Xbox controller mapping for LaunchBox & BigBox

[Elmo80]

I was hoping people may like to share what buttons they use, which they think works best for various features of LaunchBox and BigBox using an Xbox  X/S controller, in partcilar the pause, exit and close active window?  I've been using the "View + Menu" buttons to exit. "View" button for pause and "View + A" for close active window. I realised "view" for pause is a daft idea as that is the select button for most consoles. I'd like to staty away from the Xbox button as that brings up Retroarch menu. 

 

[Kefka2b]

I use the home button for the Pause screen which has all I need like save/load state, quit/reset (I use start+select to bring up emulator menus but don't really need it unless I need to tweak something in the settings. and select as hotkey toggle for fast-forward hold/toggle & rewind using R2/R1 and L2 respectively), then apart from the obvious A & B, I use X for starting a game directly bypassing the game details if I want to, Y to view game media (and maybe L1 & R1 for page down/up for long lists of games but I'm not sure I actually do). The rest I don't really use apart from sticks to rotate boxes and navigate manuals/zoom.

This works fine with other controllers also like Gamecube, N64, Mega Drive style modern controllers, all either native XInput or emulated with DS4Windows.

Edited June 5 by Kefka2b
more info

[Elmo80]

Thanks! i take it you may have updated the retroarch menu button to use the xbox (home) button that way in LB and BB?

[Kefka2b]

4 hours ago, Elmo80 said:

Thanks! i take it you may have updated the retroarch menu button to use the xbox (home) button that way in LB and BB?

In Retroarch settings (input settings section) you setup a key combination to open the retroarch quick menu (most other standalone emulators offer the same options as well regarding hotkeys and menu key combinations), you have the choice between several options, for me start+select was the best one. You may have to remove the home button binding manually in the controller profile file replacing it with a null value instead, I did it a very long time ago and I think I had struggled removing the home button binding in the controller binds from the UI and had to Google up a solution, maybe they fixed that since (let me know if you struggle).

Then you go through Launchbox settings to set the home button to open the pause screen. (I think you have to set it in both Launchbox and Bigbox settings if my memory doesn't fail me).

For me it makes it really feel like an all in one real console.

[skizzosjt]

Hi @Elmo80 you're correct if you use Retroarch you would likely not want to assign something like the Pause Screen or Close Active Window to the Guide button since the Guide button is by default the Menu button for Retroarch. I avoid using it like that for same reason. Though if desired you could change the button to activate the Retroarch Menu too in order to avoid that issue.

using View + <button here> is a decent idea I think. I tend to use View + X for Pause Screen and Start + B for Close Active Window

Not sure if this is by default or not but I have volume adjustment to be View + Up/Down on the right joystick

I enable skip the Game Details Screen option and then use the Start button to bring up the Game Details Screen.

For changing to different views I use clicking the left thumbstick and then pushing the right thumbstick up/down/left/right. When I say views here I mean platforms, categories, playlists, genres or whatever you want.

To quickly change theme stuff I use clicking the right thumbstick and then pushing the d-pad up for the global theme list or d-pad down for the theme view list.

For exiting Big Box I have View + D-pad down. I basically never use it and normally exit out through the System Menu

 

I'm not so sure any of my combos are very intuitive as much as they were used out of me trying to make sure not to duplicate a hotkey or hotkey combo already in use either in the frontend or an emulator/game. Basically just making sure I avoid a conflict like Retroarch and the Guide button bit mentioned

 

I wish Big Box had options for "hold <button(s)> for <X> secs" because I would like to use stuff like holding View for 3  secs to close a game. We can do stuff like this with AHK or similar controller remap tools like GlovePIE, so it's just a wish list thing to be integrated into the frontend's mapping feature.

 

8 hours ago, Kefka2b said:

You may have to remove the home button binding manually in the controller profile file replacing it with a null value instead, I did it a very long time ago and I think I had struggled removing the home button binding in the controller binds from the UI and had to Google up a solution, maybe they fixed that since (let me know if you struggle).

It would be part of that controller's AutoConfig file. Unless you alter the AutoConfig file for that controller profile or create a new user created controller profile with that binding edited, it would continue to load up the default binding. The bindings that have (Auto) next to them, those ones are pulled from the AutoConfig. I normally went into the AutoConfig file and manually edited them if I wanted those defaults to be different. You can always redownload these default AutoConfig files through Retroarch's UI should you go wrong somewhere and want to hit the reset button on your changes. They might even automatically populate if the file is deleted.....been too long to remember for sure. Or you can make a backup of them first before making any changes.

[Kefka2b]

@Elmo80you can check my controller profile as a guide if you want, this is where it's located (accomodate the path to your actual path on your pc): "C:\LaunchBox\Emulators\RetroArch\autoconfig\xinput"

The line assigning the button (see below) is actually just deleted and not changed to "Null", so you can just delete it if you want:

input_menu_toggle_btn = "10"

My Dual Sense emulated as XInput controller with DS4Windows is seen as a Controller (xbox360 for Windows), just check how your controller is labelled to edit the right config file.

Controller (XBOX 360 For Windows).cfg

Edited June 6 by Kefka2b

[Elmo80]

Thanks for the advice. I did try and change the menu hotkey within Retroarch input menu but i couldn't pair it with two buttons. It only allowe one button or key. I suspect as you pointed out deleting that line from the config file might allow it?

Edited June 9 by Elmo80

[skizzosjt]

check which setting you're trying to edit. there is a standard "Menu Toggle" and a "Menu Toggle (controller combo)". You need the latter option. But you cannot just set any button(s). You need to pick from the predetermined list. The controller autoconfig has no impact on this setting, as far as I can tell they contain no combo settings, just the regular Menu Toggle

 

 

 

[Elmo80]

Ahhh thanks. I think that is where i went wrong! The first option is what i applied.