Can you tell me where to download the Amiga boxart? Thanks.

@@johnheror5564 Sorry for the delay in responding. I believe the database in the video actually has an Amiga section here: thumbnails.libretro.com/Commodore%20-%20Amiga/ I usually do not use RetroArch for my older computer emulation as things can get a bit weird, but they do have a decent list of boxarts. Alternatively you could also look into a program called Skraper: www.skraper.net/ This is a very nice boxart tool where you can sort of setup your own parameters and it even has Amiga support and other home computers. There are some good tutorials out there if you need help figuring out how to use it. Cheers.

Thanks, was searching how to do it for Apple TV Retroarch and this manual step definitely did the trick.

I didn't understand what happened after going to the thumbnails folder. Could you please explain it one more time? I really need it. Explain it as if you were explaining it to an idiot.pls?(i fixed it no problem

Thanks! It was driving me mad and I figured it was probably annoying some other people too, it's certainly not something you would be able to figure out off the top of your head either.

@@WatsonatorTV No problem! By any chance, you know how to get custom thumbnails to work? There are some games not in the database that I still want to get art for. I followed the guides online, but they don’t seem to work for me at all.

@@Mr.Fishward If you try to do it like the 2nd game I did in the video (Thrasher) does it not work ya? I show what to do if you need to add thumbnails for a game not in the database at the end there. If it's not in the database, grab a pic from google or something, change the type to .png in a paint program, and then drag and drop in the desktop menu. Should resize it and everything for ya.

THANK YOU for that response because I always get tons of iOS questions and that is something I have very little experience/knowledge.

Happy to help out! I never understood why you couldn't just change it while downloading either, I was surprised when I found out how that worked.

doesn't work for me tbh

@@meloman-rrr Try viewing each game individually and waiting for the download to complete. The option doesn't download them in batch.

@@Rovelius that's what i also did. I've pressed "download miniature" for each individual game, and it just doesn't appear anywhere, even in files

Such a great comment, I totally need to try out the Wonderswan again, I remember playing one somewhere randomly as a kid, just one of those random memories I have from a long time ago, I don't even have a context for it, I just remember playing The Wonderswan once haha.

If the name runs off the side I just click the link and then look at my web address URL and copy paste directly from there. For example if you take a look at the Donkey Kong Country 3 for the Super Nintendo, it runs off the edge. If you click it though and then look at the URL, you can copy and paste the name directly and see that the full name is: "Donkey Kong Country 3 - Dixie Kong's Double Trouble! (USA) (En,Fr)" You can also right click on the box art image once you click on a database entry and then click on "copy image link" and you will automatically have the name copied somewhere in the url if thats easier for ya. You will just need to remove the www and other website parts. I am going to

I have had to import a bunch of images for RA since I have a lot of romhacks and translated JP games that are not in the official libretro database and for a good bit of them I used paint and never had any issues with the transparency/opacity or the alpha channel being deleted, they all show up perfectly. Recently I have been using Paint.Net though, maybe it handles the channel differently (it's free, decent program). I just suggested paint since everyone has it but you can honestly use any of dozens of programs, I was just trying to make it simple since that is something most people have. But for the most part all of the images I have saved through paint ended up just like the example I did in the video (Thrasher), as you can see there were no issues from using Paint for that example (however, I have ONLY been copy and pasting, not doing any kinda of customization to the thumbnails). If you are more artistically inclined than myself and you are making your own thumbnails/title-screens for your games and you NEED to use the alpha channel and paint just isn't cutting it, then I assume you probably also have other programs you can use. As long as you are re-saving the file as a .PNG with a program (photoshop, paint+, etc) and you aren't just changing the extensions on your desktop or something, it should work fine. Thank you for the information though, if I run into anyone trying to save their images and running into transparency issues, I will suggest a different program and also I will make a note of it in the description.

Hmmm. Do you happen to be using RetroArch through steam or on a console or handheld? I only use the stand-alone version on Windows. The other ones seem to lack functionality and settings and have different file back-ends that might require a different approach. If you are definitely using the most up-to-date Windows version then I am at a loss, I have never seen that before.

Hey there. Unfortunately I am not sure why it's not working correctly either without actually being there and checking it out. I can list some things to check though. Are you on the newest updated version on Windows? It acts different if you are on mobile or mac or a gaming console or something. Also make sure that it's not being blocked by something like a firewall or windows security settings or a VPN. When you say the final option did you have to drag and drop individually on the desktop menu or did you have to put them in the folder with the method I have stickied in the comments?

Hmmm, im confused is RetroArch not finding your game file or is your renaming of the game file in the playlist not showing your thumbnail? These are two very different things. If you are having trouble importing the game you should try a manual import and search for the folder that the file is in and manually input the file type (iso or whatever). If you are having trouble renaming the game but the game is already in your RetroArch playlist then Im sure the ROM is fine. I would try to go the desktop menu by hitting F5 and rename it in there by copying and pasting the title from the database. When i say database I mean the thumbnail website.

Hmmm, unfortunately I haven't used RA with any other platforms or consoles so I am not entirely sure how different versions function. The only thing I can think of is trying to find where the files are saved. You said all of your other boxart shows, this means that those thumbnail files must exist somewhere. For PC, if you find the install directory for RetroArch, there is a folder that is called "thumbnails" that is then divided into subfolders for all of your playlists/platforms. If you can find this folder, you can then go in and see if the PSP folder is there and try to manually add PNG images this way. Not saying you have to manually do every single PSP game or anything, but it may at least shed some light on what is going on and where it is getting hung up. If you can find your other thumbnails that ARE working in the file system it might help us find out what is going on. Sorry I don't have any other ideas, in the future I want to do some videos about getting RA to work on other platforms but as of now I'm pretty uninformed on how it all works. You may be better off asking on the RetroArch reddit, I think they also have a discord with a help channel that could be of more assistance.

Unfortunately the steam version seems to be lacking a lot of the options that the standalone version does simply because everything installed through steam flows through the steamapps folder which causes issues. Also since everything through steam updates through the steam app, this causes more issues. There might be a way to change it up but I HIGHLY recommend just getting the standalone version. If you want to keep all of your playlists and settings, you should be able to download a fresh standalone RetroArch and then merge your folder into it so that you can use the newest, updated version while keeping all of your settings and playlists. You can then go into your steam and click the button that says "add a non steam game" and then you can still have RetroArch listed in your steam like you usually do but it loads up the standalone one. Edit: If you can find how the folder structure works within your steam you can also go into there and locate your thumbnails folder and label the PNG files correctly for each console's folder. This will bypass the need for the desktop menu but its a bit more tedious, I def. recommend the standalone.

I think you are correct. I haven't had experience with the Steam version but I do believe it is configured SLIGHTLY differently and its file locations may be in different spots also. That's weird that it doesnt have the online updater though, lots of important stuff under that setting. It may all just be in other areas.

NICE! MAME can definitely be a headache for emulation sometimes but some of the best games ever come from the arcade.

@@WatsonatorTV yeah I was finally able to find versions that work with Mame current. I just got the first 3 Mortal Kombat games on it to work and I was gonna add a normal boxart but decided to add images of the arcade machines instead and it looks funny. I've been making them transparent as well so only the arcade pops up on retroarch without a colored background so It made setting this up fun instead.

@@SuTheory I recently had someone post asking about using Paint because it deletes the alpha channel which handles opacity/transparency. Since you are getting creative and doing some customization to the images (especially with transparency) you might want to use a different program aside from paint. I originally suggested paint since everyone has it and it makes it easy, but if you are doing editing of the images beyond just a simple copy/paste it may have some problems like that. I have been using Paint.net which is a free program and it may work a bit better for ya (unless you already have something like photoshop).

@@WatsonatorTV hey thanks for the recommendation.

Hello. I prefer to use the Windows version over any other versions (including the steam one) since they are not full versions and have some things changed like what you are describing. I would honestly recommend using the full Windows versions if you are able to do so. If you are not able to do so and you are on a game console or something, the steps are going to be slightly different and I honestly have no experience using these other versions and wouldn't know how to go about it. if i had to guess though, you are going to need to go into your steam folder and find where the RetroArch install directory is located. In here there should be a folder that says "thumbnails" and all of the cores/systems should then be in the thumbnails folder (you might have to create these subfolders if you don't see them). If you put in a correctly formatted PNG file into the corresponding folder and you name it the exact same as a playlist rom entry, the boxart should appear (if it works this way). I have an example of this method pinned as the first comment if you would like to see that example in more detail. Like I said though, I really have no experience with these other versions and that method might not work. If you can't get the windows one and you must use this other one, then you may want to talk to the folks at the RetroArch reddit or the libretro discord, they will know better than me: www.reddit.com/r/RetroArch/ discord.com/servers/libretro-184109094070779904 Good luck, sorry I wasn't more help.

Hey there so if you have the file in the correct folder (which would be: drive letter\RetroArch\Thumbnails\"platform"\Named_boxarts) you can just drop a .PNG file and name it the EXACT same name as the corresponding game in your playlist of that platform and it should show up. I go into this more in the pinned comment on the video: ""If your game is not in the database AND for whatever reason the Desktop Menu is not letting you drag and drop .PNG files into the little box there is one final method: -Locate your thumbnails folder wherever your RetroArch is installed (for me this is: This PC\Local Disc C\Programs\RetroArch\thumbnails -You will see all of your platforms listed here and the boxart, title screen, screenshot folders within them -Drag and drop your custom .PNG image into the appropriate folder -Go into the folder and rename the custom image the EXACT same name as the RetroArch display name (just copy and past the title from Desktop Menu to be exact) -It should then show up automatically if the display name matches the PNG image file"" I hope this helps, ya, good luck.

I have only ever used RetroArch on Windows unfortunately so I don't know off the top of my head how to get there. After doing some Googling though, it appears that only the Windows and Linux versions have the Desktop option unless you build your install with "QT support" on MAC whatever that means. Saw this here: www.reddit.com/r/RetroArch/comments/kvme20/how_do_i_access_the_desktop_menu_on_mac_big_sur/ Alternatively you could find where you have your RetroArch installed and go into the install folder directory. In here there should be a folder that says thumbnails and inside there you will see all of your systems. You can drop PNG images into the Retroarch/thumbnails/system/boxart folder and if the name of the PNG image matches up with the name of a game in your playlist, it will show that image. This is the roundabout way that I have to use sometimes when adding a bunch of custom images at once for rom hacks or something.

@@WatsonatorTV thank you so much for doing the research. I will try that!

I have only ever used RetroArch on Windows unfortunately so I don't know off the top of my head how to get there. After doing some Googling though, it appears that only the Windows and Linux versions have the Desktop option unless you build your install with "QT support" on MAC whatever that means. Saw this here: www.reddit.com/r/RetroArch/comments/kvme20/how_do_i_access_the_desktop_menu_on_mac_big_sur/ Alternatively you could find where you have your RetroArch installed and go into the install folder directory. In here there should be a folder that says thumbnails and inside there you will see all of your systems. You can drop PNG images into the Retroarch/thumbnails/system/boxart folder and if the name of the PNG image matches up with the name of a game in your playlist, it will show that image. This is the roundabout way that I have to use sometimes when adding a bunch of custom images at once for rom hacks or something.

Hmmm. This is odd. The first thing to check is that the download directory wasn't changed somehow in the options. So go into your RetroArch settings (the second option), and then go all the way down to the bottom option that says "Directories." This setting shows where all of your downloads, updates, thumbnails, cores, etc are stored when they are downloaded. Scroll down to where it says Thumbnails and make sure that the directory it shows is correct. It should match wherever you have your RetroArch installed, generally this is something like "C:\Program Files\RetroArch\thumbnails". Also go into a file browser and follow that same file path and make sure that your RetroArch is indeed installed where the directory leads and that it has a thumbnails folder in there. Wherever RetroArch has the thumbnails directory set up is where it is going to be downloading those thumbnails, so if that all looks correct and you are positive that your RA is installed correctly with the same file path, I am not sure what could be the problem. You could try manually adding a PNG image into the thumbnails folder (in the correct system and boxart subfolder of course) and see if it shows up this way (just make sure the PNG image name matches the exact same name as a playlist entry and if you put it in the boxarts folder for the correct system it should show up, this is the manual way of doing it).

@@WatsonatorTV Man I am really glad you responded because I was really frustrated. I installed using another popular guide, and I said screw it, and decided to start over. I found your "RetroArch Startup Guide - Play classic games on PC NOW!" video and followed it. Worked like a charm! really appreciate the help, and the great easy to follow tutorial. I have been using just the old emulators by themselves for years, and decided to take a shot at one of these stand alones. This was very easy to follow with your video.

Hey there, thank you for the kind words! This is more for filling in holes and those pesky games that you have that aren't in the correct format. So if you have a situation where your ENTIRE library isn't working for a system or platform or hundreds of games, it likely means that the name formatting of those roms is not in the "no intro" style. If this is the case I will just get my rom list from a different source, that way I don't have to spend a long time doing everything manually. Generally your list should bring in the majority of thumbnails on its own and then you can go back in fill in any blanks that may not be working or fix weirdly named or homebrew or something. Using the rom lists from here: ( archive.org/download/no-intro-2021 ) it should generally pull in the majority of thumbnails correctly. If you get a new list from here, instead of doing a normal scan and import, try to do a manual scan of the list and make sure you include the file type and all that, here is a screenshot of how the manual scan should look for SNES for example: ( i.imgur.com/05sFefO.png don't forget to include the file location at the top, mine i left blank since it will of course be different) If for some reason the manual scan is still failing you, you can try to do the normal scan and see if it pulls it in correctly that way also, but usually the manual scan should take care of the lists that are named correctly from the start (I might have an example of this in my multiple disc video). Anyhow, doing it like this you shouldn't have to spend TOO much time filling in the blanks unless you insist on using your own lists that are not formatted correctly to begin with. I have THOUSANDS of roms, with my MAME list having literally like 12,000 games and i'd say about 90% of the thumbnails were brought on automatically using this method, that percentage is probably even higher for NES, SNES, genesis, etc. Occasionally I will have to go through and manually name a big chunk, but this is pretty rare. Good luck.

For sure!! I personally wanted to avoid altering any file pathways just in case people got confused and didn't understand they needed to re-import after changing the file name. I can see explaining this and getting a ton of comments saying "my roms don't work anymore after changing the name!" so I just wanted to keep it simple. In addition I can see some less techy individuals getting confused between the playlist name and the actual file name, so I wanted to keep it inside RA as much as possible. I also only use a single RA instance myself but you are definitely right, this is a great idea for those using multiple installs.

Hey there. So most likely the reason you are having issues is because it is the Steam version of RetroArch. I have personally only ever used the standalone version on PC and I have heard from other people in these comments that they have also had issues using the Steam version. Looking at the PSP title it seems like you are definitely doing everything correct. Take a look at my own RetroArch, I have Persona for PSP in my collection and you are definitely spelling it correctly: i.imgur.com/ysw2jgc.png I know that isn't a great answer and I wish I could tell you the reason the Stream version differs from the standalone but I am honestly not sure. I am going to keep my ears open and maybe try out the Steam version in the future to see if I can figure out what the deal is. Edit: If you cannot use the standalone version and Steam is your only option, maybe check the libretro or RetroArch forums or discord, they may have a better answer for ya. Edit2: One other thing I just thought of. If you can find where Steam has the base RetroArch install directory, you might be able to open that up and see if it has the normal "thumbnails" folder which is then divided up according to your playlists. This is normally where you drop the .PNG files with the appropriate file name if you want to do it manually, MAYBE that could work?

@@WatsonatorTV Don’t worry, I figured it out. So all I had to do was make a PlayStation portable folder in the thumbnail folder and then make a box art folder and place my thumbnail on there, I also made sure to name the png the same as the rom. Thanks for the reply tho.

@@J03L157 Ah okay good information and that confirms what I was thinking, I appreciate the response and can tell people what to do in the future!

So you might have a few different options for this, my apologies if this gets a tad long, I just want to be thorough: The first option is that you can go into the settings (second icon) and then scroll down to the "Playlists" option near the bottom of the Settings column. Now you can select the first option within here which should be "Manage Playlists," and this will then show you all of the playlists you have created. In here when you select a playlist you can change how much information is displayed for a game by changing the "Label Display Mode." There are a lot of options in here such as "remove () and [] content," ie remove the region in the display. I would honestly just play around with this, that way you can keep the official game names and not have to worry about renaming them all but still have the country designation off so it doesn't bother you. The only downfall is that it would just be within RetroArch and not change the actual file names. OR You can just name everything individually however you want to name it and manually scan like you have been doing. Keep in mind that you can change both the actual file name or just the game name that it is displayed within RetroArch; you technically only need to do the latter and not change the file name but doing both might make it easier for you to keep everything organized. You can then just drag and drop your own custom images into the box like I did in the video when you are looking at the playlist entry from the desktop menu. There is also another way that might be easier for adding custom images though. You will want to locate wherever your RetroArch install directory is, (might be somewhere like "Local Disc (C:)\ Program Files \ RetroArch"). Inside the install directory find the "thumbnails" folder. In here there will be subfolders for all of your platforms and then within the platforms there will be 3 more subfolders for boxart, snaps, and titles (one for boxart, one for in game screenshots, and one for title screens). So for boxart thumbnails you will of course select the boxart folder. Now in here is where you will drop all of your own custom thumbnails and they will need to have the EXACT same name as their corresponding game entry in RetroArch (doesn't have to be the file name, just whatever RetroArch is reading as the display name). So for example let's say you have a random Sonic 2 game for Sega Genesis. You scan for the file and lets say it pops up in your RetroArch Library as "Sonic 2 (USA)". You can just go into the settings to make it not show anything in between the parenthesis (option 1 above). Or you can rename it manually as "Sonic 2" in this case. Then to add your own custom image you can just drag and drop it in the box like I did in the video or find the thumbnails folder and put your custom image into the correct subfolder in the install directory, making sure to give it the exact same name as the game in RetroArch (not necessarily the file name, just whatever it's displayed as, in this case "Sonic 2"). Also they will likely need to be .PNG (ping format) images and possibly not too large in size. Hope that helps. I have had to do my own custom images for random homebrew stuff or rom hacks and I usually just drop the image in the correct folder and name it accordingly. Cheers. TLDR: RetroArch looks into it's thumbnails directory to check if there are any .png images inside that match the same name as items in playlists, if there are, it displays those .png images as thumbnails. So this technically allows for any custom combination of titles and images. Edit: Oh I also want to add that if you don't see the thumbnails folder in your RetroArch install directory, you may want to do one game the "official" way so that it automatically creates the folders for you, otherwise you can create them yourself.

Hey there. So if you have a situation where your ENTIRE library isn't working for a system or platform, it likely means that the name formatting of those roms is not in the "no intro" style. If this is the case I will just get my rom list from a different source, that way I don't have to spend a long time doing everything manually. Generally your list should bring in the majority of thumbnails on its own and then you can go back in fill in any blanks that may not be working or fix weirdly named or homebrew or something. Using the rom lists from here: ( archive.org/download/no-intro-2021 ) it should generally pull in the majority of thumbnails correctly. If you get a new list from here, instead of doing a normal scan and import, try to do a manual scan of the list and make sure you include the file type and all that, here is a screenshot of how the manual scan should look for SNES for example: ( i.imgur.com/05sFefO.png dont forget to include the file location at the top, mine i left blank since it will of course be different) If for some reason the manual scan is still failing you, you can try to do the normal scan and see if it pulls it in correctly that way also, but usually the manual scan should take care of the lists that are named correctly from the start (i might have an example of this in my multiple disc video). Anyhow, doing it like this you shouldn't have to spend TOO much time filling in the blanks unless you insist on using your own lists that are not formatted correctly to begin with. I have THOUSANDS of roms, with my MAME list having literally like 12,000 games and i'd say about 90% of the thumbnails were brought on automatically using this method, that percentage is probably even higher for NES, SNES, genesis, etc. Occasionally I will have to go through and manually name a big chunk, but this is pretty rare. Good luck.

@@WatsonatorTV omg thanks so much for the detailed reply , yea turns out i did manual scan on my nes/snes roms but when i scanned directory instead it pulled up all the thumbnails when i did that, so turns out if manual scan doesnt work , just scan directory, and it seems to be ok, i appreciate the fast and detailed reply , thanks so much!!

Hello there. So this can get a little tricky and it all goes back to the particular romset list that you are using as well as the way you are adding these roms to your playlist. If you do a manual scan in RetroArch when you are adding roms and specify the correct filetype, it SHOULD match-up the actual playlist "names" to be the exact same as the filename. So you would want to use that if the filenames themselves DID match up to the database perfectly OR if you are naming them yourself. If you do a normal "Scan Directory" then it will search the hash and serials of each individual rom and match them up based off of what is called a "no-intro" set (this is what RetroArch uses as it usually results in the best quality of rom). So in this case it doesn't matter the exact filenames of the games because it will be searching their internal data to see if it matches the no-intro setup. I have had to use both "manual scan" and "scan directory" depending on the type of playlist I am creating and how I acquired my romset. For example the file names of MAME rom files are always all crazy and shortened to a simple tagline, so in that case I had to be extra sure I get the correct romset because I knew I would be doing a "scan directory" and it would be searching the internal data to create the playlist names. Even then sometimes you have to go back and fix a game or two, it might not get them all 100%, but usually it's pretty accurate. So if neither your filenames nor your hash/serials (internal data stuff) are correct for your roms, then it is likely that the romset you are using is not a "no-intro" type of romset or RetroArch is somehow reading it incorrectly. If I was in this situation, to save the most time I would probably just try to find different romsets. Be sure to search for "no-intro" when you are looking. When you do get the set, see if the file names themselves match up to the database, if they do you can just do a manual scan, if they don't, then a normal "scan database" SHOULD work (at least that is how it has worked for me in the past). Technically if you HAD to use the roms that you already currently have, you could MAKE it work by individually renaming each individual file name to match up exactly to the database names and then do a "manual scan" and specify the filetype to directly match up with the file names. Like I said though, I would probably just find a different set. Keep in mind that some sets might be no intro but come with A LOT of extra stuff. Like different versions of the same game, demo versions of games, hacks, etc. All of these aren't going to have names in the database so you may see a ton of thumbnail holes in your playlist but it might still technically have all of the official roms with the correct names. If you are unsure where to look, archive.org/download/no-intro-2021 is a good start.

​@@WatsonatorTV Thanks a ton for that detailed reply ! I just came across a post on Reddit mentioning manual search actually skips the database step. Running a regular scan indeed solved my thumbnails issue !

Hey there, sorry you are having some issues getting it working, luckily I have both of these PSP games in my collection and the boxart is showing for me so hopefully we can get it working for you too. I will just post a couple of screenshots of the games first: Wipeout Pulse: i.imgur.com/quxJ7Fn.png Wipeout Pure: i.imgur.com/hJ9Rx9P.png I am not really sure what could be causing the problem other than maybe double checking you have the spaces and capitalization and commas in the correct locations. I will copy and paste my exact titles so you can try to copy and paste the text: WipEout Pulse (USA) (En,Fr,De,Es,It) WipEout Pure (USA) (En,Fr,Es) (v2.00) They are kinda some oddballs considering the "E" is capital and there arent spaces between the country codes in parentheses like there are for most games. Good luck, I hope this helped.

That is a good question and something I am not ENTIRELY sure on. For me I just went ahead and searched for all of my roms and then they all appeared in their own platform menu (like PSX games under the playstation, and NES games under the NES, etc) and I usually just access my games from the platform lists, I don't really use custom or manual playlists or mark games as favorites. BUT I just went ahead and tried to create my own manual list (like say I wanted a playlist of games from different systems, like Pokemon for example), it would just pull the entries from the games that I already have images for and it seems to work just fine. I also just tried marking my "Thrasher" as a favorite and the image shows up just fine on the "Favorites" list that is there by default. I would make sure you are saving the image in it's normal spot on the platform list and it will then follow it over to the favorites. Might have to refresh the games already in there if you had a list of favorites BEFORE they had images. So don't try to drop images into the favorites list, just drop them in their original platform spot.

@@WatsonatorTV Thank you for the quick reply! Wish you good luck with the channel my guy!

You are welcome! Yeah it's pretty unfortunate. You can at least turn off everything in parenthesis from being displayed in the settings so that you don't see " (USA)/(Japan)/etc" in your playlists but that doesn't change the fact that you still need it for the original naming.

Hey there, I am not sure why but Nintendo DS has been going down a lot recently on the database page, I think they have been updating it or something. In the meantime I have just been using Way-Back-Machine in order to access the page from a date when it worked, this link right here should work for you for now for the NDS: web.archive.org/web/20220122045109/thumbnails.libretro.com/Nintendo%20-%20Nintendo%20DS/Named_Boxarts/

Hey there. Since this video has been posted I have fiddled a little bit with the display options and changed around how my personal RA looks. If you look in the "Settings" column and then go into the "User Interface" option you will find some things you can alter. Most of the stuff I changed is within the "Appearance" section. Some of the options I recommend checking out in here would be "Menu Icon Theme," "Menu Shader Pipeline," "Menu Color Theme," and possible your own custom image. If you want to make it look less "texty" there are options to disable some things in User Interface and Appearance I believe. Also in the playlist options you can have it show less information if you'd like. And the size of these elements are all variable too I believe. If you REALLY wanted a vast change though I believe there are individuals who have created custom dynamic themes/backgrounds. I honestly haven't looked into this much but check out this little Reddit thread, it links to some interesting stuff: www.reddit.com/r/RetroArch/comments/lkrqjc/themes/

Hey there, sorry you haven't had success on the Android. Unfortunately I do not have any experience using RetroArch on Android so I'm honestly not sure how this version works. I have a Miyoo Mini Plus running RetroArch and for this handheld emulator system there is a completely different method for adding thumbnails that involves having them in a specific size and in a folder that you must create. So it could be that it needs you to do something off the wall like that possibly. I don't want to guess or waste your time when I really have no idea so I would try to post on the official RetroArch reddit page here: www.reddit.com/r/RetroArch/ or use the help channel in the libretro discord here: discord.com/invite/libretro-184109094070779904 Cheers, hope you get it figured out. If you do, let me know if it's something pretty simple so I can make a note of it on here.

Hey there, sorry you are having issues with everything. Have you watched the video all the way through yet? Because the point of this video is pretty much to show you what to do when the updater doesn't automatically pull them in; I cover all of that. Most likely the titles for all your megadrive games are not in the preferred libretro/no-intro format. I would just delete your mega drive games playlist and get a fresh romset that has all of the titles named correctly. Once you have downloaded them, you will want to do a manual scan to bring them in. You can find romsets that have the correct no-intro formatting here: archive.org/download/no-intro-2021 That should give you the majority of the game thumbnails and if a few are still not working you can go in and manually fix them just like in the video. you may also want to watch my RetroArch starter guide and my multiple disc videos as well.

@@WatsonatorTV ok ty for that , if i download say pc engine romset from the archive do i need to unzip all the game files? or

@@cfc3972 It depends on the core you are using for that platform but most of the cores in RetroArch can read the roms files in the zipped format just fine.

Hey there, you might want to look into a program called Skraper: www.skraper.net/ I have a Miyoo Mini Plus handheld emulator and in order to create thumbnails for that I had to use Skraper first. It might take a little learning about it in order to configure it exactly how you want it, but it might do the trick. Once it has completed the process you can likely drag all of the thumbnails into the correct RA folder.

Hmm. it depends what you mean exactly. Keep in mind that there is both the rom DISPLAY NAME that you will see in RetroArch AS WELL AS the file name that you will see when you look up the rom in windows file explorer. SOMETIMES these are the both one in the same depending on how you have imported your roms. If you do a manual scan to import your roms, it will usually try to pull in the exact file name, in this case you can just change the rom name outside of RetroArch in Windows. If you do a "Scan Directory" method instead to pull in your roms, it will try to do a search and match up the rom to known rom names. So in this case the RetroArch display name might be separate from the actual file name. So I am not sure exactly where you are running into issues but I would start over by checking your rom lists outside of RetroArch, just in Windows and see if the filenames HERE match up with the database names, if they do not, I would recommend downloading a new rom list that is of the "no intro" naming type. Once you have an accurate "no intro list" you can import your files with a manual scan and it should bring in the correct names without having to change anything anyway. Check here for some good rom sets: archive.org/details/ni-romsets

For this, as long as the playlist name matches the database name, it shouldn't matter the file type and the overall file name.

Hey there, you want to find settings -> User Interface -> Menu -> and then change it to XMB from Ozone (which is default). From here you can then go into Settings - User Interface -> Appearance and there is a lot you can alter in here such as the Menu Icon Theme, the color schemes, background wallpapers, etc. If you need to see some of this, I go over a little bit of the beginner stuff in this video here: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/qcp1hM6dt8yWZH0.html&ab_channel=WatsonatorTV including how to change it to the XMB theme. Cheers!

thank you!!! @@WatsonatorTV

Well… I uninstalled retroarch and reinstalled…. And boom. Now it’s working lol

Hmmm. I honestly can't tell off the top of my head what is going on with that. I know in my situation my Gamecube games were all from different sources and definitely not the correctly formatted titles so I just individually and manually renamed them all (didnt take too long). In this case though I'm not sure why they wouldn't come in automatically but then when you did it through the other menu it then worked, quite odd. At least it's working. Are you on the most up to date windows version? Edit: I wanted to add that I have had RetroArch act really odd sometimes as of late when it comes to thumbnails. Now that you mention it I have also had some not showing up and it wasn't until I went in and forced them to download that they worked, even though the auto download was already on.

@@WatsonatorTV yeah, they all was names correctly but didn't auto-downloaded. and yes im on win 11 updated frequently.

Hey there, sorry it didn't work right away for you. It's strange though because I myself have a good bit of PSP games and I actually have this game in my collection and that is the exact title name I using, check it out: i.imgur.com/l8LtATh.png i.imgur.com/Hq2TyOz.png Those two images show the name at different times as it scrolls over, it definitely seems like it's the same title as the one posted too. I went into my RetroArch install directory where the thumbnails folders are and pulled the title out and copied it directly here: "Monster Hunter Freedom Unite (USA) (En,Fr,De,Es,It)" but it definitely looks character for character identical to the one you posted. The only other thing I can think of is going into your own RA install directory and then go into thumbnails/Sony-Playstation Portable/Named Boxarts and see if there is a PNG image in there for the game. if not, try to directly save the image from the database into this folder and rename it to the correct name there ( this is sort of the roundabout method). So strange, I will continue to think about this and see if I can come up with anything that could be messing it up.

@@WatsonatorTV Actually I changed the menu from Ozone to XMB, then closed RetroArch, and for some reason it popped up! I already tried closing and restarting prior but that didnt work, so for some reason it changed only when messing around with the menu. Great video nonetheless!

@@okami7847 Excellent, so glad it started working. Honestly RA is weird like that sometimes, I've had some really strange bugs myself. Thanks for the kind words!

Thank you so much for the kind words! I only very recently added a romset for MAME so I am still learning and it's a bit trickier than with consoles for most stuff but I should be able to help you out. I am personally using MAME 2003+ as it is a good compromise between compatibility and not having to update the romset too often. Usually when I am setting up playlists I do a manual scan but I actually just did the normal "Scan Directory" for the MAME romset I downloaded (which has like 4,300 arcade games) and most of the roms showed up with thumbnails just fine (I'd say about 80% of them, though it showed more title screens than boxarts for arcade). After looking at the titles it seems like they all correspond to the thumbnail database which means it should work the same way as it does in this video. But read on because I think I understand what you are referring to (all arcade roms come with a shortened title). Check this out as an example, I am going to post a screenshot of my RetroArch MAME playlist selected on a game: i.imgur.com/ZvI8NOq.png That image shows my MAME playlist selected on Alien Vs Predator. You will see that the title is "Alien vs. Predator (USA 940520)" which is the same name as it has in the MAME libretro database that I linked in the video. Here is the MAME list: thumbnails.libretro.com/MAME/Named_Boxarts/ So in that sense it should just work the same way as I explained in the video. BUT it may get weird because when you download a Romset and you look at all of the individual roms you will notice that they have shortened Arcade rom names, for example my Alien Vs Predator USA ROM is labeled as something like "avspu.zip" in my MAME 2003 Plus reference set. Check out this screenshot of my Rom list that I scanned: i.imgur.com/gGhgfvu.png You can clearly see that the list of roms looks nothing like the the titles in the database, BUT all I had to do was a normal scan of this MAME reference set and RetroArch was smart enough to recognize the rom names and add it with it's full title that matches the database. Basically it is changing the display name to be different from the file name. So long story short, if you get a good reference set, RetroArch should automatically adjust the arcade titles to the proper full titles that you see in the database and thus it should be the same as it is in the video. I hope that made sense and I hope this is what you were referring to. If you would like to know the exact reference set I am using, it can be found here: archive.org/details/MAME_2003-Plus_Reference_Set_2018 Just make sure you are using Mame 2003 Plus core and do a scan of the roms folder.

@@WatsonatorTV Thank you for such a detailed answer! Meanwhile I just renamed all my MAME Roms in Retroarch, one by one (I have about 60), so that they match the thumbnails' name from the database. Took me a long time ^^ I'll definitely try your solution next time, should be a lot more simple :)

@@Boulingoal on PC I did it all manually, downloading the arts, placing them in the thumbnails folder, then manually editing the playlist file to add the games matching the file names and display names I had, it was a pain, very time consuming. Then yesterday I was setting up Retroarch on a TV set top box and again my arcade roms were not scanning. Then I realized there was an option for manual scan where you could use a ".dat" file which serves as a reference, linking file names to adequate display names on the database. I just downloaded some dat file I easily found online with thousands of roms listed and used it in the manual scan, Retroarch found the names and thumbnails for all my arcade roms this way, no exception.

Hey there. You are correct that depending on how you scan can have a different effect on how it appears in the list so I will try to explain how I like to handle things so that you don't have to manually name everything, I apologize if this gets a little long winded. For the time being ignore MAME/Arcade/Final Burn stuff as these follow a different method. For everything else though, you want to make sure that you are getting a rom set from the correct location. If you have gotten a giant set of say Super Nintendo roms for example, they need to be in the "no intro" format. Generally I like to just pull all of my sets from the same locations, I think from these two sites on archive: archive.org/details/no-intro_romsets and archive.org/download/no-intro-2021 . After downloading a set, I take a look at all of the files and see what they look like, if the files seem to generally match how they appear in the database, a manual scan will pull them in exactly how they are written and for some sets this pulls in the majority of the thumbnails. For other sets, an auto scan seems to work better since the names aren't directly labeled word for word like they are in the database, it will then try to automatically fill in the correct information with the auto scan. So for some sets auto pulls in the majority of thumbnails and works better, you may need to try both. After I have found which way to import and imported the entire romset and scanned for thumbnails, I will then go through and manually update the images it didn't pull in (like translations, rom hacks, weird versions, etc). But for the most part you shouldn't have to do TOO much manual work. If your set is not pulling in the majority of correct rom titles then I would start over with a different set and try my method because most of the time my sets pull in like 95% of the correct names for the thumbnails give or take and you shouldn't have to do much work. Now for MAME/Arcade stuff I am going to paste a response to someone else: I only very recently added a romset for MAME so I am still learning and it's a bit trickier than with consoles for most stuff but I should be able to help you out. I am personally using MAME 2003+ as it is a good compromise between compatibility and not having to update the romset too often. With arcade stuff you need to make sure you are getting a FULL NON MERGED SET that matches your core. Usually when I am setting up playlists I do a manual scan but I actually just did the normal auto "Scan Directory" for the MAME romset I downloaded (which has like 4,300 arcade games) and most of the roms showed up with thumbnails just fine (I'd say about 80% of them, though it showed more title screens than boxarts for arcade). After looking at the titles it seems like they all correspond to the thumbnail database which means it should work the same way as it does in this video. But read on because I think I understand what you are referring to (all arcade roms come with a shortened title). Check this out as an example, I am going to post a screenshot of my RetroArch MAME playlist selected on a game: i.imgur.com/ZvI8NOq.png That image shows my MAME playlist selected on Alien Vs Predator. You will see that the title is "Alien vs. Predator (USA 940520)" which is the same name as it has in the MAME libretro database that I linked in the video. Here is the MAME list: thumbnails.libretro.com/MAME/Named_Boxarts/ So in that sense it should just work the same way as I explained in the video. BUT it may get weird because when you download a Romset and you look at all of the individual roms you will notice that they have shortened Arcade rom names, for example my Alien Vs Predator USA ROM is labeled as something like "avspu.zip" in my MAME 2003 Plus reference set. Check out this screenshot of my Rom list that I scanned: i.imgur.com/gGhgfvu.png You can clearly see that the list of roms looks nothing like the the titles in the database, BUT all I had to do was a normal auto scan of this MAME reference set and RetroArch was smart enough to recognize the rom names and add it with it's full title that matches the database. Basically it is changing the display name to be different from the file name. So long story short, if you get a good reference set, RetroArch should automatically adjust the arcade titles to the proper full titles that you see in the database and thus it should be the same as it is in the video. I hope that made sense and I hope this is what you were referring to. If you would like to know the exact reference set I am using, it can be found here: archive.org/details/MAME_2003-Plus_Reference_Set_2018 Just make sure you are using Mame 2003 Plus core and do a scan of the roms folder. Edit: Long story short, try using a normal scan directory instead of a manual scan which I would normally recommend and if you have a good romset to begin with that matches the core, it should pull in most of the correct titles like it did in the example above, rather than the zip name. It may not work 100% but it should get the majority of them.

@@WatsonatorTV thank you for the detailed reply. I guess I will go back to your videos where I had to rename the roms to match retroarch database. Simple scan means going in and scanning roms one by one and that's like 4800 roms.

@@alinasir27 No problem, im happy to help. 4800 roms shouldn't take that long, it usually scans them all really quickly. if you reread the long reply I sent you shouldn't have to do things one by one and it should bring in the majority of thumbnails as long as you get a good set. The method in the video is just for the few thumbnails that didn't make it in or if you have rom hacks or something like that.

That is a great question. Are you on PC with the most recent version? I am not familiar with RA outside of PC (I know its available on a TON of platforms). If you ARE on PC and you ARE on the most recent version, then the only think I can think of is that it's been turned off maybe? If you go to the second column -> User Interface, you can look around at things that may be displayed on or off. If that still doesn't do anything then I am unsure why that is, I have used RA on PC for a while now and have never NOT had that available to me before. BUT, even if you can't find it, this is still possible. If you have a game like the first one that needs to be renamed, you can just click on the game within RA and rename it there to match up with the database (just press on 'rename'). If you have a game that isn't in the DB at all, you can drop a .png image in to the appropriate folder. If you go to your RetroArch install directory there will be a folder in there that says Thumbnails that corresponds to all of your games with thumbnails and you can name the .png thumbnail the same thing as your game and make sure that it's less than 500x700 pixels. Just drop it in the appropriate platform folder within Thumbnails. It's a bit harder if you can't go to desktop, and I'm still unsure why you can't, but it's doable.

@@WatsonatorTV I found the solution. I was continuously running the Xbox version on my PC so the OS for it would have everything that it would have for console versions of RetroArch rather than the PC. I do appreciate it tho! Good video

@@jalenfoster4131 Excellent! I was thinking it may have been a different version haha. I am glad it is working though, such a fun program to have around.

@@WatsonatorTV I’m having trouble as I’m using a PS Vita I made the thumbnails in paint and saved them but when I try to insert them onto the Vita they don’t show up I assume it’s what I name them. I named the images the title of the game but I’m assuming I did it wrong For example I put let’s say “The Legend of Zelda.zip” as the name for my custom box art. The rom file I downloaded for Zelda is also the same name When I go back into RetroArch they don’t appear or work

Hey there. So arcade is tricky with RetroArch and this is something I only very recently started learning about so I may not be the best person to ask but I will try to answer ya. First off it is VERY IMPORTANT to match the arcade romset you find to the appropriate core. You also want to make sure that the rom set you use is a non merged and up to date set, this can sometimes be out of date. Use archive website to find the correct MAME Romset. Once you have the rom set DO NOT RENAME ANY OF THE FILES, keep everything in the compressed or zipped format. they will have weird names like "ddpachi.zip" or something and this is normal, don't change it. Here is the romset I used for MAME: archive.org/details/MAME_2003-Plus_Reference_Set_2018 If you end up using that romset and use the Mame 2003-Plus core, do a standard search to import the files, NOT a manual scan. The manual scan is normally what I use but MAME acts a bit different and your game names will be all mixed up if you do a manual scan to import them. Also if you do a standard search it should bring in most of the right title names so that boxart will show up also. They will no longer be the weirdly named files from before and it will change all of that for you automatically. Arcade/MAME is all about finding the correct set and RetroArch should take care of the rest. These instructions are for PC though and other systems or handhelds will likely work differently. If this doesn't work for you or make sense, I would try to do some googling on RetroArch arcade guides or libretro MAME guides. the RA reddit and the libretro discord also have a lot of people who can help and probably know better than myself. Good luck!

@@WatsonatorTV Thank you . It worked. Grateful sir.

Having somewhat of the same issue with nes ,snes .md etc. Not all roms make it to the game list. Can you please share links to get best working roms sets like you did for mame 2013

@@alinasir27 For all of my sets other than MAME/Arcade stuff I generally just do a search on archive . org for no intro sets. I believe for a lot of my sets I pulled directly from this database here: archive.org/details/no-intro_romsets They have TONS of systems/platforms listed and you can do a full download of the set or search individually. For some of the larger sets (like Saturn, PS1) you may need some kind of download manager, not sure. I sometimes have issues with not all of them showing too but hopefully these sets will have the MAJORITY of the correct names and then you can go in and fix the ones that don't work. It's a bit of a headache to make a set perfect but hopefully these sets take care of most of it.

@@WatsonatorTV My source is same. Fixes the issue did a manual search all roms detected and working fine. The only downside / artwork doesn't show.

I think it's based on how you identify your games. I never create custom playlists or anything and always just import with the "plus" icon for import content. I usually just do a "manual scan" but honestly the first option that says "scan directory" should work too. you might have to have a core installed so that it can identify your roms as such but honestly it has always just been an automatic thing for me, I've never had it NOT give me those icons. I'm assuming that custom playlists would cause it to be the rocket icon since it could have a bunch of different platforms in one list. I just keep mine to each list being a different platform (how it automatically sets it up). If you need an example of exactly what I'm talking about check out my RectroArch tutorial video and skip to the import playlist part (here is a direct link to the timestamp: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/qcp1hM6dt8yWZH0.html ), right there is when I import a list of NES and a list of Playstation games using the "Scan Directory" option and it automatically sets up those icons on a fresh copy of RetroArch, the only thing i had done prior is install an NES and Playstation core (not even sure if thats necessary though). Recently though when I am adding to my list of games I already have, I just do a "manual scan" and you can select the type of core and roms you are scanning for and it should automatically update your platform lists that have icons with your new roms. edit: I wanted to also add that it's a pretty neat feature. On my own personal copy of RA I have A LOT of roms and it seems to sort every single one of them to the appropriate icon, it has icons for just about everything (Wonderswan, 3DO, Sega CD, Turbografx-16, Neo Geo Pocket Color, Colecovision, etc, etc, etc just to name a few more obscure ones). Just be sure to do one type of game at a time when you import and I think that should take care of it.

pick manual scan - system name - whatever system u pick

Just go to user interface - appearance - then icon something. It should be thr

Sometimes I will use the way back machine and access the site a few months, or even years ago back when the link might have worked. I have had that fix broken links on there before. web.archive.org/web/20211202175954/thumbnails.libretro.com/ Or you could always just pull in a google image and keep the name the same worst case.

@WatsonatorTV I ended up pulling the images from the Launch Box site. High quality and they auto scale in Retroarch which was a nice bonus! :)

@@APEXGuerilla Sounds good. I should put that link in the description as a backup, thanks for the info.

Thank you very much for the kind words! For the games that aren't included when you are doing your own image, I believe that it will try to scale the image if it's too big, however, if it is very large it might not work so I try to keep them around the same size as the images from the database. This also will make it look nicer since all of the images will be similar in size. NES games are generally around 512x730, and the square boxart for like PS1 is usually 512x512. The more landscape boxes like N64 are around 512x375. As long as you convert to .PNG it should be good (you can do that with paint, or a number of programs online like you said). I've never had issues with the size but just keep an eye on the very large stuff just in case.

Hey, if you have a long title, I usually just click on the game and then look at the URL at the top of the page. So for example when I click on one of the USA DK 2's for SNES, I can see at the top of the URL that it says "Donkey Kong Country 2 - Diddy's Kong Quest (USA) (En%2CFr) (Rev 1)" If you ever see the "%2C" tag, this is code for a comma for whatever reason, so it should be "Donkey Kong Country 2 - Diddy's Kong Quest (USA) (En,Fr) (Rev 1)"

@@WatsonatorTV ok thank you and do %20 means space in between?

@@Twan2kool Yes I think you are correct about that, I don't know why they do it like that, some kind of encoding or different types of text I guess. I think RA can read it either way, so if you just copied it directly from the URL with the % sign it would work too.

@@WatsonatorTV ok thanks so much I’ll try that tomorrow!

Hmm, seems to be working just fine for me, I assume you are referring to Metal Gear Solid - Peace Walker and Metal Gear Solid - Portable Ops, both for PSP? Check it out: Peace Walker: i.imgur.com/NUIxFi9.png Portable Ops: i.imgur.com/0aT5Nqb.png Portable Ops Plus: i.imgur.com/90aJEqQ.png They all seem to be in the database for me, make sure you are using these titles exactly: "Metal Gear Solid - Peace Walker (USA) (En,Fr,Es) (v1.01)" "Metal Gear Solid - Portable Ops (USA) (v1.02)"

@WatsonatorTV Hmm I'm using Europe ROMs so the naming is different. I'll try renaming them to what you have and check. Thanks.

@@APEXGuerilla you could use the EU names if you want, they are listed too. check the thumbnail databse again: thumbnails.libretro.com/Sony%20-%20PlayStation%20Portable/Named_Boxarts/ "Metal Gear Solid - Peace Walker (Europe) (En,Fr,De,Es,It) (v1.01)" I didnt see one for Portable Ops but there are few listings for Japan and US, either should work. Doesnt matter if the actual rom is a different version, itll match up the name and pull the thumbnail for whatever you name it.

@WatsonatorTV Okay I finally got it to work but it makes no sense. To begin with I had the following - Metal Gear Solid - Peace Walker (Europe).iso Metal Gear Solid - Portable Ops (Europe).iso However, title/information/database entry was empty for both. Thumbnail scrapping did nothing. I then tried your advice and it worked for only one game. Finally I just used the OG filename I had for Peacewalker, loaded that on its own in a playlist which provided all the info I'm looking for + the thumbnail. I then added Portable Ops with the OG name I had and it worked. So now everything is cool again 😂 It's a finicky thing. EDIT: Nope, now both database entries are empty again. Think it was just pulling the thumbnail from the ones I dropped in. Meh I give up.

@@APEXGuerilla Hmm, so Im not sure what all of the info you are referring to when you say "title/information/database" because I think all of mine are blank too, I just keep it like that. You have to remember that the name of the file is DIFFERENT than the name of the entry in RetroArch and this is fine. Your MEtal Gear solid roms could be named "Rip Van Winkle 1.iso" and "Rip Van Winkle 2.iso" and you could still have it appear in your RetroArch with the correct Metal Gear Solid name and thumbnail. ALL you need for RetroArch to appropriately pull in the thumbnail is to rename your playlist entry to whatever it says in the database just like I do in this video. It doesnt matter what the actual file name is, that is just what it will be called if you do a manual import of it, and then you can rename it to match the thumbnail database all within RetroArch, you dont need to do anything outside of it. You dont need to mess with any of the filenames or file meta data or anything like that. Edit: Maybe you are fully aware of everything I just said and we arent on the same page but it seems like you are making it a litte more complex than it needs to be. Should just be a simple renaming to the names in that list if the rom works just fine.

You should be able to click the name of the game and when it pulls up the image, look to the top of your web page at the URL address, the end of the URL will show the full game name, you can copy it from there.

Hello. This will only work on the Windows version. If you are using a version of RetroArch for a console or phone/tablet or something other than Windows, I have no experience with it, but there likely won't be any kind of desktop menu. If you ARE on Windows, then I would suggest making sure you have the most up to date version of RetroArch. Also try hitting the "F5" key on your keyboard, this is the default hotkey to open up the desktop menu. If you still can't access it then I would try a reinstall or make sure that any firewalls or security settings aren't preventing RetroArch from operating correctly. Beyond that I really have no idea, I guess it could be a bug or something. Maybe see if anyone on the official RetroArch forums has any ideas.

@@WatsonatorTV sthanks mate, im using a steam deck

@@dustytables1234 Ah that explains it. I unfortunately don't know much about how RA works with other things but hopefully I will learn soon, may make a new video in the future. Cheers.

I have been thinking about this the last couple of days to try to come up with an answer but I am honestly stumped. Usually the only issue you need to overcome is the identification process and once the thumbnail file is in there and it matches I've never had something NOT show up. That would frustrate the hell out of me. I have had some strange issues with having to replace "&" symbols with underscores for whatever reason, and more recently my RetroArch isn't letting me drag and drop images anymore with the desktop menu (I have to drop them into the thumbnails folder manually). So RA can definitely do some weird stuff out of the blue. Maybe we can try something. See if you can rename the Resident Evil thumbnail that is in the RetroArch\Thumbnails directory to something simple like "ABC123" and then rename your display title name for Resident Evil within RetroArch to the same thing and see if it shows up then. If it does, go ahead and rename it to it's normal name but maybe try to change up a single character to avoid having the exact same name as it does in the database (since it apparently doesn't like that name). If that doesn't work then I would go ahead and just delete the Resident Evil thumbnail and try a different image all together and try to avoid the database name entirely. Save a boxart image and then go back into a paint program and resave it as a PNG, drag and drop this into the thumbnails folder, rename it what you want it (just avoid having the same name as the database), use the same name for the display title and then see if this way works. I wouldn't really know what to do other than that. So very weird.

Just wondering, is it RE: code veronica? Im having the same issue

@@clairikus9743 Is it the PS2 version by chance? It looks like the LibRetro database has it written a very specific way "Resident Evil - Code - Veronica X (USA)" For some reason the have a hyphen before AND after the word Code, as well as spaces before and after the hypehns. So its like Resident SPACE Evil Space hyphen space Code space hyphen space Veronica space X space left parenthesis USA right parenthesis. Just double checking that you are definitely copying and pasting the correct title because I just tried it and it seems to work okay for me, check it out: i.imgur.com/Yi6Xc0G.png If you have double checked everything and you are on the newest RetroArch version and it is STILL not working for you. You can always go into your thumbnails folder (wherever you have RA installed there is a thumbnails folder for all of your systems) and find the PS2 thumbnails and boxart folder. In here you can drop a custom PNG image that matches the same title as your Resident Evil game in your list and it should then show your custom image (I know it's better to have it to do it automatically but if you just can't get it, this is at least a backup method).

Hmmm, I have personally never been in a position where there isn't an online updater so I'm not positive where to go from there. If you are using a RetroArch platform that is not for Windows then there is likely some other type of instructions that you must follow that is different than this. For example I have RetroArch installed on a Miyoo Mini Plus which is a handheld emulation device, and the whole process is COMPLETELY different and I had to learn different methods. I would try to search how thumbnails and RetroArch work for your particular platform or there might be a Reddit or Discord channel for it too. If you are on Windows though, I would make sure you have the most recent version of RetroArch updated and you are not running it through Steam. You can also add thumbnails manually if you know where RetroArch is installed, I will post my pinned comment here: "If your game is not in the database AND for whatever reason the Desktop Menu is not letting you drag and drop .PNG files into the little box there is one final method: -Locate your thumbnails folder wherever your RetroArch is installed (for me this is: This PC\Local Disc C\Programs\RetroArch\thumbnails -You will see all of your platforms listed here and the boxart, title screen, screenshot folders within them -Drag and drop your custom .PNG image into the appropriate folder -Go into the folder and rename the custom image the EXACT same name as the RetroArch display name (just copy and past the title from Desktop Menu to be exact) -It should then show up automatically if the display name matches the PNG image file" If all of this doesn't help though I would honestly just check out the official RetroArch Reddit page www.reddit.com/r/RetroArch/ or the libretro Discord Channel which has a help section: discord.com/invite/libretro-184109094070779904 . There are people there who know about this more than myself. Good luck and cheers.

@@WatsonatorTV hmm so yeah I dug about a bit and turns out Steam doesn't have that. So I downloaded RetroArch through their website. However now I have Online Updater but STILL no box art. And yes both games are listed in the website you mentioned (Mega Man Maverick Hunter X and Naruto Ultimate Ninja Heroes 2 - the Phantom Fortress). It's very weird.

@@cubemage3336 You are right, that IS very weird. I can't think of what it could be off the top of my head, BUT I do actually have both of these games in my collection and Mega Man - Maverick Hunter X was in the database so all I had to do was copy the title down correctly and the thumbnail showed. Naruto Ultimate Ninja Heroes 2 is NOT in the database though, at least I couldn't find it, I saw Naruto Ultimate ninja Impact, but NOT Ultimate Ninja Heroes 2, so for that one you just have to find an image online and do like i did in the video. Maybe after seeing mine you will figure out what the issues are: Mega Man Maverick Hunter X: i.imgur.com/0Lmls57.png I would go ahead and copy and paste the Mega Man title EXACTLY like this without the quotations: "Mega Man - Maverick Hunter X (USA)". This is how I have it and how it is in the database, everything must be EXACTLY the same, character for character, and the same upper and lower casing and special characters and spaces and all that. For Naruto, just do a google search for a nice looking PNG image and drag and drop into the box. Naruto Ultimate Ninja Heroes 2 - The Phantom Fortress: i.imgur.com/qmyNUZ3.png Just remember for Naruto that you have to pull in your own image, I just used this one and saved it as a PNG and named it the same name as my naruto game and dropped it in the little white box on the desktop menu (see video again): static.wikia.nocookie.net/naruto/images/a/ac/Naruto_ultimate_ninja_heroes_2.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20130603032816 Good luck to ya.

It is done automatically when you have the proper core downloaded and then you scan for your roms that match the correct core. Sometimes a normal scan will work but I like to do the manual scan and there you can specify the system and everything. I believe you can check my other videos and my RetroArch setup video has an example and there should be another example in my multiple disc m3u video

@@WatsonatorTV Ah yeah I figured it out, derp lol Sorry to bother! Thanks for the reply!

@@Dazreiello-old All good, happy to help, glad you figured it out

Hey there, sorry you have had a hard time trying to get it to work for you. First off though, are you running RetroArch on PC and trying to get PSVita games to work with it or are you running RetroArch through your PSVita device? If it is the first one I might be able to help you but if you are actually trying to run RetroArch through a PSVita, I honestly have no idea how that works because the file structure is going to be set up differently and I've never used RetroArch outside of PC. If you are actually running a PSVita device and trying to get thumbnails to work on it, I would just try to talk to someone on the libretro discord or make a thread on the official RetroArch Reddit, people there are going to know more about these types of topics than I ever would, I have no clue even where to begin with it. This will direct your question much quicker and have someone who can help you with your individual topic rather than just watching videos that may not hit on what you are trying to accomplish. www.reddit.com/r/RetroArch/ discord.com/invite/libretro-184109094070779904

@@WatsonatorTV I'm trying to do everything on the PS Vita and that's the device I use but thank you very much for your advice my friend. I'll take a look at the link you sent me. 🤜🏻🤛🏻

Hey there thank you so much for subbing! I will try my best to help ya but I will say right off the bat that arcade/MAME works a bit differently than just about everything else and it can be a little tricky sometimes, I myself have only just begun figuring it all out so I may not be the best person to explain. Secondly I haven't used RetroArch on any platform but Windows (I think for Xbox series its probably very similar but I can't guarantee it's the same simply because I haven't tried it) so keep that in mind if something seems different. I am going to post a response that I gave someone else recently explaining how the naming convention works for MAME, I apologize if this gets long: I only very recently added a romset for MAME so I am still learning and it's a bit trickier than with consoles for most stuff but I should be able to help you out. I am personally using MAME 2003+ as it is a good compromise between compatibility and not having to update the romset too often. Usually when I am setting up playlists I do a manual scan but I actually just did the normal "Scan Directory" for the MAME romset I downloaded (which has like 4,300 arcade games) and most of the roms showed up with thumbnails just fine (I'd say about 80% of them, though it showed more title screens than boxarts for arcade). After looking at the titles it seems like they all correspond to the thumbnail database which means it should work the same way as it does in this video. But read on because I think I understand what you are referring to (all arcade roms come with a shortened title). Check this out as an example, I am going to post a screenshot of my RetroArch MAME playlist selected on a game: i.imgur.com/ZvI8NOq.png That image shows my MAME playlist selected on Alien Vs Predator. You will see that the title is "Alien vs. Predator (USA 940520)" which is the same name as it has in the MAME libretro database that I linked in the video. Here is the MAME list: thumbnails.libretro.com/MAME/Named_Boxarts/ So in that sense it should just work the same way as I explained in the video. BUT it may get weird because when you download a Romset and you look at all of the individual roms you will notice that they have shortened Arcade rom names, for example my Alien Vs Predator USA ROM is labeled as something like "avspu.zip" in my MAME 2003 Plus reference set. Check out this screenshot of my Rom list that I scanned: i.imgur.com/gGhgfvu.png You can clearly see that the list of roms looks nothing like the the titles in the database, BUT all I had to do was a normal scan of this MAME reference set and RetroArch was smart enough to recognize the rom names and add it with it's full title that matches the database. Basically it is changing the display name to be different from the file name. So long story short, if you get a good reference set, RetroArch should automatically adjust the arcade titles to the proper full titles that you see in the database and thus it should be the same as it is in the video. I hope that made sense and I hope this is what you were referring to. If you would like to know the exact reference set I am using, it can be found here: archive.org/details/MAME_2003-Plus_Reference_Set_2018 Just make sure you are using Mame 2003 Plus core and do a scan of the roms folder. Edit: Long story short, try using a normal scan directory instead of a manual scan which I would normally recommend and if you have a good romset to begin with that matches the core, it should pull in most of the correct titles like it did in the example above, rather than the zip name. It may not work 100% but it should get the majority of them.

@@WatsonatorTV thanks for the reply. I'm downloading that set now. Ok I got it downloaded and it worked great. This set had the xml Dat file needed to name games properly. Thanks so much for the help!