Arcade Cabinet – Disable Joystick controls / switch to PS3 controllers

[pohlinger31]

Hello,

I’m working on finishing up building an arcade cabinet with a retropie setup. The cabinet controls are a two player joystick and button configuration.

My question is, is it possible to disable the joystick controls easily within retropie, and switch over to using PS3 controllers? I want to use the PS3 controllers for games that aren’t conducive to arcade gaming. If I don’t disable the joysticks somehow, the ps3 controllers link up as player 3 and player 4, which isn’t going to work. The only method I could think of now is to just unplug the USB for the joystick and button controls, but it would be great if there was a software switch I could make to turn off the joysticks, and then use the PS3 controllers.

Thanks for the help!
~Phil

[Anonymous]

I’m planning a similar bartop arcade with a dual arcade joystick/button setup and I’d like to be able to plug USB controllers in and have them become player 1/2 as well. I’ve been worried about the problems you’re describing and look forward to hearing others’ solutions.

[hoofa]

I’ll third that! Also very keen to understand this, at the moment i’m doing this by changing my retroarch config file via a network connection

[hoofa]

I’ll third that! Also very keen to understand this, at the moment i’m doing this by changing my retroarch config file via a network connection

[hijinksensue]

I’m in the exact same boat. I have a bartop machine running with the Xin-Mo dual arcade controls and I want to be able to plug in two wired Gravis Gamepads to play Sega, NES, SNES games, etc. Very interested to see if anyone has a solution for this.

[pohlinger31]

It would be great if we could flip a physical switch on the outside of the cabinet to activate a software switch – If not that then a menu setting within the retropie settings would do just fine as well! :)

[labelwhore]

[quote=117172]It would be great if we could flip a physical switch on the outside of the cabinet to activate a software switch – If not that then a menu setting within the retropie settings would do just fine as well!

[/quote]It wouldn’t be hard to do just that, assuming you can start the arcade joystick drivers from command line. Just use a python script that starts via /etc/rc.local and evaluate the state of a switch connected to the gpio and start one driver or the other based on that evaluation.

Here’s a little info on working with the gpio. Obviously, you’d want a toggle switch here rather than a tactile switch.

http://razzpisampler.oreilly.com/ch07.html

[dankcushions]

i think this sort of thing would only be solved by retroarch/libretro itself. you should ask on the forums but it looks like people have already asked and it’s a no: http://libretro.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5041

you could also log it as a request on their github: https://github.com/libretro/RetroArch/issues

i think you could actually use a physical switch if you were so inclined. you’d need something that switches from one USB device to another, entirely breaking the circuit. i think things like this already exist for printers. might just work??

[labelwhore]

Alternatively, you could make controllers 3 and 4 (ports 2 and 3) the default controllers for specific emulators via retroarch.cfg for those emulators.

^^ there’s more than one way to skin a cat. :P

[labelwhore]

[quote=117175]i think this sort of thing would only be solved by retroarch/libretro itself. you should ask on the forums but it looks like people have already asked and it’s a no: http://libretro.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5041

you could also log it as a request on their github: https://github.com/libretro/RetroArch/issues

i think you could actually use a physical switch if you were so inclined. you’d need something that switches from one USB device to another, entirely breaking the circuit. i think things like this already exist for printers. might just work??

[/quote]
You’d still need to stop the drivers and start the correct ones. I think my proposed solution via the gpio is probably the best option. Although, you’d probably be able to do all of that without rebooting, it would just require more code.

[dankcushions]

why would you need to stop drivers? a USB switcher would physically switch the connection from usb device 1 to usb device 2. retroarch is fine with hotswapping USB devices, if you have them configured – i do it all the time in games. no coding required. it’s all the same UDEV driver if you’re running usb controllers.

[labelwhore]

Well, nevermind then. :) I didn’t think hotswapping was supported.

[thorstenh]

Few days ago, I tested RecalBox. Recalbox also uses Emulationstation and there was an easy function to select the order of the Controllers. It was all in the GUI, I could select which controller is player1, player2 and so on. Isn’t there a way to implement that in Retropie?
In my scenario I installed my Pi in an old SNES Case and I connected the original SNES Controller ports via Controlblock. The only problem is, that these controllers are always shown as connected, even if they aren’t plugged in. I have also 2 PS3 controllers that I want to use for N64 and PSX Games (or even for NES/SNES Games when I’m too lazy to plug the SNES Controllers in), but the SNES Controllers are always Player 1 and 2 and I’m just looking for an easy way to select the priority manually.

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