How do I configure my gamepad/keyboard for use with Dolphin?

PiBoyyy

Hello,
I was thinking it would be fun to try and overclock my Pi 4 running RetroPie on Raspberry Pi OS 12 Lite to see if it can play Wii games, like Sonic 4: Episode I, New Mario Bros Wii, and my personal favorite, Sonic Colors. I managed to overclock the Pi and install Dolphin, but when I enter the game the buttons on my keyboard were not properly mapped. I figured out which button A is, but that's about it and I could not start the game. My gamepad didn't work at all, on the other hand.
According to the wiki:
Dolphin controls must currently be mapped via the GUI, accessed by launching dolphin-gui via Runcommand. From there there graphical client will launch and you can bind your controller in the Dolphin Interface as well as change settings.
I figured that this means you need to switch the default Wii emulator from dolphin to dolphin-gui, and I tried doing that. Unfortunately no menu appeared to map my gamepad or keyboard. The game just started as usual. Help!

abj

@PiBoyyy

To have access to the Gui you have to do this :

Run from terminal window:

nano /opt/retropie/configs/gc/emulators.cfg

Add this line:

dolphin-editor = "XINIT-WMC:/opt/retropie/emulators/dolphin/bin/dolphin-emu"

In the end, the file it will be like this:

dolphin = "XINIT-WM:/opt/retropie/emulators/dolphin/bin/dolphin-emu-nogui -e %ROM%"
dolphin-gui = "XINIT-WM:/opt/retropie/emulators/dolphin/bin/dolphin-emu -b -e %ROM%"
dolphin-editor = "XINIT-WMC:/opt/retropie/emulators/dolphin/bin/dolphin-emu"
default = "dolphin-gui"

Press ctrl+o and ctrl+x to save and exit from terminal.

Start a game and choose from runcommand menu the dolphin-editor. This will open Dolphin GUI, where we can change the parameters of the emulator and configure the controller. Don't expect to have good performance, even with Pi5 most games are struggling.

PiBoyyy

@abj Thanks! Doing this worked like a charm on my Pi. However, I was wondering if this also works for lr-dolphin as well.

abj

@PiBoyyy

Lr-dolphin is using the retroarch menu. You can change eveything from there.

Kultaid42

Is there a way to do it for the wii emulator aswell i did it for the gamecube already and it's not working for the wii

sugarfree

@Kultaid42

Run from terminal:

nano /opt/retropie/configs/wii/emulators.cfg

Add this line so you can open the gui :

dolphin-editor = "XINIT-WMC:/opt/retropie/emulators/dolphin/bin/dolphin-emu"

Kultaid42

@sugarfree ok ill try that again

retropieuser555

Have added in a pull request to add functionality that will map dolphin controllers based on emulationstation being updated when mapping. Similar to how mupen64plus works

https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/pull/3969

Darklordjim

Hi! I just ran into this myself, and thought I'd post this for anyone else who had this issue to give an alt method, If you want to configure it with the GUI (which may be easier). It takes a few steps, and you will need a mouse.

install Desktop in Raspconfig
2 use the dekstop terminal to run QT_QPA_PLATFORM=xcb /opt/retropie/emulators/dolphin/bin/dolphin-emu
3 configure your controller
4 important- while you are here, configure your hotkeys as well. Dolphin does not recognize the normal hotkey /exit button, it uses its own.

You can edit both GC and Wii controls this way