my first impressions on retropi

[krux02]

Hello folks. I am new to this forum, and I would like to introduce myself first, before I ask for any help here. I just downloaded an EmulationStation 2 image and installed it on my little Raspberry. I am new to Raspberry, but in the past I used a lot of emulation of the GP2X. But that is almost 8 years ago, and I think time is right to test some embedded emulators. Aside from that I am a computer science student, and Arch Linux is on my desktop computer. Therefore many Linux commands are already known for me.

When I first started the emulation station, I was visually impressed, because it just looked beautiful, and even my gamepad was recognized perfectly fine and I could use it in the menus. No keyboard needed at all. So I got some games on the system and tried to play a game, and my impression faded away. The controller setup is a mess. Here is a setup of controllers that I would like to for megadrive emulation:

[img]http://i.imgur.com/26tGSXp.jpg[/img]

It’s an playstation 2 controller (with adapter) and a WingMan Cordless Rumblepad. Since they both are generally very different, they need to be configured differently.

The WingMan controller is generally pretty perfect for Sega emulation, because it has C and Z which can be mapped to C and Z of the genesis controller. But I don’t know how to do that with this system. First of all, it is not helpful when someone else decided to map everything to a “360 compatible gamepad” and I have to guess how that mapping might look like, so that I can undo that mapping. And second, I am still confused by all these different configuration files and locations that I am able to use.

[code]
ls /opt/retropie/emulators/RetroArch/configs/
GreenAsiaInc.USBJoystick.cfg (adapter for DualShock2)
LogitechWingManCordlessGamepad.cfg
[...]
ls /opt/retropie/configs/all
dgenrc
retroarch.cfg
retroarch.cfg.bak
retroarch-core-options.cfg
ls /opt/retropie/configs/megadrive/
retroarch.cfg
[/code]

another big problem is, that I can’t test my buttons easily. The best test I could find so far is the game gauntlet 4, that has an integrated gamepad test for 4 players, but it does not cover the xyz buttons.

dgenrc seems to be the file I need to use, but I am not shure if it isn’t completely ignored

Btw, I don not have a 360 controller, nor do I want one, I have enough gamepads.

[proxycell]

did you run the “register a retroarch controller” option?

you can also test controllers by installing jstest:
sudo apt-get install joystick

then use it like this:
jstest /dev/input/js0
jstest /dev/input/js1
jstest /dev/input/js2
jstest /dev/input/js3

the numbers at the end are for each controller that is connected

hope you enjoy playing your games

[Anonymous]

I think the point the OP is trying to make is that this project is not streamlined enough, even with the register a retroarch controller option you are left with bits and pieces that most newbies will have trouble with. Search “why is my controller not working” and look at all the posts!
It took me trial and error to get a custom controller setup working exactly how I wanted it, with bugs and headaches along the way.

[krux02]

@proxycell
I do know jstest. But jstest doesn’t let me test weather my button mapping of x on the controller is x on the sega genesis emulator.

@mr9v9
Yes that is totally true. Configuring a controller is just way too much of an headache. By default I can’t even exit a game with the controller. There is a way to do it, but it is not nice.

I would like to be able to configure the controllers for the genesis emulator within the frontend. And then, when I have configured the controllers, I would like to decide which usb controllers is connected to which port on the emulated device. Keep in mind, that every gamepad needs it’s individual configuration for the system. Having just a global mapping to a controller that is not the superset of all controllers feels just wrong.

[Author]

Posts