XArcade Tank Stick Issues

[mbrett]

I splurged and picked up the XArcade Tank Stick for its 25% off sale price. I have it working perfect so far with my gaming PC. The unit itself works great. Trackball a little sticky, but I've read where that will ease with play. But, now hooking it up to the RetroPie I've run into a few issues.

I have successfully mapped the XArcade in ES. I can navigate ES w/ease. My issues come inside the arcade emulators. FYI, I am running 4.3 with a Raspberry Pi 3b.

Finalburn Alpha- Does the XArcade work with Finalburn at all? I can't get any response from controller. Irritated, because most of my arcade ROMs & all my NeoGeo ROMs are set to FBA.

Mame 2003- OK, this has the most functionality, not surprising. Everything appears to work, BUT I can't exit out of games. Not with BT keyboard. Not with plugged in usb pad.

Advance MAME .94- I'm running this only for the Golden Tee ROMs. I can get into games with Tankstick, but the only thing I can do is select (drop coins), enter menu (2p start & 2p select), and exit (using BT keyboard).

There's information on the Tank Stick in a series of help topics here, but none of the topics address all of my issues. I get that each emulator is a different flavor (even if two of these are libreto cores) with their own quirks. I understand I will have to configure trackball for Advance MAME. But I'm running into major playability issues beyond the knowledge I can find in this forum or reddit.

Thanks for your help in advance.

[caver01]

@mbrett I think you know this, but there isn't going to be a single solution. Each emulator will need to be worked through. Where do you wanna start?

[mbrett]

@caver01 Does FinalBurn Alpha work at all? If not, I have quite a rebuild to do.

[caver01]

@mbrett Question back for you. . . what kind of controller does the Tankstick pretend to be? Is it sending keyboard keystrokes, or does it appear to the computer as a game controller/joystick? I know the trackball will be an additional device (probably a mouse to the computer), but I am talking about joystick switches and pushbuttons. Knowing that can help with your approach.

To answer your question about FBAlpha, hell yes it works! It's great. I use an IPAC4 (old model) which is a keyboard interface, but plenty of folks use game controllers, so either way, it works great. There are some flavors of FBA to think about, but most of us are using lr-fbalpha (the RetroArch Libretro Core version).

I think you already understand the complexity you are facing with the various levels of control abstraction. Libretro cores will have their Retroarch mapping, and standalone emulators will have their own configurations to deal with, but it should be possible to make everything work.

I use the Arcade folder and multiple emulators to get everything running the way I want.

[mbrett]

@caver01 The Retropie sees it as two controllers using the XArcade2Jscript.

I have FBA running fine with my Buffalo controllers. It works perfect. My question is will it work with the Tank Stick. It doesn't respond at all.

[caver01]

@mbrett Which version FBA exactly are you using? Is it the standalone, or a libretro core?

[mbrett]

@caver01 My Mame2003 & FBA are both libreto core.

[caver01]

@mbrett Ok, and are the ROMs in different folders? or are you using the Arcade folder?

[mbrett]

@caver01 I have the ROMs in different folders.

[caver01]

@mbrett Ok, so we need to start by looking at your inputs as defined in /opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch.cfg

The settings in here will define the base mapping for all libretro cores.

Then, we look at /opt/retropie/configs/fba/retroarch.cfg(assuming you are using the FBA folder for your neogeo roms etc.) and see if there are additional remaps in here. Can you post yours either via pastbin or formatting the relevant input lines here?

[mbrett]

@caver01 Here ya go.

[caver01]

@mbrett Hmm. Getting closer. . . I can see you have the RetroArch hotkeys DISABLED, and you have exit hardcoded to "escape". I doubt your tankstick can send an escape key given that you are using a driver that transforms it into two virtual gamepads.

What about the contents of opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch-joypads, as I am thinking that your "joysticks" are auto-configured, as the inputs in your retroarch.cfg are basically just the default keyboard maps.

By the way, are you using the standard image from this site, or one you downloaded from X-Arcade (where they warn you NEVER to do an update)?

[mbrett]

@caver01 That's odd. When I configure Tank Stick in ES and it comes to HOTKEY, I can't choose select because I've already chosen it. So I leave it blank. A window comes up and asks me if I want to have Select key as default HotKey. I say yes.

I am using the standard image from here. I didn't use the XArcade image.

Contents of retroarch-joypads are:
USB GAMEPAD USB GAMEPAD.cfg (N64 controllers)
USB. 2axis 8 button gamepad.cfg (bak file too)
Xarcade-to-gamepad device 1.cfg (bak file too)
Xarcade-to-gamepad device 2.cfg

[caver01]

@mbrett Ok, so your actual button mapping is very likely in those Xarcade device files. According to Retroarch documentation, explicit mapping listed in the retroarch.cfg file will override mapping in the retroarch-joypads. This is why a setting like:

input_enable_hotkey = "nul"
input_exit_emulator = "escape"

will supercede similar mapping in your joystick configs. I would start by commenting out these two entries in opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch.cfg and then look inside the Xarcade files to see how you have everything mapped in those files to ensure, for example, that your hotkey and exit is mapped to buttons you expect.

Once we have established a working retroarch config (could test with lr-mame2003) we will need to understand why FBA seems to ignore it. You said roms are in different folders which answered my question above, but which folders are you using? Assuming one of them is FBA, we will need to use RUNCOMMAND to find out which FBA you are launching. If it is PiFBA, that would explain a lot, as that one is standalone and ignores all of the mapping we do in Retroarch.

Finally, you mentioned AdvanceMAME .94. That one also ignores the RetroArch configs, so it is best to try mapping with the GUI menu when you launch a game with it. I would start by configuring General controls for all games. A graceful exit should save to the .rc file for that version of AdvanceMAME.

[mbrett]

@caver01 I'm using lr-fbalpha. ROMs are in fba folder.

I don't have any idea what you said about AdvanceMAME .94.

I commented out those two lines, and I can now exit of out of mame2003! Yes! One issue settled.

[caver01]

@mbrett We will get to Advancemame and it will make more sense when we do.

Now what's in your xarcade-to-gamepad device config files?

Theoretically, if you are indeed launching your neogeo games with lr-fbalpha, it should be using the same configuration as lr-mame2003 (lr-anything should be using the same).

[mbrett]

@caver01 fbalpha is magically working! So, everything now working except the 6 Golden Tee ROMs.

[mbrett]

@caver01 I spoke too soon. Don't get me wrong, I just whooped the snot out of 1941: Counter Attack. The Tank Stick is great! But, tried Arkanoid....and no trackball. I play Arkanoid in fbalpha. So, that's a bummer.

[caver01]

@mbrett I don’t think I can help with analog in FBA. Going to have to use lr-mame2003 or AdvanceMAME.

[mbrett]

@caver01 OK, this is what I'm getting when I did your advmame-0.94.rc corrections:

Parameters:
Executing: /opt/retropie/emulators/advmame-0.94/bin/advmame "arkanoid"
Invalid argument 'mouse[0.x] mouse[1,x] mouse[2,x] mouse[3,x]' for option 'input_map[p1_trackballx]'.
Invalid integer '0.x] mouse[1'.
Valid format is [-]joystick[JOYSTICK,STICK,AXE]/[-]mouse[MOUSE,AXE]/[-]joystick_ball[JOYSTICK,AXE].