Brawler 64 Controller

billymild · 10 Mar 2021, 01:35

https://retrofighters.com/our-collection/brawler64-usb/

I bought this controller from Amazon. I was hoping to have a good controller for playing N64 games that required C Buttons. So far I haven't been able to get that setup correctly. In EmulationStation, if I press a button that isn't START it will recognize this as Android GamePad. If I press and hold START it will recognize it as a Keyboard input.

Has anyone successfully set up one of these controllers?

billymild · 10 Mar 2021, 21:29

In order to do this in EmulationStation please do the following:

Please press C-Up and C-Right for a full 5 seconds, then please restart the EmulationStation or reboot the Pi. It is not possible to Switch D/X mode in the middle of use, the Pi must be restarted.

You can also configure the “retroarch-joypads” file for Xinput mode and change the input_enable_hotkey_btn=”12”.

This was suggested from the vendor.

radrex · 13 Mar 2021, 02:55

@billymild I'm so glad you posted this... I've been looking for the answer to this as well. I have some dumb questions.

I tried hold C-Up+C-Right for five seconds, pressing F4 -> sudo reboot -> going into the retroarch config to map the start button but that didn't work for me.

Where is the retroarch-joypads file? How would I edit it?

radrex · 13 Mar 2021, 03:44

I also tried C-Up + C-Right for five seconds, quitting emulation station and then starting it again. Then going to settings and updating my configuration. But Start is still registering as a Keyboard input.

If you set this up successfully, can you send a copy of your retro-joypads file?

billymild · 14 Mar 2021, 18:22

@radrex said in Brawler 64 Controller:

I also tried C-Up + C-Right for five seconds, quitting emulation station and then starting it again. Then going to settings and updating my configuration. But Start is still registering as a Keyboard input.

If you set this up successfully, can you send a copy of your retro-joypads file?

I haven't gotten a successful configuration. It doesn't seem to act the way it says in the manual that comes with it.

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/3280180/54955719-78771d80-4f24-11e9-9fca-a1a58c52dc8c.PNG

radrex · 15 Mar 2021, 04:05

@billymild I ended up giving up... I went with an Xbox 360 controller because I had plenty of them and I wanted access to the select button for being able to quit while in game. Ah well. Next time.

derekr · 7 Jan 2021, 07:21

@radrex I just got mine so I haven’t given up quite yet. I sent an email to retrofighters suggesting that they come out with a firmware patch that allows you to flash the default mode to your liking. This way you could just flash it to dinput (switch for that matter) and you would be set. I was able to swap it over to dinput on my pc (start button registers and all) but retropie still wants to see it in xinput. I bought two of these so hopefully I won’t have to return them. My final solution will be to exchange them for n64 models and use Hyperkin adapters... not really the ‘affordably priced’ alternative that I was setting out for. I’ll try to post up here if I get a working solution

billymild · 1 Jul 2021, 06:21

@derekr I have not heard of any kind of a fix.

derekr · 1 Jul 2021, 06:21

@billymild I got a response back from Robert at Retro Fighters, he said that he'd have his team look into it and see if there will be an upcoming firmware update. Hopefully they're able to come up with something. It seems like a pretty basic flash & fix, just set the default for the controller to dinput and BOOM, works for retropie/EmulationStation opening up a decent sized client base I would assume.

He mentioned that they have a wireless model coming out in about a month and a half which actually might work out on the Pi. Just my assumption but if the controller is on, but not connected, then you should be able to do the xinput/dinput swap without any issue. Maybe I can just return these and go with the wireless models...

TheCherry · 8 Nov 2021, 03:32

I have the same problem with Ubuntu. And I don't found a way around the Start Button problem.

But I found something interesting, then you plug-in the controller into windows before the computer is on, the gamepad it recognized as XBOX or PS3/PC device. Then the C-UP + C-RIGHT combo works to switch between them. BUT if you plug-in in the controller then the computer is running its recognized as a Switch Pro Controller and the C-UP + C-RIGHT combo don't work.

With Ubuntu its always recognized as a "Android Gamepad" device. I can do what I want but there seems for me no way around it.

There is someone else who try to find a solution he got it running with a reboot: https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2458351 - but that don't work for me.

billymild · 22 Nov 2021, 22:27

Any solutions yet? Still hearing about a Firmware update...