@mikejkelley turns out it was an xbox controller firmware needing update issue.

@RapidEdwin08 Man, did that ever do the trick! Worked right out of the box! No typing out anything in DOS to start or anything! Thanks!

Now, I just have to read the manual and find what the controls are. I believe I flew back to England during my first mission. :)

Configuration editor will not help here. You can use jstest to check that each encoder outputs an identical input code for the same button.
Running jstest /dev/input/jsX will show you the inputs on the encoder and you can press all the inputs to see how they're recorded. Replace X with 0 to 3 and you should be able to test each of the 4 encoders. Interrupt the test by pressing Ctrl + C.

@sugarfree yeah, it's kinda what I had in mind.
I'm not very practical about shell scripting, however from what I could grasp it seems that they're creating a whole new mapping script to create evdev mappings.
Since I was trying to create a Python script that was going to be launched when a ROM had been selected and didn't want to add more dependencies, I tried to use SDL2 as library in my script: however the naming a of the buttons are extremely different from what you could get from evdev and had to make an intermediary translator between evdev and Dolphin passing through the SDL mapping of that gamepad.
Their solution is far more practical. However I think one of their bigger limits is that the script essentially creates a Dolphin profile for each gamepad, basically a 1:1 mapping between the gamepad and the GameCube controls. For the GameCube I think it's a pretty neat solution. Different matter is when you try to apply the same strategy when mapping a Wiimote: one profile isn't enough since you can have more peripherals setups on a Wii.
Two things I could think of are: making a profile for each possible setup (Wiimote, Wiimote+Nun chuck, Wiimote+Classic Gamepad etc...) and asking at each ROM load which profile should be loaded to each player, probably with a nice whiptail+joy2key TUI; or creating on the fly a configuration after asking which peripheral setup the player wants.

@skidiver Cool. Glad you found a solution. As a courtesy for other users (and search engines) please mark your subject post with something like [solved].

Great job replacing the kernel driver with the device tree counterpart !

I swapped over to Hypseus, and was able to get everything running (tested on Dragon's Lair). Thank you again for the suggestion!

@Nash does xboxdrv have hotkeys, turbo, and toggle settings like antimicrox?

Made a post here: https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/35784/does-xboxdrv-have-hotkeys-turbo-and-toggle-settings-like-antimicrox

@Comic-Sans Hey - bit late to the party here, but incase you (or anyone reading in future) swings by...
I'm making an arcade machine of my own (albeit mini). After a first proto (enclosure for a 5" display and USB ports for a few retro USB controllers) I decided to make a slightly larger one (7in screen this time) - and I also wanted arcade buttons.

I got the EG Plays ones (specifically these: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B075DFNK24 ) and I've been really pleased with them. The stick is sturdy and feels really nice. The buttons are perhaps a little cheaper looking than some, but they're really responsive too and look really nice when lit up.

That's not to say the Sanwa ones (which I don't know much about) wouldn't be noticeable better, but at the end of the day I see many of these things as things that could be upgraded. The dimensions etc appear to be somewhat standard across both brands (and others). The type of person who builds an arcade cab is likely a hobbyist - so I'm sure the EG buttons won't go to waste if you replace them in future with better ones :)

There's a single encoder board which everything plugs into (with extra connections for other bits, etc) and this goes straight out via USB. I had these all plugged in and tested in my computer within 5 minutes of opening the box.

Good luck!

Thank you for your answer. Actually I played a bit with retroarch.cfg, with someof the controllers pluged in in differents usb port and it seems to work now ! Not exactly sure what really made it work though :)

The reason for no buttons lighting up upon entering a rom can be found here (this fix will possibly work as long as you are getting lights flashing while in the retropie menu system):

https://retroarcadebuild.blogspot.com/2023/11/rgbcommander-update.html

I think opening the issue is ok - seems something is not working correctly. Note that SDL includes some testing applications in the test folder, one of them is a joystick test - if you can reproduce the issue with it, then there's no need for pysdl2 or any confusion on the usage of SDL's event handling functions.

@jernserval said in More 8BitDo Pro 2 Controller Weirdness:

It appears there's some kind of naming conflict or problem when the 8BitDo tries to "spoof" as an XBox One controller?

No, I don't think so - conflicting with what ?

Xpadneo refers to configuration in it's docs, but there was no configuration after RetroPie-Setup install?

Configuration is optional, RetroPie doesn't add any, but you can add it if you'd like.

hid_xpadneo: loading out-of-tree module taints kernel. - Does this mean I need to install the headers referenced in the xpadneo documentation? Was it not autoinstalled by RetroPie-Setup?

No, that means what it says - it's an out-of-tree module, external to the Linux kernel. Kernel headers are already installed, otherwise the module wouldn't have compiled.

Now in retroarch its saying "8BitDo Controller not configured" why would it say explicitly "not configured"?

Because it's not configured ? This means there was not configuration profile found for the controller.

What is the way forward to get the most reliable experience with X-Input across retroarch and other emulators?

You haven't mentioned the issues you have with other emulators, but for RetroArch it's enough to configure the controller in EmulationStation in order to generate the configuration for it.

The major issue I have is that RetroArch input mapping works great, but it doesn't work well with Dolphin or OpenBor or Ports or ScummVm which is the bulk of my gaming. So, that's why I have a hodgepodge of RetroArch, gamecontrollerdb.txt and other stuff going on here.

Not sure why you think RetroArch's configuration is relevant for the standalone emulators - they're entirely separate. Or maybe I'm mistaken ?

I've managed to get joy2key_sdl going. I have 2 8Bit Do Pro2 controllers. Interestingly, when they are by Bluetooth they are called "8BitDo Pro 2" and when plugged in by USB they're called "8BitDo 8BitDo Pro 2".

Yes, that's not un-common for gamepads, having different names and/or input mappings depending on the connection type. 8BitDo are even more eggregious in their behavior since they have also different connection modes (Xbox/PC vs. Switch vs. Android vs. etc.)

When plugged in I get "configured device" despite having a separate "8BitDo 8BitDo Pro 2" config file in /retroarchjoypayds
[...]

and I have this config I sourced from 8BitDo which might be a better bet?

How can I get the USB and Bluetooth connected controller to behave similarly?

Just configure the controller separately for USB and Bluetooth. The input codes may not be identical between the connection types and you can't rely on a firmware update to now change them.

Also, the mapping is rather strange, despite my mapping in the 8Bit Do Pro2 config, it is coming out wonky and despite it working ok in Retroarch and some other configs. Why the pageup and pagedown stuff?

Not sure what you mean here.

@Blorpal said in Random movement in the game menus:

@Addison Does that work with a x86 computer or just the pi?

Oh man, it's been so long ago I can't remember what I did back then.

I didn't purchase a USB Hub or solder anything, I know that much.

https://www.reddit.com/r/emulation/comments/7g2d0n/howto_fix_phantomghost_input_on_ibuffalobuffalo/

I still use the wired controllers on my Pi 4 since they're wonderful.

I do have the default Wi-Fi disabled and bought these instead for 8x faster speed:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07PB1X4CN/

Don't think I can be of any help except for posting that first link I shared.