Setting up a Ipac2

Riverstorm

@riverstorm Thinking about what you said again, I wonder if the IPAC shift function just doesn't happen if you do it in reverse order, so when you do 2+1, maybe that combo actually DOES get through to retroarch and invokes the hotkey. That is interesting. And if you do 1+2, that won't go to retroarch because IPAC SHIFT takes over and sends "escape". This sounds logical.

You got it! That's what I am doing and it works pretty decent. It's also handy for some of the older consoles on an arcade control panel too, button layout that is!

The Atari, NES and SNES had really simple button layouts that can be mimicked on the control panel and are playable. Atari needs analog input so want to continually go in one direction if that makes sense. It's not perfect but playable. Like Mario Bros. on NES works fine. Newer more complex controllers can't match the button layout or analog control.

caver01

@riverstorm But here's the problem I kept running into (which had me disable BOTH the SHIFTED ESC and the hotkeys: When I would play games like Metal Slug, SmashTV, or any game where you press START to continue, there was a chance of two players doing it at the same time and BANG, the game exits, either because ESCAPE was picked up by MAME as a RAW key, or because RetroArch picked up the hotkey exit command.

This was especially driving me nuts when my hotkey was enabled with default exit of Start+Select(coin). I'd be single-player running and gunning through Metal Slug, and need to drop coins to add credits. I would press my coin button rapidly, and sometimes pressing start to get back into the game and BANG, it exits! That was driving me nuts.

For me, the solution might have been to consider other hotkey options or other exit keys, but in the end, since I have a dedicated button, I just disabled hotkeys completely, and set that dedicated key to EXIT with the WinIPAC utility, configured retroarch to exit with ESC as well.

Riverstorm

@caver01 said in Setting up a Ipac2:

For me, the solution might have been to consider other hotkey options or other exit keys, but in the end, since I have a dedicated button, I just disabled hotkeys completely, and set that dedicated key to EXIT with the WinIPAC utility, configured retroarch to exit with ESC as well.

Ah that makes sense. For some reason the IPAC4 doesn't have a dedicated ESC input but the IPAC2 does so I wired it to the side of the box in addition to hotkeys. It wasn't really needed but I still use it once in a while.

caver01

@riverstorm said in Setting up a Ipac2:

For some reason the IPAC4 doesn't have a dedicated ESC input

It's OK because with 4 players and 8 switches each, plus joystick, start and coin, that's 14 inputs x 4 players. There isn't a game that I know of that needs 8 pushbuttons for player 4! Heck, my player 3 and 4 controls only have 4 buttons each (with 6 each for P1 and 2 on horizontal side). So, it's super easy to configure ESC on one of the unused switches. I actually did "P" for pause too. I could have done TAB, but I use another keyboard when configuring (or a secondary shift function to get TAB).

Bottom line for anyone else following along. . . It can be very complicated. The IPAC is great, but there are many important considerations.

Riverstorm

@caver01 said in Setting up a Ipac2:

I actually did "P" for pause too. I could have done TAB, but I use another keyboard when configuring (or a secondary shift function to get TAB).

I also hooked up all 4 of the IPAC2 dedicated buttons. Enter, ESC, Tab and P on the sides in black to blend a little. Maybe they didn't add them to the 4 because like you were saying the surplus of buttons allows you freedom to re-purpose some of the inputs if you like.

Agreed it can get complex fairly quickly it's easy to forget there's so many layers after working with it a while. It definitely adds flexibility but also complexity. For me it was a lot of trial and error but it sure helps with the understanding how it all works. :)

battlecat

@caver01 said in Setting up a Ipac2:

Remember, I have hotkeys disabled.

Wouldn't disabling your hotkeys go away from the default settings for an iPac2-4?

battlecat

I look at the complexity and detail of this thread and think hmm thank god that the regular controller users don't need to go through this.

I still have no clue what to do.

Riverstorm

@battlecat said in Setting up a Ipac2:

@caver01 said in Setting up a Ipac2:

Remember, I have hotkeys disabled.

Wouldn't disabling your hotkeys go away from the default settings for an iPac2-4?

It would.

look at the complexity and detail of this thread and think hmm thank god that the regular controller users don't need to go through this. I still have no clue what to do.

I think it's like @caver01 was saying. It's a bit complicated and you just need to dive in and when you get stuck explain exactly what's happening and people on the forum would help for sure.

I don't think you can really compare IPAC users to controller users. The IPAC is going to be more like an arcade cabinet that you may loosely emulate consoles on and controllers are more like consoles that can also play arcade games.

It's definitely more complex to setup an IPAC but so is building & painting a cab, drilling holes in it, mounting a monitor, wiring the joystick & buttons to the IPAC, etc.

With a controller you need nothing but a joystick. I have just that too. It's a Pi, case, wireless dongle and four joysticks plus cables.

Either works but one is definitely more complex. Even taking the IPAC defaults configuring an input device in ES/Retroarch should get everything up and running. You said you have mame4all working so the others should follow suit.

Once you get the basic functionally going then I would further refine it. Even if all that was all automated you'd still need to do a bunch of tweaking and configuring if you wanted to take advantage of say Dank's vertical shaders or Ubd's overlays, maybe analog joystick control instead of the D-Pad, optional packages like AdvMAME, custom themes, scraping, etc. The thought being is unless you dig in and start somewhere and ask for help you'll have to settle for very basic input configuration which actually works quite well.

caver01

@riverstorm said in Setting up a Ipac2:

@battlecat said in Setting up a Ipac2:

@caver01 said in Setting up a Ipac2:

Remember, I have hotkeys disabled.

Wouldn't disabling your hotkeys go away from the default settings for an iPac2-4?

It would.

NO it would not. When I said I have "hotkeys disabled" I am talking about a retroarch configuration. This is not a change of IPAC defaults. It is turning off a setting within RetroPie.

Now, I also happen to have personalized/modified the IPAC shift functionality--but this is very different from the hotkeys, even though they function similarly. It may not be necessary to do anything with IPAC defaults in this regard, but on my cabinet, given the dedicated buttons I have for admin functions, it made sense to adjust the IPAC configuration the way I have. It's not something I would push as a standard config.

Riverstorm

@caver01 said in Setting up a Ipac2:

I also happen to have personalized/modified the IPAC shift functionality

I guess he didn't specify in his question whether he was referring to Retroarch or IPAC when altering default parameters but since your Retoarch hotkeys are disabled and your IPAC shift functionality has also been altered I figured answering "It would" was a safe answer since neither Retroarch or your IPAC is set to defaults. :)

caver01

@riverstorm The clarification is on my end. I said I had hotkeys disabled. He asked if that was a variance from IPAC defaults. The answer is no, because disabling hotkeys has nothing to do with the IPAC. It's a retroarch configuration.

caver01

Some of you might have noticed another thread from someone trying to configure an IPAC. It appears as though the user wired the IPAC AB terminals to actual pushbuttons expecting these to work in MAME. The problem is that the default key mapping for the AB buttons on newer IPAC boards triggers admin functions. So, I wrote a paragraph in the WIKI work in progress to avoid a few pitfalls. I recommend NOT using the AB switch terminals for regular pushbuttons, opting for SW1-8 instead. Many of us have already figured this out, but in the spirit of success with defaults, the 1A, 1B, 2A, 2B switch terminals will only lead to pain and remapping for new users. These are GREAT for wiring dedicated admin buttons, but not regular player action pushbuttons.

A next step for the WIKI that I would like to add is to incorporate some of the ideas and diagrams detailed in this post. It was a while ago, but I find some of the imagery to be very informative, especially the way the button positions, IPAC switches, KEYS and console mappings are all represented with just a few images. I really like the diagram that ties a key back to retroarch.cfg. I think we could cover a lot of ground with some of that imagery.

Riverstorm

@caver01 said in Setting up a Ipac2:

@riverstorm The clarification is on my end. I said I had hotkeys disabled. He asked if that was a variance from IPAC defaults. The answer is no, because disabling hotkeys has nothing to do with the IPAC. It's a retroarch configuration.

Sorry @caver01 I'm not being a pain It's not really splitting hairs even. It seems to be the wrong answer. He's asking a question and yes seems to be correct. Answering no seems misleading. He's already completely lost and I hate to see him abandon RetroPie because he finds it to complicated when really it's not if he tries it for a few days.

Here's the original statement he quoted from. He was asking a question based on what you and I were talking about and he quoted it.

@caver01 said in Setting up a Ipac2:

@riverstorm I dunno. I have also never tried to invoke the IPAC shift in reverse order.
Remember, I have hotkeys disabled.

His original question based on that quote...

@battlecat said in Setting up a Ipac2:

Remember, I have hotkeys disabled.

Wouldn't disabling your hotkeys go away from the default settings for an iPac2-4?

Why is that not yes? You and I were clearly talking about the IPAC and how I was using the IPAC shift keys, remember 1+2 or 2+1. You are going away from the default settings for an iPac2-4 by disabling your hotkeys as he is specifically addressing the iPAC in his question. I suppose we can wait for him to clarify in a day or two.

caver01

@riverstorm The fault is mine. I was unintentionally confounding the issue by mentioning hotkeys in the context of IPAC shift functionality. Because I have hotkeys in retroarch disabled, I am never in a position to attempt two-button input. I just don't use it to exit emulators, which is why I have never noticed anything unique about the SHIFT function used in reverse--it's just not an experience I would stumble into. I even forgot about the P1-Start+P2-Start sending ESC by default.

In any case, language about these things is crucial if we are to make sense of anyone's configuration. So, "hotkeys" describes functionality of Retroarch that allows you to map certain features to a combination of key+hotkey. "shift" is a function built into the IPAC hardware. They work in similar ways, and most confusing of all--they can work at the SAME TIME which is why it is easy to get confused, even when trying to describe them.

Riverstorm

@caver01 said in Setting up a Ipac2:

They work in similar ways, and most confusing of all--they can work at the SAME TIME which is why it is easy to get confused, even when trying to describe them.

Yeah that's exactly what I am doing using both simultaneously. Retroarch/libretro cores 1+2 or 2+1 it's not picky either way but non-libretro emulators needs to be 1+2 due to the IPAC shift key doing the work vs hotkeys.

I can't help to wonder if pressing a 3rd key would qualify for shift like 2+1+5 but I would imagine it would be smart enough to see it as multiple key presses if 2 is still held down. I'll give it a go tonight. :) A real keyboard is limited to 6 simultaneous key presses (which I've seem some use keyboard internals for MAME projects) but the IPAC even though still a keyboard encoder at heart is unlimited, I think. Hopefully though no games require 6 simultaneous buttons for a super-judo-double-twist-fist-punch or they will need to grow another finger! :)

I hope @battlecat just gives it the effort. He already has his IPAC setup if he's running mame4all-pi. He's closer than he thinks. Once over that hump the rest snowballs. The thought being it's better to tell 10 friends how awesome RetroPie is rather than tell 10 friends it's rubbish and don't use it! :)

caver01

@riverstorm The key limit on normal keyboards is a problem in multiplayer. For example, think about moving diagonally in Gauntlet, only you are playing a 4 player game with all four players moving diagonally while shooting. That's potentially 12 keys at once.

The other problem regular keyboards have is ghosting, where holding down a certain combination is like pressing different keys the way the keys are matrixed. I don't know if that is still a real problem given the way modern keyboards are setup with matrix scanning and diodes, but the IPAC boasts that it does not suffer from any of these issues.

Riverstorm

@caver01 said in Setting up a Ipac2:

For example, think about moving diagonally in Gauntlet, only you are playing a 4 player game with all four players moving diagonally while shooting. That's potentially 12 keys at once.

Ah! I never thought of that. Usually we just play 1 or 2 players.

battlecat

@riverstorm said in Setting up a Ipac2:

he thought being is unless you dig in and start somewhere and ask for help you'll have to settle for very basic input configuration which actually works quite well.

So knowing that the iPac2 is default and that the keys are mapped to a joystick with 6 player buttons 1p start and a 1pstart what do you change to get out of FBA?

Riverstorm

@battlecat said in Setting up a Ipac2:

So knowing that the iPac2 is default and that the keys are mapped to a joystick with 6
player buttons 1p start and a 1pstart what do you change to get out of FBA?

To get escape/exit to work as Player 1 start + Player 2 start (1+2) I modify /opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch.cfg and modify the two lines below.

input_enable_hotkey = "num1"
input_exit_emulator = "num2"

That sets your hotkey and exit key for all Libretro cores. "num1" and "num2" can be anything you choose.

r_simoes

Hi guys.

First of all, thanks for all the useful guides and hints I've found here. I've just finished building recently my first arcade cabinet running Retroarch. It uses an IPAC2 controller for 2 players. I've wired everything, and hardware-wise it's all working fine.
However, i've been struggling for weeks with a problem that I just cannot find a solution for... I've read a lot of pages and all the guides I could find in this site (most liked to in this page). My problem is that I cannot get the 2nd player working.
Meaning, when I ask EmulationStation (or in retroarch) to remap the keys, I select the buttons and joystick directions so that player 1 works fine. But player 2 buttons are never recognized or even asked for. When I reset everything, the system only recognizes 1 controller and not 2 (which makes sense, since I only have 1 IPAC2, but i have 2 full sets of joystick+buttons wired to it)... However, if I use the player2 joystick and buttons during configuration, then those work but player 1 joystick+buttons do not. Meaning, I am sure all the buttons and joysticks are correctly wired (I can work with either p1 side or p2 side, but not both). Also if I exit to a retropie system prompt, pressing all my buttons (both p1 and p2) will show keys, so both sides of the layout are working.

I checked all the examples you guys gave of opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch.cfg, but it only shows how to setup the individual keys. Not how to get the system to work with 2 controllers from IPAC2... Right now my CFG files only show 1 controller (which I guess it's the default). Can I force it in some way to assume I have 2 controllers (even though I only have 1 IPAC2, which is recognized as a keyboard), and then use both sides of the IPAC2 to map keys for both players?

Many thanks for any suggestions you may have!! I'm close to dispair after dozens of hours trying to solve this myself...