Guide: Advanced Controller Mappings

spud11

@mediamogul Hi. I thought you might be interested in something I've just found out with xboxdrv. Not sure if you've already discovered this. It is possible to use the $3 case in runcommand-onstart.sh to make an xboxdrv script that works just for one game. I've been messing around with SimCoupe trying to see whether it has any standardised controls either for keyboard or joystick. It doesn't seem to have any, so, as I only want to play a couple of Sam Coupe games, I thought that it would be a good idea to try to create xboxdrv scripts for individual games. I've got one to work with the extract from my runcommand-onstart.sh file as follows:

I've included some case $1 scripts just so you can see it in context and, at the bottom , you will see the case $3 script for Manic Miner. This works for me.

#!/bin/sh

### Code begins
### Game/ROM full path
rom="${3##*/}"

### SAM COUPE - 
Player1_SAM="sudo /opt/retropie/supplementary/xboxdrv/bin/xboxdrv > /dev/null 2>&1 \
--silent \
--detach-kernel-driver \
--deadzone=4000 \
--deadzone-trigger 15% \
--force-feedback \
--mimic-xpad \
--trigger-as-button \
--ui-buttonmap tl=void,tr=void,guide=void \
--evdev /dev/input/by-path/platform-3f980000.usb-usb-0:1.3.3:1.0-event-joystick \
--device-name "Player_1" \
--evdev-absmap ABS_X=y1,ABS_Y=x1 \
--evdev-keymap BTN_THUMB2=a,BTN_PINKIE=b,BTN_TRIGGER=x,BTN_THUMB=y,BTN_TOP2=lb,BTN_TOP=rb,BTN_BASE3=back,BTN_BASE6=start,BTN_BASE2=lt,BTN_BASE5=rt \
--ui-axismap X1=KEY_Q:KEY_W,Y1=KEY_UP:KEY_DOWN \
--ui-buttonmap a=KEY_SPACE,b=KEY_X,x=KEY_C,y=KEY_UNKNOWN,lb=KEY_UNKNOWN,rb=KEY_UNKNOWN,back=KEY_UNKNOWN,start=KEY_UNKNOWN,lt=KEY_UNKNOWN,rt=KEY_ENTER,rt+back=KEY_F10,back+rt=KEY_LEFTCTRL+KEY_F12"

case $1 in

	crvision)
		$xboxkill
		joycommand="$Player1_CreatiVision  &"
		eval $joycommand
	;;

	crvision2)
		$xboxkill
		joycommand="$Player1_CreatiVision2  &"
		eval $joycommand
	;;

	pop1)
		$xboxkill
		joycommand="$Player1_POP1 &"
		eval $joycommand
	;;

	pop2)
		$xboxkill
		joycommand="$Player1_POP2 &"
		eval $joycommand
	;;
esac

case $3 in

	"/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/samcoupe/Manic Miner (1992) (Revelation Software).sad")
	$xboxkill
		joycommand="$Player1_SAM &"
		eval $joycommand
	;;
esac

mediamogul

@spud11 said in Guide: Advanced Controller Mappings:

Not sure if you've already discovered this. It is possible to use the $3 case in runcommand-onstart.sh to make an xboxdrv script that works just for one game.

I'm glad you posted this and I really should have put it into the guide by now. Individual game mapping comes in handy so often that it needs to be documented. A great example are all the Atari 2600/5200, Intellivision and Colecovision games that use unique keypad controls. Mapping them to something more sane on a modern controller increases their playability so much. Another good example is the Atari 2600 games that originally made use of two joysticks for extra buttons. I just recently made a map for the 2600 port of 'Stargate', that moves 'smartbombs', 'inviso' and 'hyperspace' alongside the normal 'fire' button on the same controller and it plays great.

spud11

@mediamogul That's interesting. I'd just been setting up Defender for the Sam Coupe and had been doing the same - hyperspace and smart bombs alongside the fire button. If you have enough buttons, you can even make reverse and thrust work with buttons.

The other thing that I just checked before you replied was that you can retain a standard $1 or $2 configuration for a system whilst the specific $3 will override for the individual game only, and you've confirmed that that works too.

As you said, the Colecovision (which I set up about a month ago) will really benefit from this. I was finding that, despite having about 12 buttons on my arcade cabinet, it was getting pretty hard to create a standardised control scheme. It'll be much easier now that I know I can just do per-game schemes while maintaining a standard default scheme for those games that just require the default.

No sweat on changing the guide, but I must admit both this individualised process and the "launch executable" process you discovered a couple of months ago probably should end up being documented. (Also, I can't recall whether the "launch macro" process is also covered in the guide, but suspect not).

guydot

Is there any performance impact to using xboxdrv for all games? My need for xboxdrv is only for 4-way restriction - for arcade. I use Controlblock and I found that the following logic works to use xboxdrv only for restricted games and Controlblock for the rest:

One time:

Using Joystick Selection (https://github.com/meleu/RetroPie-joystick-selection) I mapped the xboxdrv #1 to player 1 and #2 to player 2 for "arcade" only. I used the "by-name" method, which seems to have some logic for "not connected"

Scripts:

launch xboxdrv/restricted (for player 1 + player 2) when emulationstation starts
a runcommand-onstart.sh script checks if launched rom is in RestrictedArcade list. If it is - do nothing. If it is not in the list - kill xboxdrv.
(the Controlblock joystics are automatically mapped if xboxdrive is killed)
*runcommand-onend.sh checks if xboxdrv is running. If not - launches for each player/restricted.

Thoughts?

Disclaimer: newbie, limited programming skills, haven't tested it for long enough :-)

mediamogul

@guydot said in Guide: Advanced Controller Mappings:

Is there any performance impact to using xboxdrv for all games?

None that I've noticed. I usually launch two instances for player one and two controls and have never had a problem.

Thoughts?

No, not really. That's more or less how I use it myself.

Disclaimer: newbie, limited programming skills, haven't tested it for long enough :-)

You're doing pretty good. Most people, including myself, struggle with this in the beginning. It really does pay off though. Games like Pac-Man just can't be played well with more than four available directions. Sure, you can boot them up and show them off, but you'll never get very far without the restriction.

guydot

@mediamogul I was too happy too soon. It is not working consistently. I am almost ready to give up. The driver works well first time I launch a game (creates JS2 and JS3), but in subsequent launches I noticed that the driver creates JS4 and the game does not respond. I wonder if anybody has been successful with Contronlblock + xboxdrv...

The one thing that I noticed, but I am not sure if it has any significance, is that the Controlblock joystics are not listed in /dev/input/by-id/

In the xboxdrv command line I used the (controlblock joysticks) event numbers.

Not sure if it makes sense...

mediamogul

@guydot said in Guide: Advanced Controller Mappings:

in subsequent launches I noticed that the driver creates JS4 and the game does not respond.

It could be that the previous instances of xboxdrv are not being killed when the emulator/port exits. Looking back over your previous post, I don't see you mention a command to killall xboxdrv in the runcommand-onend script. If it is in fact there, make sure you're using sudo before the killall command. Otherwise it won't have the proper permissions.

I am not sure if it has any significance, is that the Controlblock joystics are not listed in /dev/input/by-id/

You might also try looking at /dev/input/by-path/.

spud11

@mediamogul Hi. I'm having a few problems with ScummVM and mapping my joystick 1 to operate like a mouse.

I have a bluetooth keyboard which has a built in touchpad and I can use that to navigate in game perfectly. My joystick 2 is also natively working as a joystick, albeit the axes are mixed up.

I've followed the guide, but I think I've got myself confused. This is the first time I've tried to mimic a mouse.

Do I need to start from scratch and determine what event number is the keyboard/touchpad and go from there (using cat /proc/bus/input/devices)?

So far I have:

Player1_ScummVM="sudo /opt/retropie/supplementary/xboxdrv/bin/xboxdrv > /dev/null 2>&1 \
--silent \
--detach-kernel-driver \
--deadzone=4000 \
--deadzone-trigger 15% \
--force-feedback \
--mimic-xpad \
--trigger-as-button \
--ui-buttonmap x=void,y=void,lb=void,rb=void,tl=void,tr=void,guide=void,lt=void \
--evdev /dev/input/by-path/platform-3f980000.usb-usb-0:1.3.3:1.0-event-joystick \
--device-name "Player_1" \
--evdev-absmap ABS_X=y1,ABS_Y=x1 \
--evdev-keymap BTN_THUMB2=a,BTN_PINKIE=b,BTN_TRIGGER=x,BTN_THUMB=y,BTN_TOP2=lb,BTN_TOP=rb,BTN_BASE3=back,BTN_BASE6=start,BTN_BASE2=lt,BTN_BASE5=rt \
--axismap -Y1=Y1,-Y2=Y2 \
--ui-axismap X1=REL_X:10,Y1=REL_Y:10 \
--ui-buttonmap a=BTN_LEFT,b=BTN_RIGHT,back=KEY_UNKNOWN,start=KEY_UNKNOWN,rt=KEY_F5,back+rt=KEY_LEFTALT+KEY_X"

And


	scummvm)
		$xboxkill
		joycommand="$clear & $Player1_ScummVM & $silence &"
		eval $joycommand
	;

This code doesn't work at all at present. Thanks for any help you can provide.

mediamogul

@spud11

Does xboxdrv throw up any errors? At some point I changed the guide to suggest redirecting all errors to the Runcommand log rather than /dev/null. That might be helpful here. Just replace:

> /dev/null 2>&1

with

>> /dev/shm/runcommand.log 2>&1

As long as you have an otherwise working xboxdrv command, the following two lines should be all that's required to add full mouse control to whatever the first axis is on the controller you're trying to map, with buttons 'A' and 'B' acting as left/right click..

--ui-axismap X1=REL_X:10,Y1=REL_Y:10 \
--ui-buttonmap a=BTN_LEFT,b=BTN_RIGHT

spud11

@mediamogul Thanks. You were 100% right. I found an error - just a missing ; which I've added back in. Thanks again.

mediamogul

@spud11

Not a problem.

guydot

@mediamogul said in Guide: Advanced Controller Mappings:

@guydot said in Guide: Advanced Controller Mappings:
I don't see you mention a command to killall xboxdrv in the runcommand-onend script. If it is in fact there, make sure you're using sudo

I changed the logic to use xboxdrv for all games in "Arcade" - some with 4-way restriction and some without. It is launched by runcommand-onstart and killed by runcommand-onend. I do use sudo. The issue that I am still having is that (and I am not sure what the sequence is to reproduce,) the order of joysticks changes: first few times, when a game starts I see the yellow text on the bottom of the screen showing the mapped controllers and the Controlblock joystics map to #0 and #1 and xbox to #2 and #3. Then at some point, xboxdrv maps to #0 and #1 and Controlblock to #2 and #3 and the game does not respond (because the arcade folder retroarch.cfg maps 2 and 3 to player 1 and 2 and the Controlblock joystick is not active anymore.)

You might also try looking at /dev/input/by-path/.

It does not show my Controlblock joysticks, just like /dev/input/by-id/

mediamogul

@guydot

Have you updated RetroArch in a while? This may not be the issue, but recently a fix was implemented to avoid controller ordering based on detection. Before hand this was messing with tools like joystick selection utility. If you haven't already, try updating and see if the behavior continues.

guydot

@mediamogul said in Guide: Advanced Controller Mappings:

@guydot

Have you updated RetroArch in a while?

I did a Retroarch update but it did not solve the issue. I am running RPi3 B+/Stretch/RetroPie 4.4, so it is a very recent image.

At some point, Retroarch (yellow text on bottom just before the game starts) shows an incorrect port joystick mapping and the game does not work. Killing xboxdrive restores the use of Controlblock to exit the game, but Retroarch would not get the right mapping if I launch a new game unless I reboot. Frustrating.

mediamogul

@guydot

This may be able to be sorted out as-is, but if you're open to an alternative, let me suggest something more reliable. I avoid the uncertainty of these particular situations by having a keyboard map set for players one and two in RetroArch. To correspond with this, I also have my two controllers fully key-mapped with xboxdrv to match. Once everything is launched, it really doesn't matter which controller RetroArch tries to grab hold of, because it'll be acknowledging the keyboard map regardless.

spud11

@mediamogul @guydot I agree 100% with this approach. Mediamogul put me onto this method about 2 years ago and it just works. 99% of cores and emulators have keyboard mapping. I've only struggled with one or two eg reicast; otherwise, all good.

guydot

@mediamogul I will give it a shot, as all other methods failed. The closest I got was with Joystick Selection "by name" method: the games work well even when Retroarch shuffled the ports, but Emulationstation crashes when I exit a "port-confused" game.

If I understand the method correctly - I will have to change Controlblock to "MAME" mode = keyboard emulation and then run 2 xboxdrv configured to match the keys generated by my controllers. Correct?

mediamogul

@guydot said in Guide: Advanced Controller Mappings:

If I understand the method correctly - I will have to change Controlblock to "MAME" mode = keyboard emulation and then run 2 xboxdrv configured to match the keys generated by my controllers. Correct?

Actually, you would just change your xboxdrv maps to be complete key-mappings of the Controlblock. From there, you'd assign those keys to players one and two in RetroArch.

guydot

@mediamogul @spud11 I am missing something here.

Right now:
(1) Controlbox is creating 2 joypads: JS0/JS1 and event 2/3
(2) I use 2 xboxdrv commands, each has --evdev-absmap and --evdev-keymap that correspond to a joypad joystick + buttons
(3) In Retroarch.cfg, I tried to use input_player1_joypad_index = "2" and input_player2_joypad_index = "3" to map

Is proposed method to add --ui-buttonmap to map xboxdrv to keyboard keys? I guess I need more steps... Thanks for all your help!

mediamogul

@guydot said in Guide: Advanced Controller Mappings:

Is proposed method to add --ui-buttonmap to map xboxdrv to keyboard keys?

It is, yes. As an example, below is an excerpt from my retroarch.cfg file where I've mapped my desired keyboard inputs for player one. Below that is a 4-way strict xboxdrv map that corresponds to those keys.

retroarch.cfg excerpt:

# Keyboard input, Joypad and Joyaxis will all obey the "nul" bind, which disables the bind completely, 
# rather than relying on a default.
input_player1_a = "a"
input_player1_b = "b"
input_player1_y = "y"
input_player1_x = "x"
input_player1_start = "t"
input_player1_select = "e"
input_player1_l = "l"
input_player1_r = "r"
input_player1_left = "left"
input_player1_right = "right"
input_player1_up = "up"
input_player1_down = "down"
input_player1_l2 = "d"
input_player1_r2 = "f"
input_player1_l3 = "c"
input_player1_r3 = "v"

4-way strict xboxdrv command:

sudo /opt/retropie/supplementary/xboxdrv/bin/xboxdrv \
	--evdev /dev/input/by-path/platform-3f980000.usb-usb-0:1.2:1.0-event-joystick \
	--detach-kernel-driver \
	--dpad-as-button \
	--trigger-as-button \
	--deadzone-trigger 15% \
	--deadzone 4000 \
	--device-name "Logitech Rumblepad 2 (xboxdrv)" \
	--silent \
	--four-way-restrictor \
	--axismap -Y1=Y1,-Y2=Y2 \
	--evdev-absmap ABS_X=x1,ABS_Y=y1,ABS_Z=x2,ABS_RZ=y2,ABS_HAT0X=dpad_x,ABS_HAT0Y=dpad_y \
	--evdev-keymap BTN_THUMB2=a,BTN_THUMB=b,BTN_TOP=x,BTN_TRIGGER=y,BTN_BASE3=back,BTN_BASE4=start,BTN_TOP2=lb,BTN_PINKIE=rb,BTN_BASE5=tl,BTN_BASE6=tr,BTN_BASE=lt,BTN_BASE2=rt \
	--ui-axismap X1=KEY_LEFT:KEY_RIGHT,Y1=KEY_UP:KEY_DOWN,X2=KEY_1:KEY_2,Y2=KEY_3:KEY_4 \
	--ui-buttonmap a=KEY_A,b=KEY_B,x=KEY_X,y=KEY_Y,lb=KEY_L,rb=KEY_R,lt=KEY_D,rt=KEY_F,tl=KEY_C,tr=KEY_V,du=KEY_UP,dd=KEY_DOWN,dl=KEY_LEFT,dr=KEY_RIGHT,start=KEY_T,back=KEY_E \
	--ui-buttonmap guide=void \
	&