[Solved] Trackball not working after 4.3 update

Majin Wamu

@caver01 So your trackball works? Is there maybe something I can do to my setup to make it work? Or is it because of the mini-pac I am using and the separate trackball?

caver01

@majin-wamu I don't think you are paying attention to my notes above. I have two mouse inputs. Only one works. For me, the one that works happens to be my trackball, but my spinners are not working. For you it's the opposite. It does not matter that mine happens to be a trackball and you don't have a spinner attached. It appears as though mame is only paying attention to one mouse device. It changed. It used to pay attention to all mouse devices at the same time.

Majin Wamu

@caver01 Yes, but I am asking why is it that at least one of your mouse inputs are working and none for me? My assumption has to do with something you did say earlier, which is the fact that the minipac has mouse inputs. The reason why I don't just plug my mouse into the minipac's prongs is because the way my trackball is wired to a harness. The wires don't match the prong inputs, they are mixed up, so I had to plug them into a usb that can handle the inputs, and then plug that into the pi. The only way to test my theory is to cut the wires, and reorganize them so they match the correct order, but I don't want to take that risk and permanently ruin the trackball but making a mistake.

caver01

@majin-wamu my theory is that your minipac might be working, but you are not plugged into it. Just like my Utrak is working, but my Turbo Twist spinner interface is not. It’s as if the emulator is using one of your mouse interfaces, but you don’t get to choose which one. For you, it’s not the one you are using for your trackball. For me, it’s not the one for my spinners.

In a previous version, all mouse devices worked at the same time. Not any more.

dankcushions

@caver01

In a previous version, all mouse devices worked at the same time. Not any more.

correct.

this is a retroarch change. previously, you would only be able to have one abstracted mouse device, which would be an amalgamation of inputs from whatever mice you had connected to your system. want two player trackball games? bad news...

now thanks to the change, mice are treated exactly the same as controllers. each mouse is a treated as a seperate player. the problem @Majin-Wamu has is they have several mice connected, and the trackball will be currently assigned to player 2 or higher. you can change this through the menu.

i’ll go through the log and give more specific advice later.

dankcushions

[INFO] [udev] Adding device /dev/input/event2 as type ID_INPUT_MOUSE.
[INFO] [udev] Adding device /dev/input/mouse0 as type ID_INPUT_MOUSE.
[INFO] [udev] Adding device /dev/input/event6 as type ID_INPUT_MOUSE.
[INFO] [udev] Adding device /dev/input/mouse2 as type ID_INPUT_MOUSE.

four (!) mice connected.

Majin Wamu

@dankcushions @caver01
Edit: Okay thanks to dankcushions' explanation, I found a way to fix it! So this might help you too Caver.
Solution:
Go to the retroarch menu, go to inputs, select the user binds you want to change, go to mouse index and change it until you have found the working index! For me it was 2. If you have multiple mice, you can change them appropriately. I set both user 1 and user 2 to the same mouse index since I only have one trackball plugged in.

I hope this helps others who might be having this issue as well.

dankcushions

@majin-wamu that's great! thanks for the explanation as i've never personally used this new functionality :D

@caver01, i think this will work for you. I'm not sure about the share x/y setting - i guess it should work once you have the spinner assigned to player 1 (or whatever).

i guess if you'd previously used different mouse devices (trackball for centipede, spinner for blasteroids, etc) for player 1 in multiple games (thanks to the previous 'every mouse is player 1!' issue), you will now have to set up cfg overrides for each game, setting the right mouse device as player 1.

Majin Wamu

@dankcushions Since this is a new option, should we add some instruction to the wiki? I am assuming it is the community who updates the wiki, or is it is a select group?

dankcushions

@majin-wamu said in [Solved] Trackball not working after 4.3 update:

@dankcushions Since this is a new option, should we add some instruction to the wiki? I am assuming it is the community who updates the wiki, or is it is a select group?

yeah! well, anyone can edit the wiki - updates welcome!

@caver01 wrote an excellent trackball/spinner guide here: https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/wiki/Spinners-and-Trackballs - I think this is where new instructions should go (?)

markwkidd

@caver01 I just started on on a new section for the RetroPie docs about multi-mouse configuration. Does what I have written here match your experience? https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/wiki/Spinners,-Trackballs,-Lightguns,-and-other-Mouse-Devices#configuring-retroarch-emulators-for-multi-mouse-use

caver01

I gotta say, assuming I can get this working (it sounds like @Majin-Wamu has it working) this is actually GREAT NEWS! It means we can, with minor configuration effort, setup a matrix of mouse inputs. There will be plenty of questions and feedback from users, but the net result is a lot more flexibility.

@dankcushions said in [Solved] Trackball not working after 4.3 update:

you will now have to set up cfg overrides for each game, setting the right mouse device as player 1.

I am definitely OK with individual overrides, since my indices would have to change from ROM to ROM. This is perfect, actually, as I like having direct control over the setting. Since I do see the mouse devices in my log file, the only question I have is: what exactly to I add to my .cfg file? I am imagining it is something like player_x_mouse_index = or something like that.

@markwkidd Great write-up and addition to my trackballs/spinners wiki. The only addition I would include is whatever the answer is to my question above.

markwkidd

@caver01 Below is the relevant section of my retroarch.cfg. I will add something like this to the wiki.

input_device_p1 = "0"
input_player1_joypad_index = "0"
input_libretro_device_p1 = "1"
input_player1_analog_dpad_mode = "0"
input_player1_mouse_index = "0"
input_device_p2 = "0"
input_player2_joypad_index = "1"
input_libretro_device_p2 = "2"
input_player2_analog_dpad_mode = "0"
input_player2_mouse_index = "1"
input_device_p3 = "0"
input_player3_joypad_index = "2"
input_libretro_device_p3 = "1"
input_player3_analog_dpad_mode = "0"
input_player3_mouse_index = "2"
input_device_p4 = "0"
input_player4_joypad_index = "3"
input_libretro_device_p4 = "1"
input_player4_analog_dpad_mode = "0"
input_player4_mouse_index = "3"
input_device_p5 = "0"
input_player5_joypad_index = "4"
input_libretro_device_p5 = "1"
input_player5_analog_dpad_mode = "0"
input_player5_mouse_index = "4"
input_device_p6 = "0"
input_player6_joypad_index = "5"
input_libretro_device_p6 = "1"
input_player6_analog_dpad_mode = "0"
input_player6_mouse_index = "5"

caver01

@markwkidd Excellent. SO, I will add some lines to a per-rom config--for example, I will need to setup acameltry.zip.cfg to force the change to another mouse index so it looks at my spinner interface instead of the trackball for that ROM

I am very curious now about how the Split X/Y core option will affect something like Blasteroids which was working great the old way. @dankcushions alludes to this above, but I will test with a similar blstroid.zip.cfg, as this title will also need to use the same index as Cameltry. Obviously, there will be others.

One statement that will have to be made in the wiki is that the indices might be different for each of us. Case in point, @Majin-Wamu's trackball was failing, while mine was working--something I attribute to index order of the mouse devices. It's probably not random, but with all of the hardware possibilities in the world, there's no way to predict how one build will behave with respect to the actual controls. In other words, there is nothing that would connect Index 1 to a trackball--it's all mouse inputs and your index order may differ from mine.

I allude to that somewhat in the wiki as it applies to AdvanceMAME. It has been a while since I read through it, but there might be language in that section that we can use to emphasize this nuance.

markwkidd

@caver01 said in [Solved] Trackball not working after 4.3 update:

I allude to that somewhat in the wiki as it applies to AdvanceMAME. It has been a while since I read through it, but there might be language in that section that we can use to emphasize this nuance.

Thanks for this pointer -- I just found the language you mentioned, tweaked it a little bit, then slotted it into the wiki.

caver01

@markwkidd Looks good. There will need to be some re-writing of what I originally put in there for lr-mame2003, but we need to test the outcome of the Split X/Y core option. I can do that tonight, as I have hardware use case where my spinners are not on the automatically mapped index (plan to make that config adjustment on ROMs that need it) and I definitely use the Split X/Y.

It might be nice to keep the lr-mame2003 section as an example of a libretro core that will use the index details above, but to include an updated description of Split X/Y, depending on how/if it still works. <EDIT> I mean to say--I know it still works, as I was using it in Blasteroids (albeit with a trackball!) but I mean, if it works when you push mouse input to another index.

Majin Wamu

@caver01 I was pretty excited to finally get it working. Now my single trackball works for both player one and two! I knew there had to be a fix somewhere because my thought was since at least one your mouse inputs was working, mine must be able to work somehow too. Sorry if it seemed like I was going in circles earlier on, but I was trying to figure things out.
Thank you for all your help!

caver01

@majin-wamu Heck, if it wasn't for you, I might not have noticed the same issues for a lot longer. I am really happy with the outcome, as this is how I imagined it might one day work in Retroarch emulators. I still need to setup my configs and test them, but your success is promising.

Majin Wamu

@caver01 Thank you. That is nice of you to say. I will try to get involved with these forums and github and help others if I can. I don't get involved enough online which is a bad thing for a software engineer. The only forum I have been involved with is Open Pandora, not sure if you heard of them. Another open source linux based project.

caver01

I am happy to report that during the past couple of hours I went through the ROMs I have loaded on my setup and I was able to make custom configs for those that used the spinners. They all work great, even the ones that split X/Y between players with that core option. Games like Blasteroids, or Super Sprint, Off the Wall (Sente) all work fine now. Thanks so much for the details, and especially, for the update. This is actually better than before I think.