Having more than one Player 1

Riverstorm

@herb_fargus said in Having more than one Player 1:

@Keithg488 I don't think the emulators were designed to use two joysticks as the same player.

Thanks Herb, I will take that as the gospel that it can't be done.

wetriner

I agree it doesn't sound possible currently. It does seem like a simple concept, but it sounds like it would have to be implemented upstream in Retroarch. Essentially being able to configure input_player1_a_btn = "J0B0, J1B0" kind of like how mupen handles its hotkeys. I have no idea whether anyone else would be interested in a feature like that. Or how much code would have to get overhauled to be able to accommodate it.

herb_fargus

@Riverstorm the answer is rarely that it can't be done, rather its something that isn't currently a feature ;) but everything is opensource so you can make whatever changes you like to the code to fit your needs.

Riverstorm

@herb_fargus said in Having more than one Player 1:

@Riverstorm the answer is rarely that it can't be done, rather its something that isn't currently a feature ;) but everything is opensource so you can make whatever changes you like to the code to fit your needs.

Ah, yes, that's true! I need to tweak my verbiage a bit. I ALMOST added ...easily... to the end of that sentence but currently not a feature is a much better fit! :) Have a great weekend! I figured if one of the core guys chimed in it most certainly wouldn't be an easy task!

shaunster

This is exactly what I've been trying to find an answer to. I wish you could have multiple controllers setup on Player 1 and/or Player 2. Just because sometimes you don't want to use a Joystick and might want to just grab a game pad while you're playing a game. I guess maybe someday it could happen.

mediamogul

This is one of the many controller-related projects I plan to look at in the near future for my own setup. I think it might be possible by using one of RetroPie's own guides.

https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/wiki/Setting-up-the-XBox360-controller#alternate-controller-configurations

Instead of mapping two config files pointed at the same controller, I believe you could point each config file to a different controller event. Both control schemes would have to have an"xbox button" mapped. Pressing that button on one controller would switch to the other config file and as long as the new config file references a different controller event using --evdev, it should switch the controller along with it. Right now, I'm trying to sort this all out so that I can switch my controller's keymap settings on the fly for different system/game layouts.

Edit: Another possible way would be to create your own conflict that would work in your favor. If you mapped the controls of two controllers to xboxdrv and gave them both the same id name using --device-name, then RetroArch should accept input from both at the same time. If that worked, it would be much easier and closer to the goal.

meleu

@Keithg488 @shaunster
I can talk about RetroArch cores. You can setup one controller to control more than one player (using input_playerN_joypad_index in retroarch.cfg), but there isn't a way to setup two controllers to only one player.
But I think there is a workaround for what you want...

I wish you could have multiple controllers setup on Player 1 and/or Player 2. Just because sometimes you don't want to use a Joystick and might want to just grab a game pad while you're playing a game.

To change the controller during a game in RetroArch, you can enter o RGUI (Select+X) and go to Settings -> Input -> Input User N Binds -> User N Device Index. Be aware that this changes the input instantaneously. OK, it sounds quite obvious, but can bring unpleasant results (as I reported here)

BTW: if you want an user-friendly way to choose which controller will be used by each player (1 to 4) in RetroArch, maybe you like to take a look at this https://github.com/meleu/RetroPie-input-selection

mmk8283

Has there been any further development on this topic. I would like to use a gamepad and arcade controls for the same player as well.

edmaul69

@mmk8283 install @meleu ’s joystick selection. Set usb controllers as players 1 & 2. If they arent plugged in it will default to the arcade controls.

Lurker

This will not work for all the emulators but for ones like MAME you can map more than one button to an action and thus if you map player1's buttons to the P1 joy stick AND the P1 xbox you will have duplicate Player 1 controllers.

I did this on accident with PacMan. My current cabinet has 2 players and I didn't like that you had to trade places on games like PacMan that intended there to be one joystick. So I mapped my P2 joystick to the controls along with the P1 joystick and that worked in that both joysticks would control PacMan. It failed for my purposes in that both joysticks controlled PacMan ... all the time.

You had to make sure not to touch your joystick when it was not your turn or you could send PacMan in another direction. Fine in theory but the temptation to be a jerk is just to great for my friends/family.

Traktopel

Hello I am very interested in this feature too..

No easy way since then I suppose ?

Thanks

icebear81

@meleu said in Having more than one Player 1:

BTW: if you want an user-friendly way to choose which controller will be used by each player (1 to 4) in RetroArch, maybe you like to take a look at this https://github.com/meleu/RetroPie-input-selection

Looked at the github, this appears to still be an active project. Is this still the preferred way to hand 2 controllers for a single player?

My use case is very similiar to the OP.

I have a set up with 2 dedicated arcade sticks, and can hotswap out gamepads (configured in retroarch to be the primary for certain cores). But since they are not always in there, and I may just want to play some excitebike with the arcade sticks, it would be great for it to fallback to JS1 or something.

Appreciate the feedback

icebear81

TLDR;

Works;
Is awesome;
Fallbacks to default/dedicated gamepads;
[Con] appears to honor the custom system kep-remaps which (in my case) dont align for the dedicated USB encoder, but are correct for the gamepads.**

2019-NOV convo on this tool:
https://github.com/meleu/RetroPie-joystick-selection/issues/31

** Solution may be to adjustmy USB encoder to align 1:1 with gamepads