Controls mixed up again and again

lostless

@tim-s-up meaning every button is wired to the same physical spot on each encoder. A goes to whatever you make A. But it has to be the same spot . Every encoder has to be wired IDENTICALLY. If you don’t have 5-6 on 2 of them, just ignore them on those 2. You can wire the hot key to whatever for player one. When you config the controllers in emulation station, ONLY CONFIG PLAYER ONE. The rest will just use that config. No need to config each encoder if they share the same brand and model. Also Only player one can use hot key.

Tim's up

@lostless @mitu I tried to map only player 1 in Emulationstation. Indeed it worked after a reboot, the other 3 players were mapped the same. BUT, for players 3 and 4 only the buttons work, the joysticks don't. When I manually map the two non working joysticks, P1 and P2 stop working. I checked, all 4 joysticks are wired the same way :-(

mitu

@tim-s-up Use jstest with each joystick and see what's the output for 3 and 4 for the non-working analog joysticks. Are they registered on the same device as the buttons or on another device ?

Tim's up

@mitu Ok, I will give it a go with jstest but joysticks 3 and 4 are working. E.g. they are working when I map them manually (but P1 and P2 stop working in that case).

@tim-s-up Are they registered on the same device as the buttons or on another device ?

You mean wired to the same interface ? Yes, P1 and P2 on Xinmo I, P3 and P4 on Xinmo II.

lostless

@tim-s-up said in Controls mixed up again and again:

Yes, P1 and P2 on Xinmo I, P3 and P4 on Xinmo II.

This look like it may be your problem right there. The xinmo 1 and 2 may be using the same encoder chip, so retropie sees them both as the same controller, but the pins might not match up between each. This is where some trouble shooting comes in. You have to match the virtual buttons to their proper locations. So if you configure player one and the dpad is using the hat input, ie hat up, down, etc, you have to find out what pins match up for the encoder for players 3 and 4 that use the hat output.

Tim's up

@lostless said in Controls mixed up again and again:

So if you configure player one and the dpad is using the hat input, ie hat up, down, etc, you have to find out what pins match up for the encoder for players 3 and 4 that use the hat output.

Thanks, but, noob question, how do I do that?

lostless

@tim-s-up
If these are the correct products I found by googling, these are the correct pinouts. Notice how they don’t match for the 1 player vs 2 player. Match up the proper buttons accordingly. Button one go to button one on all player. Ect. Ect..
note that these may not be the proper pinouts. Check your documentation because I just found these by googling the brand. If these aren’t correct or you don’t have documentation, it might be easier to just use windows joystick tool and map out each pin.

lostless

@tim-s-up actually looking at your logs you posted I think I see your problem. It looks like one type of controller is mapping to the x/y axis and the the other to the hat directions for the UDLR. That is an issue. It’ll explain why when you configure one you lose direction control on the other . You may not be able to mix the 2 encoders you might have to get all the same for all 4. Now I do see a mode button on the 1 player, if it is the right pinout, that button might toggle between analog and digital. Problem is who knows if that setting will stick when powered off.

Tim's up

@lostless thanks for the pinouts, those are the ones I'm using. And sorry for this, I misunderstood the question.

So, you think I have one Xinmo going digital controls and the other analog ?
What if I wire a button to the mode pin on each Xinmo ? Could it toggle between the two ?

lostless

@tim-s-up I assume so. Give it a try

Tim's up

@lostless Oh man, you made my day! It works!

To sum up for others facing this problem with a 4 player Arcade setup :
I reset all controls in Retropie setup, shut down, wired the "mode" pin on each Xinmo to a physical arcade button. Launched the machine, mapped only P1 when prompted upon entering emulationstation, reboot, P1 and P2 working as usual, P3 and 4 don't. Then pushed the "mode" button and Hallelujah!

The kids will love it. We can finally play 4 player games after all those months of looking for the issue. Big thanks to all who helped and especially to @lostless and @mitu for your support. Love the forum!

mitu

@tim-s-up Glad you got it working, @lostless is the one that provided the solution though :).