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Swallowing pride asking for help.. 360 controllers & joy1, Joy2 etc.


exp1orer

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Ok. I don't know if I classify as a noob since I have been dabbling in MAME, Hyperspin, RocketLauncher, etc.. a little here and there for many years. However, I feel this should be a noob question but I can' t figure it out. Every time I start down the path of building / rebuilding an emulation system, the reason that I always quit is controller issues. Lets face it... It doesn't matter how pretty we make it, if it is not easy to use....  As I think back... every time I have failed or quit is because I can't,or don't, have the fortitude to make even the simplest xbox360 controllers work with MAME and/or everything else. I moved to BigBox a little while ago.. setup a few systems, with pretty good success, but MAME is the beast I really want to tame. I grew up in the arcade and I would love to have every quarter back that I ever plunked into a machine.  :)  I would love a magic bullet that already has all of the cntrlr settings set in a config file that I just have to drop somewhere and call it a day.... but based on what I have read, that may not be as easy at it sounds... I've read where people have done that and then it works until they reboot and the devices get all wonky. So, I'm breaking down and asking for help.  I have an alienware alpha machine with 3 xbox 360 controllers hooked up via a USB port expansion device. ( the alpha only has so many usb ports and I use a keyboard and external hard drives) I try to map my player 1, 2 , 3 start and coin buttons but I cannot get Joy2, Joy 3 to map. Only my player1 xbox will map buttons in launchbox.  I can use the keyboard, but I still cant start some multiplayer games correctly.. like Gauntlet II.   Sorry for the long post.  If you have an answer for that magic bullet and can help me load a cntrlr file and keep it working, I would love that, but at the least I need help with Joy2 and 3.  Thanks!!!

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Are you saying that everyone that has multiple 360 controllers has to do all of this just to set Joy2 and 3?  Surely that can't be the case? I can't even get it set once, much less set it and then lose it as some have complained about. When I follow the controller setting video for launchbox and then again in bigbox.... When I select player 1 coin and press my select button on the player one controller it works just as it does in the video, but, when I select player 2 coin and try to press the select button ( or any other button on the 360 controller) that are lit up in the player 2 or player 3 positions, nothing happens. Is that normal?

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I have never run into input setting issues in Mame but I also do not have multiple wireless controllers. On my main PC I have a 2 wired controllers but only use my Hori FC in Mame and in my HTPC I use an X-Arcade Tankstick which is seen as a wired keyboard and mouse.

That link describes the issues of multi controller issues because of how Windows resets controller IDs on reboot or when wireless controllers get turned off and on.

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Thanks again for the info. However, I can't even get to the point where losing my settings is  a problem.  Here is a snippet of the link you sent me....

By default, the mapping between devices and controller IDs is not stable. For instance, a gamepad controller may be assigned to “Joy 1” initially, but after a reboot, it may get re-assigned to “Joy 3”.

The reason is that MAME enumerates attached devices and assigns controller IDs based on the enumeration order. Factors that can cause controller IDs to change include plugging / unplugging USB devices, changing ports / hubs and even system reboots.

I can't get Joy 2 to register at all. I can worry about losing the settings later. Right now my focus is on getting it to work period.

 

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I had written the post above and then decided to try one more thing... It worked!!!

I went back into launchbox > Tools > Options > gamepad/joystick. I unchecked use all attached controllers. I then went back into Mame and was able to setup my coin and start buttons with Joy2 and joy3. Wierd.

 

I also noticed that I could not power on a controller while in MAME and have it be recognized. I had to exit MAME and then come back in. This could have been part of the problem too.  Either way. I got it to work. 

Thanks.

Edited by exp1orer
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I do have one additional question... When I go to the gampad/joystick screen in launchbox... When I enable Gamepad/joystick input, my Xinput Xbox 360/Xbox one controller appears under choose a device.  When I checked Use all attached controllers.... it is still there but is grayed out. Just curious if that was normal or launchbox's way of letting me know that there was an issue with my multiple 360 controllers??  

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31 minutes ago, exp1orer said:

I went back into launchbox > Tools > Options > gamepad/joystick. I unchecked use all attached controllers. I then went back into Mame and was able to setup my coin and start buttons with Joy2 and joy3. Wierd.

I'm not sure about your last question, but I don't think this is intended behavior. I know I've played with multiple xbox one controllers in Mame, but I'll test this later to see if these results can be replicated.

A lot of emulators don't do constant checks for connected controllers, some steam games don't either, so for instance if you wait until a controller shuts down, then try to turn it on and play again it's unresponsive. Mame is like this. In other words, it's good practice to always have you controller(s) connected before you launch something. Bigbox and Retroarch are exceptions to this rule, and they will see the controller the second it's connected. However, that takes us to the above territory about stable IDs. I'm not sure about Bigbox, but in Retroarch for instance, if you connect a second controller mid session, it notoriously messes up the bindings. It seems to want to put the new controller in the first player spot, so the one you're already using becomes unresponsive etc.

Lastly, most of these problems stem from Windows itself, as Windows doesn't assign stable IDs to the controllers. I've been having these issues for years, to the point where I've basically given up on having 2 controllers connected. The only way I can see it working consistently is if both controllers are plugged in and on at all times and the computer never sleeps or shuts down. I know people who make actual cabinets often will have 2 joysticks, and I've tried to figure out how they do it, but from what I can gather it's only consistent in Mame.   

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

this is the main reason I use retroarch for fba and mame. Once you start using retroarch for mame then you can start researching and testing and playing around with ini files and mame bezels. Other then the mame core not using opengl or direct video renderer it works pretty work and the controllers work easier.

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