Some games don't recognize gamepads

[dnn]

Hi there,

my first post on this forums. First things first: I love pSX. It emulates the PSX's graphics and sound better than any other emulator I tried so far (including ePSXe, which screws up some game's graphics even with its plugin system). I really hope you guys enhance the compatibility for some important games (Metal Gear Solid, Silent Hill and the like) in the future.

But, well, now about my problem:

Some games won't recognize and commands given by a gamepad or the even keyboard. I'm using a Dual Shock 2 controller on my PC and it works great on some games (like Ridge Racer Type 4 or the NTSC-U/C version of Silent Hill), but other games don't recognize the controller at all. They also won't recognize keyboard commands (if I refuse to use the gamepad).

Here's a list of games that don't respond to any given commands:

- Snatcher (NTSC-J, SLPS-00154)
- Soul Edge (NTSC-J, SLPS-00555)
- Soul Blade (NTSC-U/C, SLUS-00240)
- Soul Blade (Platinum Edition) (PAL, SCES-00577)

I tested them in other emulators - and they work flawlessly. So it must be an issue of pSX...

Anyone else who experienced this?

[patrickp]

Try setting the controller Type to Normal rather than Dualshock, dnn - a fair number of Playstation games don't support analog controllers.

You'll get the same thing on the Playstation itself: the different is that, on a Playstation controller plugged into a Playstation (but not if it's plugged into a PC via an adapter) you can toggle between digital and analog modes with the analog button, and the Playstation often (not always) switches this automatically if it detects whether a game is analog or digital on startup. In pSX, however, you have to change between digital and analog by resetting the controller Type.

It will say on the back of the game case if a game supports an analog controller: if it doesn't say, it's digital-only. Additionally, some analog capable games include analog settings options within the game.

[dnn]

You're right. I'm a fool, sorry. Didn't realize that myself...

Yeah, it's working now. The emulation of all versions of Soul Edge / Soul Blade is terrible, but, well... - Snatcher works very good.

[patrickp]

No problem, dnn - I long ago lost count of people making that mistake!

[jaybee]

Jun 16, 2008 16:55:24 GMT -5 patrickp said:

You'll get the same thing on the Playstation itself: the different is that, on a Playstation controller plugged into a Playstation (but not if it's plugged into a PC via an adapter) you can toggle between digital and analog modes with the analog button, and the Playstation often (not always) switches this automatically if it detects whether a game is analog or digital on startup.

That actually only applies to SOME Playstation controllers. If I recall, most of the third-party PS1 analog pads used a switch to control pad mode instead of a software-controlled button, meaning they behaved exactly like pSX(except that the switch was easier to get to on a pad).

Hmmm... that may've only been for pads that supported "steering wheel"(NeGcon) mode. It's been so long that I can't really say for sure.





I'm also pretty sure the analog being toggled on is done by the game itself, and the Playstation has no way of detecting if a game supports analog.
Remember, this happens even in systems manufactured before the DualShock existed. While the Dual Analog joysticks existed from the start(and the little-known Dual Analog pad functions more or less identically as I understand things), the DualShock uses a different, and incompatible, scheme. For the system to detect DualShock support, it would have to know about it.

But that's just me being nitpicky.

[patrickp]

Well, the Dualshock pads also use a switch - or rather a button that toggles analog and digital, jaybee - or do you mean a two position switch?

Yes, the analog being toggled on is almost certainly done by the game - in fact, some games that support analog controllers don't do this - you have to enable analog control manually.

ePSXe actually gives you the option (in Windows, anyway) of toggling between analog and digital control by pressing the F5 key, rather than having to open configuration to make the change - one of the few points it scores over pSX.

You can also use Ultima's pSX Frontend to set your controller to Normal or Dualshock in the profiles you set up for each game. There are apparently, though, some games that, although they support analog controllers, have to be started in Normal mode and then switched once you're ingame.

[lootsorrow]

Registered here just so I could say thanks, I was having the same problem. I hadn't noticed the normal/analog option dropdown on the controller config tab, and it's been so long since I've actually had my playstation hooked up that I forgot about the dualshock causing problems on some games.

[jaybee]

Jun 23, 2008 17:41:38 GMT -5 patrickp said:

Well, the Dualshock pads also use a switch - or rather a button that toggles analog and digital, jaybee - or do you mean a two position switch?

The latter.

At least some third-party controllers had a slider switch sticking up.
There was no software control of mode at all.

The one I had was a 3-position switch, since it had (probably poor) NegCon support.

www.estarland.com/images/products/97/22197/37336.jpg

That's not the one I had, but it's the same idea. You can see the slider between the analog sticks.


So pSX is properly emulating the behavior of a PS1 with a third-party gamepad.

You can also use Ultima's pSX Frontend to set your controller to Normal or Dualshock in the profiles you set up for each game. There are apparently, though, some games that, although they support analog controllers, have to be started in Normal mode and then switched once you're ingame.

There's also annoyances like Parasite Eve.
If you turn analog on, it disables the d-pad.
But the menus are too sensitive to comfortably navigate with the thumbsticks(At least, in my experience. Besides, I always drop back to d-pads for menus.).

So on a real system, I got in the habit of toggling to digital when I hit the menu button.
I've not had occasion to play that one in an emu yet.