@mitu ok thanks! I'll take a look at this...

In the end, I made a new retropie image and then made sure to properly configure the controller at startup. The other issue was related to faulty card reader.

@craigbot said in Noob: can someone please help me understand input and input devices?:

I tried xboxdrv according to the instructions, but it doesn't seem to be there:

It's not installed by default, you need to install it first, from the drivers section of the packages.

@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

With the lr-snes9x2010 core, mouse (a cheap usb) is working, click and movements, after i change controls to snes mouse from retroarch menu.

If you can, try with this emulator.

Huzzah! After a little bit of grep and quite some trial-and-error, I found:

$ xinit -- vt1 -keeptty

(Side note: while this works, it uses a small corner of the screen. How to make this full screen?)

With that, I was able to use xinput list and list-prop and get the device name and properties unique to my setup. This led me to:

$ xinput set-prop 'USB Optical Mouse' 'libinput Accel Speed' -0.25

This immediately slows the on-screen pointer by roughly 25% (acceptable values seem to range -1.0 to 1.0, and default is 0.0).

Alternatively:

$ xinput set-prop 6 275 -0.25

...also works, if I were confident the device number won't ever change. I don't know what happens if I reboot, or plug/unplug additional devices etc., though, so I stick with using the name.

Now, starcraftr.sh:

#!/bin/bash xset -dpms s off s noblank xinput --set-prop 'USB Optical Mouse' 'libinput Accel Speed' -0.25 matchbox-window-manager -use_titlebar no & cd "/opt/retropie/ports/starcraft/data" && ./starcraft.sh

(The trailing & used in the example was not necessary)

This worked, but still a little fast and so I dropped it down again to -0.5. Now that feels more like what I'm used to.

Now, let's say I am a user who can't or don't want to alter the root-owned starcraftr.sh in the install folder. Or, maybe I just don't want to lose my custom setting to a reinstall. So I copy it into config dir at /opt/retropie/configs/ports/starcraft/starcraftr-slowmouse.sh, make the edits there, and then edit emulators.cfg like:

default = "starcraft-slowmouse" starcraft-slowmouse = "XINIT:/opt/retropie/configs/ports/starcraft/starcraftr-slowmouse.sh"

@windg Makes sense. I did fix the issue by making the resolution 640x480. It covered the entire screen. HOWEVER, it looked crappy and the aim was way off and it shot far to the side of the cursor in the light gun game.

I don't have any other idea at the moment.

@mitu thanks for the info :).. I'll back up my image and give it a try.. Last time I updated retro arch it broke wiimote support completly and it was yourself that kindly showed me how to down grade back 😂

I found a problem and it is now solved. I ran lr-dosbox-pure in verbose mode and in log /dev/shm/runcommand.log I found error:

eglCreateImageKHR: failed to create image for buffer

After searching for a while on the Internet, I found a tip for editing the file /boot/config.txt and add the line:

gpu_mem = 256

After this the display no longer flashes (flickering) and everything works fine.

I still have to figure out how to emulate a mouse like a touchpad...

@mitu It's honestly just a super basic, no frills, nothing special keyboard. I did also think about that whole mouse index and wonder if it was maybe giving priority to the keyboard, but then I actually did a test with a simple Dell wired keyboard and it did the same thing. It was seriously weird af.

Here's the keyboard I am using:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B073TSKFRX/

I'm not familiar with Pegasus, but I don't think that it's limited to 'command line' , it should work in the desktop env. It may need a configuration file to start ?

@mitu sorry for doubting you, I think you were right after all. I downgraded to 1.9.5 and things are working great now!

Looking forward to retropie upgrading when possible! I like to try to stay on the official latest branch when I can.

@lamaman1971
I'm no expert, but I think RetroArch can only have one mouse index per player. So I don't think you can assign two of these devices at the same time through the menu. If it were possible to somehow make the operating system see two input devices on the same device index that would be one way. I have no idea how to do it though.

I think as painful as it may be, the only thing to do is assign whichever device the most games use as the default and then create game specific overrides for those that use the other device type.

@retropieuser555
At last I have located this menu and I have managed to make the appropriate changes so that the mouse recognizes me.

If it were not for your help, I would not have achieved it. Thanks ;)

@sleve_mcdichael

Okay, I hadn't noticed that setting before, don't know how I missed that. Only problem is I'm dealing with a spinner on one particular machine, so I don't have mouse buttons (left/right click). Switching to this setting disables the joystick and buttons meaning I lose almost all functionality.

Is there a way I can create a remap file that assigns button0 and button1 on my arcade controller as left and right click. Maybe also enable two other buttons (or even the joystick) to act as mouse up/down (y-axis +/-)?

@mitu Thank You