Super Nintendo / Snes9x - Controls

[MapleLeaf]

Is there a way to set per-game controls with Snes9x or any other good super Nintendo emulator? I find that my hotkeys are drastically different between fighting games and platformers/shooters and It's irritating to redo my game pad keys for each game. 

[Lordmonkus]

Not that I am aware of with the stand alone emulators, you can however setup custom controller mapping on a per game level with Retroarch.

[MapleLeaf]

1 hour ago, Lordmonkus said:

Not that I am aware of with the stand alone emulators, you can however setup custom controller mapping on a per game level with Retroarch.

Yeah, I was wondering about that -- I don't have much experience with RetroArch. Got a TL;DR summary of how to set per-game controls? E.g. I load the game and press a certain hotkey to bring up the games' controls etc....

Any specific SNES core to recommend? 

Also, I assume RetroArch is portable? 

[Kiinkyfoxx]

4 hours ago, MapleLeaf said:

Is there a way to set per-game controls with Snes9x or any other good super Nintendo emulator? I find that my hotkeys are drastically different between fighting games and platformers/shooters and It's irritating to redo my game pad keys for each game. 

You can set up keys per game in Snes9x-64, but it requires having a specific config file for each game and then adding the correct custom command line to each game - which is easy for the 2 games I use it for but might be a pain for lots of games, unless maybe you did 2 or more versions of SNES emulators if the keys for game genres are the same?

Anyway the command line would be 

-nostdconf -conf name_of_game_config.conf

eg for me using t2 arcade it is

-nostdconf -conf snes9x-T2.conf

 

I found all the command line info on this website  (mods please remove if not allowed)

http://wiki.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/Snes9x

Cheers

Edited July 25, 2021 by Kiinkyfoxx

[Lordmonkus]

33 minutes ago, MapleLeaf said:

Any specific SNES core to recommend? 

I always recommend the Snes9x core because of it's ease of use and no special chip requirements. While bsnes / higan is technically more accurate the different is really negligible.

[MapleLeaf]

32 minutes ago, Kiinkyfoxx said:

You can set up keys per game in Snes9x-64, but it requires having a specific config file for each game and then adding the correct custom command line to each game - which is easy for the 2 games I use it for but might be a pain for lots of games, unless maybe you did 2 or more versions of SNES emulators if the keys for game genres are the same?

Anyway the command line would be 

-nostdconf -conf name_of_game_config.conf

eg for me using t2 arcade it is

-nostdconf -conf snes9x-T2.conf

I'd probably just use it for Mortal Kombat 1 & 2 and maybe a Street Fighter game. MK 1 & 2 use 5 buttons I believe while Street Fighter uses 6.

Ideally, I'd wanna stick with a standalone emulator like Snes9x.  

I have the 64 bit version of Snes9x, but what do I do with this command line / where do I put it? And once I use it I can go Input > Input Configuration and set new keys for Joypad #1 and it won't mess with the keys inputs for other games? 

[Kiinkyfoxx]

What I did - doesn't mean its the best way just worked for me

Made a copy of the original snes9x.conf file and then renamed it to snes9x-orignal.conf this will be used as the original config file at the very end

Opened SNES9X and set up the keys for the specific game I wanted to have different keys for - in my case T2 Arcade game

Closed SNES9X and then made another copy of snes9x.conf but this time called it snes9x-T2.conf

For you at this point you will need to repeat the above and redo the keys for each game you want to make changes for

So in the end you should have something like this (at a guess)

snes9x.conf

snes9x-MK1.conf

snes9x-MK2.conf

snes9x-SF.conf

snes9x-original.conf

Now rename snes9x-original.conf to be snes9x.conf as this is the master config used for all the other games

 

Now to Launchbox

What do I do with command line?

Edit each game individually as required - should only be the games you have made configs for that need changes all the others use the snes9x.conf file by default

Tick the Use Custom Command Line Parameters box in the Emulation tab, and fill in as needed, in image below again its my version of T2 but for MK1 as an example it would be

-nostdconf -conf snes9x-MK1.conf

Good luck with it

[neil9000]

3 hours ago, MapleLeaf said:

I'd probably just use it for Mortal Kombat 1 & 2 and maybe a Street Fighter game. MK 1 & 2 use 5 buttons I believe while Street Fighter uses 6.

Ideally, I'd wanna stick with a standalone emulator like Snes9x.  

I have the 64 bit version of Snes9x, but what do I do with this command line / where do I put it? And once I use it I can go Input > Input Configuration and set new keys for Joypad #1 and it won't mess with the keys inputs for other games? 

Not sure about the Mortal Kombats, but Street Fighter lets you map any control to any button in the game itself.

[MapleLeaf]

The default RetroArch Sega Genesis & SNES XboX controls (for me) are terrible. And I don't know why, but I find editing the per-game controls in RetroArch to be a nightmare; I just can't seem to map the keys properly. 

I might try standalone again and use the command line. 

Is there a decent standalone emulator for Genesis? I was using Genesis Plus GX in RetroArch. I see Kega Fusion being suggested but it hasn't been updated in 11 years apparently. 

[neil9000]

4 minutes ago, MapleLeaf said:

The default RetroArch Sega Genesis & SNES XboX controls (for me) are terrible. And I don't know why, but I find editing the per-game controls in RetroArch to be a nightmare; I just can't seem to map the keys properly. 

I might try standalone again and use the command line. 

Is there a decent standalone emulator for Genesis? I was using Genesis Plus GX in RetroArch. I see Kega Fusion being suggested but it hasn't been updated in 11 years apparently. 

I'm confused by this, the snes controls are set up on a XBOX controller exactly the same way they were on a snes, four face buttons, and two shoulder buttons, so how is that terrible, it's exactly the same? As for Megadrive that is a little different as that was mostly a three button controller (i know there is a six button also though), so for that  i use X, A and B as that is more or less a staright line from A to C just like the original controller.

[MapleLeaf]

4 minutes ago, neil9000 said:

I'm confused by this, the snes controls are set up on a XBOX controller exactly the same way they were on a snes, four face buttons, and two shoulder buttons, so how is that terrible, it's exactly the same? As for Megadrive that is a little different as that was mostly a three button controller (i know there is a six button also though), so for that  i use X, A and B as that is more or less a staright line from A to C just like the original controller.

I don't think it's so much SNES I'm having difficulty with, moreso Genesis.

For most games like platformers/brawlers/shooters in both Genesis/SNES on the Xbox controller I want: 
A = Attack
B = Jump
Y = Special

For Fighting Games like SF2: 
A = Low Punch
B = Medium Punch
Right Bumper = High Punch
X = Low Kick
Y = Medium Kick
Right Trigger = High Kick

This could be used for MK games as well, except Right Bumper would just be block and Right Trigger wouldn't be used. 

[neil9000]

9 minutes ago, MapleLeaf said:

I don't think it's so much SNES I'm having difficulty with, moreso Genesis.

For most games like platformers/brawlers/shooters in both Genesis/SNES on the Xbox controller I want: 
A = Attack
B = Jump
Y = Special

For Fighting Games like SF2: 
A = Low Punch
B = Medium Punch
Right Bumper = High Punch
X = Low Kick
Y = Medium Kick
Right Trigger = High Kick

This could be used for MK games as well, except Right Bumper would just be block and Right Trigger wouldn't be used. 

So your issue isnt the way Retroarch maps controls, your issue is actually with how the controls were on every game on actual original hardware? I mean that can be changed in emulation, but you are essentially saying that control layouts on every 16bit game were layed out wrong, and that's simply not the case. I can't say i have ever seen anyone wanting to do what you want, they usually want the exact same layout as the original hardware (with some exceptions, which is what the per game controller remaps are for).

[Zarma145]

On 7/25/2021 at 10:03 AM, Kiinkyfoxx said:

What I did - doesn't mean its the best way just worked for me

Made a copy of the original snes9x.conf file and then renamed it to snes9x-orignal.conf this will be used as the original config file at the very end

Opened SNES9X and set up the keys for the specific game I wanted to have different keys for - in my case T2 Arcade game

Closed SNES9X and then made another copy of snes9x.conf but this time called it snes9x-T2.conf

For you at this point you will need to repeat the above and redo the keys for each game you want to make changes for

So in the end you should have something like this (at a guess)

snes9x.conf

snes9x-MK1.conf

snes9x-MK2.conf

snes9x-SF.conf

snes9x-original.conf

Now rename snes9x-original.conf to be snes9x.conf as this is the master config used for all the other games

 

Now to Launchbox

What do I do with command line?

Edit each game individually as required - should only be the games you have made configs for that need changes all the others use the snes9x.conf file by default

Tick the Use Custom Command Line Parameters box in the Emulation tab, and fill in as needed, in image below again its my version of T2 but for MK1 as an example it would be

-nostdconf -conf snes9x-MK1.conf

Good luck with it

I apologize for the necropost, but I created an account just to say: thank you! Your post is exactly what I needed. Almost all the other websites including Reddit talked about Retroarch or didn't have a cohesive guide like yours to help people create individual/separate controller profiles per-game on Snes9x. Works very well with Playnite too!

Edited December 29, 2023 by Zarma145