Multiple mice support in RetroArch cores (lightguns, spinners, trackballs)

mediamogul

if we can get a well-described and logged Issue together regarding absolute vs. relative coordinates I feel like now is the time when help is available.

I would love to see this happen. Let me know how I can help.

Do you know of a test case -- core + ROM + hardware -- that illustrates the problem with absolute vs. relative coordinates?

I've tested with what I believe to be every core that has light gun support and currently none recognize absolute coordinates. If one core were to become the focus, I would suggest either lr-mame2003 to continue the work already done there, or perhaps lr-nestopia, as the NES was arguably the most popular home console light gun system.

@edmaul69

so is there any way of playing the nintendo light gun games with a mouse?

If played with a standard desktop mouse, or just about any airmouse, lr-nestopia already has functional light gun support. NstDatabase.xml has to be installed at /home/pi/RetroPie/BIOS, which I thought it was by default, but I can't find any mention of it anywhere. Unfortunately, until RetroArch can register absolute coordinates, USB arcade guns and devices like the DolphinBar are left out in the cold.

dankcushions

@mediamogul said in Multiple mice support in RetroArch cores (lightguns, spinners, steering wheels):

@markwkidd

if we can get a well-described and logged Issue together regarding absolute vs. relative coordinates I feel like now is the time when help is available.

I would love to see this happen. Let me know how I can help.

Do you know of a test case -- core + ROM + hardware -- that illustrates the problem with absolute vs. relative coordinates?

I've tested with what I believe to be every core that has light gun support and currently none recognize absolute coordinates. If one core were to become the focus, I would suggest either lr-mame2003 to continue the work already done there

mame2003 supports absolute coords, sort of. the trackpad on my macbook air is received by the cocoa (apple) input driver in retroarch as an absolute device (in retroarch/libretro's terms, a 'pointer'). in mame2003 i coded it to translate that to relative coordinates (if you select 'pointer' as you mouse device, which is a core option), as that's what mame's internal 'mouse' device needs. mame has some other devices ('lightgun', etc) that might be able to take absolute coordinates directly, if they were hooked up, i don't know, but there's no real need if my translation works.

now, retropie (and let's say raspbian, for this example), is different, because it uses the udev input driver by default. i set up a development build of mame2003 that logged all mouse and pointer coordinates coming in, and i had someone with an aimtrak lightgun give me a log. the problem seeme to be that the lightgun wasn't received by the udev input driver as a mouse OR a pointer, so it doesn't matter what the core does (and i'm fairly sure mame2003 would have worked if the udev driver had given it anything).

so, the issue becomes, in order:

does the OS (raspbian) see this device?
does it see it as a relative mouse device (and how do you test that?)
does the udev device manager see this device (as a relative mouse)?
does retroarch's udev driver see this device, and present it to the core as a pointer?
does the core understand pointers? (in the case of mame2003 - yes)

sorry for the lecture :)

mediamogul

@dankcushions

sorry for the lecture

Not at all. It's great to get all this information. When I was testing my DolphinBar and Ultimarc arcade guns a week or two ago, I brought up evtest for the mouse event associated with the devices and each were recognized and the coordinates appeared to be reading normally. During that same testing session, I specified in lr-mame2003 that the mouse be a pointer device in the core options at your suggestion. Unfortunately, it still didn't produce any results. All that being the case, could it be that #4 on your potential issue list might be the road block?

Edit: At the very least, RetroArch does see the device, as the mouse buttons are recognized.

dankcushions

@mediamogul said in Multiple mice support in RetroArch cores (lightguns, spinners, steering wheels):

@dankcushions

sorry for the lecture

Not at all. It's great to get all this information. When I was testing my DolphinBar and Ultimarc arcade guns a week or two ago, I brought up evtest for the mouse event associated with the devices and each were recognized and the coordinates appeared to be read normally. During that same testing session, I specified in lr-mame2003 that the mouse be a pointer device in the core options at your suggestion. Unfortunately, it still didn't produce any results. All that being the case, could it be that #4 on your potential issue list might be the road block?

Edit: At the very least, RetroArch does see the device, as the mouse buttons are recognized.

hmm, interesting! i would have thought that the new multiple-mice changes would have affected it. eg, i guess the pointer device would need to assigned to player 1 through retroarch.

i think it's worth re-testing with the latest nightlies, pointer device set to player 1, mame2003 core option set to 'pointer', and if that doesn't work i could issue my debug build again?

mediamogul

@dankcushions

i think it's worth re-testing with the latest nightlies, pointer device set to player 1, mame2003 core option set to 'pointer', and if that doesn't work i could issue my debug build again?

Sounds like a plan. I'll test everything again this evening. Thanks.

mediamogul

@dankcushions

I went ahead and tested the arcade guns with the latest nightlies, pointer device set to player 1 and mame2003 core option set to 'pointer', but there was still no joy in mudville.

edmaul69

@mediamogul so my problem was i was setting the p2 device to light gun and not mouse. However, the vs games are in the nstdatabase xml file but they wont even do anything. Did you get them working?

mediamogul

@edmaul69

However, the vs games are in the nstdatabase xml file but the wont even do anything. Did you get them working?

I have the games installed, but I don't believe I've tried them. I'll give them a go later and let you know.

mediamogul

@edmaul69

They don't work for me either. I suppose the set we have doesn't match up with the hash checks from NstDatabase.xml. Seeing as how there's only three VS light gun games, editing the data wouldn't take long. However, a better option is probably to just use AdvanceMame for now so you could also make use of your DolphinBar.

edmaul69

@mediamogul yeah, i have to install advmame roms still. Would still love to have the nes light gun games fully functional one day....

markwkidd

so is there any way of playing the nintendo light gun games with a mouse?

If played with a standard desktop mouse, or just about any airmouse, lr-nestopia already has functional light gun support. NstDatabase.xml has to be installed at /home/pi/RetroPie/BIOS, which I thought it was by default, but I can't find any mention of it anywhere.

NstDatabase.xmlindeed should be installed in the BIOS directory by default, per this commit to RetroPie-Setup: https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/commit/a5bb24c11fe87bfc41d8b53797b724aa161a8689

mediamogul

@markwkidd

Ah, good to know.

markwkidd

As I said before I'm hoping to gather the information necessary for RetroArch emulators to support both 'absolute' and 'relative' devices.

Somehow I'm still confused about how to create the best Issue report with regard to this concern.

Could someone please spell out to me:

What devices are categorized as 'relative' and what devices are categorized as 'absolute'?
Which cores require 'relative' devices and which require 'absolute' devices?

mediamogul

@markwkidd

What devices are categorized as 'relative' and what devices are categorized as 'absolute'?

Just about any traditional mouse, airmouse or trackball will use relative coordinates. Touchscreens, trackpads and USB light guns all use absolute coordinates.

Which cores require 'relative' devices and which require 'absolute' devices?

The list of relative and absolute devices above could be used to determine that fully, but absolute coordinates would certainly need to be supported in any core that already has relative support for light gun games in order to add support for the available USB gun devices on the market. Those cores include, but may not be limited to lr-nestopia, lr-snes9x2010, lr-genesis-plus-gx, as well as all the MAME cores.

space invader

So with this update would be possible to play, for example, marble madness with two mices?

mediamogul

@space-invader

You bet your bippy.

space invader

@mediamogul
Sorry, but my English level is not high enough to understand that...

mediamogul

@space-invader

Ha! Sorry. It's a late sixties, early seventies pop culture colloquialism meant to express the affirmative in an exited manner. Functionally, it's really no different from the more widely used, "You bet your a**".

...In other words, yes, you can now use two mice with 'Marble Madness'.

space invader

@mediamogul said in Multiple mice support in RetroArch cores (lightguns, spinners, steering wheels):

@space-invader

...In other words, yes, you can now use two mice with 'Marble Madness'.

This is what I can understand and what I wanted to read!

mediamogul

@space-invader

This is what I can understand and what I wanted to read!

Coincidentally, a phrase never applied to the 'Twilight' novels.

This addition to RetroArch is very exciting and greatly improves the playability of many titles. Let us know how it works out for you.