Update to my Multi controller set up!

[Chadmando]

Just wanted to give an update to my original post:

 

My original setup was a little cumbersome, it relied on a wii remote, and extensions to plug the controllers in. I have now gone completely wireless, thanks to 8bitdo's modkits. For those unfamiliar, 8bitdo have released pcbs that replace the ones inside your oem controllers. I now have bluetooth modified OEM controllers (NES, SNES and Genesis), as well as I invested in four retro-bit 8bitdo N64 controllers (as there isn't a mod for the oem n64 yet). To finish it off, I installed an actual OEM Wii bluetooth adapter into my PC, and added a nice blue button on the front of my tower to sync wii remotes. I did this because the mayflash bar wasn't quite cutting it (Wii remote sounds sounded like garbage, kept having problems with Wii motion plus controllers, also through my research it is supposed to be the most accurate adapter.

[power5lave]

im running a similar setup, apart from i have 4 mayflash magic ns adapters in a usb hub (player 1-4) with multiple controllers sync'd to each adaptor. with regards to the dolphin bar, i figured out while it does support motion plus controllers it doesn't seem to like the newer revisions...took me a while to track down 4 rev 1 motion plus ones but i honestly haven't had any issues since then..if that is any help to you

[flatuswalrus]

That looks a heck of a lot better than cords everywhere and those controller stands look very smart indeed.

[Chadmando]

1 hour ago, power5lave said:

im running a similar setup, apart from i have 4 mayflash magic ns adapters in a usb hub (player 1-4) with multiple controllers sync'd to each adaptor. with regards to the dolphin bar, i figured out while it does support motion plus controllers it doesn't seem to like the newer revisions...took me a while to track down 4 rev 1 motion plus ones but i honestly haven't had any issues since then..if that is any help to you

I have eyed the magic ns adapter before, the issue I would have with such a setup is that you have to remember which controller is which. The good thing with the 8bitdo is it supports xinput. Using my computers built in bluetooth; no matter what controller I use the computer will assign the corresponding controller to a player in whatever order I turned the controller on. Meaning I can use the xbox one controller, SNES, NES, genesis with whatever emulator I want without pressing physical buttons or resyncing (they all act like a wireless Xbox one controller). I can be using an xbox one controller for an SNES game, while a friend could use the oem snes controller as player 2 if they choose.  For the PS3 I have installed SCP3Toolkit, and bought another bluetooth adapter exclusively for PS3 controllers. It also acts just like any xinput controller, except in PCSX2, where it will function exactly like a PS2 controller ( for those games you need pressure sensitive buttons).

That's interesting about the mayflash, the other issue I had with it is the LEDs inside burned out really fast (less than 6 months) even with the update that turns them off when no controller is being used. I figured at the very least with a built in bluetooth I can just use one of those cheap usb sensor bars and not feel bad about chucking it and getting a new one if the same thing happens.

Edited December 23, 2018 by Chadmando

[Chadmando]

1 hour ago, Dane said:

That looks a heck of a lot better than cords everywhere and those controller stands look very smart indeed.

Thanks! I got them from rose colored gaming They don't have genesis ones I bought that one off of a UK ebay seller, luckily it looked very similar to the others.

Edited December 23, 2018 by Chadmando

[damageinc86]

Ok I've always wondered about people's bluetooth setups, and nobody has every confirmed.  So let's say you map the controllers in an emulator right,...then when you turn another controller on doesn't it bump the first one out of the line in terms of windows joyid orders and you have to remap again to the one that is currently on?

[power5lave]

12 hours ago, Chadmando said:

I have eyed the magic ns adapter before, the issue I would have with such a setup is that you have to remember which controller is which. The good thing with the 8bitdo is it supports xinput. Using my computers built in bluetooth; no matter what controller I use the computer will assign the corresponding controller to a player in whatever order I turned the controller on. Meaning I can use the xbox one controller, SNES, NES, genesis with whatever emulator I want without pressing physical buttons or resyncing (they all act like a wireless Xbox one controller). I can be using an xbox one controller for an SNES game, while a friend could use the oem snes controller as player 2 if they choose.  For the PS3 I have installed SCP3Toolkit, and bought another bluetooth adapter exclusively for PS3 controllers. It also acts just like any xinput controller, except in PCSX2, where it will function exactly like a PS2 controller ( for those games you need pressure sensitive buttons).

That's interesting about the mayflash, the other issue I had with it is the LEDs inside burned out really fast (less than 6 months) even with the update that turns them off when no controller is being used. I figured at the very least with a built in bluetooth I can just use one of those cheap usb sensor bars and not feel bad about chucking it and getting a new one if the same thing happens.

I know what you mean, I simply choose the mayflash as my Emulation pc has no keyboard or mouse access and being honest a Bluetooth adapter in Windows 10 is a right Pita to manage, with the mayflash everything auto syncs so no problems(I have 6 different controllers each synced to player 1 and 2)... I use switch pro controllers as my main controllers aswell via the xinput mode as it works better with steam IMO. 

 

So I know which controller is which I've stuck different color round 2mm stickers on the underside of each controller blue for player 1 red for 2 etc etc

 

How much work was it to get the official wii bluetooth module into your machine.. Is there any guides for it?? I would be intrested to take a look. 

3 hours ago, damageinc86 said:

Ok I've always wondered about people's bluetooth setups, and nobody has every confirmed.  So let's say you map the controllers in an emulator right,...then when you turn another controller on doesn't it bump the first one out of the line in terms of windows joyid orders and you have to remap again to the one that is currently on?

I was having a right nightmare with this personally hence I switched the mayflash magic ns. Everytime I Rebooted my machine I would have to mess to get the controllers back into some sort of order.

[Chadmando]

5 hours ago, damageinc86 said:

Ok I've always wondered about people's bluetooth setups, and nobody has every confirmed.  So let's say you map the controllers in an emulator right,...then when you turn another controller on doesn't it bump the first one out of the line in terms of windows joyid orders and you have to remap again to the one that is currently on?

 No, if the emulator has proper support for xinput this shouldn't be an issue. The only times I had this issue was using dinput, and with improper plugins. I only map for one device for every player on every emulator using a xbox one controller, with 8bitdo bluetooth mod kits I can swap buttons at the hardware level before syncing them up for the first time, so my controllers all have the same button layout as the Xbox one controller (like A button on xbox one is = B on SNES, B= A, X= Y, Y=X). Before opening up the emulator you have to make sure you have the controllers ON in sequence to the order you want the players (same for when you initially map your buttons). I should clarify I am using windows 10 enterprise edition, this might not work with other OS's.

For example, say I open up bigbox with an xbox one controller and decide I want to play two players on the NES, with two NES controllers. I first hold down the guide button to turn off the xbox controller so it will disengage that controller as player one (the annoying Xbox game bar has to be disabled/uninstalled so it doesn't pop up), I then grab my two NES controllers, the first one I turn on windows assigns that as player one, and then turn on the second, it assigns that as player two. Using that same controller I select an NES game and it loads up the game with the correct player order. If I want to change controllers I have to close the game, turn off the controllers and do the same sequence with whichever controller I choose.

For a rare emulator that doesn't support xinput you can use a program called joytokey in conjunction with bigbox, and then you can assign your controller to a specific slot using its mac address or (hardware id or something like that) and then map keyboard keys to that specific controller.

[Chadmando]

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I know what you mean, I simply choose the mayflash as my Emulation pc has no keyboard or mouse access and being honest a Bluetooth adapter in Windows 10 is a right Pita to manage, with the mayflash everything auto syncs so no problems(I have 6 different controllers each synced to player 1 and 2)... I use switch pro controllers as my main controllers aswell via the xinput mode as it works better with steam IMO. 

Messing around with the bluetooth adapters can be very difficult for the initial setup, I agree, especially with a custom installed bluetooth chip. The end result is very nice though, the controllers are always synced up like a real wii every time I load a wii game, and to sync another I simply press the sync button once on the controller and once on the front of my pc. Though you cannot really use that same bluetooth module outside of dolphin for other programs like you can with the mayflash adapter.

Quote

How much work was it to get the official wii bluetooth module into your machine.. Is there any guides for it?? I would be intrested to take a look. 

Most people install them into some sort of small case and run a usb cable to plug into a usb port outside of the computer. If you're good at soldering the wiring is extremely simple, and only requires a few parts. At the very bare minimum you need a case of some sort, a usb cable, a wii bluetooth module, and a voltage regulator (a sync button is optional, as you can sync the controllers with a hotkey within dolphin if you wanted. You can buy these items for very cheap on ebay or amazon, usually from chinese sellers (shipping can take a while). I personally got all the parts, secured them together in a way I like and then paid a local on kijiji to do the soldering for $40 'cause I suck at it lol.

 

Here is the thread about it on the dolphin forums: https://forums.dolphin-emu.org/Thread-how-to-wire-a-wii-s-bluetooth-module-to-a-pc-usb-port I used this schematic exclusively https://forums.dolphin-emu.org/attachment.php?aid=17630

Like I said though, once configured in your pc , it's really only supported in the dolphin emulator.

Edited December 23, 2018 by Chadmando

[damageinc86]

Thanks for the explanation, but it went right over my head lol.  I understand the concept of turning one off and then a different controller takes its place.  I guess I just don't get how the emulator remembers that it is the NES controller now, for instance.  Does the emulator remember at a bluetooth adapter level?  so that whatever controller gets synced to that bluetooth adapter is going to be the player 1 mapping for any controller? since the physical bluetooth adapter is plugged into what the emulator remembers as slot 1?  i know that with my wired stuff, if I unplug one of them, and then restart the computer, everything will be moved around since windows saw one missing and scooted a bunch around as a result, so the emulator mappings don't correspond to the original setup anymore, they correspond to whatever is plugged in its place now.  Which could be some other controller.  I guess I don't really get the relationship between emulators remembering which bluetooth adapter is in which slot, and how it applies its mappings to controllers that now take up that slot.

[Chadmando]

22 minutes ago, damageinc86 said:

Thanks for the explanation, but it went right over my head lol.  I understand the concept of turning one off and then a different controller takes its place.  I guess I just don't get how the emulator remembers that it is the NES controller now, for instance.  Does the emulator remember at a bluetooth adapter level?  so that whatever controller gets synced to that bluetooth adapter is going to be the player 1 mapping for any controller? since the physical bluetooth adapter is plugged into what the emulator remembers as slot 1?  i know that with my wired stuff, if I unplug one of them, and then restart the computer, everything will be moved around since windows saw one missing and scooted a bunch around as a result, so the emulator mappings don't correspond to the original setup anymore, they correspond to whatever is plugged in its place now.  Which could be some other controller.  I guess I don't really get the relationship between emulators remembering which bluetooth adapter is in which slot, and how it applies its mappings to controllers that now take up that slot.

No problem lol, I'm not the best at explaining things. I am using my built in bluetooth chip for the wireless Xbox one NES, SNES, Genesis controllers, not any dongles. If you're using a bunch dongles for each xinput controller that has a dedicated controller spot 24/7, that will definitely mess up your controller orders. With the one dedicated bluetooth adapter, the controller only shows up on the "windows game controllers" list when you connect, and when you disconnect it disappears, you should only ever have to sync them once as windows will remember all your pairings. It is actually very intuitive and I prefer this set up much more than the old dinput. If you are using an emulator with xinput support it should completely ignore any other plugged dinput devices.

This chip supports up to 8 Xbox controllers I believe. The emulator itself is only mapped to a single Xbox one controller per player. With xinput, the emulator doesn't "know" which type of controller it is using, as each controller is simply simulating a Xbox one controller, it only knows what controller player one is, who player two is, etc. Windows does all this work before the emulator is loaded.

Outside of the emulator the 8 bitdo controllers button layout match closely to what an Xbox one controller layout is (and if they're slightly different you can swap them around via a combination of button presses via the manuals). This way I don't have to map every single controller in the emulator, and all the buttons lined up pretty much the same way.

Long story short: The emulator thinks every controller is an xbox one controller, the mapping remains the same. The emulator only knows what player to assign to what controller because windows has assigned it before hand.

[damageinc86]

Ok I think I get it better now.  So it's the fact that you have that chip actually built-in.  Is that something a lot of motherboards have now? Or can you add it via a slot?  That sounds like a great way to take care of a lot of systems with some nice wireless action.

[Nyukki]

Very nice. How is the signal on your 8bitdo modkits? I have ones for my NES and SNES controllers, the NES signal is pretty stable, but the SNES one intermittently cuts out and/or sends signals of holding down Down and Left on the Dpad.

 

I used to have a similar setup but with wired controllers and USB adapters, but I always found myself in the situation where I just finished playing an NES game and then wanted to play a PSX game and got fed up with having to get up to switch controllers. So currently I have two wireless 8Bitdo SF30 Pro controllers for my Big Box setup.

[Chadmando]

4 hours ago, damageinc86 said:

Ok I think I get it better now.  So it's the fact that you have that chip actually built-in.  Is that something a lot of motherboards have now? Or can you add it via a slot?  That sounds like a great way to take care of a lot of systems with some nice wireless action.

I thought most motherboards would come with bluetooth installed nowadays, my motherboard is a rampage V extreme it has a built in wifi with bluetooth 4.0 module. I imagine any good bluetooth adapter, either if it's a dongle or a pci-e plugin to the motherboard should suffice. I would recommenced one that plugs into a pci-e slot that comes with a good antenna out the back.

That being said, I didn't want to confuse you too much, but I do actually have 3 bluetooth modules in total. 1 for Xinput controllers, one dedicated to ps3 controllers (using pcsx toolkit), and one dedicated for the wii. They all work independent of eachother as to not conflict with eachother. You will need a dedicated adapter for proper ps3 controller input if you wanted to use a ps3 controller as well.

Edited December 24, 2018 by Chadmando

[Chadmando]

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Very nice. How is the signal on your 8bitdo modkits? I have ones for my NES and SNES controllers, the NES signal is pretty stable, but the SNES one intermittently cuts out and/or sends signals of holding down Down and Left on the Dpad. 

I find they both work very well, I thought I had bad lag on the NES one at first but it's just the filters I had over the emulator were lagging things a bit. So far I haven't had cut outs unless the controller is dying.

 

Quote

I used to have a similar setup but with wired controllers and USB adapters, but I always found myself in the situation where I just finished playing an NES game and then wanted to play a PSX game and got fed up with having to get up to switch controllers. So currently I have two wireless 8Bitdo SF30 Pro controllers for my Big Box setup. 

I find myself more often than not just using the Xbox one controller for the older 2d gen games, nothing else quite feels right besides oem with N64, ps1, PS2 + gamecube to me. My fav PS2 game required the use of pressure sensitive buttons which no other controller aside from the PS3 seems to have. That being said I have been contemplating buying 1 nice multipurpose controller.

[davbedwards]

I came across this post looking for a solution to my controller nightmare. I have been fiddling with bluetooth adapters and controllers to try to come up with some seamless solution to wireless controllers working on my emulators. Currently , I have a wireless xbox one controller (connected via microsofts adapter), and a nintendo switch pro controller (connected via a mayflash magic ns). These two controllers have been working well after some initial tweaking. My issues came when I decided to add MAME to my launchbox as well as a wireless fightstick from 8Bitdo (connected via a 8Bitdo adapter). You seem like you've jumped through all the hoops and dealt with similar issues my build faces. I attempted syncing both the fightstick and switch controller to just a 8bitdo adapter, which didn't work. Connecting one would kick the other off. Then I connected both to the mayflash magic ns. Both could connect, however the 4 of the fightstick buttons were no longer useable. Any input you have I would GREATLY appreciate!

[power5lave]

You can sync multiple devices upto the same magic ns, but they will all be recognised by Windows as the same controller, so basically if you want to use the switch controller and the arcade stick at the same time you will need to get yourself anouther mayflash, basically 1 mayflash adapter per player, when you connect the 8bit up make sure your connecting it via the xinput mode, and this should sort your issues out

[davbedwards]

1 hour ago, power5lave said:

You can sync multiple devices upto the same magic ns, but they will all be recognised by Windows as the same controller, so basically if you want to use the switch controller and the arcade stick at the same time you will need to get yourself anouther mayflash, basically 1 mayflash adapter per player, when you connect the 8bit up make sure your connecting it via the xinput mode, and this should sort your issues out

They are both connecting to the MagicNS now, but the fightsticks controls are insane. Up on the joystick is actually left, down is right, and the ABXY buttons are also scrambled. Any software or anything I could do to fix that? I have the arcade stick in xinput mode as well as the magicns

[power5lave]

I'm not sure why the controllers are all wrong, what about connecting to the magic ns in switch mode for the arcade stick and leaving it in xinput for the magic ns? 

[davbedwards]

My best solution thus far has been having both the Switch Pro and Arcadestick connected to the magicns. The Switch Pro works well as far as I can tell, but the real problems lie with the arcadestick. I can't use four of the buttons, and I can't navigate the BigBox menu with the device. Luckily I was able to map what I wanted the buttons to respond as within mame. The only issue besides the loss of buttons and no BigBox navigation has been occasionally turning one of the controllers off spins the games wheel within BigBox automatically.