonicwi2.zip
...

Create your collection with ARRM

The video is no longer relevant because the module has evolved since version 1.9.1.5

Select the frontend you are using

Select the Roms you want to put in your collection

Click on the 'Add to collection' button on this screen, or via the contextual menu of the database or on this screen

The following screen appears

If your Batocera/Retropie is connected to the network, you can directly create the custom-%NAME%.cfg file on your Batocera/Retropie respecting the path:

Under Batocera: \share\system\configs\emulationstation\collections\
Under Retropie: \configs\all\emulationstation\collections\

If your Batocera/Retropie is not connected to the network, all you have to do is create your custom-%NAME%.cfg file locally then, once completed, copy it to the correct directory on Batocera/Retropie.

Select the collection folder by clicking on the “…” button to select the storage path for your collections, then validate with . The list of collection files present in this directory will appear in the listbox on the left.

You can :

Select an existing collection by clicking on it
Create a new collection by entering the new collection name in the textbox on the right and validate it by clicking

Reminder: your collection must be named as 'custom-%NAME%.cfg ' where %NAME% is the name of your collection.

Click on the button Create collection

The files are added to the collection.

Remember to activate the new collections created by going to your Batocera/Retropie in the appropriate menu. Existing collections will appear among the list of systems.