GPIO Controls Not Registering After Launching Games

pengu1n

Pi Model or other hardware: RPi CM3+
Power Supply used: On board power circuitry (same that's used on standard Rpi's)
RetroPie Version Used: 4.4.12
Built From: SD Image from Retropie website
USB Devices connected: WiFi dongle
Controller used: Tactile switches to GPIOs
Error messages received: None found
Emulator: gba(lr-mgba), n64(mupen64plus-auto)

Hello,

I'm working on a retropie handheld project and was trying to get my GPIO buttons working so I put together a python script (https://pastebin.com/034Q4xsT) that runs at startup. I was able to map my buttons and actually navigate the menus. But as soon as I launch a game (been mostly testing with gba and snes games), the controls do not respond (~~Super Mario 64 has been the only one so far that I noticed is not affected~~).
If I SSH into the Pi and manually run the script again, while in the game, the controls start working!
Does anyone know what I am doing wrong here? Is my script wrong? Is there another config file I need to set?

Hope someone can help!
Thanks!

EDIT: Went a little further into Super Mario 64 and controls stop working after the game save file loading screen.... :(

mitu

@pengu1n Your script might need a tty in order to work, but the emulators started do not have access to it. Is there a reason you're not using one of the GPIO drivers to simulate a gamepad ?
For RetroArch, you can turn on verbose logging from the Runcommand launch menu and then get the detailed log file from /dev/shm/runcommand.log to see how the gamepad is detected (probably as a keyboard). Note that RetroArch supports keyboards, but the default mappings are different than the ones you have defined - https://docs.libretro.com/guides/input-and-controls/#keyboard-controls. You can get a real keyboard start the GUI to re-map the default buttons to the ones you've defined in your script, just to see if it makes a difference.

pengu1n

@mitu What do you mean by needing a "tty"?

I'm not using the GPIO drivers because their pins are not configurable.. I'm not following the same IO setup that the regular Pis have on the pin header. I designed my own pcb so these pins are kinda set right now..

I tried the Runcommand launch menu and I get nothing about a controller in the runcommand.log other than referencing the retroarch.cfg which has my layout defined as a keyboard.

I redefined the keyboard key mappings to match https://docs.libretro.com/guides/input-and-controls/#keyboard-controls but I still have the same issue... :(

Really lost here... I think on my next rev I'll just design in a USB controller.

mitu

Try using the Adafruit Retrogame - it emulates a keyboard for GPIO inputs and it's configurable.

fdr4prez

from my personal projects, I've discovered GPIO keyboard events are not registered in lr-emulators.

I think it has to do with SDL2

Using Adafruit Retrogame, as mitu, suggests will work. I have used it.

Otherwise you need to create your own "virtual" keyboard in the system so they will be accepted.

pengu1n

@mitu This is my bad, but I forgot to launch the game with Verbose logging, sorry. So now when I look at the runcommand.log I find this:

[WARN] Input device ID 3 is unknown to this libretro implementation. Using RETRO _DEVICE_JOYPAD.

Any idea what that might mean?

I'll give Retrogame a shot also. Thanks!

mitu

@pengu1n said in GPIO Controls Not Registering After Launching Games:

[WARN] Input device ID 3 is unknown to this libretro implementation. Using RETRO _DEVICE_JOYPAD.

That's because of the RA's configuration - try resetting the configuration to default by copying the retroarch.cfg.rp-dist files over the retroarch.cfg in the /opt/retropie/configs/all/ folder.