All controllers work in emulation station but not in any game. (But the keyboard works)

[joeman360]

Pi Model: 3 B
RetroPie Version Used: 4.1.5
Built From: main website
USB Devices connected: all controllers you can think of
Controller used: n64 controller

So the titled basically explains the situation. I cant play any games with my controllers, but the keyboard works. I did nothing to the files so i have no idea what is going on. Can someone help please?

[markyh444]

@joeman360 If the keyboard is connected if will be set as player 1. Un plug the keyboard and restart then try the controller again.

[joeman360]

@markyh444 didnt even need to tell. It didnt work.

[davisar5]

So I think I figured this one out. If your issue is like what I experienced, MarkyH was a little right. For me, I was having problems with the MAME controller configuration. The joystick was working on the UI and menus and when I launched a game, the buttons would work but the joystick (dpad) wouldn't. No amount of exit and launch or even a full reformat of the OS. In the end I went into the MAME config menu while in a game by hitting the tab button on the keyboard. I had to manually map the joystick to the player 1 and 2 interface (I only use 2 joysticks in my bartop). The default is mapped to a keyboard button and a Retropad# direction. I had to make each direction of the joystick an exclusive setting by hitting return to select the direction setting to change and hold the direction on the joystick for the mapped direction setting. So for Player 1 UP I hit enter then held the joystick in the UP position until the UI acknowledged the setting, previously it was set to the RetroPad direction and a keyboard key. Do this for all of the directional Joystick settings and you should be fine. The same may be necessary for the analog sticks if you are experiencing the same issue there.

I believe since v3.7ish there was some significant changes in joystick controls or translation between emulator controls that placed a priority to keyboard strokes where it only acknowledges the keyboard key settings and ignoring the RetroPad direction buttons. I didn't experience this issue until I updated my installation to the latest version. I first updated the script then updated the kernel and packages, had this problem, troubleshot till I was mad enough to start over. I reformatted the SD card then loaded v4.3.0 on it, set everything back up, then had the same exact problem. I tried 2 different controllers, both which worked just fine before updating without configuration changes, but after the update the Dpad controls didn't work on the MAME emulators. I was so focused on the MAME issue that I didn't even look at the other emulators to compare the issue, but since I fixed my problem on the MAME it works just fine on the NES and SNES games. I hope this helps.

[danielmewhouse]

Mame actually is a little tricky: needs exclusive config, needs the right version of the game, but after get rid of these problems, it's a great emulator.