Multiple controllers for multiple emulators

benjib1980

Hi, I'm pretty new to Retropie, but am somewhat familiar with Retroarch (PC). My question is this: If i want to leave my 2 SNES USB controllers connected (these work fine for everything), but would like to have a pair of NES controllers (usb to NES adapters) connected as well for NES emulation only, can I configure the SNES core to only use the SNES controllers, and the NES emulators to only use the NES controllers? I saw Meleu's controller input script, which i installed, but i still need to config the additional controllers. What do i need to do to set the controllers to the matching emulators? Retroarch can be kind of confusing. Keep in mind i'm a noob :)

Thanks!!

meleu

@benjib1980 Did you noticed that the tool has a way to configure the input for specific emulators/cores? Look at the Main Menu:

mainmenu

You don't need to reconfigure it everytime.

But if you want to configure it your own way, here is a good reading: https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/wiki/RetroArch-Configuration#hardcoded-configurations

After reading this you'll know what files to edit. You just have to find a way to discover the controllers indexes, etc.

benjib1980

@meleu Thank you for your response. I will look into this. I just have a few questions:

If I plugged a new controller into my Pi, can I use your tool to configure button mappings in addition to assigning a controller to a player, or is that usually done through the RA GUI? I saw in that link that I can manually config things, but manually finding controller IDs and button numbers, etc seems too complicated, and I'm a Linux noob.
Does RA "remember" all the controllers I've plugged into it, so that i can just plug/unplug and have it remember the mappings, and then use your tool to assign P1, P2, etc?
How do I save the mappings to additional controllers WITHOUT messing up my preferred emulation station "navigation" controller? I have "locked" myself out of RA before on my PC playing with controller mappings :)

Thanks again!

meleu

@benjib1980 said in Multiple controllers for multiple emulators:

If I plugged a new controller into my Pi, can I use your tool to configure button mappings in addition to assigning a controller to a player, or is that usually done through the RA GUI?

My tool is just to bind controllers to players. Button mappings can be done in RGUI, but in RetroPie I prefer to do it via emulationstation (configure input). And I think this method is the answer for the next questions. :)

Does RA "remember" all the controllers I've plugged into it, so that i can just plug/unplug and have it remember the mappings, and then use your tool to assign P1, P2, etc?

If you configure your controllers in emulationstation then yes. When you do this way, the system creates a file in /opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch-joypads/YOUR_CONTROLLER_NAME.cfg. RetroArch gets the button mappings from this file.

How do I save the mappings to additional controllers WITHOUT messing up my preferred emulation station "navigation" controller?

Every plugged controller can control emulationstation after you config the input using the way I mentioned. The button setted for A is the "OK" button and the button setted to B is the "Cancel" button. It works for each controller, individually.

I have "locked" myself out of RA before on my PC playing with controller mappings :)

Yeah. It happened to me as well. :)

benjib1980

Perfect! Very helpful info, thank you. Do you see an issue if I map the controllers and then plug all the controllers into a hub? Does Retropie care about what ports I plug my controllers into after setting them up?

I'll be receiving my new NES USB adapters and powered USB hub tomorrow and will do some testing with them soon - we'll see what happens. Thanks again.

meleu

@benjib1980 said in Multiple controllers for multiple emulators:

Do you see an issue if I map the controllers and then plug all the controllers into a hub?

Nop. I don't see any problem related to button mappings. The defaul RetroArch config on RetroPie makes it search for the joypad configs at /opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch-joypads/YOUR_CONTROLLER_NAME.cfg. As you can see, the filename is the controller name.

Does Retropie care about what ports I plug my controllers into after setting them up?

Yes. The retropie_setup only gets input from the first joystick found by the OS. Only this controller is able to navigate through menu options. (You can change it, but it's a little tricky.)

RetroArch also cares about what ports you plug your controllers. The "joystick-selection-by-name" on my tool was made to make it a little easier.

edit: for emulationstation the answer is "no". Any plugged and configured controller can control emulationstation, no matter what port it is plugged.

(I'm typing on my android phone and I'm lazy to describe it with more details here. :) let me know if you need more info then I describe it better with a decent keyboard.)

Cheers!

chicuelo

@meleu Is there a way I can set a specific .cfg for each controller or system? So I avoid changing and renaming the retroarch.cfg every time I want to use another controller? For example on a system folder I have: Snes-usb.cfg, PS3-shawan.cfg, PS3-official.cfg. Can I select the cfg depending on the controller I will use?