lr-vice: Drive Emulation, Mapping Keyboard Strokes

darkuni

@mitu THANK YOU! Saved me a lot of looking around. I will try and report back.

I see using some basic tools, you can create a .d81 image of a lot of "loose files" and possibly handle a "flipper" where standard DOS is being used (aka, you can just copy all files from all disks to the same .d81 and launch the sort of bootstrapper file).

What I'm curious of is how those making CRT images featuring non-DOS disk sets like Legacy of the Ancients. Ultimate Wizard might be straight DOS - but something like Psi-5 has custom stuff.

DarishZone

Dunno understand the issue however... You mean ES not showing .d81 files? That's very odd.

mediamogul

@darishzone

.d81 files are not currently on the list of extensions that Emulation Station will pick up on by default and must be added manually. I'm guessing yours are seen because they're zipped and .zip is a recognized extension. The es_systems.cfg file mentioned above can be found at /opt/retropie/configs/all/emulationstation/es_systems.cfg and the .d81 extension can be added under the 'c64' system entry.

DarishZone

I'm pretty sure i have unzipped .d81 files on my set, got a check and i do not have es_System file on path that you indicated.

Edit: Ok, got the file on this path: /etc/emulationstation and i have added manually d81, although i'm pretty sure ES already show those files.

mediamogul

@darishzone said in lr-vice: Drive Emulation, Mapping Keyboard Strokes:

Edit: Ok, got the file on this path: /etc/emulationstation and i have added manually d81

One issue you'll likely run into is that /etc/emulationstation/es_systems.cfg will get overwritten with future updates. Creating /opt/retropie/configs/all/emulationstation/ and copying /etc/emulationstation/es_systems.cfg there will allow the newly created es_systems.cfg to override the original and also persist between updates.

DarishZone

Great advice, thanks!

darkuni

For those following the thread. In addition to adding the extension to the CFG file, you'll also need to set the DRIVE TYPE for each .d81 game to 1581 vice 1541 or you will receive an error when trying to load the game.

Now to see if I can build an Ultimate Wizard .d81 ...

Edit: So I copied all files from both disks to a single .d81 and during the boot process it died and reset the C64. So in THIS case, it wasn't just that easy. Sigh.

darkuni

So now I'm looking for an auto menu type tool that will ignore itself, generate a list of all the files on the disk, let you scroll through them with a controller, and launch with a fire button.

I've found a LOT of these, but most require a keyboard (which is what I'm trying to avoid using for this).

Thoughts?

rsn8887

Final cartridge 3 comes to mind, it can be controlled with a joystick (you move a mouse pointer). Not the easiest but I loved using it as a kid. Made me feel like I had a real computer OS.

DarishZone

@darkuni said in lr-vice: Drive Emulation, Mapping Keyboard Strokes:

For those following the thread. In addition to adding the extension to the CFG file, you'll also need to set the DRIVE TYPE for each .d81 game to 1581 vice 1541 or you will receive an error when trying to load the game.

Now to see if I can build an Ultimate Wizard .d81 ...

Edit: So I copied all files from both disks to a single .d81 and during the boot process it died and reset the C64. So in THIS case, it wasn't just that easy. Sigh.

Uhm, are you referring to lr-vice, or normal Vice?
Lr-vice does not even seem able to save the settings, dnt remember about d81 files, but he run every file extension i've tried. Will give a check.

youxia

I've got this slight gripe with lr-vice: when I set "controller0 type" to "joystick" in QuickMenu/Options, I can then bind & use various useful keyboard keys (Space/n/f1 etc) to my joypad. But then the Enter (Return) key on the real keyboard evokes Vice GUI menu, which is fairly annoying. I actually just tested it again and there's more errors: "W"="N", "S" does not work, "Z" & "X" work only occasionally.

And when I set "controller0 type" to "keyboard", ~~my keyboard works ok~~, no, wait, "X" only works sometimes. And I can't use any of the joypad binds.

In Vice and terminal my keyboard works fine.

Anybody else has this problem? I'm still on 1.7.1 control scheme, (USB) keyboard and PS4 pad.

rsn8887

@youxia I have a similar experience. Something fishy is going with RetroPie default mappings that is probably related: If I enter the Retroarch GUI with select+X and go to “controls” I can see that “Auto: 0 (N/A), key (z)” is mapped to “B”. I am concerned that it says “key (z)” there. I never mapped key z, only my controller, which is Auto 0. I wish it had labels for my controller inputs (DS4 Sony dongle) instead of saying Auto 0 (N/A), but fine.

But here I wonder: why is the keyboard key (z) (and a bunch of other keys) mapped here in Retroarch, when I never mapped it myself?

Clearly this must be the reason why the z key on my physical keyboard sometimes doesn’t work when the joystick is enabled in the vice core.

I suspect Retropie employs some joytokey hack in the background which messes with our physical keyboard inputs and maps to keys like a, z, x, w, s etc. I have no clue why Retropie does that since Retroarch doesn’t require it and it just adds another layer of hack to the whole thing, and probably messes up our keyboard inputs in this emulator.

All of these are just guesses it might be something else. But I noticed something else in Retropie. If I just enter a shell and press some buttons on my controller, I see characters appear. I don’t know why this is necessary since the emulators supports gmaepad input

DarishZone

Interesting, i'm limited on basic keyboard inputs on lr-vice, like spacebar-enter and numbers, everything seems to work fine. I prefer virtual keyboard honestly, but seems unresponsive at times, like directional arrows for trainers screens, i can see the input on visual keyboard, but nothing happens on screen. I think they have to work on it.

youxia

Outside text adventures there's no real need for full keyboard, I guess. Unfortunately I play a lot of them so... :/
Plus, it just bugs me if something's not working.

I have similar issues in ZX Spectrum and Amstrad, though on smaller scale. It'd be interesting to know if it's a fault to the emu itself or, like @rsn8887 says, external Pie/Retroarch problem ( like joytokey or some such)

rsn8887

It might not even be joytokey. It might just be that for whatever reason RetroPie is mapping keys in addition to controller buttons. The keys it seems it maps are hardcoded to z, w etc. And there seems to be no easy way to disable that.

This is still just a guess, but I have no other explanation why “key (z)” etc. would show up in the remapper next to my button inputs.

DarishZone

I confirm what darkuni said, on lr-vice d81 files need drive set to 1581 to start, thank you for the advice :) parameter also need to be reversed to 1541 for d64 files (lr-vice will keep the change settings).

Think to get rid completely of d81 files, i only have thirty of them on my set, crt and ef dsnt need to change anything.

rsn8887

Concerning the default mapping of keyboard keys, it seems to be part of Retroarch's default "retroarch.cfg". In that file, there's a line

input_player1_b = "z"

for example. It can be changed to

input_player1_b = "nul"

and that fixes it.

There are a bunch of other defaults that have to be changed to "nul" manually in that file.

I have no clue why Retroarch would do such a thing, and it is very annoying to say the least.

I filed an issue on https://www.github.com/libretro/retroarch

DarishZone

Is the keyboard functional for text adventures? I've not tried yet.

DarishZone

@rsn8887 said in lr-vice: Drive Emulation, Mapping Keyboard Strokes:

https://www.github.com/libretro/retroarch

Up this thread because rsn8887 find something relevant here about visual keyboard input. Was try mapping keyboard input on controller when i also noticed some input buttons on visual keyboard not working at all, like "n".
Also noticed Retroarch setting automap "z" on B button, but this is apparently on purpose for enabling some global commands which sadly interfere with lr-vice visual keyboard.
I'm afraid change those value would impact settings on others emulators, but it would be very good, for example, to assign spacebar on B button thus make playable lot of C64 games. Will made some tries and let you know.

DarishZone

I was wrong, nevermind.