Very confused about RetroPie.

[mitu]

@dchurch24 Emulationstation has nothing to do with how the emulator behaves, it's just a front-end/launcher. The only bearing it has on mapping of buttons is during the initial configuration, when it generates an auto-config file for your gamepad - as explained here and @dankcushions said. What you're re-configuring inside the RGUI, that's entirely within RetroArch.

[dchurch24]

@dankcushions Yeah, different cabinet. I figured that it must be me doing something wrong, and that's why I had so much trouble last time.
Apparently it's not.
This is a new build, different controllers etc...

You said in that thread, "i hardly think creating your own MAME front end is the quickest solution here" - and yet, here we are! Several weeks later, 2 different machines, 3 different controllers, with 4 adults trying to configure a simple button layout and trying to exit a game once started.

Same issues.

Sadly, the same issues seems to carry over to RecalBox as well - so my guess is that it's something to do with the emulator wrappers rather than RetroPie.

Bizarrely, the MonoGame front-end I started yesterday, DOESN'T have these issue. I can map a key in MAME (once shelled), and the same key presses are persistent. I haven't tried the Zero Delay controller as yet (As it wasn't with me at the time), but I can cursor through the emulators (so far only MAME and Genesis), then cursor through the available games, press an assigned key to select and start the game and another to exit and return to the menu.
It seems to me that this would be a really basic thing to want from a front-end, and as yet, I haven't managed to find an "off the shelf" application that does it.

[dankcushions]

@dchurch24 if you are configuring your controller via MAME or via retroarch then you are doing something wrong. you should configure any input ONCE via the initial input configuration you get on first boot. the documentation is clear, here. if you do that ALL default emulators will have their controls configured.

however if you’ve already gone down this path (reconfiguring within retroarch/MAME) you will have created a mess of overriding configs that will be difficult to make sense of.

[dchurch24]

@dankcushions

You're not wrong. That's why I think this conglomeration of software isn't right for custom built cabinets.
The "fire" button in one game isn't going to be the "fire" button in another, hence it needs configuring in itself. In Defender, for example, the "Thrust" button is where my "Stab" button is in Green Beret.

[dankcushions]

@dchurch24 quite a bit of blood, sweat and (many) tears has gone into making it so MAME/FBA have a sensible default layout for every game. the assumption is that you configure your arcade buttons like so:

X Y L
B A R

insert coin button bound to select and hotkey
p1 start bound as start

as said in the other thread, if you have an ipac or other arcade interface you may have other considerations.

but if you do that, you should be mostly satisfied with the defaults in MAME. basic things like quitting a game or inserting a coin will definitely work.

now, if you don’t like the defaults that’s another issue, and the docs go into the override mechanism, but what you’re saying about quitting a game not working tells me that you’re missing a step.

[dchurch24]

@dankcushions

Fair enough. I don't know what step I'm missing, or why it changes after a while by simply walking away and coming back to it later (like last night for example. I had to go out for about an hour. Before I left, even plugging a keyboard in and pressing [esc] would not get me out of the game. I left the whole lot on and went out. Came back an hour later, pressed [esc], and the game exited.)
It was the same on my other build - could not exit a game until I accidentally stumbled across a combination that took me out. There's also a dual-button combination that resets the game (i.e. effectively rebooting it) and those are set to two buttons that I frequently press in a particular game - so really quite annoying. I figured it was less annoying than trying to find where they were configured and changing them, so just put up with it. I got it reasonably close for the few games that I have on there, and was wary of touching it again for fear of buggering up the ones that are about 80% correct now.

[dankcushions]

@dchurch24

Before I left, even plugging a keyboard in and pressing [esc] would not get me out of the game. I left the whole lot on and went out. Came back an hour later, pressed [esc], and the game exited.)

retropie is designed for controllers (be that gamepads or arcade interfaces), which are configured using the process when they are detected on boot. you plug something in later on and it will probably do nothing or act strangely.

It was the same on my other build - could not exit a game until I accidentally stumbled across a combination that took me out.

the combination is hotkey + start. see https://retropie.org.uk/docs/First-Installation/#hotkey

There's also a dual-button combination that resets the game (i.e. effectively rebooting it) and those are set to two buttons that I frequently press in a particular game - so really quite annoying.

hotkey + B. https://retropie.org.uk/docs/First-Installation/#hotkey

so if you’d followed the first installation doc, you would have configured hotkey as select/insert coin, and B as an action button, and that would never be a combo you’d press by accident.

[dchurch24]

@dankcushions

Agreed. The docs DO say that. Initially, I DID set it up with the coin/select combination. It wouldn't exit the game, so went back through the controller config and changed it to other buttons in an attempt to diagnose the problem. Those didn't work either.
In the end, I was randomly assigning buttons in an attempt to get ANYTHING to work, and eventually stumbled across a combo that DID exit the game (using my iPac controller), so left it at that - I wasn't about to raise my blood pressure again and waste several hours going back over it. The knock-on effect of those buttons working was the resetting of the game with the reset key-combo. It was a price worth paying to not go back through it and potentially lose the ability to exit a game once again. Whilst not perfect, I considered that particular bar-top machine "finished" as much as it could be.
We started to build one for my BiL, and am experiencing the same problems again.
I realise that everyone here assumes that I didn't read and follow the docs. I did. I read everything, and then even watched youtube videos of people setting it up (which I hate doing, I would much rather read at my own pace rather than waiting for someone to show me via a video).

[sewart]

@dchurch24 I spent many hours building a bar top machine and it turned out great. I had the same trouble as you, gave up and ended up putting it in the closet never really being used. I googled it and will be trying again. Hopefully this time I can succeed. I'll be reinstalling everything from scratch.

Wish me luck!

[AXEL]

@sewart It's been a couple of months, did you ever get back to your build?