Special kind of stick, for controling movement whilst shooting in another direction (example ikari warrior),

Ah, OK. I learned something here!

"Eierlegende Wollmilchsau"

Hahahahaha! I learned another thing today! Yes, I totally understand.

P.P.S.: Seeing such Wiki Articles now(adays) are somewhat frustrating me: Analog-Stick - sigh...

That article leaves a lot to be desired. Lots of words, and yet says very little that's useful!

I may take another pass at searching for details on the UltraStik 360 + RetroPie, and think more carefully whether it's something I might want to try — or not. Part of me, at this point, wants to just load MAME directly on something like an Intel NUC, running Windows, and call it done. I really only use the arcade functionality of RetroPie, and perhaps another platform would be better suited to what I actually want.

But... The tiny little Raspberry Pi is appealing for many reasons — cost among them — so who knows.

Thanks for replying.

@barbudreadmon Appreciate yet another informative reply, sadly didn't get to address everything you brought up yet (specifically the Deadzone issue, which I hope to examine tmrrw).

Re: the ROM controls configuration using the Quick Menu, I DID actually try the Save Game Remap File as you advised, and the controls STILL don't seem to be saving (they're listed as what I set them to when I reload the ROM, but the configuration is still what it used to be). Any other fixes to make sure that they stay?? I may try creating a separate post to clarify tomorrow worst case...

And going one step further into the Quick Menu/Controls menu, any idea why the configuration for the ROM of one game would give more specifics than the ROM on another? (specifically, why Lost Worlds (Japan) listed "Attack" and "Turn" options, while Forgotten Worlds (World) just listed Insert Coin, Start, Joystick Up etc and a bunch of buttons?). I'm not sure if it's because of how the ROMs themselves are programmed/configured, but ideally, I'd like to be able to configure the ROMs for these English language games, if only so my guests and I can understand the menus while playing them…

Side note, do you have a link you can share on how to update my version of FinalBurnNeo, if as you say it is indeed outdated?? And I assume that'll update it as a default emulator? (since ultimately, I'd like to move everything that I have in my FBA folder over to the Arcade folder and adjust the emulators for individual games as needed).

As far as specific ROMs are concerned, I did DL/compared both the ikari3 and ikari3u ROMs and can see now that the "8-way Joystick" ROM option is MUCH less of a hassle to play, so I'm considering that choice resolved. ;)

Re: Gondomania-- and the gondo and gondou zips you mentioned, I hate to say it, but I actually Googled/looked for that gondou one-- and I wasn't entirely sure if you were implying that it was necessary to have both to enable the L/R rotation function?? Roslof's spreadsheet lists a makyosen clone-- and couldn't find it anywhere (in fact the spreadsheet lists it as (makyosen)(gondou), implying that they're the same thing). Is there another ROM I need to find-- or another emulator that I should try playing it on-- to enable the L/R rotate function??

Lastly, I wasn't entirely sure what you meant when you mentioned MAME 0.227 in association w/ FBNeo. Am I to infer that all of those ROMs I listed are outdated (or at least, not optimally synced w/ FBNeo), and that's why the L/R rotate function doesn't seem to be a default for any version of Heavy Barrel or Forgotten Worlds?

Thanks for the replies and words of wisdom.
To begin with I am attempting to the cost effective option of modifying the actuator in the Zippy but am yet to find a pipe, washer, nozzle, tube that is the correct dimension. Still looking.

If that doesn't work I will invest in a new stick.

I did read about the Magstick and that sparked my interest the most have also been considering the Japanese options. I guess its a case f finding a stick that will work well with Street Fighter and also is responsive in vertical scrolling shoot-em-ups, 1942.

Will update this once I have had some success.

@mitu Oh, yes that file. I tried that but no luck. I remapped and got the same result. Although up and down are reversed, they work just fine but it won't read left and right. Daphne is such a pain to get going. I've done the jstest and see the stick is axis 0 and axis 1 and return a pos/neg 32767 on each axis.
I don't have any issues with any other emulator I have games for (Fba, Mame, PS1, Sega Genesis, Nes, SNES ,PC Engine). I can't understand what the issue is with Daphne and the axis mapping.

@Rookerman

Swap the controller ports on the actual pie.

Please add more info about your setup, as detailed in https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/3/read-this-first.

@MaMikee

Just had a thought, if you followed the manual install instructions, it may have changed your version of GCC to an old version which may affect your ability to compile.

I can't remember what it was but it definitely happened to me at some point.

Edit: It was this line, forced an earlier version of cpp and GCC to be linked as current version:
sudo apt-get install -y --force-yes dkms cpp-4.7 gcc-4.7 git
I think I had to force reinstall the current builds of gcc and cpp back on over the top.

Si

I have managed to get it operating correctly. I just need to configure the buttons now. Thank you.

@barbudreadmon
I did install that and it worked when there is one dual tank stick in there. When there is two dual tanksticks connected, the 2nd one that is connected behaves as a keyboard and not as a controller. that is why i want the second one to work like a keyboard that's acting like a controller if that makes sense

@SpudsMcToole

Very true.

@vsilvalopes I know the Dualshock4 new driver (well, it's the same driver for both DS3 and DS4) also adds a device for the touchpad present on the controller (which appears as a mouse), but I don't remember the DS3 controllers having the same touchpads.
Can you pair one DS3 controller, then run the following 2 commands

lsusb cat /proc/bus/input/devices

and post the output ?
Have you installed the customhidsonly driver from the RetroPie-Setup drivers section before pairing the controllers ?

Regarding your question about the coin door. could be a bad microswitch. do you have access to a multimeter? you could check the resistance from open to close. Any pics on how you have the coin door wired? Are you sure that you wired correctly to the button. Needs to be wired to the open close. On your buttons it should be the posts that are offset from one another and are on risers

@Tigry Thanks for sharing your solution, glad you found it.

Just for completeness, I was going to suggest that you could use @meleu's joystick-selection tool to see if your sticks are configured as player 1 +2. If not, that could've been the reason why they didn't work in RetroArch.

I have an old model IPAC4 that I used back in 2008 running Win98, XP, etc. and I eventually rebuilt my system around the PI (you can see details linked in my profile or signature below). Anyway, my IPAC has the PS2 connector but works with a USB adapter cable.

Here is the thing--the IPAC is a keyboard. Or at least it looks like one to the computer to which it is connected. Your joysticks, assuming they are microswitch-based, could be pushbuttons. There is nothing about the fact that it is a stick vs. a button--it is simply shorting the input on the IPAC to ground.

So, what happens if you wired a joystick to BUTTON1,2,3,4 on the IPAC? I would think this would let you trigger those buttons when you move the stick to short the respective inputs. If true, you should conversely be able to wire a button to one of the joystick inputs and pressing the button should trigger that key. And this brings me to my point. . . Do you know what keyboard keys are getting sent by each directional trigger? How are you testing on the Pi? Are you opening a text file in Pixel for example? My player 1 joystick maps to the arrow keys I think. So, if I open a text fine on the Pi, I can move the cursor around just like I am typing arrow keys.

I know I am not offering an answer but more of a testing method. Mapping keys can get really confusing once you launch an emulator, so my approach is to verify the raw inputs are getting out of the IPAC and into the Pi.

One approach to testing keyboard inputs is to launch the keyboard testing executable from AdvanceMAME at commandline. This will let you watch on screen what the PI is receiving when you pound on buttons or move your sticks. I don't remember the test command off-hand, but if you dig into the Docs here on the RetroPie and look for the Spinners/Trackball page, there is a similar test you can run for Mouse input. I know, we are not testing a mouse, but there are three executables in there for AdvanceMAME that let you test each Mouse, Joy and keyboard inputs. Might be worth a little time looking that up. Sorry , don't have my Pi handy to check.

My thought is that once you know the inputs are getting sent, you are no longer troubleshooting the IPAC, but rather the mapping. Knowing that much can go a long way to figuring out the next step.

@rsn8887 RetroPie doesn't automatically maps the keyboard as a controller - it only saves the gamepad configuration from the configuration you made in Emulationstation. Unless you explicitely map the keyboard in ES, it shouldn't generate any configuration for it.
You can find the saved configurations - one per gamepad configured - in the /opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch-joypads folder.

Must be a new RA thing, does it do the same without the keyboard plugged in ?