Senka's RetroArch Setup

My collection of dynamic wallpapers for the RetroArch XMB menu option and icons.

Note

All titles, characters, and logos belong to their respective owners. I strive to provide proper credit in the section below. If you would like something removed, please open an issue.

📥 Installation

Wallpapers

All wallpapers are designed to work with the XMB menu option only!

• Download this repo.
• Navigate into your root directory of your RetroArch install location and go to 📂 [RetroArch Root]/assets/wallpapers/.
• In another window open the downloaded repo and go to 📂 RetroArch/wallpapers/ then select which dynamic wallpaper pack you wish to use.
  • shakabello Preview ¹
• Copy the pack folder you selected into 📂 [RetroArch Root]/assets/wallpapers/ folder.
• Launch RetroArch go to Settings > User Interface > Appearance.
• Scroll down and make sure the setting Dynamic Wallpaper setting is enabled.
• Then go back to Settings > Directory > Dynamic Backgrounds.
• Change the directory to 📂 /assets/wallpapers/[pack-name].

Warning

The image names must match the playlist names. To verify this in RetroArch, navigate to Main Menu > Show Desktop Menu to view the playlist names. By default, they will match if you scanned your ROMs, unless you have manually created or renamed a playlist.

Icon Themes

• Download this repo.
• Navigate into your root directory of your RetroArch install location and check 📂 [RetroArch Root]/assets/xmb/custom if the custom folder already has images within it please backup this folder else where then delete the contents. If the folder is empty then skip this step.
• In another window open the downloaded repo and go to 📂 RetroArch/icon themes/ then select which icon pack you wish to use.
  • sysdaite Preview ²
• Copy the images from the icon theme you selected into 📂 [RetroArch Root]/assets/xmb/custom folder.
• Launch RetroArch go to Settings > User Interface > Appearance.
• Scroll down further to Icon Theme and select the custom option.

⚙️ Configuration

Change the following settings to get the cleanest look to suit the icon and wallpaper packs.

Key: ${\color{lightgreen}On/Change}$ / ${\color{yellow}Optional}$ / ${\color{red}Off}$

1. Settings > User Interface > Show Advanced Settings ${\color{lightgreen}On}$
2. Settings > User Interface > Menu ${\color{lightgreen}XMB}$
3. Settings > User Interface > Appearance > Show Scale Factor ${\color{lightgreen}1.00x}$
4. Settings > User Interface > Appearance > Background Apacity ${\color{lightgreen}1.000}$
5. Settings > User Interface > Appearance > Dynamic Background ${\color{lightgreen}On}$
6. Settings > User Interface > Appearance > Icon Theme ${\color{lightgreen}custom}$
7. Settings > User Interface > Appearance > Primary Thumbnail ${\color{red}Off}$
8. Settings > User Interface > Appearance > Secondary Thumbnail ${\color{lightgreen}Boxart}$
9. Settings > User Interface > Appearance > Show Title Header ${\color{red}Off}$
10. Settings > User Interface > Appearance > Title Margin ${\color{lightgreen}0}$
11. Settings > User Interface > Menu Item Visibility > Show History ${\color{red}Off}$
12. Settings > User Interface > Menu Item Visibility > Show Images ${\color{red}Off}$
13. Settings > User Interface > Menu Item Visibility > Show Music ${\color{red}Off}$
14. Settings > User Interface > Menu Item Visibility > Show Videos ${\color{red}Off}$
15. Settings > User Interface > Menu Item Visibility > Show Netplay ${\color{red}Off}$
16. Settings > User Interface > Menu Item Visibility > Show Contentless Cores ${\color{red}Off}$
17. Settings > User Interface > Menu Item Visibility > Show Explore ${\color{red}Off}$
18. Settings > User Interface > Menu Item Visibility > Style of Date and Time ${\color{yellow}DD/MM/YYYY HH:MM}$
19. Settings > User Interface > Menu Item Visibility > Date Separator ${\color{lightgreen}/}$
20. Settings > User Interface > Menu Item Visibility > Show Core Name ${\color{red}Off}$
21. Settings > User Interface > Menu Item Visibility > Show Menu Sub-labels ${\color{red}Off}$
22. Settings > Playlists > Manage Playlists
    • Go through every playlist and change Label Display Mode to ${\color{lightgreen}Remove\space ()\space and\space [] }$

📋 Playlist Organisation

RetroArch playlists are ordered alphanumerically by default. To change them you just need to rename the playlists found in 📂 [RetroArch Root]/playlists/. Below are some examples of how you could organise your playlists.

Warning

If you rename playlists and use dynamic wallpapers, you need to update the image names to match the new playlist names.

Year of Release Method

Renaming your playlist to have the year of release at the begining will organise it by the date.

Note

Japan, North America, Europe and Australasia have some variation for when a device was released. My release years are based on Europe.

E.g.

• 1990 - Nintendo - Game Boy.lpl
• 1995 - Sony - PlayStation.lpl
• 1998 - Nintendo - Game Boy Color.lpl
• 2001 - Nintendo - Game Boy Advance.lpl
• 2002 - Nintendo - GameCube.lpl
• 2005 - Sony - PlayStation Portable.lpl

Type (Console/Handheld) - Manufacturer - Release Year Method

You could go a step further and organise by the type of device followed by the manufacturer and year. Using the table below to abbreviate you can end up with some of the examples.

Abbreviation	Description
H	Handheld
C	Console
SEG	Sega
NIN	Nintendo
SON	Sony
MIC	Microsoft

E.g.

• CNIN2002 - Nintendo - GameCube.lpl
• CSON1995 - Sony - PlayStation.lpl
• HNIN1990 - Nintendo - Game Boy.lpl
• HNIN1998 - Nintendo - Game Boy Color.lpl
• HNIN2001 - Nintendo - Game Boy Advance.lpl
• HSON2005 - Sony - PlayStation Portable.lpl

💜 Credit

• shakabello wallpaper pack - A combincation of lipebello and Shakalakka's wallpaper packs.
• sysdaite icon pack - This is a combination of the default systematic and daite icons packs.

Footnotes

1. shakabello Preview ↩

2. sysdaite Preview ↩