How to correctly button map a controller.

[kevroy314]

Hey all,

First time posting here, but I’ve found the forums very helpful so far. I’ve installed what I believe to be the latest version of RetroPie image and done updates and whatnot. Been trying for about 2 weeks to get PS3 controllers working with it over bluetooth. I’ve managed to get them to show up as /dev/input/js0 and /dev/input/js1 but I can’t for the life of me figure out how to properly map them. When I run jstest I can see them working and I’ve written down a list of button mappings, but when I start the device all I get is the appleII emulator splash screen and no combination of buttons seems to allow me to interact with it in any way (including the button 16 mapping I set to exit the emulator).

What’s the proper way to go from having to js inputs to mapping them globally in the system?

Thanks so much in advance!

[trimmtrabb]

Hi, sounds like the pad is connected properly, run:

rm /home/pi/.emulationstation/es_input.cfg

And reboot to run the Emulation Station input config again

[kevroy314]

That does allow me to remap via the interface, unfortunately it ends up messing up really badly on the up-down-left-right and the next few after. The reason, I’m pretty sure, is because the d-pad buttons on the PS3 have a I16 range they can go through so when you press it, it sends like 20-30 independent numbers. Similarly, the accelerometer will get mismapped as well.

Is there documentation on what values are allowed for “name” and “type”? That might help…

[kevroy314]

The good news is the controllers are now working enough to let me select an emulator and a game! Hurray! Although the select button isn’t what I expected (it’s A, which I guess makes sense).

Unfortunately, the first rom I loaded was in the SNES emulator. I get no controls in here at all and basically have to reboot to leave. I’ve changed the controls in …/config/all but nothing seems to have changed…

[trimmtrabb]

Which SNES emu are you running? If it’s PiSNES it has its own config file snes9x.cfg, located in /RetroPie/emulators/pisnes/ (off the top of my head)

[kevroy314]

It’s whichever one came with the default 1.9.1 image… I’ll have to check. I briefly got everything working last night with two controllers (played Super Mario World and switch between each). The main thing I noticed that was strange was that the emulator had reversed player 1 and player 2. Unfortunately, after playing with it to try to get them in the right order, I must’ve broken something else because now when I select a game on the emulator screen, it just does the “open” animation then immediately reloads the game selection screen. All I’ve modified is the …/configs/all/ configuration so I’m not sure what happened there.

The key, I noticed when it did work, was to use the _btn suffix on everything. It wasn’t until I tried to put that on the input_exit line that it stopped working.

Thanks for all the help so far! I’m excited to be getting closer… just a few more issues to resolve then I’ll try to load up a ton of roms and have fun!

I’m actually mounting this thing in my car for my passengers to play with. It’s gonna be really cool!

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