Joycons working ... kind of

JasonStonier

Has anyone had any success with using Nintendo Joycons on RetroPi?

I managed to get them set up, paired, and working together as one controller, but in games they are really unreliable, with the majority of button presses not recognised. If I hotkey (also unreliable) out of the game back to the EmulationStation menu, the controllers remain unreliable - usually the D-Pad doesn't work, but the analogue sticks do, however they often "catch" and scroll rapidly through the menu without input from me. If I restart ES the controllers pair well and work...until the next time I try a game. So far I've tried ROMs for Atari2600 and Megadrive with the same results.

A generic USB gamepad works fine.

I'm using dkms-hid-nintendo and joycond from the instructions here:

RetroPi Docs

Any insights? Thanks.

PiKiller

Maybe it's your Joy-cons. I've been using these: ebay.com/itm/403460107118 and they work great. Their only fault is that they wont pair induvidually.

YFZdude

@JasonStonier said in Joycons working ... kind of:

Has anyone had any success with using Nintendo Joycons on RetroPi?

I've used the Switch Pro Controller but not the Joycons. The Pro Controller seems to work fairly well when I've used it with an x86 PC and also with a Pi 3B. I would have expected the Joycons to be very similar.
What hardware are you using? PC / Pi ? Which model?

I managed to get them set up, paired, and working together as one controller, but in games they are really unreliable, with the majority of button presses not recognised. If I hotkey (also unreliable) out of the game back to the EmulationStation menu, the controllers remain unreliable - usually the D-Pad doesn't work, but the analogue sticks do, however they often "catch" and scroll rapidly through the menu without input from me.

This bit almost sounds like the signal is fighting to overcome noise or poor signal strength.
Does it make a difference if you sit closer or farther away? If you are using a Pi, you could try disabling the WiFi to see if that helps with interference.

If all else fails, I believe some have had success with a separate Bluetooth adapter.

JasonStonier

Thanks for the replies all - I think the problem is more subtle than that. The joycons work fine on a Switch, and they work fine in Retropi menus after the first boot. I've sat there with it for 15 minutes going through menus and the joycons work perfectly.

The problem only starts when I try a game, the joycon immediately stops working correctly, and then continues not working correctly when I return to the Retropi menu - until the next reboot, and it'll work fine again...until I go into a game...

This on a Pi 4. When I get a moment I'll try the SD card in my Pi 400 to see if there's any difference.

BBoHK

@JasonStonier
I got the same issue with new version 4.8. Boot back to 4.7.1 solved the problem.
I even plugged both Joycons to the charging grip and connected it via USB, same issue with version 4.8. So it is not a Bluetooth issue.

JasonStonier

@BBoHK

Interesting - thanks. I'll give that a go.

Possibly a dumb question - but I can't find an archive of previous versions - any mention of 4.7.1 links back to the main download page of 4.8. Is there some secret stash somewhere to find it?

Edit: found it using a bit of guesswork - https://files.retropie.org.uk/images/weekly/

JasonStonier

Ok, so had a bit of time to tinker, and I can confirm that Joycons are working perfectly in 4.7.19. Seems it's a bug in 4.8.

Now - any tips on getting them to sync at startup - I find I have to be very precise to the moment I turn them on during boot up, otherwise they don't pair!