@UDb23 - Thank you! I'll snag the MAME version of Contra and see how that handles it. I appreciate you pointing me in that direction!!!

@rbaker said in Wired to NO instead of NC:

@domodan I thought that the terminals on the control block were screw terminals for buttons. If you are referring to the fact that you have soldered wires directly to the normally closed terminals of the micro switches inside your arcade buttons then no, you must de-solder and attach them to normally open otherwise they will all appear as permanently pressed. Why are you soldering at all? Crimp for the button contacts and terminal blocks for control block?

I'm a fan of solder over crimping and spade connectors. I don't have the right size spade connectors...the ones I have are too big. Solder works great...if you connect it to the right terminal. LOL. I was so excited I wasn't paying close enough attention for a second.

@Allo said in MULTIPLE buttons for an action? (PiFBA):

Ok, so I've downloaded the correct ROMs and now running lr-fbalpha. I've entered the menu to customise my buttons, but I still can't find a 3 punch/3 kick option!

Where do I find this 3 punch/3 kick option?

quick menu > options

or

quick menu > controls

i think here should be something like that

I also wanted 4player functionality but I didn't want to mount 4 joysticks. So I made a 2 joystick machine and installed 2 USB inputs in the front of the cabinet for two others to play via a USB controller like a PS4 controller.

However your idea of 4 joysticks would be cool too. It depends if you want ball or batt style joysticks. For ball, the senwas are good. For batt, the happ.

@domodan Many of the different emulators (called cores) included with RetroPie are based on the libretro library. Basically, that allows easier control configuration, among other things.

On my Pi3, I've got emulators going as far back as the Atari 2600 and Commodore 64, and as modern as the N64, Playstation, and Dreamcast. I play games from all of those different systems with a standard off-the-shelf XBox 360 wired controller (which I had before I bought the Pi, and use for PC gaming as well). It plugs into the Pi's USB port.

Pretty much any controller that plugs in via USB will work on the Pi, although I've personally not been able to get an XBox One controller to work.

You can remap the controls for any system, and also for any game. So for systems that had fewer buttons than my XBox360 controller, I can assign those buttons to perform whatever action I want. Here's some more info: https://github.com/retropie/retropie-setup/wiki/retroarch-configuration

The Pi3 also has bluetooth and wifi capabilities, so you can use wireless controllers as well (or wireless controllers that connect to a USB dongle). I think that BT connectivity is still a bit glitchy for some controllers however.

If you like the retro controller style, I know that many people like controllers made by a company called 8BitDo : http://www.8bitdo.com/.

I used the Xin-Mo controller unit on my bartop build (see link in my signature.)
Works great once the usbhid.quirks line is added.

@m312 I have used the gpio, and the adafruit retrogame code to convet the button presses into pretend keyboard events

https://github.com/adafruit/Adafruit-Retrogame

Other ways I have seen is to use a microcontroller like a teensy or Arduino to do the job

@Jiehfeng Just tried with another button, works fine. I guess that button was faulty. Thanks again. :)

@edmaul69 Worked. Thank you.

@epicrean https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/3/read-this-first
Which system?
Which Emulator?
Which Rom?
https://github.com/retropie/retropie-setup/wiki/RetroArch-Configuration#hotkeys

@helm71 said in Just finished my build.. some issues with roms:

@mediamogul My joysticks indeed present themselves as keyboard keys... I was under the impression that if I change the analogue sticks to work as dpad, that I will then have an issue with the games.. I might have got that wrong, I'll try it out !!

Thanks for the help ! It now works. I have also figured out what went wrong.

I need to setup my physical buttons with the DPAD controls and then SKIP the controls for the analogue left, then set the analogue sticks to copy the dpad controls..

Amazing piece of software this retropie.. It reallt works great now..

That’s right. Retropad abstraction. . . Thanks for the reminder about that terminology.

None of this is actually a problem—it’s just a matter of development solving the needs of everyone AND configuration solving the needs of an individual project.

It has been a while since I was deep into these details as I tend to come and go with other projects/hobbies getting in the way. Someone gave me a Pi4 which is the first in my collection, so naturally, I put it into the arcade build and setup a fresh image of RetroPie 4.8. Now, I have LOTS of work to get it going again, so I am re-learning the controller configs, transcribing some stuff from 2003 to 2003 plus etc., not to mention getting some of my GPIO inputs working again, dealing with different HDMI cords, USB-C, and on and on.

There is actually what I will call a second generation of nostalgia in all of this nostalgia!

@obsidianspider

This site was very helpful for me. I was a total noob and it gave me all the basics:

http://www.slagcoin.com/joystick.html

@jkacza
I can try to help, but it depends on what you need to know exactly, my project is now done and works nicely, but it would be super long to explain the entire process from scratch, and I won't be able to remember everything.
I can share my scripts of course, my system works with multiple scripts and is pretty complicated, but to simplify, for this functionality, I could say that I have:

The code in the arduino that turns ON/OFF the leds and changes the colors A python script that sends the colors and led IDs information to the arduino (from the micro-controller). And when I launch a game, I have a bash script that reads a text file (where I put all the button information), then it sends this info to the python script.

Here are some pics of my project (I did it in 2 copies, one for me and one for a friend):
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B2uCL2ZSBiqDaFJRTms1a3Iwbkk
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B2uCL2ZSBiqDSWRESDlHZU1tSjg

@enlikil I thought about installing 4-ways on the vertical ends as that would satisfy a lot of classics. My problem is that I have mutually exclusive controller needs. For example, if I did this, how could I play 4 player Gauntlet, or use all four sticks in two-player Smash TV? Without a switching joystick it's a compromise I guess.