Configuring Controls for DraStic

quicksilver

@George-Spiggott I've gotten quite "good" at navigating the drastic menu on my pi 4. The trick is to remember that the screen is basically displaying what you did one step behind. So for example after pressing "m" you see a black screen, if you press down on the dpad the menu will appear, however you have actually also moved the selector one space down on the menu (even though it still shows you at the top). If you go slow you can mentally keep track of what menu option your actually on.

George Spiggott

@quicksilver Thanks. How have you found it performance wise? I had to turn off threaded video because I was getting some fairly bad screen tearing. As a result performance has taken a hit. I get totally smooth 2x resolution gameplay with auto frame skip set to 2 but I think I'm going to have to increase it further to the same with both screens displayed horizontally.

Otherwise I'm pretty happy with the settings I have at the moment and I have found changing them via SSH on my tablet to be fairly straightforward. I plan to disable the menu button on my joypad as it is far to easy to press accidentally mid game and I'm not sure that DraStic even supports big/little screen options or d-pad mirroring to analogue . Does anyone know what the screen_scaling setting does and what the variables are for it? It is set to '0' by default and '1' seems to have no effect.

quicksilver

@George-Spiggott I noticed the screen tearing but didn't realize it was the threaded mode causing it. I feel like performance isn't as good on my pi 4 as it was on my pi 3 but that is purely a gut feeling, I haven't done any benchmarks. It's possible this build just isn't optimized well for the pi 4. Hopefully when the retroarch version is released it will work better.

The scaling mode is used to scale the game area to fit your screen. If you're already getting a fullscreen image then you shouldn't need to change it.

I disabled calling the drastic menu from my controller as well.

I don't know about big/little screen options, I haven't seen that listed. What I did was set LB to toggle vertical/horizontal orientation and RB to toggle single screen/dual screen view.

For first person shooter games like Metroid prime hunters you can map the NDS face buttons to your right analog stick and map the emulated stylus to the dpad. Then map the NDS dpad to your left analog stick. Then in the metroid game settings you can change control type from stylus to face buttons. In the drastic menu save the controller config as a per game config only, that way it only applies to that game. For any other first person shooters that support face button controls you can do the same thing. This will allow you to play fps games using dual analog controls.

George Spiggott

I've tested with multi-thread 3D turned off and frameskip turned up. The frameskip and sound breaks are much more noticeable than the screen tearing on most games. I've gone back to having multi-thread 3D turned on.

notthesame

has anyone figured how to get a quick fix? so far i tested on desktop gamepad/keyboard work fine on menu in desktop, can we run a command to run it on retropie but running from desktop somehow? like using x session , not sure how to do that.

example drastic = "pushd /opt/retropie/configs/nds/drastic; /opt/retropie/emulators/drastic/drastic %ROM%; popd"
*this original code above

i know we need a new build, i did test another compiled drastic one time and had a different movement for menu but i forgot which was it? odroid or jetson nano, ill be back with results
Edited

The version was rockpi4 since they have almost the same flags so this be a great start for now, also if anyone has issues setting up, run the emulator on desktop to config and then run in retropie, , until we find a way to run on desktop using it's code onto retropie.

quicksilver

@notthesame word on the street is that there will be a drastic retroarch core out at some point this year. If this is the case then I would say just wait for that as it will be much easier to use I'm sure.

George Spiggott

I need to give this another airing to see if the new kernel has affected the screen tearing.

notthesame

@quicksilver that be so nice, it help on gamepad glitch or bug also, gamepads once going to sleep,, drastic don't wake it up, being a lr- would not give this error thanks

RetroRetr0

Hey Everyone, I was able to calibrate my controller and resolve the issue (on my Vilros usb ps2 style controller).

I ran into the same issue of when I tried to use the regular controls for my other games, but sadly it wouldn't work and all that i was able to move was the stylist on the bottom screen.

How i got it to work:
Go into your Nintendo Ds emulator, and start a game, press the analog button (until you see the red light on under the analog button). then a list of options pop up on the left side of the screen, select the "configure controller" option and viola!!

mitu

@retroretr0 Since this topic was posted, the controls not working properly issue has been addressed. If you're using the latest RetroPie version, the issue is not present and the controls should work fine, including the controller configuration screen.

DTEAM

@mitu said in Configuring Controls for DraStic:

@retroretr0 Since this topic was posted, the controls not working properly issue has been addressed. If you're using the latest RetroPie version, the issue is not present and the controls should work fine, including the controller configuration screen.

For people who are using small lcd touchscreen, Touchscreen is also working without specific setup. Great emulator.

RetroRetr0

@mitu oh okay, cool.

blahblah

@mitu Running the latest versions (Retropie 4.7.3 and Drastic 2.5.0.4) and the problem is still present.

mitu

@blahblah Please add some info about about your system, as detailed in https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/3/read-this-first.

blahblah

@mitu

Pi Model or other hardware: Raspberry Pi 4 B 8GB
Power Supply used: Official (UK)
RetroPie Version Used: 4.7.3
Built From: Premade image from RetroPie.org.uk
USB Devices connected: Bluetooth Dongle, Wireless KB/Mouse Dongle, USB drive
Controller used: SF30 Pro
Error messages received: N/A
Verbose log (if relevant): N/A
Guide used: N/A
File: N/A
Emulator: DraStic 2.5.0.4
Attachment of config files: N/A
How to replicate the problem: Try to navigate the menu in DrasTic. Button presses are not displayed on the screen until the next button is pressed.

mitu

@blahblah If the controller works fine in other games, then can you add the log file from running the emulator (/dev/shm/runcommand.log), taken after exiting DraStic ?

blahblah

@mitu https://pastebin.com/3zCLHYPJ

mitu

@blahblah That doesn't look like an updated DraStic, did you update the package after updating RetroPie ?

blahblah

@mitu Yes but I just uninstalled and reinstalled DraStic just now. Works. Thank you very much.

George Spiggott

I've just come back to this and I have it all working as expected. Does anyone know how to map the directions to the d-pad AND the analogue stick at the same time?