USB gamepad works with all emulators except Reicast

blueagent004

i have a generic pc gamepad that was properly detected and configured in retopi.

the gamepad works perfectly with all emulators such as snes/gameboy/n64....etc

however the gamepad does not work properly with reicast, as only the analog stick is detected, meanwhile none of the ABXY buttons work.

from reading the tutorial guide, i tried turning off autoconfig

but the ABXY buttons on the gamepad still does not work.

since retropi allows configuring seperate controls via pressing START at the respective emualtor's menu, i decided to give it a try and configured the gamepad that way.

but the ABXY buttons still does not work.

am using the latest: retropie-4.5.1-rpi2_rpi3.img.gz
i have a PI3B+

i can post a video if necessary, or allow FTP assess to my pi for troubleshoot. please let me know anytime.

thanks in advance for your help!

BJRetro

@blueagent these folks are having the same issue: https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/23421/reicast-broken-how-to-install-previous-version/3

I have reicast working perfectly and now I won’t update because i see all of these issues recently with people and their controllers not working and the flycast code not working. Wish I could help you but I figured at least if you all connect maybe you can figure something out.

blueagent004

i found an archive site full of old retropi pi3 images, ranging from 3.0 to 4.0 to the latest one.

which retropi version do you have?

please let me know bc i want to download that.

thanks!

PS: i tried Lakka on my PI3B+ and the reicast core in there works perfect with my generic controller, so this is definifely not reicast fault, or my gamepad's fault, there's something buggy with the latest release of retropi.

mitu

lr-flycast uses RetroArch's mappings and it should work fine on RetroPie's latest version - it's similar to the version in Lakka.
For reicast, I suspect something changed in the input handling in the latest versions - especially if updated from source - but I haven't been able to replicate this.
Did you run the Reicast controller configuration from Configuration / Tools to map your controller ?

BJRetro

@blueagent my Lr-reicast version says 1.7.5 - Reicast 0.1 2abb342. I used this for a few games where I needed both analog and digital controls on my bar-top as well as a few Naomi games I have on there.

My standalone reicast I have no idea what version it is and not sure how I can check. EDIT: best I can do from looking back at my forum posts is to say that it looks like around Feb 2019 standalone reicast received the best update it had before things started to go downhill for people on retropie - that was when the date/time bug was fixed. At that point the configuration/tools input configuration for reicast worked easily. At that same time lr-reicast was updated and throughout March 2019 we were playing around with it to get it working on the raspberry pi because previously it had been restricted to not install on RPI due to some flags in the build process. I think by June 2019 people started reporting various issues with the controls, etc. of the emulators and build issues and meanwhile there was some blowup with the folks working on the emulators which led to various name changes of the emulators and stuff.

Further EDIT: looks like this one was the “good” commit to standalone reicast that updated it to remove the date time bug and everything was working good at that point. https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/commit/1071a12a4ab48ba6d30f2dd0d10411bc0f43fd67

BTW I am a complete novice and so I apologize if any of the above is not technically correct - I don’t want to be spreading misinformation - I am just sharing my personal experience with you in hope it helps.

My retropie setup script is on 4.4.9 with last commit 6ebb8150.

blueagent004

@BJRetro

thank you so much for your detailed and concise reply! the information you have provided is extremely useful and helps me a great deal in pinpointing the right version of retropi to download.

on lakka reicast performance is not so good, i see youtube videos of people running dreamcast games at decent speeds with retropi, but when i do it on lakka, even after tweaking the settings to hell and back, the performance is still very poor, and the dreamcast game's FMV lags like a slideshow and whatnot. (i'm testing "evolution the world of sacred device") i hear that lakka uses a different reicast core (supposedly called flycast), while retropi gets all the latest updates to reicast so maybe that's why

thanks to the vast amounts of information you generously provided, i have been given one big push in the right direction. please allow me to give my most sincerest thanks to you for sharing your expert knowledge with me, i am truly grateful!

blueagent004

@mitu i manged to track down an older version of retropi 4.4, and then installed the reicast emulator using "install from binary" which from what i read would basically fetch the stable build.

however to my dismay, once reicast loads it is unable to detect my dc bios, despite the fact that i have already properly placed them in the "dc" folder inside the bios folder, which previously worked just fine on retropi 4.5. so i tried "installing from source" again with the reicast installation, but reciast still does not work, there is still a bios not found error.

just for the hell of it, i reverted back to the latest retropi 4.5.1, installed reicast again and place my bios in the dc folder, and viola, reicast worked. (usb gamepad still don't work though, even going into reicast settings, the buttons are still not detected)

in other words, even reverting back to a previous version 4.4 build of retropi there is a problem, there is always, always, a problem in retropi. everytime i follow the guide and tried to get this thing working, i ALWAYS ran into some kind of problem.

it only took me only 5 minutes to get the reicast core in Lakka up and running. i ran into no issues of any kind. in a beginner's friendly manner, the reicast core came preinstalled in Lakka, and my generic usb gamepad immediately worked out of the box, and the dreamcast bios are immediatly detected and the games ran just fine......

with retropi, the reicast emulator was not bundled, and the official guide only said that you can install emulators manually but neglected to mention that you need an active internet connection in order to download them first, there is also no mention of whether we should be using "install from binary" or install from source", so in my humble opinion it's not very beginner friendly at all.

however even once i have reicast installed, the properly placed dreamcast bios are only detected in retropi 4.5 but not in retripi 4.4, then those generic usb Microntek gamepad that everyone and their granma has somehow doesn't work with reicast, or has other compatibility issues with newer builds of retropi, as BJRetro, drewjbx have pointed out.

so it seems everytime i tried to do something i hit a brick wall. perhaps it is reicast's fault like you said it is, but the reicast core in lakka finds my bios, and detects my usb controller and runs just fine. in the end when all is said and done, that's what really matters, because to us first time users, being fully functional and beginner's friendly really makes all the difference in the world.

PS: the "transferring roms" guide (here) was also incorrectly written, as it did not specify where we should type in our IP address which should be in the "HOST NAME" box, however the guide not only made no mention of this, but also incorrectly included an image showing that we need to type "RETROPIE" in the "HOST NAME" box, which is incorrect......and this is after 14 revisions done on the page for what should have been simple enough instructions for setting up SSH. due to these erroneous instructions, i've had some difficulty setting up SSH but i figured out the error in the guide and managed to set it up correctly so all is fine now. but again, this is what i meant by not being beginner's friendly.

BJRetro

@blueagent I am going to open a new topic about reicast standalone I just saw something in their github I want to ask about.

mitu

@blueagent said in USB gamepad works with all emulators except Reicast:

so it seems everytime i tried to do something i hit a brick wall. perhaps it is reicast's fault like you said it is, but the reicast core in lakka finds my bios, and detects my usb controller and runs just fine. in the end when all is said and done, that's what really matters, because to us first time users, being fully functional and beginner's friendly really makes all the difference in the world.

You're confusing the reicast - standalone emulator - with the Libretro core - lr-reicast, which in RetroPie has been renamed to lr-flycast.

PS: the "transferring roms" guide (here) was also incorrectly written, as it did not specify where we should type in our IP address which should be in the "HOST NAME" box, however the guide not only made no mention of this, but also incorrectly included an image showing that we need to type "RETROPIE" in the "HOST NAME" box, which is incorrect......and this is after 14 revisions done on the page for what should have been simple enough instructions for setting up SSH. due to these erroneous instructions, i've had some difficulty setting up SSH but i figured out the error in the guide and managed to set it up correctly so all is fine now. but again, this is what i meant by not being beginner's friendly.

There's nothing wrong with the docs - if your network is correctly configured, the retropie hostname should be available in the local LAN.

blueagent004

@mitu

@mitu said in

You're confusing the reicast - standalone emulator - with the Libretro core - lr-reicast, which in RetroPie has been renamed to lr-flycast.

so flycast is not recist, is that correct?

PS: i checked the reicast core in lakka and it displays the following information:

REICAST v1.7.6

this is confusing indeed.

@mitu said in [

There's nothing wrong with the docs - if your network is correctly configured, the retropie hostname should be available in the local LAN.

as for the trasnsfer roms guide, no information is given to the reader that we need to type our ip address in the "host name" box.

not only that, but if you look at the image shown in the guide, the words "RETROPIE" is typed into the "host name" box, indicating to the reader that we are supposed to type RETROPIE in the "host name" box.

the guide did mentioned "ip address" but with no context of where we're supposed to type it in.

adding to confusion an ip address can also be seen at the top left corner of the image in the guide, showing the winSCP window.

i could not get SSH to work without this essential step of having to type in our ip at the HOSTNAME box which was not mentioned in the guide at all.

i typed "retropie" in the hostname box, and also typed my ip address at the top left corner of the winscp colum profile window, as clearly indicated by the image in the guide.

i did as the guide indicated, in absence of correct info telling me otherwise.

if you believe that i have wrongly misread it somehow, then please do kindly let me know which part in the guide where it tells us exactly WHERE we need to type in our ip address.

PS: i checked my windSCP again just to be sure, again as i mentioned in my post earlier, the hostname box shows the ip address even after a successful setup, the words "RETROPIE" should not be typed in there, and should not be showing there, and does not show up there under any circumstances.

thank you.

edited: finished tidying up the post. fixed spelling

mitu

@blueagent said in USB gamepad works with all emulators except Reicast:

so flycast is not recist, is that correct?
PS: i checked the reicast core in lakka and it displays the following information:
REICAST v1.7.6

Are you sure sure it doesn't say 'RetroArch 1.7.6' ?

this is confusing indeed.

There are 2 separate emulators - a standalone emulator (reicast) and a Libretro core which is based on it (lr-reicast). RetroArch is a front-end for the Libretro based emulation API, which in turn can run many emulators ('cores') underneath, using the same interface. In RetroPie, these Libretro based emulators are denoted by the lr- prefix in their name. If look in the Docs, you'll see that the 2 emulators are listed for the Dreamcast system.

Lakka is running RetroArch, which is capable of running only Libretro Cores; what you're perceiving as reicast is actually the Libretro core, not the standalone reicast emulator. Lakka doesn't have the standalone Reicast emulator available.

Reicast - https://github.com/reicast/reicast-emulator
Libretro core - https://github.com/libretro/flycast

i could not get SSH to work without this essential step of having to type in our ip at the HOSTNAME box which was not mentioned in the guide at all.
...

As I said before, the fact that the retropie hostname is not working for you it's not the norm, it's an exception. I have it working from all the other devices in my local LAN and I'm sure a lot of forum users can confirm this.

blueagent004

@mitu

the full core information displayed should be "1.7.6 Reicast r0.19XXXXXXXX", so i'm 100% sure that it said reicast and not retroarch.

it only showed up once while i was messing around in lakka's core settings and trying to restore everything to default, the core information message briefly showed up on the screen which was frozen after i initiated restore all settings to default and then the pi3 rebooted, but the core info afterwards never showed up again.

as for winSCP, i went and deleted all my setting, loaded my pi3 with retropi again and tried setting the host name to "RETROPIE" again and let winSCP do its thing, but it never connects, it will only connect when i have my pi3's IP address in the hostname box of winSCP.

i have 3 computers in my home, an old winXP machine, a win7 machine and a win8 laptop. i've installed winSCP on all of those machines but none of them would connect to my PI3 with RETROPIE in hostname box of winSCP, they would only connect to ip for whatever reason.

mitu

@blueagent said in USB gamepad works with all emulators except Reicast:

the full core information displayed should be "1.7.6 Reicast r0.19XXXXXXXX", so i'm 100% sure that it said reicast and not retroarch.

First is the RetroArch version, then it's the name of the core (reicast) and its version. RetroPie also includes the same version of RetroArch, but the core name has been renamed upstream since the Lakka release you are using, in RetroPie it's lr-flycast.