Controller settings splash screen

CargoRunner

I am not complaining, retropie is a really, really great project. But being totally new to retropie and the emulators. I am not finding it very easy to actually play a game! And yes I know I should not expect retropie to be pick up and play with no effort.

I want to play systems that I have never played or haven't played for many many years. The vectrex, the PC engine the atari 2600. I am not familiar with the controllers of these systems.

I would find it very useful to have an option to have a controller mapping splash screen appear the first time you play a game from a system in that session. For example if I look at the Atari 2600 emulator wiki page it shows me how the Atari Joystick maps. But what about the start game and other 3 buttons that are on the console? What are they, what do they do and what are they mapped to? So even looking at the wiki it's not 100% useful, as well as not being convenient to look at the wiki when I am on the couch and not infront of the computer.

So I would like a splash screen that shows me ALL of the important controls for that console (joystick and console buttons) and what they normally map to if you take the default controller mapping. It can be a simple image file. It does not need to be complex and dynamic.

It would need to be an optional "info/nag" screen as most people hate pressing extra buttons when they just want to play their game as fast as possible.

I am totally new to retropie and I probably missed an important paragraph somewhere. Or maybe there is a problem with my pi or the 360 controller driver. But for example, the start button does not start the game in these first 3 systems that I have tried. I have to mash the buttons randomly to get a game to actually leave the title screen and start playing!

i.e. I select the rom, the rom starts OK and I get a title screen. And in the case of the pc engine it says "press run button to start" or something like that. I don't even know what the run button is! I didn't see it on the wiki. I press start on my 360 controller, the game does not start. I press every button on the 360 controller the game does not start. I mash the buttons, suddenly the game starts and I can play totally normally. Exactly the same with the Atari 2600.

A controller mapping splash screen would tell me if I am pressing the wrong buttons or if my set up is not working.

Zigurana

I actually like this idea.
It could be something that is implemented as part of the runcommand menu, as an alternative to the image shown when one was scraped (screenshot / box image).
It could need to be a system wide image, but that assumes that you have all your games configured in the same way for that system. This might be true for SNES or SEGA games, but for Arcade probably not so much. So system wide unless you have configured it not to be as such?
Still, doable, but then, the images you would probably make yourself, because your controller is not the same as mine, nor do we have the same preferences.

Again, it's a nice idea, and something that is possible with a bit of hacking, but it's far from a one-size fits-all problem, and neither will the solution be. How much work are you willing to put into this?

sc0tt88

I was thinking about creating images myself of the controller I use (Xbox 360) and drawing the mappings on it myself, then making them show whenever I launch a game. This would be even better though if it shows and you can map from there also

Zigurana

have a look at this https://github.com/retropie/retropie-setup/wiki/runcommand to see what is already implemented.

CargoRunner

Thanks for the support of the idea.

p.s. I discovered that my controller problems were in part due to having too much plugged in to the pi. This made the controller input unreliable. Even with a working controller I would still find a mapping splash screen a very useful reminder. Fingers crossed it gets added!

opensourcefan

So how about this solution?

snes control

Rookervik

@opensourcefan

That's a great way to hack up a solution. I dig it. :D

kikinaak

I support this idea, especially for mame games and others that use different controls even on the same system, such as the N64 that had multiple ways to hold the controller. A quick splash screen before a game is loaded, waiting for a button press, would be a simple and versatile thing. Such an image could show the controls, some artwork, the intro story from a manual, a cheat code or two, let your imagination run wild.