MAME Keyboard + Joypad J1 conflict

mattbrailsford

Hi Folks,

I've managed to get my 2 player arcade setup with retropie. I'm using 2 picade PCB's as input, one configured as keyboard, and another as a joypad device (followed instructions here to configure these http://forums.pimoroni.com/t/new-2-x-configurable-keyboard-gamepad-firmware/1881/3 if it helps, but I don't think this is the problem).

When running some games, I can successfully use the 2 controllers independently, however in some other games in MAME, the player 1 controller works as expected, however player 2 controller is affecting player 1 aswell as player 2 (ie, left right is turning player 1 and 2 left / right movement). I know by default mame maps direction keys and joypad controls to be the same, but I've been through the mame config menu and made sure there are no combinations setup using both, and have made player 1 be the direction keys, and player 2 be the joypad controls, but as I say, in some games I just can't stop player 2 affecting player 1.

If all else fails, I could change the player 2 picade pcb to act as a keyboard just using differing keys from player 1 picade, but I'd like to see if I'm missing something first.

Anyone got any ideas?

Meneer Jansen

Mame's config is quirky, quirky, quirky, quirky! If you use mame4all or advmame, which have sort of the "classic" Mame interface, then let the menu pop up by pressing the TAB key and do:

Input (general) -> Player controls
Input (general) -> Other controls
Input (this game)

So sometimes you have to configure yor input keys three times! If you use Libretto Mame I cannot help you. Libretto and Retroarch's configs are a mystery to my. Too complex. Even after reading the fine manual.

movisman

Hi,

Any reason why the second PCB cannot be mapped as a gamepad too, using the same firmware? So one Picade will appear in Port 0, the other Port 1?

I found for me, in some Libretro cores gamepads respond differently to keyboards with simultaneous button presses, also lr-mame2003 does behave slightly strangely with the default Picade keyboard mappings.

See my thread here for a full explanation:
https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/15/couple-of-retroarch-bugs-and-info-for-picade-users-remapping-as-a-gamepad

Not sure if this would pose an issue for you.

Also worth mentioning that I have to use SDL2 as my gamepad driver for the Picade to work properly (again explained in the thread). I no longer get the console warnings though as this was fixed in a recent commit.

Hope this helps.

mattbrailsford

@movisman does making them both gamepads effect the esc/enter keys and vol control? That was my only main reason for keeping one keyboard

mattbrailsford

@Meneer-Jansen thanks for this. I'm pretty sure I caught them all, but cant hurt to double check ay? :)

movisman

@mattbrailsford
Not too sure what you mean, but if you didn't change the mapping for esc/enter and volume mappings when you reconfigured one of the PCB's to be a gamepad, these buttons are still seen as keyboard presses, so if you configure them both as gamepads but leave those side buttons as esc/enter/volume those buttons will be behave in the same way as they already do? Not really sure how to explain it, and your config might be completely different to what i'm thinking. Beauty of that firmware though is that you can configure the buttons to be whatever you want, eg. Button 1 mapped as gamepad button A, button 2 mapped as alt on the keyboard, etc.

I don't personally have two though, so you would need to give it a test yourself and see. Should be easy to revert to the older firmware on the Picade though if you have problems.

My Picade is configured so the right cab buttons are esc and enter keys, the left cab buttons are volume, and the other buttons are configured as gamepad inputs.

mattbrailsford

@movisman looks like that might have done the trick. I configured it as a game controller over serial with the command "g", then remapped back the vol + esc/ent keys and it's working a treat. Just gotta undo a load of mappings I'd done in other games now :)

Thanks for the help.

Matt

movisman

@mattbrailsford

Excellent, glad you got it sorted. I see what you mean now, if you used the 'g' preset I guess it changed the mappings for vol/esc/enter at first. I did mine manually keeping those buttons as is, so those mappings didn't change. I think I posted my config dump on the 2.x firmware thread on the Picade forums if you wanted something to compare to.

Cheers

mattbrailsford

@movisman exactly. Really appreciate your help. Got it all setup working a treat now.