PCSX+Linux+USB JoyPad+Emu lock up

[Thetargos]

I'm very impressed with this emulator in Linux, it deffintively runs quite good!
However I ran into problems when it came to confiugring my USB Logitech Rumble Pad (I know I can't have rumble ), the problem I have is that no matter what plugin I use (OmniPad or JoyPad) the axes get misconfigured as soon as I start a game or in the menu (like the case of OmniPad that simply locks the signal to the bottom left as soon as there is axis input. Note: This also happens in Windows with the same pad and other USB pads). I've also tried with AmmoQ's PadJoy which for some strange reason won't let me confiugre my pad using the thumbsticks, I have to use the digital pad for the configuration to work, otherwise the thumbstick will act as buttons, the buttons as the dgital pad and some other buttons. so... you get the picture.

Anyway if I confiugre the pad as a regular Digital pad (no thumbsticks), and the buttons, the joypad will function fine... but I ran into another problem. Basically I want to use this emulator to play my Survival Horror games (RE, SH, etc, etc), currently I'm only testing with Silent Hill, which would run (the introduction) untill the part where you first encounter Cherryl and are supposed to go after her to get owned by those damn kids with knifes. Problem is that the emulator would freeze either at the first encounter or at the alley, and I've noticed it depends on time... it takes about 2-3 minutes for the emulator to freeze. I've also tried another random game (Tomb Raider II) and it also freezes within a few minutes of a game started. I've tried on another machine (similar configuration, different hardware, with an nVidia card) and the emulator would also freeze.

What could the problem (freezing) be? and if anyone know why I can't use my analog thumbsticks, please... tell me!

Before I forteget, sys specs:

• AMD Athlon XP 1800+
• ECS SiS motherboard
• 512 Mb RAM
• ATi Radeon 9500 128 Mb VRAM running with latest official ATi driver (3.2.8)
• SB-Live! Value running trhough ALSA
• Red Hat Linux 9 customized:
  1. kernel 2.4.22
  2. kernel 2.6.0-test9
  3. ALSA compiled from source
• Lite-On 16x DVD-Rom
• LG 52x-32x-52x CD burner (I use both drives for CD reading with sub channel read enabled)
• Plugins:
  1. Linuzappz CDR Driver 1.1.8
  2. Pete's MesaGL Driver 1.1.74
  3. P.E.Op.S. OSS Audio 1.1.7 (non threaded)
  4. ammoQ's padjoy joy Device Driver 1.0.8
  5. Internarl HLE BIOS/SCPH1001.bin BIOS image

[jivera]

Have you tried playing the games using a keyboard driver instead to see if it still locks up?

[Thetargos]

Yes, I've tried, and found out that I can play with the keyboard. However the problem went away once I selected my BIOS image instead of the builtin HLE BIOS. Odd, huh? In any case I've found that configuring either of the Pad plugins to use my joystic is a MESS!

For one, JoyPad would complaint about every button I press is an unusable event! huh?, and after I move any of the JoyPad axes it would keep the last input. As I said in the previous post, I'm trying to configure the pad to be able to use the two thumbsticks as in a real PSX controller, but the axes just keep generating input, and I cannot configure the plugin! Is there any JoyStick, JoyPad configuration tool for Linux in general?

[jivera]

Sorry, I wish I could help you out more, but since it seems to be a joypad plugin related issue that's out of my control. My best recommendation is look into contacting the plugin author or try another plugin.

-jivera

[Thetargos]

Update, I've found out that I can configure my JoyStick with the JoyPad plug-in, just there is a little problem with the plug-in and my particular joyPad (Logitech Rumble Pad): If I enable the analog thumbsticks, either of them (by asigning to the axes any axis on the actual Pad), the emulator (or is it the plugin?) will see the button asignation upside down:

For example, the configuration I have is like this:

Button 6 (left trigger) assigned as L1, button 3 asigned as L2; button 7 (right trigger) asigned as R1, button 5 asigned as R2, button 4 asigned as triangle ( /\ ); button 0 asigned as square ( [_] ); button 1 asigned as ex ( X ); button 2 asigned as circle ( (_) ); button 8 and axis A2+ are asigned as start and select, respectively. The digital Pad is asigned to A6- (up) A6+ (down), A5- (left) and A5+ (right); Where as there were X0 (left thumbstick Y axis), X1 (left thumbstick X axis), X3 (right thumbstick X axis) and X4 (right thumbstick Y axis).

If I asign any of these axes to the coresponding thumbstick, the plugin would see:

Digital pad converted into the triangle, square, ex, circle action buttons (according to direction, i.e triangle up, etc), L2 into ex (X) button, R2 into start, R1 into triangle, L1 into select, Select into L1, Start (I could not test into what it was turned into.

I tested these conflicts with Tomb Raider III, and confirmed that if I do not enable the thumbsticks this would not happen... Should I file this report to the Plugin coder/coders? If so how do I make this get to them?

[Thetargos]

Update 2. The above problem only happens when using this Plug-in with PCSX, when used with ePSXe the emulator (or the plugin?) dicards any analog imput, even though it configures the axes.

[jivera]

Thetargos: Update 2. The above problem only happens when using this Plug-in with PCSX, when used with ePSXe the emulator (or the plugin?) dicards any analog imput, even though it configures the axes.

Hm, before I try in any more analysis, can you clarify this for me - is ePSXe exhibiting correct behaviour then or just a different, incorrect behaviour?

[Thetargos]

Different, incorrect behavior. The analog axes may be configured, but are not usable. Where as in PCSX are usable, but the layout on the controller is upside down (mirrored, as described above)

[jivera]

Odd... I'm not familiar with the plugin architecture yet, but a brief glance of the source shows comments about different BIOSes so that may explain the new behaviour when using your own BIOS image (hopefully :-) versus the built-in one.

Have you tried any other plugins? If you find multiple plugins have the same problem I'll try to take a deeper look into the source. (I hope you don't feel like I'm not making this a priority, just my knowledge of the source isn't very intimate yet so I'd hate to make hacks that fix your problem but result in broken code for everybody else.)

-jivera

Edit: *Have you tried any other joypad plugins? (I know you already said you tried the keyboard plugin.)

[Ryochan7]

I apologize ahead of time if I can't be of any help; I don't know how to approach your question with all the different scenarios. It has been a while since I have messed with any playstation emulator for Linux, ePSXe in my case, so again, there might not be much here of use to you.

Anyway, I only have experience with OmniJoy so I will just try to help you with that problem. Just to make things easier, I will just assume that you are using OmniJoy v.1.0.0 Beta 2. The alignment problem with OmniJoy is due to a problem in the source code. It's unfortunate that the creator of OmniJoy has not put the fix in the source code yet; there is some reason for not doing it listed on the site.

The following text was provided by http://www.mikeopolis.com/phorum/read.php?f=2&i=24&t=24.

Re: d-pad
Author: bluefrog (---.wanadoo.be)
Date: 08-05-03 12:44

hello,
i'm a new user of epsxe under linux and i have try this plugin but i have the same problem.
but i have modify the file pad.c and delete line's 394,400 & 407
'break;'
now it's perfect i have play ff9 during 10 minutes without bug or slowdown

pad: sidewinder gamepad
epsxe: 1.5.2
omnijoy beta2

excuse my poor english !!


jean-marc from belgium

I am just too lazy to summarize what was said. Anyway, that tip helped me when I had troubles with OmniJoy; maybe it will help you.

[Thetargos]

Originally Posted by jivera

Odd... I'm not familiar with the plugin architecture yet, but a brief glance of the source shows comments about different BIOSes so that may explain the new behaviour when using your own BIOS image (hopefully :-) versus the built-in one.

Have you tried any other plugins? If you find multiple plugins have the same problem I'll try to take a deeper look into the source. (I hope you don't feel like I'm not making this a priority, just my knowledge of the source isn't very intimate yet so I'd hate to make hacks that fix your problem but result in broken code for everybody else.)

-jivera

Edit: *Have you tried any other joypad plugins? (I know you already said you tried the keyboard plugin.)

I have tried other JoyPad plugins, in my case OmniJoy (actually I configured it to use the keyboard and test the plug-in with the keyboard and my joypad) Well the result was that in keyboard the plug-in did not show any problems, though with the joypad it got locked (no matter what axis I had selected, digital or analog) once in-game the input would lock to the lower left corner, hence making any game unplayable. Oddly enough this did not happen with the keyboard, I don't know...

[Thetargos]

Originally Posted by Ryochan7

I apologize ahead of time if I can't be of any help; I don't know how to approach your question with all the different scenarios. It has been a while since I have messed with any playstation emulator for Linux, ePSXe in my case, so again, there might not be much here of use to you.

Anyway, I only have experience with OmniJoy so I will just try to help you with that problem. Just to make things easier, I will just assume that you are using OmniJoy v.1.0.0 Beta 2. The alignment problem with OmniJoy is due to a problem in the source code. It's unfortunate that the creator of OmniJoy has not put the fix in the source code yet; there is some reason for not doing it listed on the site.

The following text was provided by http://www.mikeopolis.com/phorum/read.php?f=2&i=24&t=24.



I am just too lazy to summarize what was said. Anyway, that tip helped me when I had troubles with OmniJoy; maybe it will help you.

Thanks for the info, I'll try doing that you say!

[Thetargos]

I seem to have found the problem (more like a procedure, actually) when configuring the joystick using ammoQ's plug-in.

What I needed to do was.

• Start the emulator, change the pad plug-in for the ammoQ's one. Configure the digital pad and buttons. accept the config, exit PCSX.
• Re-start the emulator, run a CD to try out the settings (they were woking as spected) then exit to the emulator, shut off the program.
• Re-start the emulator, go to configuration, BUT selecting the plugins & BIOS entry (as if I were to change the plugin), configure the input plug-in and now that I had all the rest of the pad working correctly, configured the analog thumbsticks. Exit the emulator.
• Re-run the emulator, and try the new settings, they worked!, they fricking worked! Exit.
• To make sure my procedure worked OK I... Saved the configuration file to another directory, re-opened PCSX and re-configured the plugin as if was the first time I was going to configure it. Set all the values at once, closed the emulator. Re-started it and loaded a CD... The same as before, the thumbsticks worked, but the button layout was mirrored (and something I did not notice the first time, I was unable to return to the emulator window by pressing escape).
• Deleted the config file, re-did my laborous procedure and tested, worked again. Exit. Deleted once more the confiuration file and restored the backed up one, tested, and it worked.

So in the end it was a matter of perseverance to get the plugin righly configured... I thought you should know this.

Cheers!

[jivera]

Hmm... bizarre.

Does the same method work for ePSXe? If so, I'd send the email to the plugin author, otherwise, I'll take a look at if PCSX needs better support with updating plugin configs.

-jivera

[Thetargos]

Not exactly, jivera. I think that I read somewhere ePSXe does not accept analog input, yet. so that would explain why I may confugre all in one pass, and it worked right. It may have something to do with the updating of the configuration files, or if PCSX is capable of seeing the changes made, right after they're made

[jivera]

Originally Posted by Thetargos

Not exactly, jivera. I think that I read somewhere ePSXe does not accept analog input, yet. so that would explain why I may confugre all in one pass, and it worked right. It may have something to do with the updating of the configuration files, or if PCSX is capable of seeing the changes made, right after they're made

Hm, I can't see anything wrong with the way PCSX configures plugins. When you press the "configure" button, PCSX loads the plugin, executes the configure routine in it, then closes the plugin again. So there shouldn't be any issue with PCSX not recognizing the plugin updating (for the simple reason that PCSX doesn't touch the plugin's configuration).

I think the problem may be the pad plugin doesn't handle having its configure function called while it's doing other stuff.

-jivera

[ammoQ]

padJoy, like some other plugins, has a seperate config program which is a stand-alone executeable ("cfgPadJoy"); the PADconfigue function simply calls this executeable.

I found a possible explanation for "strange symptoms" when using padJoy with PCSX: if padJoy is configured for both pads and "multithreading" is enabled, two data-gathering threads are launched; this may cause race conditions... A new version that avoids this problem is now available. Please test it and report if it solved your problem.