Wiimote Lightgun setup in RetroArch (Win11)

[nanook2k3]

I have the Wiimotes connected to my Win11 RetroArch machine and Touchmote pairs with them no problem. I'm able to assign some keyboard and Xbox controls to the Wiimotes (I say some, because for some reason "enter" isn't available as an option to assign to a Wiimote button). RetroArch recognizes the Wiimote and I'm able to navigate around with the arrow keys, but that's all I can do (no "enter" button is assigned, so I have to use the keyboard to select anything).

I try going to "Input" and changing the Port 1 Controls, but none of the buttons respond when I try to assign any of them. I am able to change them in Touchmote, but like I said, the most important one is Enter and I can't assign it to anything LOL

From some Youtube tutorials on setting up Wiimotes on MAME systems, you hit "Tab" once the game starts to go into MAME's menu and you can modify the controls there as well. It's the same problem though....I use the keyboard to try and assign the Wiimote a button, but get no response. It's strange.....I can assign the Wiimote pointer the Mouse Cursor in Touchmote, and RetroArch recognizes it, but besides that and the arrow keys, I got nothing. This is using the "Default" Touchmote Layout, but I've also tried a "New Keymap" with the same result. Is there something I'm missing? Thanks in advance for your help!

[BadMouth]

I don't know anything about RetroArch or Touchmote, but since nobody else has replied.....

At least in standard MAME, "virtual" keyboard presses generated by software do not work.  There are instructions out there for modifying the mame code to allow it, but it involves making the changes and compiling it yourself.  I do not know how that would work with RetroArch.

However virtual gamepad presses generated by software are allowed.  So often a workaround is configuring a virtual gamepad instead of a virtual keyboard.
That's how it works for standard MAME anyway.

Your solution is probably to not assign any of the Wii buttons to keyboard keys and remap the buttons in MAME to use the button presses (map them to BOTH the keyboard key and a gamepad button so you can still use a keyboard when needed).


I'm pretty sure that this is because MAME is pulling raw input from the keyboards to allow for multiple keyboards.
Along a similar vein, the mouse input will probably no longer work if you enable multi-mouse because MAME will be pulling raw input from the mouse instead of using the one single "system mouse" pointer controlled by all mice.  If you want 2 player light gun action, usually some other program is required to translate the input to two virtual analog joysticks that MAME can use.

[nanook2k3]

Thanks for the info.....I've had much more success using standalone emulators for lightgun games (Mame, duckstation, Sega Model 3, etc).  I'm done to one left (Sega Model 2) that's giving me problems. 

[firedance]

I've also used stand alone emulators for light gun games, so far I've setup Mame, Duckstation and pcsx2 as Retroarch was being a pain unless you just use a mouse instead.

[BadMouth]

Thanks for the info.....I've had much more success using standalone emulators for lightgun games (Mame, duckstation, Sega Model 3, etc).  I'm done to one left (Sega Model 2) that's giving me problems.

Usually another program is required to get 2 light guns working on Model 2 and Demul.
Howard Casto's MAMEshooter 2 was the original.  Demulshooter may cover both now.  I have been out of the loop for a long time.