Amiberry - parallel port 4 player adapter not working using custom controls

[Rinusch]

Pi Model or other hardware: 4 as well as 2b (hardware is not relevant)
Power Supply used: Official Pi Power Supply
RetroPie Version used: 4.7.1 and 4.8
Built From: Binary + source
USB Devices connected: Keyboard, mouse
Controller used: not relevant, keyboard can be used to reproduce.
Emulator: Amiberry versions 3.3 and version 5 (both supplied with Retropie 4.7.1 and 4.8 respectively)

How to replicate the problem:
Load a game with 4 player support (e.g. Dynablaster) or a joystick tester utility. When setting custom controls in the Gui, no matter what you map to the parallel joysticks: actions will not be registered.

I tried everything, multiple times. Even loaded a Workbench hardfile and used a joyport test utility.
I'm pretty sure this is just broken in Amiberry. Other mappings (at least to keyboard) are working, but the parallel joy ports are not.
If anyone could confirm/refute it would be much appreciated.

In addition (not to distract from the main topic): this also means afaics there's no option to play 4 player Amiga games requiring the parallel joyport adapter on Retropie.. :-(

[nemo93]

@Rinusch that's a very specific issue with hardware I don't own :-) I'd suggest you bring that up to Amiberry's github directly. Please raise a ticket there.

[Rinusch]

Hi, sorry...it's not hardware related. I also tried on a raspberry Pi 2b.
Controllers mentioned are not specific to the issue, you can try keyboard if you like. I'll try and modify my original post to reflect this.

So almost anyone can reproduce I think.

[nemo93]

@Rinusch yes please rephrase as I clearly misunderstood your exact issue. If it's related to custom controls binding from GUI (to assign a key to your controller's button) then it might be similar to that other issue.

If it's related to game(s) with 4-player mode not working that's another story.

[Rinusch]

@nemo93 in Amiberry you can set custom controls where you can customise mapping of input from actual (Retroarch)controllers to Amiga inputs. Those Amiga inputs can amongst others be the parallel port joysticks, which exist in real life with an optional 'dongle' connected to parallel port, comparable to multitaps for e.g. SNES and Megadrive.
The issue I'm raising is that no matter what I map to those parallel port joysticks, triggers are not registered within the emulated Amiga. So whether I launch a game supporting the parallel port joysticks, or a joystick testing utility supporting them...they won't register the triggers.

Hope this clarifies further?

[nemo93]

@Rinusch thanks for the additional information. It's an issue with Custom Controls as already reported there.

I was confused given you mentioned the parallel port adapter to add to 2 joysticks and joy testing utility. I understand now it's unrelated and you can't bind keys from Custom Controls panel as other users reported.

I'd recommend not to create duplicates and keep everything under one post/thread. It will be lot easier to follow, cleaner and less work for me :-) Unless you really have something specific to add or if I misunderstood (again) your issue please let's close off that thread and continue on that other one.

[Rinusch]

@nemo93 I’m sorry but we’re still not on the same page I’m afraid :-)
Mapping anything to e.g. the Amiga keyboard works fine but mapping to the parallel joy ports doesn’t work. I can make the mapping, but the emulated Amiga doesn’t register the actions.
So this means that I can for example map controller buttons to left and right shift keys to play Pinball Fantasies using a controller, but I’m not able to control players 3 and 4 in 4 player games supporting the parallel port adapter.

Challenge to anyone reading this: I bet you won’t be able to control all players in Dynablaster in Battle mode with 4 or 5 players.

It almost looks like the parallel port (adapter) isn’t correctly emulated, regardless of the mapping.

Please let me know if this helps.

[nemo93]

@Rinusch thanks again for rephrasing despite my clear lack of understanding. You did right by raising a ticket directly. Somehow I'm still convinced your issue is related to the one I've mentioned earlier about the custom controls. Anyhow thanks for your patience.