Found it. I was misled by the official Rpi documentation.

rpi_config_txt_video_option.png

The solutions below only refer to the display rotation, see notes.

Solution 1: Legacy video driver config.txt: Neither dtoverlay=vc4-fkms-v3d nor dtoverlay=vc4-kms-v3d enabled, but display_hdmi_rotate=2 cmdline.txt: No video=... option

Note: The RetroPie Image for a Rpi3 ships with the legacy driver enabled. The EmulationStation binary is compiled against that driver and works out-of-the-box. This should also not affect any precompiled emulators.

Solution 2: (fake) KMS and Kernel option config.txt: Either dtoverlay=vc4-fkms-v3d or dtoverlay=vc4-kms-v3d cmdline.txt: Add video=HDMI-A-1:1280x1024@60,rotate=180. Note the use of HDMI-A-1 and not HDMI as the documentation (see above) states currently. (I have a PR filed for that.)

Note: You will have to source build emulationstation with that config to make it use the video driver. I did not testdrive any emulators with this solution.

@mitu thanks a lot. 5.6.4 has been released with many fixes indeed!

It turns out the issue was between the controller and the chair.

I'm posting my resolution here in case someone else ends up with the same issue and goes looking...

I miswired the controller (it came with no documentation), but I came across this blog post (https://cy-822b.blogspot.com/2016/08/the-cy-822b-usb-led-joystick-controller.html) that showed this image:
c0fb63ff-f849-4c20-b512-ae2dd514b54c-image.png

The controller board looks like:
856a91fc-99f3-4ced-b08c-acd40ff39054-image.png

The buttons have a 2-pin connector on them so I figured the connected to the lower edge of the image above. But the connection actually happens in the button housing and the 3-pin connector is more than just for the LED, it also contains the switch wiring. So the 2-pin connector connects into the button housing and the 3-pin wire from the housing connects into the controller board.

I went back to the original Amazon page and found that there are some pictures that describe the wiring, but not terribly clearly:
cd4a53c7-a851-42b4-875b-919802fd6439-image.png

In the end all on me. I hope this helps someone else in the future.

Cheers,

Steve

It probably needs a driver - see https://github.com/medusalix/xow for such a driver.

@BuZz
Ok, so I tried it last night with my existing Pi3 image. It didn't make it past the 1st boot (kernel) screen. I got a number of error messages such as these:

Recovery4.dat not found

Recover.dat not found

startup4.dat not found

Error: 000044

Then there was another message stating that this Pi needs an updated version of the software.

Is there a way to do the update of SD card offline by mounting it?

Get a SDcard testing tool (like H2testw or F3X) and check if your card is ok. If not, then you'll need a different SD card, otherwise try again to re-image.
You can also have issues from the power supply - the 3B model needs a 5V, 2.5A power supply - if you're using a simple charger I strongly advise to get a proper one.

@fullauto2009 An upgrade in place is not recommended, as it's not supported even by Raspbian. Note that attractmode is not compatible yet with the Pi4.

Translated by google
Thank you very much for the guidance, it is 0:15 am here (city of Cabo Frio RJ / Brazil), I am replying to you from an RPi4, tomorrow I will record a Retropie image on the sdcard to use on the RPi3 and try / study the guidelines ok?
I'll be back here to post the results. . .
Again, thank you very much for your attention.

Muito obrigado pela orientação, são 0:15 hs aqui (cidade de Cabo Frio RJ / brasil ), estou te respondendo de um RPi4, amanha gravarei uma imagem do Retropie no sdcard para usar no RPi3 e tentar / estudar as orientações ok?
Volto aqui para postar os resultados . . .
Novamente, muito obrigado pela atenção.

@mitu Thank you. That's all I needed to know.

A lot of this functionality is built in

eg. on your ubuntu machine

sudo ./retropie_packages.sh crosscomp setup stretch

then on the rpi3 just install distcc, configure it to use Ubuntu machine.

for building:

PATH="/usr/lib/distcc:$PATH" MAKEFLAGS="-j4 PATH=/usr/lib/distcc:$PATH" ./retropie_packages.sh etc

note settings the PATH for makeflags is needed for some modules to use distcc.

retropie also includes the facility to build raspberry pi binaries on an x86 Ubuntu machine using an emulated chroot and the distcc on the host. see the "builder" module.

@mitu Thanks for your reply. I finally figured it out the problem was PEBKAC!!! I had the joystick plugged into the wrong 5 pin port. I thought there was only the one and I was wrong. Totally my bad but thanks for the help. I'm going to leave this up since I could not find any solutions to this problem anywhere and it might help someone.

I'd love to be able to use the attractmode with OSMC, but I think it isn't possible

I use OSMC for KODI and installed RetroPie via RetroSMC, which now works perfectly with Debian Stretch now that RetroPie has been worked on for Stretch

I've even tried custom scripts I found that add the attract options to emulationstation so you can switch between the different modes via the emulationstation menu but that doesn't work either as the modes don't appear on the emulationstation menu. At least not with OSMC as no menu options appear and I've never seen the 'Configure Splashscreen' option either with OSMC

@mitu thank you!! Solved my issues!

@Impman66 how you set up your speedlink controller? I have SL-6566-BK xeox pro analog gamepad-wireless-black, retropie detected it but when i press&hold A to set up nothing happened.. please help

Solved. Had to access emulator settings for the one second the game was booting and disable "Fast Memory (Unstable)". Boots fine now.

@psw757 If you want to bypass the desktop, you can install the standalone version of Chromium from the RetroPie Extra Repository. Once it's installed, you can edit the chromium.sh script so that the last line reads:

/usr/bin/chromium-browser iscored.info

Hi Clyde,

Thanks for the reply. I've decided to test a few things out and see if I can get it going on my own. If I do, I'll post how I did it here. If not, I'll post the specific info you asked for above.

Thanks again.

@rion Perfect! Now it works. Thank you.
I recently faced crashes on Driver by select "Try Mission Again" after I fail a mission.
Any idea how to fix that?

Thanks for that elaborate answer. I need to step through this now.