Unofficial PS3 Controller

Mihto

Hi,

I've purchased an unofficial PS3 controller in the hope that it would work with my RetroPie install. Unfortunately, I've had trouble getting the controller to pair and all the online help I can find so far doesn't work, possibly because it's all for much older versions of RetroPie.

Setup:
Raspberry Pi 2B
RetroPie 4.1.8
5V 2000mA power supply
Nano USB bluetooth dongle
2.4G wireless keyboard with dedicated dongle
WiFi Dongle
This wireless controller: here

I've gone into the controller driver config and have tried all 4 driver variations but no luck. Frankly, I'm not even sure who is the manufacturer of the controller is and I'm wondering if I've just gone too cheap and have an obscure rip off that will never work.

Anyway, I was wondering if anyone has any up-to-date suggestions as most other help seems quite old?

Thanks

dudleydes

@Mihto I suspect it's your bluetooth dongle. I have a Nano USB bluetooth dongle that I have not been able to get working since version 3 of Retropie was released.

You can check by running the command lsusb in a terminal and if the output is as below then it's likely to be your dongle at fault:

Bus 001 Device 005: ID 0a12:0001 Cambridge Silicon Radio, Ltd Bluetooth Dongle (HCI mode)

You could try this fix. Otherwise, your options are to buy a v4.0 Bluetooth dongle or upgrade to a Pi 3 which has onboard bluetooth.

Mihto

@dudleydes That's not worked either, but thanks for your help. I'll have to invest in a new dongle and hope that helps.

Mihto

I'm still having no luck with this. I've now connected a CSR 4.0 bluetooth dongle and still get nothing from the controller.

Just to confirm I've reinstalled version 4.1 of RetroPie and with the bluetooth dongle connected I went into manage drivers and added the PS3 driver. Even though it's not an official controller I've gone through each version in sequence and plugged in the controller for 10 seconds and then removed it and pressed the P3 button. After about 15 seconds of flashing all the lights turn off.

About ready to give up now haha

dudleydes

@Mihto Sorry it didn't work out. I think a Pi 3 is the optimum solution if you want to go wireless. I opted for a 6ft/2m USB charging cable so I can still play from the couch. Should prevent any lag issue too.

Mihto

I'm wondering if it's the remote itself? It doesn't even work plugged in!

dudleydes

@Mihto You could run some commands to check whether your pi is picking up your dongle.

The first is lsusb which will list the USB devices connected to your pi.

The next is hciconfig, or sudo hciconfig, which will give info of Bluetooth devices connected to your pi. If you dongle is recognised, then you should get output similar to below:

hci0: Type: BR/EDR Bus: USB
 BD Address: 00:1F:81:00:06:20 ACL MTU: 1021:4 SCO MTU: 180:1
UP RUNNING PSCAN
RX bytes:1260 acl:0 sco:0 events:46 errors:0
TX bytes:452 acl:0 sco:0 commands:45 errors:0

The UP RUNNING message is key.

Mihto

I've just tried that and have the UP RUNNING message.

However, I have just ssh'd into RetroPie and listened into the syslog. When plugging in a USB device I get the "new usb device found message" apart from when I plug in the controller. Frankly, I'm starting to suspect it's the controller itself so have ordered another one as I can always send either one back. I'll update either way once it arrives next week for the benefit of anyone else having issues. Thanks for your help :)

BuZz

@Mihto 3rd party / clone ps3 controller support is limited at best - i would recommend getting another controller tbh (which you have done).