Here is a way to select joystick for players 1-4 (global or emu specific)

mattrixk

@meleu said in Here is a way to select input for RetroArch players 1-4:

Well... I didn't like the font that much...

Heh, that's a fair enough point. I quite like it myself, but I can see it not being everyone's cup of tea. When I update the theme, I might install another 2 or 3 fonts and then the user can select the one they want. I should be able to make it pretty simple on the user. Do you like the font used in @Rookervik's original Pixel theme?

Is there anything else? I like it and use it myself, but I haven't really heard what anyone else thinks of it, so I don't know what other people want fixed. I'm going to start making a To-Do list for the next release.

jacobfk20

@mattrixk This branch https://github.com/jacobfk20/EmulationStation/tree/Gridview Is windows friendly. It Only has Grid View and is hopefully more stable. Though I don't have a pre compiled version for windows.

mattrixk

@jacobfk20 Awesome. I'm not sure when I'll get a chance to try it out though. I've been home with sickness on and off for the last fortnight, so I had a chance to work on MetaPixel and start some other stuff, but I'm back at work now, so my time is limited again.

meleu

Hey guys!

Another step was taken (actually two steps)! Now the joystick-selection tool can configure the joysticks for a specific system too. Another cool feature is the possibility to select the joystick by its name. Let me talk a little more about it...

OK, the previous version already show the joystick name. But it was just a convenience during the configuration process. In the end the configuration was made using the joystick indexes. The problem is that the index can change depending on the USB port you plug your controller, or the order you pair your Bluetooth controller. If you plug/pair something in a different order, maybe you have to configure it again.

The advantage of the selection by name method is that there is no need to care about the joystick connection order. You can configure your "Generic USB SNES gamepad" to be the player1 no matter what USB port you use, and it will always be the player1. Or, better yet, configure your "Fancy Bluetooth joypad" to be the player1 no matter what was the order it was paired or how many USB joysticks are connected.

Oh... If you have controllers with equal names, then, yes, the connection order matters...

I've made my tests here, and apparently everything is OK. But before merge all this changes to the master branch, I would like to ask you to give me feedback if you find some problem:

The branch with the latest features:
https://github.com/meleu/RetroPie-joystick-selection/tree/selectionbyname

Installation:

git clone -b selectionbyname https://github.com/meleu/RetroPie-joystick-selection
cd RetroPie-joystick-selection
bash install.sh

How it works? Thanks to a new feature added recently in runcommand, we can execute some commands before launch the emulator. So, we can get the joystick names, look for their indexes and put these numbers in retroarch.cfg. The joystick names are stored in the joystick-selection.cfg files in /opt/retropie/configs/SYSTEMNAME/ directory.

I ~~stole the idea~~ got inspired by what @BuZz did recently on configeditor and changed the dialogs to a more user friendly way to choose joysticks.

Hey bash hackers, I'm sure you can do this same thing in a better way. I spent some time commenting the code to help other developers to understand, improve or change it completely.

Thanks to @Zigurana, for telling me to make such tool instead of asking for it, and for show me that I can get the joystick names from SDL library.

And thanks to @BuZz, for implement runcommand-on{start,end}.sh feature in runcommand (it made possible the selection by name method), and for inifuncs (really useful for this project), and for maintaining the RetroPie project.

meleu

Some screenshots

Main menu:

main-meu

Global configuration (with no configs):

config-all-unset

Global configuration (by name method, all 4 joysticks are set):

config-all-configured

Systems menu (I have just a few of them installed):

system-menu

System specific (by name method, some joysticks are set):

config-nes

Joystick selection screen:

joy-select

meleu

@Rion said in Here is a way to select input for RetroArch players 1-4:

Also when launching a game and pressing the "a" button using the run command so I can choose what controller is P1 & P2 and so on for that particular game/system?

the configuration is made launching the joystick selection tool in retropiemenu, but now it can be done for a particular system.

mlengland

Hi @meleu . I was able to install & interact with the script via the Emulation Station GUI.

After executing for the first time, the controllers appeared to be set correctly but again once I started a game the "default" controllers went back to port 0 & 1. I went back to your script and it appeared to have reset the player index numbers.

This is the same thing that happens if I manually change the input_player1_joypad_index = "0" line in a systems retroarch.cfg file. Basically once I launch the game, the retroarch.cfg file appears to go back to default.

If all your script is doing is saving me the manual step of setting the joypad index in each retroarch.cfg file, then it appears my issue is that this file is reset to default on game launch.

Thoughts?

meleu

@mlengland It seems that you config_save_on_exit is on...
Are you used to use RGUI to configure RetroArch stuff?

mlengland

@mlengland said in Here is a way to select input for RetroArch players 1-4:

Hi @meleu . I was able to install & interact with the script via the Emulation Station GUI.

After executing for the first time, the controllers appeared to be set correctly but again once I started a game the "default" controllers went back to port 0 & 1. I went back to your script and it appeared to have reset the player index numbers.

This is the same thing that happens if I manually change the input_player1_joypad_index = "0" line in a systems retroarch.cfg file. Basically once I launch the game, the retroarch.cfg file appears to go back to default.

If all your script is doing is saving me the manual step of setting the joypad index in each retroarch.cfg file, then it appears my issue is that this file is reset to default on game launch.

Thoughts?

As a test I turned off global save on exit for RetroArch and then put the controller settings in again per your script. I just reset the system and then took a look at the SNES retroarch.cfg and it stuck!

So I booted Emulation Station. Launched a rom. And once again, the SNES controllers wouldn't work. Only the USB port 1 & 2 controllers were recognized.

I sudo nano the retroarch.cfg file and your script changes are still showing up. They are in fact sticking. But on game launch for some reason the emu always wants to use the controllers in port 0 & 1 even though the cfg file says otherwise.

So, now, I'm stumped...

EDIT: @meleu looks like we posted at the same time. Either, or. GUI or terminal. To turn off 'save on exit' I did that via terminal/command line in the ALL folder.

meleu

@mlengland
I think you messed up your retroarch.cfg files while using the config_save_on_exit set to true...
If you really really wanna know whats happening I would suggest you to check where the #include line is at your SNES retroarch.cfg (for example). But if you want a fast solution, look if you have the retroarch.cfg.rp-dist files in your systems directory and use it as the retroarch.cfg (to "restore the factory settings").

mlengland

@meleu ugh. For some reason the changes were happening after the #input line. I just manually moved them and all is working now!

Thank you so much for your help and awesome script.

meleu

@mlengland said in Here is a way to select input for RetroArch players 1-4:

@meleu ugh. For some reason the changes were happening after the #input line.

I think you mean #include...

Recently the runcommand.sh was changed to always put the #include line at the end of the file, as you can see in this thread: https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/3285/i-think-we-finally-have-a-solution-for-rgui-fans

mlengland

@meleu I did. Sorry phone typo. A million thanks. Seriously. This was driving me crazy.

meleu

I tested a little more and I'm satisfied (for a while). I've just merged the selectionbyname branch into the master.
I updated the first post of this thread talking about the new features and put some screenshots.

Some guys who have shown interest and/or asked to be informed:
@chan , @Synopsis , @briankross , @swd120 , @ralph-Bing , @octubrq , @unibiggle , @lumberg , @white_gecko , @Rion , @mattrixk , @skrapps914 , @mediamogul

mediamogul

@meleu

This is fantastic! It really has been great watching this evolve. On a side note, work has been killing my free time as of late, but I haven't forgotten about our net play game. Until we can arrange a time, I'll be sharpening my Contra skills.

edmaul69

nm. ran it again and it worked

meleu

@edmaul69
I glad you get it running, but let me take a few notes about your original post.

I merged the selectionbyname branch into the master. In other other words, you don't have to use the -b selectionbyname option in the command line anymore, just

git clone https://github.com/meleu/RetroPie-joystick-selection

After install, there's no need to reboot the system. Only restart the emulationstation to see it in RetroPie menu.
when using the selection by name method (and only in this condition) this tool uses the runcommand-onstart.sh to set some configs, but it does nothing in the actual runcommand menu (that one where you can choose the emulator, launch netplay, etc.). [oh. It made me think that would be really cool if there was an runcommand-onmenu.sh to be executed if the user select it from the runcommand menu. But I think it will not happen anytime soon.]
the joystick-selection.cfg files are created on demand, and only when the selection by name method is active.

Cheers!

edmaul69

@meleu there wouldnt by some chance be a way that if the selected controller isnt detected that it would use the one detected is there? The ps 3 controller is the only reason i need this since it is always set as the last controller when wireless. When testing i had to turn on the ps3 controller to exit the game. Its fine if i have to just go into the joystick setup and change in advance. Just curious though. But thank you for this. Finally a way to use the ps3 controller on bluetooth. Both my pi 3's are built inside a console with their own controller ports wired up.

meleu

@edmaul69 said in Here is a way to select joystick for players 1-4 (global or emu specific):

if the selected controller isnt detected that it would use the one detected is there?

Sorry, I'm not sure what you mean...

When the selected controller isn't connected/detected, it uses the RetroArch defaults.

(...) When testing i had to turn on the ps3 controller to exit the game.

As far as I know the player1 is the only one that can use hotkeys (save state, reset the game, quit emulator, access RGUI, etc).

I didn't understand what exactly you need/want.

edmaul69

@meleu so for me it didnt use default retroarch setting. When i set the ps3 controller as the first controller it worked great. I rebooted with the ps3 controller turned off. Then i went into a game and the controls didnt work. I had to turn the ps3 controller on to do anything. I will test more thoroughly tomorrow