Retroarch, mayflash, and dolphinbar

[dingodan]

Anyone else come up with a good workaround for this? I'm married to xinput because of my steam link. 

[d3cyph3r]

I got a USB hub off Amazon that has on off switches. When done in Dolphin, I simply hit the switch for the Mayflash.Works like a dream and only cost $5.

[smpetty]

Ilhank - 

Thanks for this, so helpful and works great.  As of Retroarch 1.5.0, I keep my Mayflash Dolphin Bar on all the time on Mode 4.  I use real Wiimotes with continuous scanning in Dolphin.  

Driver Section:

     Input Driver - set to sdl2

     Joypad Driver - set to xinput

Input Section:

     Max Users - set to max number of players you'll use + 4

                        - I need 2 players max so I set this to 6

                        - allows for the 4 controllers automatically created by the Mayflash bar

     Input User (1 - ?)  Binds

                         -  set  User ? Device Index to the correct gamepad for each user per Ilhank's guide  (below)

 

Works like a champ, no need to unplug or disable the Mayflash Dolphin Bar.

 

On 6/27/2016 at 8:43 PM, IlhanK said:

With your Dolphin Bar, you can switch between 4 different modes. Basically the Dolphin Bar unplugs your Wiimotes and plugs them back in as alternate devices.

Sometimes Windows doesn't handle that very well, swapping around joystick order like a douche and thereby nuking your gamepad bindings in the process. SDL however doesn't seem to give a crap about what Windows does. At least on my system, it always put my xbox controllers first, anything else second, which gives me enough control to happily switch modes however I feel like. For that reason I prefer emulators that support SDL input, like Retroarch and sdlMAME etc.

Mode 1 (press Home Button + DPAD DOWN on your Wii controller): Your Wiimote #1 acts like a mouse. Useful for controlling Windows desktop.

Mode 2 (press Home Button + DPAD LEFT on your Wii controller): Your Wiimote #1 acts like a mouse + Wiimote buttons mapped as joystick buttons. Useful for lightgun games.

Mode 3 (press Home Button + DPAD UP on your Wii controller): Your Wiimotes go into regular pc joystick mode. That's the mode most useful for Retroarch.

Mode 4 (press Home Button + DPAD RIGHT on your Wii controller): Native Wiimote mode for Dolphin.

 

So here is what you should do:

- Make sure your Dolphin Bar is set to Mode 3.

- Fire up Retroarch and go to driver settings and switch your driver to sdl.

- Go to input settings and set up "Max Users" to 5 or 6, depending on how many xbox controllers you have connected.This is required because otherwise Retroarch won't let you see all your plugged in gamepads. The Dolphin bar always adds 4 gamepads to your pool, even if you actually have less Wiimotes connected. So that's 4 gamepads + any number of xbox controllers you additionally own.

- Go to the "Input User 1/2/3/4/5/6 Binds" and under "User 1/2/3/4/5/6 Device Index" designate your controllers accordingly. You probably want your xbox controllers as player 1 for most cores, if not all.

- Bind all buttons for all players properly.

- SAVE! your keybinds! and your Retroarch config

 

[MazJohn [Mr Arcade]]

SmPetty,

thanks for the detail... for the very first time, i,ve gotten my launchbox setup working without needing to leave mode 4 with my 2 xbox360 controllers combined with mayflash bar, retroarch 1.5 and all other emulators including dolphin... all running on the windows 10 creators build update... im thinking to block my build from taking future windows updates at this point so it remains stable.... lol... pleaee keep this thread going... it is one of the most important threads to anyone using a mayflash dolphin bar in combination with retroarch and other emulators.....seriously! 

Edited April 21, 2017 by mazjohn

[TMDaines]

On 18/04/2017 at 2:08 AM, smpetty said:

Ilhank - 

Thanks for this, so helpful and works great.  As of Retroarch 1.5.0, I keep my Mayflash Dolphin Bar on all the time on Mode 4.  I use real Wiimotes with continuous scanning in Dolphin.  

Driver Section:

     Input Driver - set to sdl2

     Joypad Driver - set to xinput

Input Section:

     Max Users - set to max number of players you'll use + 4

                        - I need 2 players max so I set this to 6

                        - allows for the 4 controllers automatically created by the Mayflash bar

     Input User (1 - ?)  Binds

                         -  set  User ? Device Index to the correct gamepad for each user per Ilhank's guide  (below)

 

Works like a champ, no need to unplug or disable the Mayflash Dolphin Bar.

 

 

I'm sorry for what may be considered a necro post, but I bought a DolphinBar and configured it today to A) work with Dolphin and B) not interfere with Retroarch thanks to this thread. This method worked well for having my Steam Controllers as User 1 and 2, User 3 and 4 for friends' controllers, and User 5 - 8 for the Mayflash created controllers. xinput works fine as the Joypad Driver for me and the DolphinBar can just sit in its customary Mode 4.

I only have one outstanding issue, however. When the DolphinBar is on, Analog to Digital will not work for any of the controllers, even my Steam Controllers as User 1 and 2. As soon as I turn the DolphinBar off, Analog to Digital works fine. I've quadruple-checked my settings and Retropad w/ Analog is there and Analog to Digital is set to the Left Analog. I've tried with sdl2 and xinput as the Joypad Driver but no dice. This is so frustrating, as everything else is working fine and I can't think of any logical reason why the DolphinBar simply being on would prevent this one specific setting, on other controllers no less.

Someone else must have had this issue, surely?

[Zaazu]

Another way to disable the dolphin bar controllers from RetroArch (and possibly other programs) is to use this program:

https://github.com/briankendall/devreorder

Just download it, edit the ini file to include the ID of the 4 controllers, then copy both the ini and the dll to the retroarch root directory. That's it, RA should now ignore the dolphin bar.

[RemagOrter]

On 2/15/2019 at 5:10 AM, Zaazu said:

Another way to disable the dolphin bar controllers from RetroArch (and possibly other programs) is to use this program:

https://github.com/briankendall/devreorder

Just download it, edit the ini file to include the ID of the 4 controllers, then copy both the ini and the dll to the retroarch root directory. That's it, RA should now ignore the dolphin bar.

Thank you sooo much for this hint. Solved all my problems in a second. I wonder why i wasn't able to find this for over one year and hope this will not be considered a necro post, or what it's called.

And i got a litlle question: Is this methond affecting the input latency somehow? Or doesn't it affect it at all? Am just a DAU, please be patient.  

[IlhanK]

18 hours ago, RemagOrter said:

And i got a litlle question: Is this methond affecting the input latency somehow? Or doesn't it affect it at all? Am just a DAU, please be patient.  

AFAIK it should not. I've been using devreorder for years now and it is indeed a very useful helper.

Basically it just "replaces" the default dinput dll file (a file that's in the Windows OS folder), it is not being put on top of any already loaded up Input API file. When a game sees devreorders dll file, it won't load up the default Windows dinput.dll. So it's not an additional layer, it a replacement. There is not going to be any sort of additional input lag afaik.

The tool will only work with games and emulators that use the Direct Input 8 API, so it won't work with games that rely on XInput. It also doesn't work out of the box with older DirectInput 1-7 titles, since these games require a dinput.dll and not dinput8.dll.

There is a another little tool however which is called dinputto8. That little file converts dinput calls into dinput8.dll calls. And then devreorder may even work on some older titles.

What I am still looking though is a devreorder equivalent for the SDL API. So far I had no luck with that.

Edited July 21, 2020 by IlhanK