How to start Atari 2600 games using 360 controller?

[sncboom2k]

Hi Everyone – thanks for a ton of great information! I’ve got my Retropie up and running smooth. I have 2 xbox 360 wireless controllers attached and mapped working great with NES, SNES, Genesis, & MAME.

My issue is with Atari 2600. I can’t seem to map F1 and F2 to buttons on the controllers in order to select game type and start the game once I’ve got the ROM loaded.

Of course some games start by pressing the fire button (Crazy Climber). Others require you select the game and hit reset (River Raid and Adventure). These are handled by F1 and F2 in Stella. If I use a keyboard (which I do not want to do) it works fine.

Can anyone shed some light on this for me please? I appreciate the help.

A tidbit more information. The select and start buttons on my controller are not recognized at all in the Atari emulator. In all of my other emus – I have enabled select and start as the hot button and reset and they work great. But not with the Atari. Once I’m in a game that I cannot start, I have to shut off my Pi to get out.

I did try to create an individual retroarch.cfg just for the Atari emu, but it did not have any effect. Same results.

So how is everyone else starting their Atari games? With a keboard?

Thanks,
Sncboom2k

[sncboom2k]

Bumping for a little help :)

[Anonymous]

Are you using the Stella Emulator, or Retroarch for the 2600 emulation?

I am using a wired xbox360 controller and the select and start buttons work fine for me, but I am using Retroarch instead of Stella. Retroarch Atari 2600 emulation is working fine for me.

I can’t remember if I tried the Stella Emulator or not.

[sncboom2k]

Hi Ace – actually I’m unsure – I’ll have to look at the config files. Which ever is the default for the latest RetroPie Image would be what I’m using.

I’ll do some research and post back.

Thanks

[Anonymous]

I am using the 2.3 image for the moment, not sure if the 2.4 image is different or not. I did try the 2.4 image but had issues with it, so am staying with 2.3 for now.

[sncboom2k]

Ok after poking around in my installed emulators – it appears to be retroarch. I do not see Stella in the OPT folder under retropie. I poked around a bit in the retroarch folder and ensured all of the xbox controller configurations matched with the exception of device name. (Button assignments match that is.)

I am on 2.4.2 – downloading 2.3 now.

I’m at a loss. Appreciate any assistance.

Thanks

[Anonymous]

If you are downloading 2.3, can you try my es_config file that I have attached? It is the one I am using. Not sure, but I believe the original references both stella and retroarch. I also think the folders changed a bit, but not sure. In the home folder of your setup, are there more than one atari2600 rom folders? In the retroarch.cfg file, my select and start are set to 8 and 9.

[Anonymous]

Wouldn’t let me upload, so I have renamed it with a txt extension to see if that works.

[sncboom2k]

Thank you Ace – I will try to get that installed this evening. On my controller the 8 and 9 are the same as yours. I noticed that to be an issue early on by using the button test tool and changed it in all the cfg files I could find.

I read on the web last night that as of March 2014 stella was the core that retroarch now uses. Assuming that may be why we see both in your config file on the same line. I will check my emulator core files as well.

Thanks!

[sncboom2k]

Ok – I just installed the image of 2.3 and setup my 360 wireless gamepad. Same issue. Works with all other game systems that I use – but will not allow me to map f1 / f2 to the buttons for the Atari 2600.

Ace – if you load Adventure in the 2600 – which buttons on your controller do you use to change it from 1,2,3 (Starts with a big 1 on the screen) (This is controlled by F1 in Stella)

And then which button do you press to start the game? (This is done using F2 in stella)

I did load up an image of piplay which has the actual stella installed with its GUI – and I was able to map the buttons in there. So I know we can find this somewhere.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

[sncboom2k]

I have resolved this issue.

The configuration of the controller for the stella core retroarch is done in the emulator itself. Not in any of the retroarch.cfg files located throughout retropie. I found this by installing Stella on my PC.

On your Pi – Launch an Atari game – then using a mouse and keyboard, press TAB

This will bring up the menu for stella.
Select Input Settings
Click Erase & then Reset
Now click the function you want to map and click the map button
Press the button on the controller that you want to use
Do this for all of the functions including up,down,left,right, fire, etc.
I mapped F1 to select and F2 to start on my 360 wireless controller
I mapped exit and return to roms selection to left bumper and right bumper
I exited out of the input settings and went back in to confirm they were still there.
I was then able to play the games – Cool!

Now I had a problem exiting any game. The screen would turn black and the pi would freeze. I found this command enabling a video output menu in another thread here by: Buzz

NOTE You must have the latest installation scripts installed to use this.

sudo ./retropie_packages.sh runcommand
sudo reboot

Now when launching a game – press the X or M button on your keyboard until you get the video output menu. Change the emulator resolution to the native resolution used by your monitor. My television is 720P so my max resolution is 1360×768. I selected this and exit / roms menu worked again with no issues.

Upon a reboot, I had no sound in Stella – only stella. But if I started NES or SNES I had sound. Then if I went back to Stella – I had sound. I had read else where that this was caused by using HDMI – which I do.

So I had to force the sound through the HDMI by editing the following file:

sudo nano /boot/config.txt

I added the line:

hdmi_drive=2

Then ctrl+x to save.

Sudo Reboot

I have a mapped controller to my liking, can exit the games without a black screen issue, and I have sound.

No more mouse or keyboard needed. Problems solved.

Hope this helps some folks in the future. I know I appreciate the knowledge I found in this and other forums.

Regards,
Sncboom2k

[Anonymous]

Glad you got it figured out. I fought for a while in the beginning trying to get my xbox controller to work and persistence paid off.

[sncboom2k]

Thanks for the input Ace. It kept me going. I kept thinking to myself “but his works – why doesn’t mine?” lol

It has definitely been a labor of love to get this all working correctly with the xbox wireless controller. But I’m happy with it and have a nice backup image I created in case I hose something up! :)

[sncboom2k]

Added tags so folks can find this info better in a search.

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