Amiberry 5.1 controls and two games with problems

[gold64]

Hi there. Since updating to Amiberry 5.1, when loading any Amiga game, my joystick is unresponsive and I have to enter the Amiberry menu (F12) and click on "Input" then "Swap Ports", and then the joystick works. Is there a way to save this so it's always swapped?

Also I have two Amiga games with problems:
Technocop_v1.2.lha - runs too fast, when compared to gameplay videos on YouTube

SuperstarIceHockey_v1.0_0088.lha - loads the main game, but when you go to play a match, it exits to AmigaDOS prompt with "DOS-Error #219 (seek failure) on reading "Disk.1". This game worked in Amiberry 3.

Any help is appreciated, thanks for your time.

Pi Model or other hardware: Pi 3B
Power Supply used: CanaKit
RetroPie Version Used : 4.8
Built From: Raspberry Pi Imager (official tool)
USB Devices connected: Logitech wireless mouse dongle, Microsoft wireless keyboard dongle, USB stick for roms
Controller used: Monster Joysticks "Deluxe Arcade Controller Kit for Raspberry Pi - Classic"
File: roms/amiga/*
Emulator: amiberry 5.1

[nemo93]

@gold64 thanks for reporting. An update has been merged in Retropie which bumps Amiberry to 5.2. This version contains a couple bugfixes for controller. I suggest you test that new release.

Amiberry 5.x has a new autoswitch feature which switches controller's port automatically on a button press (or mouse click). Therefore you should rely on the swap ports only on rare occasion (I haven't used that option once myself after all the testing I've done). In addition to that an external file is used to let Amiberry knows which controller (in port0) is best for the current game running (this in case autoswitch feature is turned off). As of typing this feature is turned on by default and there's no way to disable it.

For the 2 games you've mentioned these are not part of my testbed. Can you fill a bug report on that github please? I'll have a look whenever I can. If you find other games which require tuning please let me know via github. Make sure to specify the exact Amiberry version you're actually running the games with.

Hope this helps.

[gold64]

@nemo93 Thank you for your support! I have now updated to Amiberry 5.2. Upon further testing, it seems I misspoke when I said it's every Amiga game. I loaded an ADF version of Superstar Ice Hockey, and my joystick works normally in that version. Unfortunately my WHDLoad version of that game now just boots to the Insert Workbench Disk logo. Anyway, I will post the game-related stuff on Github like you said.

Regarding my joystick, here is some more info about it in case it helps. It is connected to the Pi 3B through the GPIO port. Once configured following the official instructions, it actually shows up in RetroPie as two "SNES-to-Gamepad Device" devices. So in Amiberry, it seems like it's getting mapped to both joystick ports, one to each joystick port?

Port 0 dropdown menu options:

Port1 dropdown menu options:

Other RetroArch emulators show the little popup notification on launching a game, saying "SNES-to-Gamepad" is connected but it shows two of them. But I haven't had any problems with other emulators.

In fact, I've now noticed if I load a two-player Amiga game that supports two joysticks, my joystick is mapped to player two when loading the game. Golden Axe for example, if I press my joystick button, it starts in two-player mode and I'm controlling player two. If I reload the game and hit F12 and Swap Ports, then I'm controlling player 1.

One more thing, I've just come across Monster Joysticks config page for using it in Amibian. Their instructions say to have "gamepad2_enabled=0" which means disabled. I wonder if there's a similar file on RetroPie I could edit? Then my joystick might only show up as one, which might solve this whole problem?

Thanks for your time.

[Thorr69]

@gold64 said in Amiberry 5.1 controls and two games with problems:

In fact, I've now noticed if I load a two-player Amiga game that supports two joysticks, my joystick is mapped to player two when loading the game. Golden Axe for example, if I press my joystick button, it starts in two-player mode and I'm controlling player two. If I reload the game and hit F12 and Swap Ports, then I'm controlling player 1.

That's rather normal really. Single player joystick games on an Amiga would generally assume a standard setup where the Mouse is in Port 1 and the Joystick is in Port 2. When adding a second joystick for a second player, the general assumption is that the joystick will replace the mouse in Port 1. Thus, the 'normal' configuration for Amiga is Player 1 = port 2 and Player 2 = Port 1.

[mitu]

Other RetroArch emulators show the little popup notification on launching a game, saying "SNES-to-Gamepad" is connected but it shows two of them

If you're using the snesdev GPIO driver, you have the option to emulate only 1 gamepad in /etc/snesdev.cfg.

[...] Their instructions say to have "gamepad2_enabled=0" which means disabled.

Check /etc/snesdev.cfg - this is where this options should be set.

[gold64]

@mitu Thanks for that! I edited that file as described, rebooted and remapped my joystick. Now I'm only seeing one "SNES-to-Gamepad Device" in Amiberry and RetroArch emulators and I'm controlling player #1 in the games I tried so far. This is outstanding, I'm very pleased with this setup now. :) Cheers!