Controller recommendation needed
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@clyde Thank you for your response. I don't really know what games I will play the most, but it looks like the PS1 layout would work well for a lot of basic games.
So, a more specific question is would a PS4 Dualshock clone controller work with Retropie? Or should I look for something different?
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@camman595 yeah you can use PS4 controllers, PS3 controllers without too many issues setting up I think. https://retropie.org.uk/docs/PS4-Controller/
I used to use a PS3 controller but switched to 8bitdo ones as they're more retro looking.
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@camman595 chiming in because I've been hoping to create a Pi4 gaming console that'll run a number of games-- from home console ones to arcade-- and had been hoping to find one that'll be compatible w/ all systems.
I'd originally been thinking of getting Super NES controllers, since there are a few games-- like Robotron, Smash TV, Total Carnage, Fire Trap etc-- that use a 2-joystick setup, and the SNES did a decent job replicating the 2nd "joystick" using the 4 primary buttons (granted, it wasn't as good for 6-button fighting games like Street Fighter 2, since people would usually have to use the top/side buttons for the lighter or harder punches or kicks etc).
Another option I'd considered was just trying to to use whatever console controllers we have already (my wife and I have a NES, SNES, N64, and original X-Box btwn us, so I suppose we have a few options) and buying USB adapters for them, but in some cases the adapters were about as expensive (usually around $15 USD each) as the controllers themselves, and unless they're significantly cheaper, there's really not a lotta sense paying that since you'd be pairing an older controller with an adapter, both of which may not work anyway.
Anyway, I've seen a few people on these boards praising the Logitech Gamepad F310, which kinda replicates the XBox controllers w/ a main NES-style directional controller, 4 buttons, 4 side buttons for your left/right index fingers, 3 central buttons (for Pausing etc, I'm not sure yet if any arcade/MAME gamers have been able to configure these or any controller buttons for adding "credits"), and 2 directional thumb controls, so it seems that this controller could handle most games-- certainly all the ones I'm looking at playing-- however it doesn't look like it's wireless.
So if you do find anything like this Logictech that's wireless, I'm all ears, but just thought I'd mention this one for now if it'd be at all helpful. Thanks.
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Side note, I just checked Amazon, and the Logitech Gamepad F710-- and sorry to all if it seems like I'm plugging any one company-- seems to have the exact same setup as the 310, but is wireless (granted it is about double the cost). If you can find any better deals, I'm all ears.
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@mortalwombat said in Controller recommendation needed:
sorry to all if it seems like I'm plugging any one company
There's nothing wrong in narrowing your focus after you've looked around a bit.
Fun fact: One German review about the F710 on Amazon accuses Logitech of wanting to kill their customers, because the controller and its receiver unit were enclosed in a "escape-proof prison of plastic" that can only opened by extreme measures with a high risk of slitting your arteries. 😄
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@mortalwombat said in Controller recommendation needed:
Side note, I just checked Amazon, and the Logitech Gamepad F710-- and sorry to all if it seems like I'm plugging any one company-- seems to have the exact same setup as the 310, but is wireless (granted it is about double the cost). If you can find any better deals, I'm all ears.
I love my Logitechs. I have 3x F310 and 1xF710. The nice thing about the F710 aside from being affordable is a great button layout, and since it runs 2.4GHz wireless instead of bluetooth, I don't have to disable the WiFi to get a better signal.
In the future, to help support fighting games like Street Fighter 2 and such, I want to get this:
https://www.8bitdo.com/m30/Oh and also an X-arcade TankStick looks like fun for creating that real arcade feel.
https://shop.xgaming.com/products/x-arcade-tankstick-trackball-usb-included
(Not Cheap!) -
@yfzdude said in Controller recommendation needed:
In the future, to help support fighting games like Street Fighter 2 and such, I want to get this:
https://www.8bitdo.com/m30/I bought some of these controllers for my Sega Mega Drive Mini, but I don't like that the upper three buttons are smaller than the lower ones.
This is purely subjective, though, and others might not have this problem. I just wanted to mention my personal experiences with them.
Oh and also an X-arcade TankStick looks like fun for creating that real arcade feel.
Absolutely. I'm very happy with my two Fightsticks F300 and F500 from Mayflash, which tend to be a little cheaper than the X-arcade stick, although at the price of having no trackball. But I like separate sticks more than a combined two-player board.
Again, just some personal cents from me.
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Noob question for @clyde & @camman595 and anyone who's gotten wireless controllers to work: I'd imagine wireless would make things things a lot easier if you're trying to play 4-player games, like MAME's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The Simpsons, etc??
Just ask because I noticed that there's 4 USB slots in my Pi4, so although in a perfect world, I'd like to think that one could just plug 4 USB controllers in and start playing, I imagine that in reality, you'd sometimes have to keep a USB slot open to plug in a USB keyboard for configuring those controllers, right? (unless of course you got a wireless KB).
So for those who wanna spend a little more for a wireless controller or 2, I'm imagine that some would cut down on the cord spaghetti/having to keep switching btwn. the keyboard and controllers...
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@mortalwombat My Pi 4 sits comfortably in my DIY arcade cabinet, with two of its usb ports occupied by the LED controller for the illuminated arcade buttons and by the external SSD. The other two ports are used by the joysticks of the cab, and I have two wireless Wii U Pro controller clones ready for players 3 and 4.
I also own some of those popular Classic Mini consoles from Sega (Mega Drive), Sony (Playstation), and Konami (PC Engine), and I bought wireless controllers for all of them. I usually don't care much about wired or wireless controllers when I play alone if the cables are long enough, but for more than two players, I prefer wireless controllers to avoid cable spaghetti.
The downside of wireless controllers is their need for recharging, which I tend to forget too often to put my wired controllers too far away. 😉
That said, there are also wireless keyboards available, if that's your main concern. Alternatively, you could log into the Pi via SSH for maintenance, thus making a keyboard obsolete.
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@yfzdude said in Controller recommendation needed:
Oh and also an X-arcade TankStick looks like fun for creating that real arcade feel.
https://shop.xgaming.com/products/x-arcade-tankstick-trackball-usb-included
(Not Cheap!)I have a Tankstick and it's awesome on my upright arcade cabinet. That thing is heavy too. The side-by-side setup is great for recreating that two-player arcade feel. The trackball is wonderful for Centipede and the Golden Tee games. I used to have people over (pre-COVID) and we'd play rounds of golf in my basement with adult beverages.
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@clyde well it'd be cool to see a photo-- assuming you haven't shared one already-- of the layout of your cabinet, since unless I'm misunderstanding you, you're saying your cabinet is configured for 3 players? Or you're saying that the primary controllers are the 2 joystick ones, and the LED controller is concealed/largely just to illuminate all the buttons?
I'm mostly curious though-- if you don't mind sharing-- about the SSD, like what the capacity is, is it mainly just for games and the extra stability/performance of it being a proper hard drive vs. an MicroSD card?
Just ask cuz I've certainly had a MicroSD or two give me corrupted/unreadable warnings, considering the amount of times I've used them to transfer stuff btwn. my laptop, smartphone etc... so I can imagine that an SSD would reduce that risk (and def. would make sense for a cabinet setup... me, I'm still only blueprinting the Pi emulator I'm hoping to build, but since I'm hoping for it to be portable/the kinda thing I could bring to peoples' houses for parties, I can imagine that attaching an external drive could be difficult, unless I'm able to find a Pi case that can enclose/secure the HD as well).
Guess I'm also just curious to hear about the overall amount of GB your ROM collection takes up to help myself plan for how much space I'll need. Obviously, the newer games get, the more space they take up, but I remember someone saying that they had practically ALL the Neo-Geo games and they were just under 2GB, which seems small (and when you start adding on MAME games, 5-6 consoles etc, I could see it adding up quickly...)
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@mortalwombat
MAME is the huge space eater depending on how many ROMs you want to keep. The MAME2003 reference set is close to 30GB. My trimmed down 'no clone, full non-merged' set is still over 19GB. (over 2,400 games)Some size references based on my collection:
(All my rom collection are the North American roms only)Atari 2600 - 4.6MB
Atari 7800 - 1.76MB
Sega Master System - 10.8MB
PC Engine/TG-16 - 20.5MB
NES - 70MB
Megadrive/Genesis - 456MB
SNES - 563MB
N64 - 4.49GBAs you can see, old systems are no big deal, but once you get past the mid 90's systems, or anything CD/DVD based it gets out of hand quickly.
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@mortalwombat said in Controller recommendation needed:
@clyde well it'd be cool to see a photo-- assuming you haven't shared one already-- of the layout of your cabinet
Well, I linked to the thread about my cabinet in my last post. 😉 You'll find some photos there. Since then, I had to add a powered USB hub, because I added two SpinTrak spinners and two AimTrak lightguns from Ultimarc which also need USB ports, but the rest is mostly the same to this day.
you're saying your cabinet is configured for 3 players? Or you're saying that the primary controllers are the 2 joystick ones, and the LED controller is concealed/largely just to illuminate all the buttons?
The latter, see also my cabinet thread.
I'm mostly curious though-- if you don't mind sharing-- about the SSD, like what the capacity is, is it mainly just for games and the extra stability/performance of it being a proper hard drive vs. an MicroSD card?
Until now, it's just for my
~/RetroPie/romsdirectory, the rest of RetroPie is still on a 32 GB SD card. I'm using this card for three years now without any problems, but I don't switch it between devices or carry it around. Although SD cards may be less reliable than SSDs overall, I don't think that it matters much if they're being kept in the same device, and if it's from a well-known manufacturer.That said, any hardware can fail, and you should make backups on a regular basis. See here for some methods to backup RetroPie.
The SSD has 250GB, but I only use about 150GB of it. I didn't buy it for this purpose, I just happened to have it laying around when I started with RetroPie 2½ years ago. My systems occupy more space than @YFZdude's (around twice the amount per system), I guess because I also keep their scraped images and videos in their roms directories. So the space you'll need also depends on whether you want to include images and/or videos in your setup, too.
Besides older systems taking (much) less space than more recent ones, any CD-based systems will skyrocket your space requirements, even if you compress the disks into CHD files.
I can imagine that an SSD would reduce that risk (and def. would make sense for a cabinet setup...
While it certainly does, I like the separation of the system and the roms/images/videos, so I can just pull out the SD card for maintenance purposes. I also made backups of it on my PC this way, until I switched to network-based backups. (All of my machines run Linux, which RetroPie is also based on. That makes such things very easy to setup.)
I'm hoping for it to be portable/the kinda thing I could bring to peoples' houses for parties, I can imagine that attaching an external drive could be difficult, unless I'm able to find a Pi case that can enclose/secure the HD as well).
Modern SSDs are lightweight and yet quite sturdy, even without a protective case. They can also be fully powered by the USB port, so they don't need another power supply. So while a one-case solution would be optimal, an SSD and its USB adapter/case wouldn't be that much of a burden in my opinion. See this picture from my cabinet with the SSD in the middle of its intestines. The Pi there is my 3B which I changed for a Pi 4 in an Argon NEO case this spring.
edit: some spelling errors and a forgotten link
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@mortalwombat I keep an SSD plugged into my case and it just sits under the TV so you can't see anything for the most part.
If you really want an all-in-one solution, Argon just released a new case that holds an M.2 SSD inside.
https://www.argon40.com/argon-one-m-2-case-for-raspberry-pi-4.html
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