Needed Information Regarding Multiple User System

[Downtionx]

I can't seem to find a single thread nor user post on social media like reddit about having multiple users like the yuzu emulator. I can't tell if dolphin has one in place; All it would require is a basic profile system like any other and have it create its own memory card and switch to it when that profile is selected.

If there is one or a way to make a user prompt come up when you boot up a game then that would be great information right now. Because I've setup my SteamDeck and the problem is no one wants to touch the GameCube games because of the save slot mess unlike yuzu everyone is fine with because they got their own save slots according to their profile. So it would be nice to get these games going for my family.

If not then I would like to say this should be a feature is because profile slots are all over the place on the internal GameCube games themselves. Animal crossing, only one profile; So gotta switch digital memory cards. Sonic Adventure, only 5 slots which is fine but no naming options at all so it makes it easy to forget who is who's. Legend of Zelda series, naming options but always low options for save slots.

If I did something wrong in my post for support on this then I'm sorry but I've just spent a good few long nights setting all of this up to end up have half the game options be limited over this issue. Either way thank you for your time.

[MayImilae]

Dolphin does not have any built in multi-user support. We instead rely on your operating system to do fulfill that role - our Global User Directory is by default kept within the OS's user folder, so multiple users on the OS can share the same copies of Dolphin but will have different user folders, thus different memory cards and wii nands etc.

As a little trick though... you could swap "profiles" by switching Portable mode on and off. Dolphin has a feature where if you add a text filed named Portable (with extension portable.txt) next to Dolphin's EXE, the Global User Directory is ignored and a new user directory is created/used next to Dolphin's EXE. If you wanted to, you could have two profiles this way - any time you want to play the global user directory profile, no portable.txt, and any time you want to use the portable user directory, portable.txt. It's a little weird, but it would do the job, and you can probably make a batch script for that to make it a little nicer if you want.

[JosJuice]

To add context, the reason why Yuzu has a user system like this is because the system it emulates has one.

(11-17-2022, 10:50 PM)MayImilae Wrote: As a little trick though... you could swap "profiles" by switching Portable mode on and off. Dolphin has a feature where if you add a text filed named Portable (with extension portable.txt) next to Dolphin's EXE, the Global User Directory is ignored and a new user directory is created/used next to Dolphin's EXE. If you wanted to, you could have two profiles this way - any time you want to play the global user directory profile, no portable.txt, and any time you want to use the portable user directory, portable.txt. It's a little weird, but it would do the job, and you can probably make a batch script for that to make it a little nicer if you want.

But on Linux you don't have an exe file in the same sense, right? At least not if you installed Dolphin using an AppImage.

[Downtionx]

(11-17-2022, 10:50 PM)MayImilae Wrote: Dolphin does not have any built in multi-user support. We instead rely on your operating system to do fulfill that role - our Global User Directory is by default kept within the OS's user folder, so multiple users on the OS can share the same copies of Dolphin but will have different user folders, thus different memory cards and wii nands etc.

As a little trick though... you could swap "profiles" by switching Portable mode on and off. Dolphin has a feature where if you add a text filed named Portable (with extension portable.txt) next to Dolphin's EXE, the Global User Directory is ignored and a new user directory is created/used next to Dolphin's EXE. If you wanted to, you could have two profiles this way - any time you want to play the global user directory profile, no portable.txt, and any time you want to use the portable user directory, portable.txt. It's a little weird, but it would do the job, and you can probably make a batch script for that to make it a little nicer if you want.

I didn't think to create multiple steam accounts which will provide its own save file for each user or I could try to do that trick too with the batch script... Maybe the steam rom manager too because it does ask for directories for steam executable and user accounts.

I'll give these options a shot to see where this goes; But a big thank you for the trick. I did not know that at all!

[Downtionx]

"I didn't think to create multiple steam accounts which will provide its own save file for each user" ~This Quote didn't last long, I found even if you have multiple steam users it still refers to the same root userdata folder but so far having the switch script for switching directories seems to work. Although since there was no executable; I had to stick the txt file in the root appimage folder dolphin.org-flatpacket. Also the rom manager had a few options to help manage the game better across the multiple accounts I know have .

So currently for those that can't control which OS user is being used for example the gaming mode on steam; Then your best bet is to just abuse the portable trick for now until someone makes an external solution since Dolphin is pretty much setup to go.