Hi, this is a gamepad overlay I developed for my own use, but I thought it might come in handy for other people so I’ve decided to share it. The thing is, RetroArch on Android is great but I never really liked its gamepad overlays (the default neo-retropad is pretty good but I don’t like buttons placement and also it doesn’t fit well with some emulated systems, i.e. N64). That’s why I developed RGPAD, a universal gamepad overlay that can make most RetroArch emulated systems nice to play on a touch screen
Features:
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Works on most devices with a screen aspect ratio of 16:9 and up
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Optimized controls and buttons layout
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4 different overlays: landscape, portrait, portrait mini and portrait one-handed
NOTE: To change overlay (in portrait mode) press the small arrow that appears at the bottom-center of the screen
- 2 graphic styles: modern and retro
How to configure it:
(most options are already RetroArch defaults)
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Set “Overlay Opacity” to 0.80 (recommended)
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Set “Show Inputs on Overlay” to “Touched” (recommended)
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Set “D-Pad Diagonal Sensitivity” to 80% (recommended)
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Set “ABXY Overlap Sensitivity” to 50% (recommended)
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Enable “Auto-Rotate Overlay”
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Enable “Auto-Scale Overlay”
Also, for a true “handheld experience”, I suggest to set RetroArch UI to “rgui” and disable the on-screen overlay option “Hide Overlay in Menu”. But that depends on your preferences
Acknowledgements:
- Valent-in for its awesome RetroPad Editor ( https://valent-in.github.io/retropad-editor/ ). Especially at first, it helped a lot to understand how gamepad overlays worked in RetroArch!
Download (v1.4):
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OYZWU0hspwdtjGSPG_oFXU8ESAhmJvty/
Version history:
(v1.4)
- Fixed an issue with analog sticks range
(v1.3)
- Reorganized the entire overlay to make it lighter and more intuitive to use
(v1.2)
- Added a new ONE-HANDED overlay!
This new overlay (portrait) is great for playing in situations where you can only use one hand (stand up on a bus / subway, etc.) and also for people who have some sort of physical disability.
It was really a challenge to develop this, I had been working on it for some time but I was never fully satisfied with how it worked… After a lot of work I have figured out a solution that allows to play most games with just a thumb (of course you need a bit of time to adapt to the new controls… now I am also able to play games like Street Fighter 2 with all the special moves!). The overlay has some limitations for obvious reasons and is not meant to be used with modern games as it doesn’t support analog sticks and there are “only” 6 buttons on screen. I won’t make a version of this overlay with the analog sticks, I made several tests during development and is impossible to make something truly “enjoyable” to play with one hand. If you really want to play games that require analog stick for movements you can try to map the directions to the D-pad.
Also, keep in mind that there will always be games that will be by default less “playable” than others but, by playing around with the overlay settings (some games play better with one hand if you try to reduce a bit the default 80% “D-Pad Diagonal Sensitivity”) and / or remapping the buttons, it is possible to play almost any type of game with this overlay (yes, even racing games where you need to press and hold a button to accelerate, I implemented in the overlay a solution that allows you to press and hold buttons when required!).
For more information about how this new overlay works, you can WATCH THIS VIDEO
(v1.1)
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Reorganized the interface with the addition of 7 NEW BUTTONS:
- Save / Load state slot
- Decrease / Increase state slot
- Rewind
- Slow-motion
- Fast-forward
(v1.0)
- Initial release