Has anyone got a keyboard working for Player 2 in PiFBA?

rbaker

Hello, I have a RPi2 running the latest version of Retropie but nothing I do allows me to use player two controls in PiFBA. The issue is well documented. The latest version claims to have support for configuring two players with keyboard keys but I cannot do it. Having spent a day, I give up. Anyone done it? there are suggestions about patching "gp2xsdk.cpp" but I have no idea how to do it or where it is. In the fba2xcfg, it says player 2 keyboard controls disabled by default, can they just be enabled? Thanks.

BuZz

I've not tested it myself with pifba - but it will work with lr-fba-next with two keyboard inputs set up for plasyer1/player2 in /opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch.cfg - on a rpi2 the lr-fba-next is the better emulator and supports many more games.

caver01

I have. I use an ipac4 and I used to run pifba using the piplay distribution. I had to define my keys for player 2 in the config file for that emulator using the SDL codes, but once I did, Player 2 worked fine.

I remember a much earlier version of pifba lacked p2 functionality, but that was fixed a while ago.

rbaker

@caver01 thanks, have you got it working in Retropie? I saw on the PiPlay forums that it was fixed a while ago but on Retropie when I alter the config, it has no effect and it still says Player 2 disabled by default. The Git Hub page says that it was fixed ages ago so I am confused as to what else to do.

rbaker

@BuZz Thanks, I am running that emulator instead now on a Pi2 without any issues. However, I cant help but feel that the performance of some games is snappier and smoother on PiFBA so would really like to try and getting working more for me being able to really. I have seen a page about patching files but couldn't get it to work. Do you know if the current build in the Retropie image is the latest fixed one?

caver01

@rbaker hmm. Nope. I just looked for a backup copy of my old config file and didn't find it. Have you tried lr-fba-next? That's what I use now.

caver01

@caver01 you could try reinstalling just pifba from source.

rbaker

@caver01 Yes, I'm using that emulator instead with no issues. I tried the source thing from the Retropie menu for single emualtors and it made no difference to the ability to configure player 2. I could be doing something wrong but to be honest, I'm just doing it for the sake of learning. lr-fba-next is clearly the way forward as I am going to go with a Pi3 soon.

meleu

@rbaker I think this thread is more related with this specific issue (and we talked about it in another thread). So let me say something about it here for future references.

going straight to the conclusion

I did a research about this issue and I found out where the problem is. I made my own tests with a tweaked code, and assured myself that it works.

I made a Pull Request and @BuZz merged it (2016-07-15). Now, if you reinstall PiFBA from source you will have a keyboard working for 2 players (if you have a properly configured fba2x.cfg file, obviously!).

I think the binary will be updated soon.

tech info for the NERD folks

I was impressed with how this inconvenience was solved changing only one character in the source code! :-)

In the file gp2xsdk.cpp (specifically between lines 259-286) PiFBA determines how many valid joysticks are plugged to the system and store this number in the joyCount variable:

    //We handle up to four joysticks
    if(SDL_NumJoysticks())
    {
        int i;
        SDL_JoystickEventState(SDL_ENABLE);
        
        for(i=0;i<SDL_NumJoysticks();i++) {
            joy[i]=SDL_JoystickOpen(i);
            
            //Check for valid joystick, some keyboards
            //aren't SDL compatible
            if(joy[i])
            {
                if (SDL_JoystickNumAxes(joy[i]) > 28)
                {
                    SDL_JoystickClose(joy[i]);
                    joy[i]=0;
                    logoutput("Error detected invalid joystick/keyboard\n");
                }
                else
                    joyCount++;
            }
        }
        if(joy[0])
            logoutput("Found %d joysticks\n",joyCount);
    }
    else
        joyCount=1;

As we can see in the last else, if no joysticks found, joyCount receives 1.

In other words: "If no joysticks found, let's pretend that we have one for player1 (and let's see if fba2x.cfg has some configs to control player1 with a keyboard)."

The problem is that in this scenario (no joysticks), there is no way to control player2, even if the user has a properly configured fba2x.cfg to control player2 with the same keyboard as the player1.

If we replace the line 286 with joyCount=2;, pifba will understand that there is a minimum of 2 players.

In other words: "If no joysticks found, let's pretend that we have two, for player1 and player2 (and let's see if fba2x.cfg has some configs to control player1 and player2 with a keyboard)."

TheStrayMongrel

@BuZz said in Has anyone got a keyboard working for Player 2 in PiFBA?:

I've not tested it myself with pifba - but it will work with lr-fba-next with two keyboard inputs set up for plasyer1/player2 in /opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch.cfg - on a rpi2 the lr-fba-next is the better emulator and supports many more games.

Wait, waa...? Just had a sift through .../retroarch.cfg again and looks to have keyboard 2 set up and active (works okay in mame4all) but doesnt work for me in lr-fba-next. Or does this need to be edited to something bespoke @BuZz? Any help would be fantastic been trying to get this working for a good while.

Thanks in advance.

meleu

@rbaker I would like to know if now you have your keyboard working for player2 in PiFBA. I did it for you, dude! :-)

rbaker

@meleu Hi, still waiting to try it because my machine is currently in school as a final week treat for the kids I teach. When the machine comes home it'll be the first thing I do! I'll let you know for sure when I do the update. Thanks.

TheStrayMongrel

Anyone made any progress on this issue? Thanks

meleu

@TheStrayMongrel said in Has anyone got a keyboard working for Player 2 in PiFBA?:

Anyone made any progress on this issue? Thanks

I did. I can control 2 players with only one keyboard.

Look here what happened:
https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/1914/has-anyone-got-a-keyboard-working-for-player-2-in-pifba/9

If you update your pifba from source you'll get it! ;-)

TheStrayMongrel

@meleu Ah fantastic. Sorry to ask when I'm sure is elementary to most but how do I "update pifba from source", run a shell command I assume? Thanks heaps for all the help.

meleu

@TheStrayMongrel https://github.com/retropie/retropie-setup/wiki/Updating-RetroPie

TheStrayMongrel

Excellent, thanks @meleu will give that a go.

TheStrayMongrel

I assume this is not going to get lr-fba-next working with two players on one keyboard though @meleu ? Thats what I'm really after as SF3 and SFA wont work in piFBA.

rbaker

@TheStrayMongrel lr-fba-next already works on one keyboard because it's a "lr" core and therefore uses your universal retroarch config so there shouldn't be any issues.

rbaker

@meleu I just updated from Source but no luck for me. Any chance you could post your fba2x.cfg? Here is mine:

[Keyboard]
# Get codes from /usr/include/SDL/SDL_keysym.h
A_1=306
B_1=32
X_1=308
Y_1=120
L_1=122
R_1=304
START_1=49
SELECT_1=53
LEFT_1=276
RIGHT_1=275
UP_1=273
DOWN_1=274
QUIT=27
#player 2 keyboard controls, disabled by default
A_2=97
B_2=115
X_2=113
Y_2=107
L_2=105
R_2=119
START_2=114
SELECT_2=102
LEFT_2=100
RIGHT_2=103
UP_2=114
DOWN_2=102

Player 1 works perfectly. Am I missing something when deciding on codes from SDL_keysym.h?