Disable controller input during startup

apiso

Is it possible to disable controller input during emulationstation startup? I ve seen that while loading all the input are recorded and reflected in the menu when emulationstation is loaded. This potentially could be a problem, producing unwanted effects when all is loaded.

mitu

@apiso said in Disable controller input during startup:

This potentially could be a problem, producing unwanted effects when all is loaded.

What unwanted effects are you referring to ? Input handling is disabled during loading, it's enabled only after EmulationStation has finished starting and the system's list is displayed.

apiso

@mitu said in Disable controller input during startup:

What unwanted effects are you referring to ? Input handling is disabled during loading, it's enabled only after EmulationStation has finished starting and the system's list is displayed.

Sadly not in my case, for example if i press a menu button when emulationstation is loading, the menu appear when emulationstation is loaded. Can you confirm that you have not this problem?

mitu

Please post your system's details, as requested in https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/3/read-this-first.
What EmulationStation version are you using ?

apiso

I've built the latest version of emulationstation present on https://github.com/RetroPie/EmulationStation/commits/master

And I'm using it on Pandora box 4 hardware that is an arm v7 board on jamma cabinet.

All works great except this small problems.

mitu

@apiso Actually, this happens also on the Pi4. May be an improvement opportunity in EmulationStation.

EDIT: what kind of controllers do you have connected to your system ?

apiso

The board is directly connected to a cabinet through the jamma interface that directly manage the controllers.

I think this could be a good improvement, for me it's a problem because in my board i can launch different configuration of emulationstation with different system in it pressing some button at startup.

mitu

@apiso said in Disable controller input during startup:

The board is directly connected to a cabinet through the jamma interface that directly manage the controllers.

Is this recognized as a keyboard or as a gamepad device ?

apiso

It's recognized as gamepad i think, I've noticed that in the code in the main function the sdl_joystik is already disabled for this purpose this is the code :

//dont generate joystick events while we're loading (hopefully fixes "automatically started emulator" bug)
SDL_JoystickEventState(SDL_DISABLE);

Maybe joystick should be disabled first.

mitu

@apiso said in Disable controller input during startup:

Maybe joystick should be disabled first.

Yes, the gamepad input disable code could be added earlier, before the splashscreen/configuration load is started. Should be pretty easy to add.

apiso

@mitu said in Disable controller input during startup:

e gamepad input disable code could be added earlier, before the splashscreen/configura

I've added in the main.cpp a simple loop before the main loop , that clear the buffer input , it seems to work good even if a keep pressing a button.

I've inserted this code on row 396 of main.cpp:

SDL_Event event;
//Clean buffer input if some controller is touched before running
do
{

} while(SDL_PollEvent(&event));

I'm not a c++ programmer so probably there is a better way to do so , maybe calling directly an sdl api that clear the input buffer but it works.

mitu

This diff should do the trick, clearing also any keyboard type controllers

diff --git a/es-app/src/main.cpp b/es-app/src/main.cpp
index 26faeb2..26bc328 100644
--- a/es-app/src/main.cpp
+++ b/es-app/src/main.cpp
@@ -320,6 +320,9 @@ int main(int argc, char* argv[])
    bool splashScreen = Settings::getInstance()->getBool("SplashScreen");
    bool splashScreenProgress = Settings::getInstance()->getBool("SplashScreenProgress");

+   //dont generate joystick events while we're loading (hopefully fixes "automatically started emulator" bug)
+   SDL_JoystickEventState(SDL_DISABLE);
+
    if(!scrape_cmdline)
    {
        if(!window.init())
@@ -365,9 +368,6 @@ int main(int argc, char* argv[])
        return run_scraper_cmdline();
    }

-   //dont generate joystick events while we're loading (hopefully fixes "automatically started emulator" bug)
-   SDL_JoystickEventState(SDL_DISABLE);
-
    // preload what we can right away instead of waiting for the user to select it
    // this makes for no delays when accessing content, but a longer startup time
    ViewController::get()->preload();
@@ -386,7 +386,10 @@ int main(int argc, char* argv[])
        }
    }

-   //generate joystick events since we're done loading
+   //generate joystick events since we're done loading and clear the input event queue
+   SDL_PumpEvents();
+   SDL_FlushEvent(SDL_KEYDOWN);
+   SDL_FlushEvent(SDL_KEYUP);
    SDL_JoystickEventState(SDL_ENABLE);

    int lastTime = SDL_GetTicks();

I don't think it's 100% correct, since any errors during startup would leave the joystick disabled, further testing is needed.