Controller latency

Emulatre71

Retropie 7.1
Raspberry Pi 4 B 4gb

Controllers used: 8bitdo Arcade stick and 8bitdo SN30Pro

Ive used both controllers one wired up and the other wirelessly via a dongle on my RPie setup. Ive tested it out on some Neo Geo arcade games and then a Dreamcast game to confirm that the buttons are having some kind of lag issue because the buttons are not being registered as being pressed when needed to.
For example pressing 3 buttons at a time i was able to see that 2 of them were pressed and not the other at the same time when it needed to be, meaning it lagged one of the inputs.
It happens even when pressing 2 buttons at a time. I tested a fighting game where you can see the button inputs as you try to trigger specials which is why it needs to be on point for fighting games.

Again I tested this out with both controllers and both were having this issue. My controllers also get detected as xbox 360 controllers, so I wonder if this has anything to do with it.

mitu

There's no 7.1 RetroPie version, I assume you mean 4.7.1 ?
Please add more info about your setup, as detailed in https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/3/read-this-first.

Is the issue appearing if you test the controllers from the command line, using something like jstest or evtest ?

Again I tested this out with both controllers and both were having this issue. My controllers also get detected as xbox 360 controllers, so I wonder if this has anything to do with it.

Did you install the xboxdrv driver by any chance ? Post the output of cat /proc/bus/input/devices.

Emulatre71

@mitu Im not skilled with RetroPie so where are the outputs saved at? I downloaded the xbox driver from retropie management settings. I updated the system before running that "cat" command. The controller tested was the 8BitDo Arcade Stick for the command in the screenshot.

Yes, I did mean version 4.7.1 which is installed on my Raspberry Pi 4.

edit: via Wireless 2.4g dongle
https://www.8bitdo.com/arcade-stick/

Output Screenshot: I dont know where the output file is so this will do for now

RetroPie controller 8bitdo output.png

mitu

@emulatre71 said in Controller latency:

Im not skilled with RetroPie so where are the outputs saved at?

cat will output to the standard output (stdout), it doesn't save in a file. A screenshot is ok, but you can redirect the output to a file in your ROMs folder, from where you can pick it up via file shares and open it in a text editor.

cat /file/name > $HOME/RetroPie/roms/output.txt

I downloaded the xbox driver from retropie management settings. I updated the system before running that "cat" command. The controller tested was the 8BitDo Arcade Stick for the command in the screenshot.

Why ? The xboxdrv is not a driver - it simulates a Xbox 360 gamepad and that's not what you need. Remove it, it's no use and will cause un-necessary confusion.
In the output you posted I only see the xboxdrv connected and a keyboard - I don't see any 8Bitdo controller connected (probably masked by xboxdrv). Remove xboxdrv driver and try again to configure your gamepad in EmulationStation, then run a game and see if still feel delayed.

Emulatre71

@mitu I went back and removed that xboxdrv (misleading name) and ran the cat command. I ran it once when it was wired and another when using it wirelessly via the dongle. Still comes up as a "Microsoft X-box 360 pad".

mitu

In this case this must be the identification info sent by the controller when started in Xinput mode (Microsoft X-box 360 pad).

Coming back to your original question

Is the issue appearing if you test the controllers from the command line, using something like jstest or evtest ?

Emulatre71

@mitu What would be another solution for me to try?

mitu

@emulatre71 Not sure what you mean by 'solution'. The commands I mentioned would help diagnose/find the issue - which would be a 1st step in finding a solution or workaround.

Emulatre71

@mitu The current version of the RetroPie installed on RPI4 is 4.7.11. I checked RetroPie docs on 8BitDo but it was on Bluetooth, Im not using Bluetooth for it so it is not applicable.
https://retropie.org.uk/docs/8Bitdo-Controller/

Also for my Arcade Stick gamepad I ended it up updating the Firmware via their update tool for their controllers.
https://support.8bitdo.com/firmware-updater.html

I then deleted the file "es_input.cfg", then when I booted up RetroPie I had the controller hooked up via USB A - USB C cable. It still got detected as a Microsoft X-Box 360 gamepad. But then there are other issues that came up. I've noticed that when using Left Stick Mode (LS) that RetroPie doesn't acknowledge it for sometimes and I have to switch it to Dip Stick Mode (DP). If I configure it while it is in DP mode it then does some weird things for LS mode.

And then there was other issues that came up. I wonder if I should make a separate issue for these.

Scraper was not scraping any games, its as if both were not available.
Dreamcast core lr-Flycast switched up button configs so that the home button became select and start became the Right Trigger button (RT).

At this point I'm not sure if I should just do a clean install of RetroPie. If I can avoid that what would be my option.

mitu

@emulatre71 said in Controller latency:

I then deleted the file "es_input.cfg", then when I booted up RetroPie I had the controller hooked up via USB A - USB C cable.

That's going to cause other troubles - the recommended way to reset the controller configuration is from Retropie Setup Script >> Manage Packages >> Manage Core Packages >> EmulationStation >> Configuration / Options >> Clear / Reset EmulationStation Input Configuration. You could have also re-configured the gamepad again from the input configuration in EmulationStation.

Scraper was not scraping any games, its as if both were not available.
Dreamcast core lr-Flycast switched up button configs so that the home button became select and start became the Right Trigger button (RT).

You can open separate topics for this issues, though I suspect that the 2nd issue is because the RetroArch input auto-configuration file was not correctly generated, as a consequence of deleting the es_input.cfg file. The configuration file holds the path to the script that's run after you configure the gamepad in EmulationStation - that script will create the input configuration for RetroArch (and other emulators), which probably now doesn't match with what you selected during configuration.

Emulatre71

I may have forgotten to mention but I've noticed that when doing a initial clean install of RetropIe 4.7 I noticed that with my 8BitDo controllers that there is a bug that does not allow me to configure the Right Trigger and Left Trigger . It does show up as a Xbox 360 controller, I had fixed that input by updating Retropie to current 4.7.11 and redoing the configuration.