Confused binding keys

RetroArch Windows devices
#1

I have to admit i’m confused at the process of binding keys with retroarch. I’m running hyperspin as my front end I’ve setup the following systems using retrosarch as my emulator. NES, SNES, NES64, and Sega Genesis. The all run but my issues begin when it comes to binding my key’s. I have a tank stick which is basically just emulating the keyboard so really i’m just trying to bind to keyboard keys. I can go into settings/input and I then go to player1 input for instance. Now where I’m running into issues the fact that it seems I have to leave the keys that are already bound to X, and Z. Because I keep breaking the ability to use z and x as enter and back. What would make my lilfe way easier if x and z weren’t used for back and enter but I can’t seem to see a way to change that in the settings. I’ve broken that in my genesis setup and can’t seem to find a way to just reset it so I can try starting over either. I’m sure there is a way to do all this and I’m just plain confused as to how so if any one can give me some guidance on a good process for doing this. I’m running the latest version of retroarch and have been getting the cores manually from the online updater.

The NES system I have working because this one I really only need to bind the “A” and “B” button and they are alreay on x, and z so I just leave them as is. Anyway any help with understanding this would be greatly appreciated. Mame it’s so simple to change your inputs i’m not getting why it’s so difficult to do this with retroarch.

Thanks in advance!

#2

RetroArch is designed around using a gamepad, and it uses an abstraction known as the ‘retropad’ (which is a sort of frankenstein’s pad that includes elements of a super nintendo pad and a 360/ps3 pad) as an intermediary between the core’s intputs and your own physical inputs. You map the retropad’s buttons to your physical keys/buttons and then the core’s inputs get mapped to the retropad.

Whatever you map retropad’s A and B to will always be ‘accept’ and ‘cancel’, respectively. If you want to move around which core buttons are mapped to which buttons on the retropad, you can use the core input remapping available from the in-game quick menu.

#3

I think I’m starting to get it. I may switch the setup to a control bad down the road. This is a arcade cabinet build so for my project the concept was to use the control board for everything. I did plan to later get a few usb controllers and build in usb ports to the cabinet when i get that far in the build.

So if instead of going to the input section I want to look for a section called “core input” and that will allow me to completely customize the input buttons without messing up the original z/x (accept/cancel) navigations? Do i then want to change from retropad to retrokeyboard when doing my setup if I plan to emulate keyboard key mappings?

#4

[QUOTE=hunterk;37289]RetroArch is designed around using a gamepad, and it uses an abstraction known as the ‘retropad’ (which is a sort of frankenstein’s pad that includes elements of a super nintendo pad and a 360/ps3 pad) as an intermediary between the core’s intputs and your own physical inputs. You map the retropad’s buttons to your physical keys/buttons and then the core’s inputs get mapped to the retropad.

Whatever you map retropad’s A and B to will always be ‘accept’ and ‘cancel’, respectively. If you want to move around which core buttons are mapped to which buttons on the retropad, you can use the core input remapping available from the in-game quick menu.[/QUOTE]

I found you can also change this setting in the cfg files as well. I set all my accept and cancel to the proper Western A=Yes and B=No. It was particularly useful in that I could UN-Map the ‘search’ function.

I wasn’t comfortable with the input re-mapping menu, but editing the cfg is a bit more advanced.

#5

I, too, have an arcade cabinet running through a J-PAC interface, which has the same MAME defaults keymap as the X-Arcade products. The first thing I did was go through my config and switched a bunch of RetroArch default hotkeys to “nul”, since they conflict with basic mapping from those devices, then I manually mapped keys to the retropad from the config rather than the GUI (at the time I did this, not all keys responded to GUI mapping; dunno if that’s changed or not). Here’s my config: http://pastie.org/10797832

#6

I think I’ll start from scratch with this tonight and see how it goes. I am going to look at maybe remapping my arcade stick and go in per core and try and remap accordingly. I went out to the wikki and printed out all the retropad controller configuration images. Hopefully seeing that while doing this will help. Thanks all for your help!

#7

I have question about this design: From what I understand, the button layout is based on the Super Nintendo controller isn’t it?


I have always been wondering why the Retroarch user interface has A mapped to “accept” and B mapped to “cancel”. This is opposite from Sony’s XMB and from most of the functionality I see on the Shield when using the NVIDIA controller. What’s the story behind this button mapping?

#11

Thanks for clarifying.

I see that is is possible to change the default menu ok and cancel button in retroarch.cfg, so I’ll just adjust in there I’m a Sony fan :stuck_out_tongue:

#12

For the sake of pedantry (the internets don’t have enough of that already, obviously): the RetroPad accept/cancel layout was originally used by Sony, as well. In fact, the circle and cross symbols were meant to represent “yes” and “no,” respectively. (citation)

#13

Sony must have changed it when they introduced XMB.

It does sounds a bit weird to me that cross originally meant no and circle meant yes. I would always assume that cross means “checked” box and circle means no check in the box. Good thing for me that they reversed it later :slight_smile:

#14

In Japan, a circle mark made by a teacher on your test paper means your answer to that question was correct.

https://qph.is.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-d0a936c9edfcbbae764391243463d0c7?convert_to_webp=true

https://www.quora.com/Is-it-true-that-in-Japan-an-O-mark-or-Marujirushi-is-used-to-indicate-affirmation-much-like-the-X-or-check-mark-in-the-United-States

(Sorry about the quora link. I know that site sucks with its account BS, but I have it all adblocked away.)

I prefer the NES, SNES, DS, etc. layout. It’s still used today by Nintendo on the 3DS. Sega moving it around for the Dreamcast made no sense when gamers had become used to the NES and SNES layout already.