Controller mapping not working

General
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#1

As part of my first post, I want to start with a light rant due to the slight frustration I’m experiencing so far with RetroArch and simply ask; Is ANY part of using this software NOT a finicky mess that works the first or third time? :sob: p.s. don’t hate me, I actually love this interface so far otherwise

admittedly now that I think about it, some of my issues may be due to Launchbox complicating things

Now onto my issue;

I am using RetroArch 1.15 (on Windows 11) and trying to get some controllers working properly. At the moment, I have an 8bitdo controller that I HAD finally gotten to work in Port 1. Now I am trying to set up 2 Nintendo Online/Switch NES controllers. My pc seems to recognize them both as what they are when connecting to bluetooth. RetroArch however recognized ONE of the two as “NES Controller” the first time I went to change it’s mapping to properly match the NES/rom interfacing. The second controller comes up as “Wireless Controller”. After that, now they both are just “Wireless Controller”.

Now, I mapped controller one as one would map it. Start = Start, A = A, etc. Doesn’t seem to work. When I load a rom, the only button doing anything is that my Start button is acting as some sort of fast-forward. When I go back to the Port 1 definitions and click “Default” and then save the profile, the next time I load into a game the same mapping happens. I then exit and go back to Port 1 settings and ‘default’ is just reset back to my configuration that didn’t work and I’m stuck in that loop. The default will not stay as default. What can I do?

#2

This suggests there may be something going on that’s intercepting your gamepad inputs and doing funky stuff with them, like triggering keyboard events. Steam is a common culprit.

#3

Interesting. Would Steam not need to be open to do something like this? I’m not even sure how I’d go about troubleshooting that for any random program as I don’t use a joypad for anything INCLUDING Steam.

#4

I’m also wondering what is happening that’s not allowing RetroArch to reset my controller to default when I set it to that, and save the profile.

#5

Okay, I’m actually figuring out some of the problem here. It appears that my NES and GB emulators are loading up some sort of override on the controller and mapping it back to some sort of “default” that doesn’t work properly. I’m not sure how to change it, or why it IS changed since I haven’t changed any emulator settings personally yet. Now to continue figuring out why the Switch Online NES Controller isn’t being recognized by RetroArch even though it’s in the autoconfigs under dinput AND udev.

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#6

The config stuff may indeed be related to Launchbox. It does a bunch of stuff automagically, which may be useful for people who don’t need to do anything special, but it can complicate troubleshooting.

I would typically recommend taking LB out of the picture and just use vanilla RetroArch while you’re getting your bearings and then re-add LB back into the mix once that’s all established, so you can know for sure what’s doing what.

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#7

Ahh okay. How would I go about resetting an emulator specific config?

#8

The overrides live in your ‘config’ directory, in a subdirectory named for the core. RetroArch settings are stored in [corename].cfg, while core options are saved in [corename].opt.

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#9

Okay, perfect. So far I have the issue all fixed for the forced remapping. I just still can’t get Retroarch to recognize my Switch NES controllers.

I tried viewing the Vendor ID & Product ID on them (thinking I could change them in the config) via Device Management, but they don’t seem to fit the same format everyone else states they should be; though neither does literally ANY bluetooth device here.

Formatting I have: BTHENUM\Dev_ECC40DA18BDB

#10

Pingping. Hoping someone can help me with this controller autoconfig/mapping issue still.

#11

in my case i allways had problems with switch controllers and 8bitdo controller in switch mode if you use them via steams input method

this worked for me in the end with retroarch

#12

Interesting! I’ll give this a shot.