Scraping is a way to get metadata and boxart for your games from the internet. The scrapers RetroPie uses pull primarily from thegamesdb.net. If the scraper isn't working either you are not connected to the Internet or thegamesdb.net is down (which happens quite frequently) and in that case you'll just have to wait until it comes back up.
Steven Selph's Scraper
Steven Selph's scraper is the simplest and best way of scraping roms (provided that the systems are supported.) It can be installed and used from the setup menu using the following steps:
- Default: en scraper.screenscraper.language=fr ### Choose the media to download among: ### screenshot: game screenshot ### title: game title screenshot ### box2d: Front case ### box3d: 3D rendered case ### mixv1: Recalbox special mix image V1 (default) ### mixv2: Recalbox special mix image V2 scraper.screenscraper.media=mixv1.
- So everyone knows how galactically terrible the built-in scraper is in every possible way, and the @sselph one absolutely terrifies me so that's out too. However, I'm happy with manually editing stuff, so I have two quick questions that someone might hope.
- Recalbox allows you to re-play a variety of videogame consoles and platforms in your living room, with ease! Recalbox OS is free, open source and designed to let you create your very own Recalbox in no time! Use Raspberry Pi, ODROID or even PC (x86)! A retrogaming platform.
- Universal XML Scraper (UXS) sselph's scraper. GameList Editor. Another Recalbox Roms Manager (ARRM) mamescraper.
For just a few games you can still use the internal scraper. However, the internal scraper is configured to save large images for a regular Recalbox. Using the internal scraper on a WIFI connection may be slow and inefficient. We really recommend to use an external scraper. It'll faster and better quality.
- (Optional)If you are remotely running this script you must be logged in with pi otherwise it will confuse the scraper
- Quit EmulationStation (from the start menu or press F4) and type
sudo ~/RetroPie-Setup/retropie_setup.sh - In 3.x Choose 'Setup'. In 4.x Choose 'Manage Packages' then 'Optional Packages'.
- Select Scraper
- Wait for the installation to complete (it may take some time as it has to install various software libraries)
It may take some time for the xml files to build. This will also only work if your roms are located in the local roms folder and not on an external device.
If your roms are located on another source than the default one you can download the stand alone releases.sselph's scraper releasesPlease refer to Sselphs Scraper Advanced Configuration when using this method.
Make sure to update to the latest version of Retropie-Setup script if you're missing any options mentioned below!
Scrape All Systems: This will scrape all the systems the scraper supports
Scrape Chosen Systems: You can choose to only scrape the systems you choose (press the spacebar to select each system) and select ok to start scraping.
Thumbnails Only: When enabled it will load lower resolution images to save space (enabled by default).
Max Image Width/Height: Specify the max image width or height to scrape.
Console Source: Choose which database to scrape for console games:
- thegamesdb.net (default)
- ScreenScraper.fr
OpenVGDB
Arcade Source: Choose which database to scrape for arcade/mame games:
- mamedb.blu-ferret.co.uk (default)
ScreenScraper.fr
ROM Names: Choose what name to display:
- No-Intro: Rom Name (USA) (Rev 1)
- theGamesDB: Rom Name
FileName: Rom Name [U] [!]
Gamelist: Choose to overwrite the existing gamelist.xml or append to it.
Update scraper to the latest version: This updates the scraper to the latest version.
Scraping videos
Since EmulationStation 2.1.0 you can have a video preview as scraped art. Here is a video showing how to scrape videos using the Steven Selph's Scraper
Slow Boot and Shutdown Times
You'll notice after adding lots of ROMs and scraping them that your boot and shutdown time can increase substantially- some solutions to speed up your boot and shutdown times are described HERE
Where are my scraped images and metadata saved?
Once your games have been scraped they will be located in two parts: Downloaded Images and Gamelists
and
They can also be accessed over samba shares
Note if you are going to make edits to any gamelist.xml you need to have exited EmulationStation first
EmulationStation Built-In Scraper:
EmulationStation has a built in scraper that pulls from thegamesdb. It can be accessed from the start menu in EmulationStation.
Scraper Not Saving Manual Edits
If you are having issues with your metadata changes not being saved, you need to select Quit EmulationStation from the quit menu rather than shutdown or restart system. Then your changes will be saved.
Note that this issue was fixed with RetroPie 3.4
Sselphs Scraper Advanced Configuration:
Scraping your own images
Recalbox Manual Scraper Attachment
If you have your own images, you can create XML's with Sselph's scraper:
As a template in my snes folder I had my rom name:
Recalbox Manual Scraper Blades
Super Mario World (USA).sfc
and an images folder with:
Super Mario World (USA)-image.png(If you dont want to append the -image part on the filename you can use -image_suffix=)
and I ran
/opt/retropie/supplementary/scraper/scraper -img_format=png -add_not_found=true -download_images=false
And this was the resulting gamelist.xml: