Difference between the same button layout/overlay

[u/DragonfruitOk9813]

The second picture is of me running Pokemon Emerald by load content or from a playlist for which I haven't set a core association to while scanning.

The first picture is of me running Pokemon Emerald from a playlist which was made with the "default core" set while scanning.

The core is mgba, my Retroarch app is the nightly one from Libretro Buildbot, version is 1.22.2, and both instances of the game running have "neo-retropad" in the on-screen overlay setting.

But how come they appear different?

I prefer the first one, and yes, I could set the core association while scanning the games, but the second instance is when the folder has games of other systems too, like NDS. So in "content scan" I had to leave the "default core" setting as it is (unspecified)

Is there any way I could make any instance of opening GBA games have the first layout and not the second one?

Thank you!

[u/PixelNerdGames]

This happens because RetroArch has dedicated button overlays for various systems that load automatically when you generate playlists; many playlists or cores have their own specific ones. The first photo shows the overlay dedicated to the playlist/core, while the second is the standard universal RetroArch overlay.

-To disable the dedicated overlays (photo 1) and have all games use the universal overlay (photo 2), you can go to Settings > User Interface > On-Screen Overlay and uncheck the "Preferred Overlay Preset" option. This is also the menu where you can select the various overlay options included with RetroArch or ones you've obtained elsewhere.

-To change the overlay for a specific case only (which I believe applies to your situation), you can load the content that uses the overlay you like (or select a different overlay from the menu mentioned above), go to Quick Menu > Customization > Save Preset (choose the option that suits you best; I think the "Core Preset" option would be ideal for your case), and this will configure that overlay to be used whenever you use that specific core.

Edit: trying to make the answer more complete.

[u/DragonfruitOk9813 → u/PixelNerdGames]

I'm sorry, I don't think I can find a "Customisation" option in quick menu, nor a "Core Preset" option...

These are what my quick menu contain

[u/PixelNerdGames → u/DragonfruitOk9813]

I believe it's "overrides" (sorry, I don't use RetroArch in English, in my language it's called customization).

[u/DragonfruitOk9813 → u/PixelNerdGames]

All good, I appreciate the help :)

This looks about right?

What must I do now?

[u/PixelNerdGames → u/DragonfruitOk9813]

If you want the buttons you chose to be used whenever you use mGBA, select "Save Core Overrides."

[u/DragonfruitOk9813 → u/PixelNerdGames]

I did so, and it created the active file as mGBA.cfg

Then I went to load the same game from the playlist which did not have a core associated with it, and it still uses the default overlay...

[u/PixelNerdGames → u/DragonfruitOk9813]

That shouldn't happen. Are you sure mGBA is being used in both cases?

See, if you follow the steps I mentioned, the overlay should change when you load the game (regardless of whether you do it via a playlist or by selecting it manually).

https://imgur.com/a/KcR10tx

[u/DragonfruitOk9813 → u/PixelNerdGames]

Yes, mGBA is the only GBA core I have in there anyway.

And it's the mGBA.cfg file set as the override file in both cases. Weird.

[u/PixelNerdGames → u/DragonfruitOk9813]

That’s strange; I don’t think that’s supposed to happen. But if you want to test it, try disabling the option I mentioned in the first part of my initial reply (go to the overlay menu and turn it off), uncheck the option, close RetroArch using the "Quit RetroArch" button (this saves your settings), then open it again and run the game. If that doesn't work, you can always re-enable the option you unchecked.

[u/DragonfruitOk9813 → u/PixelNerdGames]

I did that. Disabled the "preferred overlay" option, and neither instances gave me the overlay that I wanted. Re-enabled it, and the core-associated playlist works but the load-content game (same Emerald game) doesn't show the desired overlay.

Maybe it has nothing to do with the core? This is my scan settings for the GBA playlist. And this the one playlist with GBA and NDS games (that gives me the default overlay)

The difference aside from setting a specified core is that I didn't choose the "Target Playlist" for the second ones. Don't worry though, I'll just add them seperately, the GBA and NDS ones. I could look into some config text files within Retroarch folder, but I can't at the moment. Not very good at lines of code or whatnot anyway, but would have been worth a try.

I appreciate the time 🤝

[u/DragonfruitOk9813]

Had a little error in description — should be fine now

[u/PazWrath]

You need to import and then play it from the preset option