X-Arcade support

[LrdLnitari]

Hi, i have the X-Arcade dual joystick setup (no trackball) setup and I wanted to connect to my Retro_Pie setup. Its a one USB connection setup and I'm only able to configure one side of the controller for one player. When looking up, the x-arcade site has a reference to it connected to a github site, but thats mainly for the double joystick with the trackball in the middle. When I uploaded that version from the site as per the instructions, the joystick failed to work afterwords.

Any suggestions?
As of right now, i haven't updated to the newest version (3.8.1 at this time).

[Floob]

Have you seen this video?

Also, please provide a bit more info:
https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/3/read-this-first

[jsawhite]

if you want to make it even more fun, try it with 2 x-arcade solo's (2 separate sticks). I've been fighting with it for quite some time. Can get one side to work, but if I configure the 2nd, it takes over the first. Almost like it won't let you use the keyboard for more than one player (and I've tried it with both the default keys as well as custom ones as suggested in the video). I even tried to configure, separately, in retroarch, to no avail... I'm actually giving up and gutting the solo controller boards and hacking them to a gravis gamepad pro controller board instead...

The github thing is for the xarcade2jstick. In older versions it made the solo's show up as joysticks/gamepads instead of keyboards (I used to use this). However, in the current version (beta4 updated from 3.8.1) it seems to do nothing and they still show up as a keyboard... Installs fine, but no change in how they show up.

Not much help, but I feel your pain.

[jsawhite]

ok, so here's where I am... I went back a few version and found that v3.6 is the last time the xarcade2jstick service worked. Newer versions seem to install it, but must not complete something. If you install the service manually, it seems to work (see screenshot below). To install follow these steps at the console (at least until they fix the retropie_setup script):

git clone https://github.com/petrockblog/Xarcade2Jstick
cd Xarcade2Jstick
make
sudo make install
sudo make installservice

It's one step closer for me, but still not completely there. Seems that it will only do the joystick on 1 on my solos. The other still shows up as a keyboard (should be fine for your tankstick however, it only has 1 board. I'm using 2 separate). I think I'd need to run 2 instances of the service. But I'm a windows/ESX admin, so I'm not so advanced on Linux. I'm still researching it...

[LrdLnitari]

@jsawhite Nice! This would definitely help! I'll try it out soon! Thank you!

if I can sell the current joystick setup and buy two of the single ones that might work like you said. At least then it'll accept it as two different inputs rather than one input for two control schemes.

[LrdLnitari]

Thanks I'm checking it out now. This seems to be exactly what i might need.

[jsawhite]

@LrdLnitari I would not recommend you try to do what I did. Your tank stick with 2 players will work much better as the service only sees one controller board, not the other. Each solo has a controller board with 2 players (giving me essentially 4 player's worth of inputs, but only using 2). I've since pulled the controller board in both of them and replaced them with a gutted usb gamepad pro.

The other issue you would have is X-Arcade has discontinued the solo's (sniff) I had to ebay the second one I have. Keep what you have and manually install the service. I think that will fix your issue...

[LrdLnitari]

@jsawhite Thanks for the update. That is sad that they discontinued the support for the solo sticks. There was the comment above with the youtube link and i'm checking it out. The only thing that I need right now is to get a PS2 keyboard to program the joystick as needed and it doesn't sound too difficult. I just need the keyboard and time. Then it'll all be mine! Thanks for the support though as well.

[Mer2112]

@Floob said in X-Arcade support:

Have you seen this video?

lso, please provide a bit more info:

https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/3/read-this-first

Watched this video and it explained a lot. Do you know the extra steps to program the track ball?