When hotkey is same as insert coin button, several cores don't recognise the latter

RetroArch General
#1

I’ve had this issue with all my mame/fba libretro cores, so I’m beginning to suspect it might some sort of general libretro issue. I use a faux-SNES USB pad, and my select button is set up as my coin button and my hotkey button. eg, select = 1 coin, select+start = quit, select+Y = retroarch GUI.

in some games, this is fine, but in others the insert coin just doesn’t register. You could re-assign a different button as the insert coin or hotkey button, but on most controllers you don’t really have buttons to spare (unless you don’t mind going into the menu/inserting a coin every time you do a heavy kick in SF2 or whatever!)

There are outstanding issues logged in github for all the cores I’ve used, which give specific examples:

…but all these projects seem to be abandoned, and perhaps it’s not a core-specific issue anyway?

Hope someone has some ideas :slight_smile:

#2

Hotkey blocks core inputs, it’s not really an issue it’s “AS INTENDED” change your hotkey to something else. If it’s working in some cores it’s just a coincidence

#3

it’s not working in some cores, it’s working in some games and not others, in the same cores.

i don’t understand why it would block any other input - as i understand it the hotkey doesn’t have a function in itself, it only activates functions if another button is pressed at the same time, so why can’t it do something else if pressed on its own?

how it works at the moment, you could not play arcade SFII (and many others) with a snes pad, or any other 8 button controller. that doesn’t seem desirable to me!

#4

because if you press hotkey + B to save state then you’ll save state JUMPING instead of standing before the jump

#5

that’s fair enough for the button the hotkey is combining with, but not the hotkey itself, otherwise you wouldn’t be able to use proper controllers for their respective cores, because you’d always have to devote one button for a hotkey and ignore its original function.

eg, if you’re using a SNES USB controller, and you have your hotkey as ‘select’ (which is typical), the ‘select’ button should still act as a ‘select’ button in SNES games, no? otherwise you basically can’t use a SNES controller properly in a SNES core!! of course, in the NES and SNES cores i have, the select button is perfectly happy functioning as a select button, and also as the hotkey. why is this a problem for insert coin in some MAME/fba games?

#6

The bug is actually it working on some games/cores and not the other way around, I guess there is some timing involved and I don’t see a way to fix it, the only thing I could propose is to have a toggle to the block behavior

#7

Since it’s intentional I’ve raised it as a retroarch issue - https://github.com/libretro/RetroArch/issues/2230 - a toggle sounds good!