Controls not working in game, ok on Retropie

[jarrah]

Hi,

I have a Picade and I'm struggling to get the controls working within libretro emulator core games such as SNES and GBA. I can navigate the main Retropie menu using the joystick, A/B/Start/Select buttons without issue, but when I launch a game, nothing works. I then have to reboot the my RPi 3 to exit.

Using a fresh Retropie 4.1 image, I configure the buttons during the initial setup. These map to default keyboard keys as defined within the Picade PCB:

D-Pad Up = Key Up
D-Pad Down = Key Down
D-Pad Left = Key Left
D-Pad Right = Key Right
Start = S
Select = C
A = Z
B = Left Shift
X = left alt
Y = left ctrl
Left trigger = X
Right trigger = Space

I can see that these are stored within /home/pi/.emulationstation/es_input.cfg and if I delete this file I'm prompted to set my controller up again.

Looking at the Retroarch Configuration wiki page, it implies that AutoConfigurations are stored in /opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch-joypads, but I see nothing in there at all. Could this be why the controller isn't working within games?

pi@retropie:/opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch-joypads $ ls -al
total 8
drwxr-xr-x 2 pi pi 4096 Nov 5 21:26 .
drwxr-xr-x 14 pi pi 4096 Jan 5 21:56 ..

What should I do to troubleshoot this please?

Thanks in advance.

[BuZz]

@jarrah if you have deleted the es_input.cfg file you will have broken the automatic configuration of retroarch - you should reset it via retropie-setup (configuration / tools -> emulationstation)

keyboard mapped controls are configured in /opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch.cfg btw.

I have 2 x picades (which map to keyboard0, and it's enough to just configure in Emulation Station for it to be setup, so it must be due to you removing the es_input.cfg file

[jarrah]

Good point, i'll burn a fresh image and try again. Thanks!

[jarrah]

@BuZz Hmm, after writing a fresh Retropie 4.1 image I still have the same problem unfortunately.

I can see my keyboard mapped controls in /opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch.cfg, as shown below:

input_player1_a = "z"
input_player1_b = "shift"
input_player1_y = "ctrl"
input_player1_x = "alt"
input_player1_start = "s"
input_player1_select = "c"
input_player1_l = "q"
input_player1_r = "w"
input_player1_left = "left"
input_player1_right = "right"
input_player1_up = "up"
input_player1_down = "down"
input_player1_l2 = "x"
input_player1_r2 = "space"

Also of more interest, I can control the game using a wireless keyboard with the same mapped keys. For example I can move up and down a game menu using arrow keys on my keyboard, but there's no response at all from the picade joystick (even though it works in Retropie). Odd!

[BuZz]

Not sure what the problem might be - have you unplugged all other controllers/keyboards ?

Does it make a difference if you update RetroArch from source ?

if you run showkey from a terminal does it show any other keys pressed (In case there is a button pressed that is interfering due to an issue with wiring / picade pcb)

Which picade are you using ? Does it use the picade hat or the USB connected PCB ?

[jarrah]

Thank you for the advice, i'll do some testing. At the moment I'm using the Picade HAT, so i'll rewire back to the USB PCB to see if that helps.

[jarrah]

To close this issue, a bug was found in Picade HAT software which has now been fixed. See http://forums.pimoroni.com/t/picade-hat-joystick-not-detected-w-out-usb-keyboard-plugged-in/3704/30