Adding gamepads to existing arcade cabinet with 2 joysticks

dookieshooter

Retropie version 4.8
Ubuntu 20.04 PC build

I have recently updated amd completed a full refresh on my arcade cabinet, including the addition of N64/megadrive/psx games.
I currently have two arcade sticks with 6 buttons each using dragonrise USB encoders.

I'm in the process of backing up the entire drive to be safe, but would like some insight into what will happen if I add 2 gamepads for use with the N64/megadrive games.

Is there a chance this could bork my current 2 joystick config or will it just add ports 3 and 4?

I assume that for games needing these gamepads, I will also want to disable the joysticks.

Thanks for any help you can provide

mitu

@dookieshooter said in Adding gamepads to existing arcade cabinet with 2 joysticks:

Is there a chance this could bork my current 2 joystick config or will it just add ports 3 and 4?

Are they identical to your existing joysticks ?
If yes, then make sure you wire them identically otherwise, since they'll share the same configuration due to the same name, they won't work properly.
If no, then you just configure them separately and that's it.
In either case, they'll just show as P3/P4

I assume that for games needing these gamepads, I will also want to disable the joysticks.

You can switch the joystick order for any RetroArch core with either the configuration editor or with @meleu's joystick selection.

dookieshooter

@mitu awesome.

The new ones will be Xbox controllers, whereas the original 2 are just arcade sticks and separate buttons going through a USB encoder.

dookieshooter

@mitu ok so as soon as I added the two controllers, things got weird.

My main arcade joysticks swapped p1 and p2. Fixed with the joystick select tool.

However, it also moved the hotkey to one of the new gamepads.

Apparently, I can only have one controller with a hotkey?

After disconnecting the USB gamepads, I was able to get everything back to the original config...

Plugging gamepad 1 back in caused it to have the hotkey again. How do I stop this behavior? Do I delete the hotkey input in the retroarch auto config file for the controller?

mitu

@dookieshooter said in Adding gamepads to existing arcade cabinet with 2 joysticks:

Apparently, I can only have one controller with a hotkey?

Yes, only P1 gets the hotkeys - that's always been the case.

After disconnecting the USB gamepads, I was able to get everything back to the original config...

Plugging gamepad 1 back in caused it to have the hotkey again. How do I stop this behavior? Do I delete the hotkey input in the retroarch auto config file for the controller?

No, don't delete anything. As said above, only P1 gets to use the hotkey enable button, the other players don't have it active, even if it's defined.

dookieshooter

@mitu

Ok. I'll check in a bit that P1 is now staying as the arcade joystick regardless of plugging/unplugging gamepads.

Thanks for the help!

dookieshooter

@mitu

Ok. So it seems that order would get screwed up whenever I add the 2 gamepads controllers back in. I had to go set the controller order for each system I use to correct it. I had thought that leaving the systems unset would use the global settings, but....

Now I need to understand how to swap controllers around for specific games in N64 and megadrive, or if I just limit those to only the gamepads, since most need the analog sticks