@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.

@pi_pilot Update:

So I got the system running in vertical (portrait) mode on my Pi4B, with a few tweaks booting from the Bookworm Desktop (not lite), and got GPIOnext running too.

First to GPIOnext for my dual stick arcade controller, I needed to install evdev which after a few goes got it all setup.

6 Button Controller setup is as follows

3 5 6
2 1 4

Works good for Hyper Olympics.

For EmulationStation I have to launch using the following launch parameters after exiting wayland to terminal (ctr-alt-F1) ...

emulationstation --screensize 1080 1920 --screenrotate 1

Once launched into emulationstation I went into the retroarch menu and set

settings->video->output->video->screenresolution->1920x1080
AND
settings->video->output->video->videorotation->270
AND
settings->video->output->video->aspectratio->16:9

Important! Remember to go back to the main menu in the retroarch dialogue and go to configuration and save configuration, so that changes you made are written to the retroarch config file.

It stretches all games to full screen on my monitor but I can live with that.

Performance does seem a bit better compared to the standard buster release of retropie.

New thread here:

https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/34969/launching-retropie-emulationstation-from-bookworm-desktop-not-lite-vertical-portrait-mode-gpionext

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.

@Gabbo999 you can install the desktop environment packages from the server install. Eg. Installing the ubuntu-desktop/xubuntu-desktop package (or another of your choice)

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.

Run the script with the debug options from the terminal and post the output:

/opt/retropie/admin/joy2key/joy2key_sdl.py kcub1 kcuf1 kcuu1 kcud1 0x0a 0x20 0x1b 0x00 kpp knp -d

What's the exact version of RetroPie that are you using ? What Ubuntu version are you using ?

In addition to using English, please don't use ALL CAPS for your posts.

As @retropieuser555 said, you don't need to install RaspiOS, if you're a beginner just use pre-built image from https://retropie.org.uk/download.

@mitu
thanks a lot for that hint! I've checked the issues, but didn't notice this one.
For anyone interested/impatient, appending the following works for now:

videodriver kmsdrm

to

/opt/retropie/configs/mame/mame.ini

Just remember to remove it when it has been implemented, as mentioned in the pull request above.

@mitu fixed

@mitu Awesome thank you, apologies for that oversight. Was able to get it going. You have a good weekend!

@Papp said in Rpi & error creating SDL window:

It's weird as the manufacturer explicitly suggested to comment that line for rp4.

That disables the GPU drivers for the Pi4 and makes your system unusable for RetroPie. Next time you report an issue, please include all pertinent information, as detailed in https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/3/read-this-first.

@Styleshift said in Key You Just Pressed Is Not Recoqnised By SDL Endev Key Code NUMBER 305/544 After update 4.5.2 to 4.5.8:

I also chipped a tooth today.

Can it run homebrew now? ;-)

Thanks for the kind remarks. (Hope your tooth is fixed up soon - not fun !).

FYI guys thanks for your help. Ive got RetroPie installed on my RPI4 now - not yet configured, but installed at least :)

@mitu Not really, just wanted to use a up to date image.

@BuZz
Pi Model: 3B
Power Supply used: Official
Built From: on top of existing OS

You’re right, it’s a custom image.
I downgraded the firmware to 1.2019401-1 via rasbiantools in retropie_packages. Now everything works fine. I suppose this is some bug in the vc in newer firmware.

I know this topic is pretty old but I just had this happen to me. It happened because of a conflict in RetroPie auto start. I had manually entered a command line to auto start and then later chose the auto start option in RetroPie setup. Seems the two didn’t work well together. I resolved it by getting back to RetroPie setup in command line and deleted the auto start line. I’m definitely a noob so I apologize if my terminology is wrong. But I’m learning. Hope this helps someone else.

@TomoS Emulationstation must be launched from the terminal, it's not going to work from an existing X.org/Desktop session. You'll also have to turn off/stop your login manager/display manager if you have one started.

@ledow said in STPPC:

If there's interest, I can "reconvert" my port to move away from their small-screen focus [...] and plug into libretro to benefit from all the different types of controllers available.

I would aprreciate this. The best "game" in this collection is snake. I like puzzeling but I'm totally new to play this with keypads. I've installed the android version on my eBook-Reader and on my smartphone for casual gaming.

@mr_smt That seems to look like a warning, but it might indicate that your installation does not have hardware accelerated graphics (maybe due to running in a vm) and the emulator needs it in order to run.

I'd suggest to use something that's native to your os (macOS) like OpenEmu or RetroArch. You could also use AttractMode as a frontend, in combination with RetroArch, if the default RetroArch interface is not enough.