Calibrating joysticks in lr-dosbox?

[JimmyFromTheBay]

(Strictly speaking I'm using lr-dosbox-svn.)

This emulator is running smoothly in every respect but one - my USB arcade joystick isn't being read correctly. In pretty much every game, left and up and down and the fire buttons all work properly, but I can't move right.

(runcommand.log for joystick info: https://pastebin.com/K2XCLYcK)

If the game has a built-in calibration option, calibrating fixes it. (I tried copying the resulting JOYSTICK.CFG file from one such game into the folder of a game without a calibration option, but that didn't help.)

I've also installed a few joystick test DOS utilities from here and they show everything as fine.

https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?p=187168#p187168

(Joycheck only registers movement in the top left corner of the box, but all the directions work and the numbers are fine. The other two register as perfect.)

I tried running JoyEmu to both calibrate the joystick and also to map the joystick to the arrow keys and save a config in the game's folder, but that had no effect.

http://www.emulationzone.org/projects/emutools/joyemu.htm

I looked for other tutorials but these are all based on the standalone DOSBox not the libretro one, and the libretro one doesn't seem to give you any access to the Mapper function (Ctrl-F1).

https://rdtk.net/media/using-usb-joysticks-with-dosbox/

And I've tried the Retroarch options like enabling timed intervals, but that only makes things worse - instead of three directions working, now only Down works properly, and Up registers as Right.

So is there any way to calibrate the stick for games that don't have inbuilt calibration? (I'm using PC-Man to test, but so far everything is the same.)

[jamrom2]

@jimmyfromthebay I've delt with this as well, and your statement reminded me how I fixed it...
"And I've tried the Retroarch options like enabling timed intervals, but that only makes things worse - instead of three directions working, now only Down works properly, and Up registers as Right."

Go into Quick Menu, Controls... Change the joystick mapping to read keyboard mapping, or something like that instead of Gravis, or DOS joystick. Let it use the keyboard as the joystick.

Save the mapping per game. Not for core.

See if that helps

[JimmyFromTheBay]

@jamrom2 Sorted! Many thanks :)

[JimmyFromTheBay]

I thought I'd tried that option and have just realised why it didn't work. When you change the Port 1 controls to "Keyboard + Mouse", you can't actually assign any of the controls. You have to go back to the main Controls menu, THEN go back into the sub-menu and assign the ones you want.