MiSTer Update Only Update What You Need?

[Greyfield]

Hi all,

MiSTer newbie here, so thank you for your assistance! I plan to use my MiSTer as a somewhat kid friendly retro machine (i.e. something without native internet access) and was wondering if there is a way to prevent the update script from downloading cores, MRA files, etc., that I don't plan to use.

The primary goal here would be to make navigation through the menu system to find games easier. For example, I have about five arcade games loaded currently, but they are mixed in with dozens of other games that I don't have or plan to have. It would be nice if when I opened the Arcade menu, if only those five games appeared. Same with the console systems.

I can always go through after each update and delete all the extra arcade MRA files and cores, but I was hoping there is a way to do that only once.

Many thanks!

[limi]

You can explicitly allow only certain cores, or ignore certain cores in the updater by giving it a list in update.ini:

https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Updater ... er.sh#L127

I use this to skip cores I have no interest in, e.g:

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REPOSITORIES_NEGATIVE_FILTER="AliceMC10 Amstrad Apogee Arduboy Aquarius Atari5200 Atari800 BBCMicro BK0011M C16 Chip8 FlappyBird Galaksija Laser310 PET2001 VIC20 HT1080Z Jupiter MultiComp ORAO Oric SAM-Coupe SharpMZ QL Specialist TI-99_4A TRS-80 TSConf Vector-06C ZX81 Astrocade AY-3-8500 Odyssey2 ColecoVision"

…but you can also list e.g. only the 5 cores you do want updates to:

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REPOSITORIES_FILTER=“Minimig ao486 etc"

[Greyfield]

Thanks, Iimi, that's exactly what I'm looking for.

So for naming the repositories in the INI file, do you use the core file name as it would appear on the MiSTer or the core name in the GitHub repository? For example, the CAVE arcade core for playing DoDonPachi is "Arcade-CAVE_20210920.rbf" when you download it directly, but is shortened to "CAVE_20210920.rbf" when downloaded through the updater (the updater preferences remove the "Arcade-" prefix).

Say I just want to keep the arcade CAVE, computer ao486, and console Gameboy cores, would the correct line be:

REPOSITORIES_FILTER="CAVE ao486 Gameboy"

or

REPOSITORIES_FILTER="Arcade-CAVE ao486 Gameboy"

Thanks again!

[limi]

The easiest way I have found to locate the internal core name is by opening up the MiSTer menu (aka. OSD) and look at what it says along the left side. For DoDonPachi, it says “ddonpach”, so that should be the string you use in the filter.

[Greyfield]

Interesting, "ddonpach" is the standard mame file name for DoDonPachi. I'll start with that. Thanks again!

[grizzly]

MAME files is 8 character long or less to retain DOS compatibility , YES it was a pain in the arse to deal with at the time!
So therefore all arcade filenames on the mister is 8 or less long since it is MAME files that is used.

[limi]

Another tip: you can make it update entire categories of cores instead of individually, for example:

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REPOSITORIES_FILTER="arcade-cores service-cores ao486 Archie AtariST C64 Minimig MSX X68000 ZX-Spectrum Atari2600 Atari7800 Gameboy GBA Genesis MegaCD NeoGeo NES SMS SNES TurboGrafx16 WonderSwan"

This will update only the specified Console & Computer cores, as well as everything in the Arcade and Utility (“service”) categories, but skip anything else — e.g. the “Other” category, and any computer and console not explicitly listed. The linux subsystem, installer etc will of course also be checked for updates.

I do this to keep the navigation simple, and to make updates (marginally) faster.

And yes, this means I do need to add e.g. the Saturn and PSX cores to this list manually once they appear — but in general, I prefer that to having a bunch of cores I never use in the navigation, and checking for updates.

[Greyfield]

Good tip with the service-cores suggestion. I did a bit more trial and error with the arcade cores, and it seems that for multi-game arcade cores, you can only specify the core (RFB files) not specific games under the core (MRA files). So you will get listings for all the arcade games for a specific core in your menu, whether you want/have them or not. This is true at least with the CAVE core.

REPOSITORIES_FILTER="CAVE"

Will get you all the DoDonPachi MRA files, japanese, english, and arranged, while

REPOSITORIES_FILTER="ddonpach"

doesn't do anything, unfortunately. I did figure out, however, that the MRA files are only downloaded when the core is downloaded, so I will only need to clean out my arcade directory when the specific arcade cores I use are updated. This is obviously a huge improvement over what I had before, so thanks again!

[limi]

Yes, it’s a core filter, not a game filter, so for Arcades, that’s going to be the case. I seem to remember that there’s a setting in update_all that doesn’t download the Alternatives? Not near my MiSTer at the moment, so I might be mis-remembering.

[ash2fpga]

Yes, it’s a core filter, not a game filter, so for Arcades, that’s going to be the case. I seem to remember that there’s a setting in update_all that doesn’t download the Alternatives? Not near my MiSTer at the moment, so I might be mis-remembering.

Using the old update_all downloader mechanism (before the new downloader), this worked for me in update_all.ini to block alternatives and homebrew. There is possibly some redundancy here.

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MAME_ALT_ROMS=""
MRA_ALT_URL=""
REPOSITORIES_NEGATIVE_FILTER="MRA-Alternatives"
HBMAME_GETTER="false"
HBMAME_GETTER_URL=""

For the vanilla update.ini I had these (no mame getter settings).

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MAME_ALT_ROMS=""
MRA_ALT_URL=""
REPOSITORIES_NEGATIVE_FILTER="MRA-Alternatives"

[limi]

REPOSITORIES_FILTER="ddonpach"

doesn't do anything, unfortunately.

Oh, interesting. That approach has worked with the computer and console cores, so it looks like Arcade behaves differently. Good to know!

[Brs]

I’m assuming with the new updater that you can’t filter out cores with the methods discussed in this thread?

[ash2fpga]

I’m assuming with the new updater that you can’t filter out cores with the methods discussed in this thread?

It does not look like filtering has been added yet. My guess is the filtering would be different.

https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Downloader_MiSTer

[RodanChi]

Is there an equivalent for arcade cores? i.e. if I were only interested in black widow, burger time and pengo.