Help Remapping Retroarch Hotkeys

OmegaAtrocity

Retropie 4.0
Pi 3
PS3 Controller

I was playing Super Metroid last night and the hotkey being select really makes playing that game a little bit of a drag as I end up using the hotkey to save state, load state, change slot, etc. by accident while I'm switching my missles around.

Is there any way to remap the retroarch hotkey button from select to something else (thinking the playstation button on my PS3 controller, it isn't used for anything)? I have done some basic digging and haven't been able to find an answer.

backstander

@OmegaAtrocity

Yes there should be a way. I don't have a PS3 controller but I use Xbox 360 controllers. You could edit the global RetroArch config file but I think you'd get best results just editing the SNES specific RetroArch config file but that would mean the way to exit SNES games would be different then all the other RetroArch emulators.

You'll need to know what number represents the buttons you want to use. Maybe someone with a PS3 controller out there can give us the numbers needed?

sudo nano /opt/retropie/configs/snes/retroarch.cfg

# Hotkey button
input_enable_hotkey_btn = ?  #PS button number?
# Exit emulator
input_exit_emulator_btn = 9  #Start button

bazmonkey

@backstander remapping the hotkey is fine, but I don't think you can use the PS button. It does do something: hitting it turns the controller on, and holding it down ten seconds turns it off. I don't think it's a useable button.

backstander

I guess you could use either one of the trigger buttons or the shoulder buttons (which ever ones you're not using for the SNES shoulder buttons). I believe my left and right trigger buttons on my Xbox 360 controller at 6 and 7 respectively.

So you could potentially do something like this using the Left Trigger Button as Hotkey:

# Hotkey button
input_enable_hotkey_btn = 6  #Left Trigger button?
# Exit emulator
input_exit_emulator_btn = 9  #Start button

bazmonkey

@bazmonkey said in Help Remapping Retroarch Hotkeys:

@backstander remapping the hotkey is fine, but I don't think you can use the PS button. It does do something: hitting it turns the controller on, and holding it down ten seconds turns it off. I don't think it's a useable button.

Sorry, I was wrong! Just did this with my own controllers. You can use jstest /dev/input/js[yours] to confirm, but it should be btn 16 for the PS button. Adjust it in /opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch-joypads/[the PS3 one].cfg. That way some other generic controller's select hotkey will still work.

Thanks for getting me to try! This helps in a lot of games.

backstander

@bazmonkey

You're welcome and this has got me thinking as well, maybe I should give this a try using the Xbox button to do this!

Also I usually put my button mapping in the RetroArch's specific emulator config files but maybe I should be using the Xbox 360 controller's config file instead so it doesn't mess up other controllers types. I do this already with my Dreamcast emulator Reicast but I think the numbers are different vs the RetroArch config files. An example is that Button A on my Xbox 360 controller is 304 for the Dreamcast but for RetroArch it is 0

OmegaAtrocity

I appreciate the help you guys, will fix this when I get home!

OmegaAtrocity

Just to update this for anyone in the future, on Retropie 4.0 the path you want to cd into is

cd /opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch-joypads

Then you'll want to ls to find the controller that you want to change. In my case it was the PS3 controller. Then you'll want to run

sudo nano [controller name]

Inside of that you'll want to do what @backstander mentioned above. For the PS3 controller the button is indeed "16".
Do note that this will change the hotkey for everything on all emulators, so when I want to exit a game I must now hit the PS button and start.

Note: I have no clue how to make the linux commands show up as they do above, apologies.

backstander

@OmegaAtrocity Glad you got it working!

For the formatting, check out this link:
http://commonmark.org/help/

bazmonkey

@backstander said in Help Remapping Retroarch Hotkeys:

@bazmonkey

You're welcome and this has got me thinking as well, maybe I should give this a try using the Xbox button to do this!

Did it work? I found that the Logitech f(310,710) can similarly use their center button. I'm thinking most "guide" buttons will work.