Emulator

In my opinion, if you use multiple profiles in the graphic dialog, it is right that when you're in-game the graphic configuration dialog shows the game specific profile, because if you had always the default, you would "overwrite" the changes/optimizations that you made for other games that you tried before.

Yes, I would leave the way it is and eventually put a shortcut in the gamelist.
As I said before I prefer to have the current configuration selected and I would even suggest to block it (greyed out) while you're in-game, like it was in some revisions ago.

We really do not know what users in general want here. We are basing this decision on the users that have been the most vocal on the issue to this point. Nor have we explored the possible options thoroughly. I think the best solution is the put the graphics configuration dialog back the way it was with no profile selection. Then have another dialog that is accessible at any time (even while a game is running) to configure per game settings. Basically, much like the way Billiard had it, except make the accessible in another way while a game is running. For example a toolbar icon could be added at the end while a game is running to access that specific game's settings. I think most users would find this more intuitive.

As the person that mainly maintains the gameini database lately, i would prefer if the graphics configuration didn't change again for no special reason, and focus would be in implementing the rest of the configuration options in a similar per game basis. Too much back and forth for something that ain't worth it imo as it works as is.

gnick79, my solution was not "rejected". 6 users didn't like it, And you reverted it without asking me or any other developers. The way I had done it was the way a few other devs and I agreed to, in a discussion on IRC.

But it was also very buggy;-)
Can't you just add a shortcut in the main game-list in order to have both options?

"But it was also very buggy;-)"
Only the radio buttons were broken. Easily fixed.

"Can't you just add a shortcut in the main game-list in order to have both options?"
I don't like the idea of redundant dialogs. :/

Sorry for my ignorance, but I don't know what radio buttons are...if I remember well Accurate texture cache selection was broken and on the fly in-game changes too.

Yes, google for what a radio button is.

I think the "default" profile could/should be removed completely. It's way too easy to not realize that it's the default profile you're making a change on and with 1 click on the "default" profile you globally change that setting on alllllllllllll your other profiles and have to re-do them. And that is a pain in the arse.

So if the default profile can't be removed then definitely make it so the game specific profile saves if you edit while in game. That at the very least helps to avoid what can be a simple but annoying and time consuming mistake.

Changing a "default" profile setting does not change "all of your other profiles".

"Changing a "default" profile setting does not change "all of your other profiles"."

Even still, what game is actually using the "default" profile? None of them, because a specific profile is created for each game. So its existence is kinda redundant.

Each pergame config is created with Dolphins stock default settings, but the default profile itself isnt really necessary at all unless there's a game whose title is actually "Default".

What if you want to configure something before launching a game? How could you do that if you don't have a default profile?

I think the configuration UI is good as it is now.

The only thing that is not clear is seeing what the default settings are after a game has started.

This could be solved by showing the default settings in the config, but in a different colour. The colour will get changed back to normal if the user changes any of the default settings, signifying a game specific setting.

A reset to defaults button would also be useful.

MAMEUI http://www.mameui.info/ has similar functionality.

If the default settings can be changed at all, are they -really- still the default settings? I've seen it happen on the forum in a couple cases already where people report having a problem running a game and someone asks "What are your default settings?" Where really the defaults should just be whatever the Dolphin squad deems as default with the release to begin with. I think the default settings shouldn't be able to be changed at all, only the game specific settings.

And as skidau said, a "Reset to default" button within the pergame configs would be great. With that you wouldnt need any color coding or other unnecessarily complicated ways to revert a setting to default.

I can see how a hard-coded default setting can make sense. But what if I want to use EFB to texture for all of my games? Removing the ability to change the default settings would mean that I would have to go into each game configuration and change them over to EFB to texture. Could become painful after a while using a GUI.

It doesnt really -have- to be a "hard coded" default. One way to do it would to just "hide" the default config from the list and if someone really, really, wants to change it (which is really just wanting each of your per game configs to be created with that setting set) they could either open the ini and change it themselves or have a completely separate tab or something in Dolphin somewhere to do it (which in that case would kind of defeat the purpose of "hide"ing it).

With the per game configs now though if you want to use as your example EFB to texture for all your games you still only ever have to set it one time per game. Nobody should really have hundreds of games, and even if they do it's still now just a 1 time thing for each.

ebenezer: It is pretty clear that you don't really understand what the default settings are and how they work. The default settings are not set in the per game ini files. They are set in the general dolphin ini file. Those settings are inherited by the per game settings if the per game settings are not set. If the per game setting is set this overrides the default setting. This is really quite natural and is the way that many applications do this for this type of thing.

"The default settings are not set in the per game ini files. They are set in the general dolphin ini file. Those settings are inherited by the per game settings if the per game settings are not set. If the per game setting is set this overrides the default setting."

That is exactly my understanding and exactly what I said.

I'm not sure where you're coming up with otherwise. I could amend the line "they could either open the ini and change it" to read "they could either open the dolphin ini and change it" just for clarification which shouldnt be needed but, well, there's no edit button and it really shouldnt have to be clarified anyway.

"This is really quite natural and is the way that many applications do this for this type of thing."

Is absolutely true, except that most applications dont allow you to modify the default... because it's the default. If you modify it it's now no longer the default.

Anyways I guess just the tl;dr version of my suggestion is

Since "Default" in Doplhin technically isnt used by any games and is really just "These are the settings that will be initially generated for your pergame files (you know, the files that are actually used) will be" I would

1 Hide the "default" config so it's not easily changed and thus remains truly "default"
2 Add a "Reset to default" button in the per game configs

A third (and really this'll be my final post I dont want anyone to think I'm spamming) and maybe best option to get the best of all worlds would be

1. Add an unchangeable and/or hidden Default so that it truly always is the Default
2. Rename the current Default to "Pergame settings generator" (<- there has to be a better name than that) because really that's all the current implementation of default really is.
3. Add the "Reset to default" button

That way all the bases are covered

I think it's better the way it is. The way it is right now is quite clear, and it allows you to customize each game individually, something that is very much needed in emulation. However, it would be nice to have some way to "reset to factory settings". Of course dolphin isn't from a factory, but that's the general idea.

So, you still have a master profile that changes all games that aren't individually set, and games each have their own profile, but you can push a button to reset the selected profile back to the settings that build came with. Things get a little sticky however if you reset a specific game profile to factory settings, when those factory settings rely on the default profile, however...

You guys have really taken a few steps backwards with the per game config setup. All this "As Default" stuff is just clunky and unnecesary. So you're setting up a profile and you have to flip back and forth between default and the profile you're working on, esentially meaning you have to know two profiles to manage one. It's just a bad setup. Love the new reset to default button (even if default is meaningless since you can change what the default is but whatever) but really some further streamlining needs to be done.

Also, the renderer option should be moved to the per game settings. I dont want to use DX9 for every game, some games I want to use DX11. Adding the ability to choose that on the per game settings would be optimal.

Would a user-defined settings help solve this ambiguity?

So much work wasted:-( Hope to see per-game profiles reimplemented soon...