Very confused about RetroPie.
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@dchurch24 said in Very confused about RetroPie.:
Also, why do the configs change? If I reboot it, then the button I set to [Select] no longer selects anything. If I reboot it again, then sometimes it does.
Did you use 'Save Configuration' or checked 'Save Config on Exit' from RetroArch's gui ? This has the tendency to screw up the controls.
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@mitu It's really difficult to know. What I think is the Select button seems to change frequently, no matter what I set it up as. I could be pressing thr Save option or I could be pressing Back, or some other button that makes the menu disappear.
I'm guessing that they all use the same backend and that's where the issue is.
I think I'm at the point of giving up to be honest. It's a shame, but life is too short :pThanks for the help though, truly appreciate you sticking with me.
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@dchurch24 You shouldn't be using "Save Configuration". If you want to re-map your input for just one game, use the Core Input Remapping from the RGUI.
This way the Physical-to-RetroPad mapping are the same (basically what you configured through Emulationstation on first setup), you just remap how the emulator interprets the RetroPad keys to the game. -
@mitu Hi. Thanks, but I'm going to "roll my own" I think. It seems crazy that writing thousands of lines of code is the simpler option, but it is what it is.
Thanks for your patience.
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@dchurch24 Instead of writing your own front-end, why not use Emulationstation directly ? You can configure the launcher as you see fit and instead of using Runcommand (the RetroPie launcher) just launch the emulator directly. You just need to modify the
/etc/emulationstation/es_systems.cfgand add your own launching command.
However, if you're still going to use RetroArch as an emulator, I think you might be running into the same issues. -
@mitu I don't really know where the issue lies. It could be EmulationStation or RetroArch.
I think I just don't think like those devs do.
I want to be able to use a joystick and ONE button to select an emulator, then go into a menu of games for that emulator, use the joystick to select it and then set up the buttons in the game - up, down, fire, jump etc... - and have it remember those buttons next time I play it.I have no idea what the combined devs of these things are aiming at, but for such a simple thing, they seem to somehow have made it overly complex, with a really unintuitive interface.
Even after reading the docs for RecalBox...it suggests that this has been made for exactly what I want to do...only that doesn't work either and has a very similar interface with much the same problems when it comes to configuration.
I've looked at a couple of others in the past, and they were either broken or incomplete.
Rolling my own seems my only option at this point I think.
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In the meantime, the default Mame interface menu will get us up and running.
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@dchurch24 It is quite odd you have all these problems. I have no programming skills whatsoever, but setting up a Retropie image by following the docs wasn't a problem at all.
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I just don't understand why the fundamentals are not mapped by the user (so it would make little difference which controller is being used) - left/right/select for the front-end. It's all that is needed to get things running for users. All games require a different layout/sequence, and as such each game needs configuration in its respective emulator in any case.
nooo - the basic fundamental point of retropie is to do that all for you. you configure your controller ONCE, then retropie proliferates that control layout to all the emulators via scripts.
you absolutely do not need to configure any default emulator controls after the initial configuration, assuming you’ve chosen a sensible layout and configured all the necessary buttons.
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https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/22190/alternatives-to-retropie-mame/2
thought i was getting deja vu :/
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@dchurch24 Emulationstation has nothing to do with how the emulator behaves, it's just a front-end/launcher. The only bearing it has on mapping of buttons is during the initial configuration, when it generates an auto-config file for your gamepad - as explained here and @dankcushions said. What you're re-configuring inside the RGUI, that's entirely within RetroArch.
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@dankcushions Yeah, different cabinet. I figured that it must be me doing something wrong, and that's why I had so much trouble last time.
Apparently it's not.
This is a new build, different controllers etc...You said in that thread, "i hardly think creating your own MAME front end is the quickest solution here" - and yet, here we are! Several weeks later, 2 different machines, 3 different controllers, with 4 adults trying to configure a simple button layout and trying to exit a game once started.
Same issues.
Sadly, the same issues seems to carry over to RecalBox as well - so my guess is that it's something to do with the emulator wrappers rather than RetroPie.
Bizarrely, the MonoGame front-end I started yesterday, DOESN'T have these issue. I can map a key in MAME (once shelled), and the same key presses are persistent. I haven't tried the Zero Delay controller as yet (As it wasn't with me at the time), but I can cursor through the emulators (so far only MAME and Genesis), then cursor through the available games, press an assigned key to select and start the game and another to exit and return to the menu.
It seems to me that this would be a really basic thing to want from a front-end, and as yet, I haven't managed to find an "off the shelf" application that does it. -
@dchurch24 if you are configuring your controller via MAME or via retroarch then you are doing something wrong. you should configure any input ONCE via the initial input configuration you get on first boot. the documentation is clear, here. if you do that ALL default emulators will have their controls configured.
however if you’ve already gone down this path (reconfiguring within retroarch/MAME) you will have created a mess of overriding configs that will be difficult to make sense of.
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You're not wrong. That's why I think this conglomeration of software isn't right for custom built cabinets.
The "fire" button in one game isn't going to be the "fire" button in another, hence it needs configuring in itself. In Defender, for example, the "Thrust" button is where my "Stab" button is in Green Beret. -
@dchurch24 quite a bit of blood, sweat and (many) tears has gone into making it so MAME/FBA have a sensible default layout for every game. the assumption is that you configure your arcade buttons like so:
X Y L B A Rinsert coin button bound to select and hotkey
p1 start bound as startas said in the other thread, if you have an ipac or other arcade interface you may have other considerations.
but if you do that, you should be mostly satisfied with the defaults in MAME. basic things like quitting a game or inserting a coin will definitely work.
now, if you don’t like the defaults that’s another issue, and the docs go into the override mechanism, but what you’re saying about quitting a game not working tells me that you’re missing a step.
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Fair enough. I don't know what step I'm missing, or why it changes after a while by simply walking away and coming back to it later (like last night for example. I had to go out for about an hour. Before I left, even plugging a keyboard in and pressing [esc] would not get me out of the game. I left the whole lot on and went out. Came back an hour later, pressed [esc], and the game exited.)
It was the same on my other build - could not exit a game until I accidentally stumbled across a combination that took me out. There's also a dual-button combination that resets the game (i.e. effectively rebooting it) and those are set to two buttons that I frequently press in a particular game - so really quite annoying. I figured it was less annoying than trying to find where they were configured and changing them, so just put up with it. I got it reasonably close for the few games that I have on there, and was wary of touching it again for fear of buggering up the ones that are about 80% correct now. -
Before I left, even plugging a keyboard in and pressing [esc] would not get me out of the game. I left the whole lot on and went out. Came back an hour later, pressed [esc], and the game exited.)
retropie is designed for controllers (be that gamepads or arcade interfaces), which are configured using the process when they are detected on boot. you plug something in later on and it will probably do nothing or act strangely.
It was the same on my other build - could not exit a game until I accidentally stumbled across a combination that took me out.
the combination is hotkey + start. see https://retropie.org.uk/docs/First-Installation/#hotkey
There's also a dual-button combination that resets the game (i.e. effectively rebooting it) and those are set to two buttons that I frequently press in a particular game - so really quite annoying.
hotkey + B. https://retropie.org.uk/docs/First-Installation/#hotkey
so if you’d followed the first installation doc, you would have configured hotkey as select/insert coin, and B as an action button, and that would never be a combo you’d press by accident.
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Agreed. The docs DO say that. Initially, I DID set it up with the coin/select combination. It wouldn't exit the game, so went back through the controller config and changed it to other buttons in an attempt to diagnose the problem. Those didn't work either.
In the end, I was randomly assigning buttons in an attempt to get ANYTHING to work, and eventually stumbled across a combo that DID exit the game (using my iPac controller), so left it at that - I wasn't about to raise my blood pressure again and waste several hours going back over it. The knock-on effect of those buttons working was the resetting of the game with the reset key-combo. It was a price worth paying to not go back through it and potentially lose the ability to exit a game once again. Whilst not perfect, I considered that particular bar-top machine "finished" as much as it could be.
We started to build one for my BiL, and am experiencing the same problems again.
I realise that everyone here assumes that I didn't read and follow the docs. I did. I read everything, and then even watched youtube videos of people setting it up (which I hate doing, I would much rather read at my own pace rather than waiting for someone to show me via a video). -
@dchurch24 I spent many hours building a bar top machine and it turned out great. I had the same trouble as you, gave up and ended up putting it in the closet never really being used. I googled it and will be trying again. Hopefully this time I can succeed. I'll be reinstalling everything from scratch.
Wish me luck!
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@sewart It's been a couple of months, did you ever get back to your build?
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