Retroarch and Logitech Driving Force GT = Tearing my hair out! Please help!

[NIGEL71]

Long time lurker and first time posting! Please be gentle!!

I've set up my arcade machine (Flat pack type with PC) - it has 2 joysticks and a spinner, all working fine across many emulators (mostly).

I managed to pick up a cheap Logitech Driving Force GT wheel and pedals and rigged it up fine in Mame, Model2 and Model3 games.

I have Naomi working via Retroarch but for the life of me I cannot get the wheel to work properly!

Firstly, it wouldn't auto configure or manually configure, so I plugged it in to a Raspberry Pi and took the .cfg from that and placed it in the correct autoconfig folder on my PC.

Next time I fired up Retroarch it acknowledged the wheel - it has the odd spasm though - sometimes nudging the wheel will send the selection menu's crazy.

I then loaded up the Naomi core and mapped the controls in Crazy Taxi. This took a stupid amount of time, but I managed to get it working - although having accelerate and brake mapped to pedals would brake one or the other. In the end Acclerate was mapped to the pedal and brake was mapped to the paddles.

I then tried to do the same with 18 Wheeler and just couldn't fathom it! It always seems to have problems with Acc and brake.
It also broke Crazy Taxi and now neither works!

I realise it must be me doing something wrong and it probably stems from the way the wheel is set up, but does anyone here have a wheel successfully working in Retroach?

Some info:

When Retroarch loads up it sees (in this order) Jstick 1, Jstick 2, Logitech Wheel 3.

For the wheel to work I have to choose it as input 1 (this then breaks the two joysticks, but allows the wheel to work in game).

I've never got the pedals to work on Naomi as a break and an accelerator. It's always been one or the other.
I've tried combining pedals and separating pedals in the Logitech app - nothing works.

If anyone here could take a few moments to help me out or offer an alternative to Retroarch it'd be very much appreciated.

Finally, pretty much everything I've learned with regards to setting up emu's, Spinners, Wheels etc has been from reading this forum, so I'd just like to say a big thank you for all the post and videos that have aided me along the way!

[Headrush69]

I am struggling with the same issue with a Logitech MOMO steering wheel.

Information is thin, but this might be a issue with the flycast core at this point and analog input.

I have created a proper autoconfig file for my steering wheel with the wheel mapped as Retropad left X analog +/- and the pedals (combined), mapped to the Retropad left Y analog +/-.

Using the flycast core I don't get any response to the analog controls. That part that really confuses me is in the controller inputs within Retroarch, there is ACCELERATOR+, ACCELERATOR-, BRAKE+, and BRAKE-. Not exactly sure what these mean and if somehow they are mapped to the negative/postive ranges of using non-combined pedals.

Using my controller config in other cores, SNES, NES, etc, the steering wheel and pedals map fine. Steering wheel right and left, brake up, accelerator down all mapped to the Retropad left analog stick.

[Zebra]

Pots for analog axis controls usually have a + and - input for direction. Think of each pot as turning something (like a volume control) up or down. When setting up an analog axis, turning it up or down can be mapped to left and right directions. Or up and down etc.

Or, for pedals, turning the pot one way (+) is like pressing down the accelerator and the other direction (-) releases the pedal.

When you set up analog controls in mame, they confusingly give you options for "accelerator" and then separate inputs for "accelerator +" and "accelerator -". To make it work properly, I usually just use the first option. I.e. I only set "accelerator" or "wheel". I make sure the + and - options have no inputs (by selecting them and then pressing esc). If I try and set all three then it never seems to work right.

On some games, there is a specific need to set + and - separately (which is why they give you the option). For those, I only set inputs for + and - and make sure there is no input set for the other.

I have an older Logitech Gt FFB race wheel from the PS3 generation. When I set it up for my PC, I had a frustrating time with drivers because the Logitech app on their site identified the wrong one for my model. It's worth double checking you have the right one if you still have problems.

[Headrush69]

The analog controls in MAME are so much better and easier to use no matter how your pedals are set up.
The accelerator+ and accelerator- allow you to seperate the pedals when your pedals are in combined mode, and you also have the ability to reverse the axisif needed to.

In combined pedal mode, my Accelerator is on Axis1 with a range of 0 to -1.
In combined pedal mode, my Brake is on Axis1 with a range of 0 to +1.

In seperate pedal mode, my Accelerator is on Axis2 with a range of 1 to -1. (Full axis)
In seperate pedal mode, my Brake is on Axis5 with a range of 1 to -1. (Full axis)

So in Retroarch, everything is mapped to a Retropad with 2 analog sticks.
In combined pedal mode that is simple enough to map to the plus and minus to one of the axises on the Retropad.

Another issue is in the current flycast core, there is no longer Accelerater+, Accelerator-. Brake+, and Brake-, just Accelerator and Brake. So how do you map this when the Retropad axises are seperate? (+/-)

What's even more confusing is, when in the game test mode of 18 wheeler, I only see pedal values change when in seperate pedal mode.
Although Axis2 is set to ACCEL, and Axis5 is set to BRAKE, pushing the accelerator pedal affects both accelerator and brake in game.
When no pedals are pushed, accelerator is full value in game, half way pushed accelerator pedal and accelerator and brake in game are 0, and fully pushed accelerator pedal, in game accelerator is value 0 and break in game is full value. So it appears to be in a combined mode, but digital values only, 0 or FF. (full value)
 
Edit: Forgot I had analog to digital option on in Retroarch, that's solves the last point, but under Retroarch even when the pedals are mapped to different axises, they still appear linked so how.
 

[Howard_Casto]

Yeah mame has the best analog support by far.  The problem with setting up pedals (any pedals) is that when used in split axis mode, the pedal in the off position is rarely at 50% of the axis... so you have to kind of tap it so that it's at 50% when mapping controls.  It's annoying, but you get used to it. 

[Headrush69]

After a lot of trial and error I finally got this to work with my steering wheel pedals but I'm not exactly sure why and doesn't make sense.

It's getting late, going to look at this tomorrow and I'll post what I find, maybe help others as well. (The good news is it does work!)

[Headrush69]

It appears that this core might have parts that are hard coded to using an XBOX 360 controller.
I have seen this with the WinVice cores as well, it's not completely abstracted to the Retropad interface.

Having said that, I do have it working perfectly now and below are some of the gotchas and work arounds I needed.

1) I was using the HTML5 Gamepad Tester here: https://html5gamepad.com/ to find the correct axis for my Logitech MOMO steering wheel.
The problem is it did not match how RetroArch saw them, so make sure to bind keys in Retroarch -> Input -> User 1 Binds to find out the correct ones to use.
When using combined pedals, that HTML5 tester showed Axis 0, within Retroarch it showed Axis 6! Some differences when using seperate pedals as well.

2) Works using combined or seperate pedals as long as correct axis is set.

3) In my autoconfig file for my Logitech MOMO, I MUST map the pedals to L2 and R2. (Which are XBOX triggers)
If it set them to anything else, including other axises, I will only get digital values. (Not pressed or fully pressed pedals, no variable.)
Another issue was I would get pedals values that once they got to 50% would also change the value of the other pedal even though they were on seperate axises.
My guess is that being full axis pedals, forcing them to use XBOX triggers which are half axis fixed that issue.

4) Do NOT set any of the controls within Retroarch to ACCEL or BRAKE. Yes you read that right and it seems odd, but for the pedals to work in full axis mode, this was needed.
All the other controls still need to be set within controls in Retroarch: steering directions, horn, low gear, high gear, etc.
If I set ACCEL and BRAKE within Retroarch controls, to L2 and R2, I get the problem with pressing the pedals more than 50% affects the other pedal.

Here is a link to video of it working in action: https://www.dropbox.com/s/jar20tv8oesdquj/Video%202019-12-18%2C%2011%2007%2026%20AM.mov?dl=0

You can clearly see I don't map ACCEL or BRAKE within Retroarch controls.

Hopefully this helps someone else, but what a frustrating journey tracking this down and getting it work. So happy because I get much better performance using flycast over Demul on my messly i3 in my cabinet.