"WHARZ ALL MAH STUFF AT? HALP!" PPSSPP's Directories and You: A guide

[TheDax]

Halp! Where's mah stuff on Linux?
See here. In more recent git builds, it's now $XDG_CONFIG_HOME, or ~/.config/ppsspp if XDG_CONFIG_HOME isn't defined or doesn't exist. The rest of the guide past "Where things go" is only relevant for MS Windows.

Where things go:
PPSSPP uses a file layout similar to the real PSP.

$memstickroot denotes wherever you're keeping PPSSPP's PSP folder. This is usually "memstick", but if you use installed.txt, it's either PPSSPP/PSP in My Documents, or whatever directory you defined in installed.txt.

- Cheats are now located in $memstickroot/PSP/Cheats.
- Config files are now located in $memstickroot/PSP/SYSTEM.
- Screenshots are now located in $memstickroot/PSP/SCREENSHOT.
- Save states can be found in $memstickroot/PSP/PPSSPP_STATE.
- In-game saves are found in $memstickroot/PSP/SAVEDATA.
- DLC files go in $memstickroot/PSP/GAME/<your game id here> in most cases, but it can vary by game.
- Game or Demo EBOOT.PBPs go in $memstickroot/PSP/GAME/<give a new folder a name>.

Help! After upgrading to a newer build/version my stuff seems to be gone!
If you have PPSSPP in a read-only directory, or if it can't use the current directory(or the directory you specified in installed.txt) for some reason, it'll use your My Documents or Documents folder, where it'll drop everything in a new folder called PPSSPP.

I don't want my memory stick stuff in the same directory as PPSSPP. I'd prefer PPSSPP to store its saves and files in My Documents (or just Documents on Vista/7/8/8.1). How can I change it?

Create a text file called installed.txt in the same directory as PPSSPP (and leave its contents blank). This will make PPSSPP use your Documents or My Documents folder (in a new folder called PPSSPP) instead of the "memstick" directory where PPSSPP resides.

I don't want my memory stick stuff in the same directory as PPSSPP, and I don't want it in My Documents. Can I put my stuff wherever?

Yes. If you enter a file path inside installed.txt (for example, C:\blah\psp), PPSSPP will use this directory instead of My Documents. However, if PPSSPP can't access this directory for some reason (read-only, it's missing, whatever the case), PPSSPP will fall back on using My Documents/PPSSPP. Also, if you require UTF-8 characters(e.g. Japanese/Russian/Korean/Chinese/etc.) characters in your path, make sure you save installed.txt as UTF-8, otherwise Bad Things (can't find saves, saves being written in mysterious places, etc.) can happen!

I don't care about that/I don't use installed.txt/I want to use the old way! How do I make my cheats and stuff work now that a bunch of stuff was moved around?!

Make sure you don't have an installed.txt file, first off, and this will let PPSSPP use the old behaviour of using the memstick folder in the same directory as PPSSPP (except for things that have permanently moved, like cheats and screenshots).

[vnctdj]

I think this thread will be really useful, thank you for creating it daxtsu

Stuck.

[TheDax]

No problem. I anticipate we'll be asked this a lot in the coming weeks after 0.9.5's release.

[vnctdj]

Yes, that's why I stuck it, let's use this thread as a reference

[solarmystic]

Nicely done mate, loving that appropriately named thread title too.

[dlanor]

(10-14-2013 05:30 PM)daxtsu Wrote:  I don't care about that/I don't use installed.txt/I want to use the old way! How do I make my cheats and stuff work now that a bunch of stuff was moved around?!

Make sure you don't have an installed.txt file, first off, and this will let PPSSPP use the old behaviour.

I'm sure this is how it was intended to work.
But unfortunately that's not quite how it was implemented.

The old behavior of the "cheats" folder is not available by any means, since its location is forcibly changed to be inside the "PSP" folder. It's no big deal for me, as I can easily copy my old cheats folder into that location, but this need should be mentioned in the descriptions of the new changes. Just saying that we get the 'old behavior' if we add no "installed.txt" is a bit misleading.

Another and more confusing issue is that in my initial test run of build 1864, the settings I changed were only applied temporarily, but when I later restarted the program none of those settings were retained, even though I had even made a test run with a game while those settings still worked...

It was only in a new emulator session, after I had also set the "Enable Cheats" flag and made a test run of a game with that flag active, that the new "MemStick" folder was created, and only after I made additional setting changes after that test run did this result in creation of the "MemStick\SYSTEM" subfolder with ppsspp.ini inside it.

This makes it clear that some of the routines that handle settings rely on the folder already existing, which is to receive the settings file. This was never a problem with the old method, where "ppsspp.ini" was stored in the main PPSSPP folder, but now it needs special attention.

So every case where a file of PPSSPP is to be saved must include a check for whether or not the receiving folder needs to be created first. That has already been done for the cheat "ini" files, and gamesaves/savestates, since they always needed special subfolders, but now it needs to be done for "ppsspp.ini" and "controls.ini" as well.

Btw: I'm going to open a github issue about the missing folder test/creation.

Best regards: dlanor

[TheDax]

(except for things that have permanently moved, like cheats and screenshots).

You must've quoted me when I was in the midst of editing.
And yeah, please make an issue if you're experiencing problems; the new feature is still in its infancy and isn't incredibly well-tested yet.

[dlanor]

(10-14-2013 07:46 PM)daxtsu Wrote:  (except for things that have permanently moved, like cheats and screenshots).

You must've quoted me when I was in the midst of editing.

Yes, that happens all the time in an active forum.

Quote:And yeah, please make an issue if you're experiencing problems; the new feature is still in its infancy and isn't incredibly well-tested yet.

I've already added it, so you can check it at github if you like.

In that issue I 'complain' only of the missing "MemStick" folder creation for settings changes. (The cheats move is not an error, of course, it just needed clearer description, like you added in your edit.)

Best regards: dlanor

[thedicemaster]

the info isn't correct (anymore?)
i have no installed.txt, but all my stuff was now being read from my documents.

[TheDax]

It's completely correct. If you have PPSSPP in a directory it can't write to, it uses your documents folder as a fallback so it doesn't crash, as the guide states. That said, I'll make it more obvious.

[kafeaulait]

I just want to share this in this thread since I spent a good half hour looking around.

If you built PPSSPP from source on Linux, you'll be launching your emulator from inside the build folder, the path is like this:

Code:

$/pathto/ppsspp/build/PPSSPPSDL

Aside from the build directory, there are a million others such as builds for other systems: Android, iOS, Windows, etc, resources (languages, UI assets, etc).
But you won't be able to find your game data there, nor can you find it where you store the ISO either, well that's because it's in a different place.

I found mine in:

Code:

/home/[user]/.ppsspp

The . before the name (for those who don't know) means the directory is hidden, so make sure you can view it (look up how to see hidden files for your distro/file manager if you don't already know).

If you can't find it there, a solution is to search for all "ppsspp" and ".ppsspp" directories and check them all.

Code:

find / -type d -name "ppsspp"

Code:

find / -type d -name ".ppsspp"

EDIT: Sadly, trying to load the save state on my Android causes a crash. I'm going to try my luck with the PSP save file later.

[vsub_]

Yet another thing I didn't know about ppsspp.

About installed.txt
Since when this feature exist...is this feature available only on anything newer(including)than 0.9.5?
Is it possible to tell ppsspp only where to look for my normal saves and everything else to save in the ppsspp\memstick directory

[TheDax]

Installed.txt has been around since the OP date or so, so it should work on a few older 0.9.1 git builds.

As for the second question, no, installed.txt is all or nothing right now.

[NovaDracon30]

big problem I'm having trying to modify android default ppsspp font's to native PSP fonts in android version of PPSSPP is there a way if yes how?

[amyalice32]

yes I think this thread will be really useful, thank you for giving link