Arcade Button Mapping Help Needed

[mikej27]

I originally started using MAME back in 2000.  Trying to get back into it now and I'm a bit confused by the multiple layers of software (control block, emulation station, retropie, specific emulators.  Specifically, my is in figuring out my problem with my buttons.  If I am posting in the wrong forum, please let me know.

Can someone please point me in the right direction for troubleshooting my button mapping?  I have a simple arcade setup with a 4 way joystick, 3 action buttons, coin in, 1p start, and 2p start.  I am using a control block on top of retropie.  I had everything working then built myself a new cabinet and rewired my buttons.  One of them wasn't working after the re-wire.  Since I didn't remember how I initially setup the config for the buttons, I went into the ES gampad config through the ES GUI and it seems that I now messed something up with several of my buttons being incorrect.  Aside from starting from scratch, how can I reset retropie/ES/control block to the default standard arcade config?...or is there a cfg file somewhere that I can look to see how my buttons are being mapped/re-mapped to something incorrect (remember this being very simple with just MAME).  Sorry for the vague questions...it's been a while since I did the initial setup and I'm a bit rusty on how control block/retropi/es/emulators are handling button mapping.  To be honest, the multi layers of software are confusing to me.  Note that I am only using this setup to play classic arcade games - no console emulators or gamepads are being used.  Thanks for the help!

[meyer980]

So, I'll do my best to explain! MAME in retropie is a little interesting as far as controls. By default, it is set to use the classic keyboard inputs (such as CTRL, Alt, 1, 2) AND also use the Emulation Station gamepad configuration. The tricky part is, your keyboard CAN be configured as a controller in Emulation Station. And the MAME controls CAN be adjusted separately once MAME is launched.

So, first question: Does your control block send keyboard or gamepad presses? For example, I use the Arcade Bonnet from Adafruit which send keyboard inputs. But other people might use a Zero Delay Encoder which send gamepad presses. If it's sending keyboard presses, you might have conflicting controls in MAME itself vs the control block.

Either way, an easy way to get going again would be to remap your controls. Boot into Emulation Station, go into the menu, and choose the option to Configure Input. When it prompts, hold a button on whichever device you want to configure input for and then go button by button. If you've completely whacked out your controls and can't even open the menu, plug in a new gamepad temporarily. ES should detect it, ask if you want to configure input, and do it correctly for that gamepad. Then use that correctly configured device to open the menu, get to the input, and configure your control block.

Hope that helps