[Solved] Trackball not working after 4.3 update

markwkidd

One other update which was merged into RetroArch yesterday also allows for modern lightguns like Wiimote/Dolphinbar (tested) and Aimtrak (not yet tested).

For my next personal project, the holy grail has been multiple light guns in Lakka with mame2003 which is within reach :D (Now I need to start getting serious about a cabinet...)

markwkidd

@majin-wamu said in [Solved] Trackball not working after 4.3 update:

@caver01 The only issue I have is it would be expensive. Unless there is somewhere else we can go to get a good trackball for cheap, the one I got was around $100 or so; but I must say, it works really well. Much better than others I have played at arcades which sometimes seem to only move under a lot of force.

I don't own this trackball myself, but there are a lot of them out in the world: https://shop.xgaming.com/collections/arcade-parts/products/x-arcade-trackball-assembly-usb

caver01

@markwkidd said in [Solved] Trackball not working after 4.3 update:

https://shop.xgaming.com/collections/arcade-parts/products/x-arcade-trackball-assembly-usb

That's a great price for a full-sized heavy-duty 3" trackball that looks to be (and reviews confirm) a very good option for arcade cabinets. It is almost have the price of my U-Trak. The one thing the U-Trak has going for it is that it stands very proud in its shell making it a lot easier to flush mount without carriage bolt heads showing.

In some respects, I kinda wish I had opted for a smaller trackball, but the 2.25 versions tend to be even pricier.

caver01

@herb_fargus Is there a trigger to flow the contents of the github wiki pages into the "fancier CSS" versions used in the Docs links, or do you have to transcribe the content manually? I think I recall this was something you had to do.

We have some very good edits in the Spinners and Trackballs (and now lightguns!) wiki that should be enjoyed by folks trying to make recent updates in lr-mame2003 work with their analog gear. It has been several weeks and I think the dust is pretty much settled as far as edits/updates for this to move over into the Docs.

Thanks!

MrJordaaany

@majin-wamu said in [Solved] Trackball not working after 4.3 update:

@dankcushions @caver01
Edit: Okay thanks to dankcushions' explanation, I found a way to fix it! So this might help you too Caver.
Solution:
Go to the retroarch menu, go to inputs, select the user binds you want to change, go to mouse index and change it until you have found the working index! For me it was 2. If you have multiple mice, you can change them appropriately. I set both user 1 and user 2 to the same mouse index since I only have one trackball plugged in.

I hope this helps others who might be having this issue as well.

@majin-wamu @caver01

Goddam I can't believe that was the f**king solution. I just blew away my arcade setup trying out fresh installs to get to the bottom of this.

I KNEW it was working fine in 4.2, and something had clearly changed in 4.3. Reading this thread you guys reckon its something to do with the way retroarch handles udev drivers or something like that?

I was doing all the testing I could think of but didn't think to change the device index from inside of retroarch when the game was running.

Little tip for people wanting to test there mouse/what I did for testing:

Plug in a keyboard and hit F4 to go to the command line.

type
cd /dev/input then ls -la to list all devices

you can then run: cat mouse0

Moving the trackball around should show input on the screen (repeat for any index it may be).

I NEVER would have guessed that it was changing index when launching a rom, since I could see it was mouse0.

In game, mine was also index 2.

I can see this page has been updated with the info in here to determine the index of your mouse as well:
https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/wiki/Spinners,-Trackballs,-Lightguns,-and-other-Mouse-Devices

I should have thought to enable verbose logging with rom launching. The answers are always in the logs...

Thank you all for this great thread.

F**k me time to redo my arcade again...

biz7303

@mrjordaaany

Seeing if you could help me. I am very new to retropie and still learning but I had the same problem you had with the trackball.

I have tried configuring in retro arch as a mouse input 1, but i still don't have any success.

Can you maybe offer a step by step on how to resolve?

When in command and after I identify the mouse input, how do I exit command?

Is there anything else I should do to save the setting or test? The trackball does "move around" while in command so I know it is workin, it just doesn't work in emulator station.

Thanks again.

MrJordaaany

@biz7303 Cool so if your trackball is working in the method I mentioned above, then its just lr-mame2003 that is messing it up a little.

As discovered in this thread, something changed in the latest update of lr-mame2003. What you need to do is start any arcade game then bring up the retroarch menu. Default its Select+X. From the Main Menu go to Settings > Input > Input User 1 Binds > User 1 Mouse Index and change it from 0 to 2. That has worked for a couple of us so far. Then press b to go all the way back, then Quick Menu > Resume.

The trackball should be working now. If not, repeat the above steps until you find and index that works. Could be 1, or 3, or 4 etc. in your case.

caver01

@biz7303 said in [Solved] Trackball not working after 4.3 update:

it just doesn't work in emulator station.

Just so you have proper expectations, it won’t work in emulation station to select games. It will work once you launch a game though.

MrJordaaany

@caver01 Im going to assume by emulationstation he just meant in game.

biz7303

@mrjordaaany

Thanks a bunch. I will try later tonight and let you know. Yes, I was referencing in games.

Thanks again!

biz7303

Still no luck I have made it all the way thru input 6. And track ball still doesn't get recognized. I can keep going but i still don't understand how to access the retro arch menu while in a game. I keep having to exit the game, go to the retro Pie menu, open retroarch, etc....

I tried pushing select+x and nothing happens.

Do I not have the hot keys set up properly? Would be a lot easier if I could test all the inputs without having to exit the game etc....

All advice is greatly appreciated

Thanks again, I am a newbie.

MrJordaaany

@biz7303 Setting it through retroarch through the main menu of emulationstation isn't going to do it. Since when you boot a game using mame2003 thats when it assigns the mouse to an input number.

If you don't know what you hotkeys are, then you need to set them again. I suggest opening up the start menu in emulationstation and selecting 'configure input' set your buttons again:
https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/wiki/RetroArch-Configuration#autoconfigurations

The very last button it asks you to assign (asuming your are up to date and on retropie 4.3) is the hotkey button. If you scroll down on that link a little it has a section on hotkeys and what the default hotkeys are.

You can manually change the hotkeys though and check what is assigned to what in:
/opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch/autoconfig

The config files for all your button mappings per controller are stored here.

dankcushions

suspect @biz7303 is not running mame2003. which folder are your mame roms stored?

biz7303

@mrjordaaany

Gotcha, makes sense. I don’t think I set up these hot keys, will give it try tonight.

biz7303

@dankcushions

The truth is I don’t know which files they are stored in. I did my arcade set up sort the lazy way, I bought a rasberry pi and then bought a Sd card off eBay with all the Roms pre uploaded. I plugged the sd card in the pi and was ready to roll. Everything (with the trackball) worked great until I did the update.

How do I check which files they are stored in?

After I load a MAME rom, I can change the emulator from MAME2000, mame2003, and mame2010 by immediately pushing enter after a rom is loading. It brings me to a menu that allows me to change the emulator.

Let me try some things tonigh and I will let you know.

Thanks

dankcushions

@biz7303 that's also the unlicensed way :) https://retropie.org.uk/about/legal/ - it also makes it difficult/impossible to support you since neither you or us know how your system is configured. but hopefully the instruction in this thread will still apply.

what have you updated? you need to update retropie-setup (the script), retroarch and mame2003, in that order.

biz7303

@dankcushions
Sorry about that, didn’t realize the leagal implications. I just sort of jumped right in. I will dig into tonight and let you know. Maybe I need to delete everything , start from scratch, and do the legal route.

MrJordaaany

@biz7303 Yeah man it might be worth doing it from scratch. As long as you have some basic computer knowledge its not too hard and everyone here can help.

We have no idea what emulator these arcade roms are using. It could be lr-fba, mame2003, mame2000, mame2010. Who knows. Most likely they are not the right rom set as well.

Do some testing and let us know!

biz7303

@mrjordaaany

Sounds good. I will circle back around in about a week or so once I get the time. Thanks again

icebear81

I know this is SUPER old, but after parsing through possible ways/threads to get a trackball working on MAME2003, I was finally successful (after 3 attempts where I gave up and just went with advancemame)

A) in retroarch-core-options.cfg, add:

mame2003-dialsharexy = "enabled"
mame2003-mame_current_mouse_enable = "enabled"

I didnt verify if you actually need mame2003-dialsharexy = "enabled" but Im glad it is working

B) in /opt/retropie/configs/arcade/retroarch.cfg, add:

input_player1_mouse_index = "MOUSEINDEX"

Where:

MOUSEINDEX is the index for your mouse /dev/input/mouse*. I needed to test through a couple as what I needed to enter above, wasnt the same as the device's index. Unclear how these correlate
Your retroarch config (in this case arcade) may be different for your emulator. Easiest way I know to determine the config is when its running ps -aux | grep retro and look for the program and its referenced config file