this might need a quirk fix. Can you post pictures clear ones of player one and two wiring for buttons and joystick

@stoney66 Thanks for that. I had a look at those cfg files and they all looked fine. So I did a completely fresh install of RetroPie. Tried it out, R-Type controls worked fine. Then I started adding nice tweaks such as ES Themes etc, and suddenly R-Type had the same problem - P1 right not working unless I re-configure the MAME2003 controls every time. Not sure what change I applied that caused this, so I'm going to do it all again step-by-step and see when it reoccurs. My gut feeling is this is a bug in the Pimoroni Picade HAT drivers.

@Efriim Hi. Thanks for your reply. I solved my problem with creating a custom theme file and removing these variables for only configuration menu.

I would recommend the standalone Fuse emulator for keyboard use. Has a lot more functionality if you don't want to just play games. Eg. Typing in code, saving things etc.

Thank you for all the guidance. It appears all is working well.

as always, you solved the problem. Thank you @mitu

@mitu, I'll check the script but to me the fact that the source code of ES refers to the buttons by two different names is incorrect. Emulationstation works with more than 1 type of controller and/or keyboard. The fact that it works fine for a lot of other people contradicts your observation. Anyway, I have to say that I didn't download the full package at first. I mean I only downloaded the source code of ES to compile, then when I realised I missed the themes I installed the configuration script. I need to do more testing though. If you didn't install the package correctly, then you'll get incorrect results. Install the package from the RetroPie-Setup package - the stable version - then re-configure your controller and see if the .cfg file is correctly generated.

@theguru , thanks. My advmame files look like that as well. For some reason the trackball coming off the IPAC2 control board is always the default P1 gun cursor control. No matter what I set in the advmame file. I'm going to fool with it a little more tonight. As for FCEUMM, that makes sense. I backed up my image today so maybe I will update to 1.7.6 and see what happens. It's always fun breaking stuff.

@Zore I don't see any errors in the log file. Can you also post the contents of ~/.emulationstation/es_input.cfg ? Check the permissions on that file also, if your user is able to write to it.

my bad, I did some mistake in following https://www.reddit.com/r/RetroPie/comments/9aswsl/how_to_separate_up_2_controllers_off_1_port/ which has solved my problem

@granderjoree Looking at the Carbon theme, I think it's enough to create another folder with the collection name, with the same structure as a system folder.- For instance, copy the snes folder from the theme folder to your collection name folder (i.e. megaman), then modify the art (.svg) files inside the art subfolder with the images you want.

SOLVED! I forgot to copy the gameslist.xml into the folder! Haha silly me. It now works fine. Thanks guys!

@ivooc Yeah I meant threaded video. I've had the same RetroPie build from version 4.4, its hard to remember all the changes and configurations I've made. I'll try to share once I think of them. Do you have a fan installed? The temp_soft_limit is 60 by default and will throttle the cpu to 1.2ghz I increased the soft_limit to 70 and it barely reaches 63 during emulation. Have you updated retroarch, raspbian, and your cores, since you installed the image? the firmware, I should search to find out for sure, I think it is updated when you go to retropie config >> configure >> raspbian >> update raspbian(next to install pixel desktop) It could be a psx_bios, some have higher compatibility, I have quite a few in my folder actually, but I think scph_101 is the highest compatibility and it will be chosen over the others, not to be confused with scph_1001. As I say that Gran Turismo refuses to work. I don't know why, but I did update the core since I last played it.

@mitu You forgot to ask me an important question, "Is there a copy of that image?" The answer is yes!!! I am now back in business. This time I will pay close attention to what the heck I am changing. This was a great learning opportunity, however, so thank you very much for your support. =) I have two cards for the sake of clustering, in case you were wondering.

@mitu Watch at around 1:43 and see what the floating muscle guy does when you shoot. Here is a video I just recorded on my phone of what it does in RetroPie:

This helped and I believe solved the problem once I tweaked my config options. Thanks so much.

Thank you! I will try!

@mitu Welp, that was easy! thanks! :D

@dankcushions sorry, I thought the rules said to include a link to a tutorial if I followed one, the one I followed for setting up the initial keyboard layout was just from that video. The real issue is that I believe there is some configuration issue that I cannot figure out. I have read the docs and tried to find the answer. I suspect that what is happening is that the initial "keyboard configuration" is what is being used to navigate the menúes for all of the consoles (mame, atari, snes) and it is not until I am actually I the game that the system specific configuration takes over. If this is the case, then I believe that my setting the "hot key" (I am not really sure what this key is supposed to do) to the same utton as the "start" key, in the initial keyboard configuration, is what was preventing me from getting into the different arcade systems (except mame). However, I went into the global config file and changed and changed the "hotkey" value to a different button, but selecting the "start" button still does not get me into the atari emulator.