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Anybody have Syzygy controllers that won't work in Stella?


orion1052003

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I am running MAC OS 10.7.5 and Stella 4.0. I have a clear USB Syzygy blue-light up joystick and the second revision black and orange USB CX-40 joystick. When I run Stella, the joysticks do absolutely nothing. No button or stick control. However, the clear one has the same firmware as before, and it used to work fine! I sent it back for another after the stick snapped off. When I got another clear blue and a second rev. black controller, neither of them worked in Stella. But they work in other emulators!

 

Has anyone else had this same problem? Anybody have a thought on what would cause this issue to occur?

 

Orion

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I have a similar problem with the retrousb NES/SNES USB adapters. On the NES USB adapter, Stella detects the joypad but not the action buttons. On the SNES controller, B, Y, Select, and Start act as buttons 1-4. A, X, L, and R act as buttons 5-8. On Stella, buttons 1-4 on the USB controller are not detected, and buttons 5-8 (based on Windows Control Panel) are detected as buttons 1-4 in Stella. So the workaround for me was to use the USB-to-SNES RetroUSB adapter and the "A" button, which mapped as button 5 in control panel, button 1 in Stella. I notified the author of Stella of this bug some time ago. Stella recently released version 4. It is sad they haven't fixed this yet. For some reason, Stella doesn't detect buttons 1-4, only buttons 5 & up. Some USB controllers exhibit this bug, others apparently don't. I use windows 8 64-bit btw, but apparently, the bug affects HID USB controllers in other OS such as Mac OSX.

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I have tested the following devices:

  • SNES Retroport (with genuine SNES controller)
  • Stelladaptor with all supported devices
  • 2600-daptor with all supported devices
  • 2600-daptor II with all supported devices
  • USB (wired) XBox-360 pad
  • Logitech Dual Action pad
  • various USB 2600-inspired sticks from Legacy Engineering

I own all of these and have personally tested them on:

  • Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8
  • All versions of Linux for the past 3 years
  • All OSX from 10.6 to present

Everything has worked 100% in all tests. Now I'm not saying that I don't believe it isn't working for you, but that we need to determine what is the differences between our systems. The one thing I've done in testing is plug in one device at a time. When you plug in multiple devices, Stella tries to be smart and assign mappings for the left device to the first controller, and for the right device to the second controller. And it also saves these settings, even if you unplug/re-plug them. So it's possible that the device is working, but that it is mapped incorrectly.

 

Try going to Options -> Input Settings -> Emul. Events and remapping each event to the appropriate button/axis on your device. If it still doesn't work, then we may have a problem.

 

EDIT: I should add that this bug report hasn't been ignored. But, I'm unable to fix a bug that I can't personally duplicate.

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Ok, sending information about my system. This post is trying to use the second revision black CX-40. The next will be about the clear blue CX-40 which is an earlier model. I learned something today, I think that the black one is not being recognized by the OS at all, while the older blue one is. I just assumed both worked in other emulators after the blue one did nothing in stella but worked in Atari800Macx just by plugging it in. Also, the blue one showed up on the USB bus, and it appears the black one did not. The black one did nothing in all the emulators I tried today. Last time I tried the blue one, it worked in everything but Stella. I received both controllers at the same time in the mail from Syzygy. I assume the blue one has an eralier firmware than the black one. Most unusual of all, the blue one I had before worked in Stella before I sent it back for repair. It had the same firmware as the one that does not work! That leads me to believe it is a STELLA issue, maybe some new undiscovered bug or unknown technicality in the latest release. But that is speculation.

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But have you tried remapping the device within Stella? It's possible that Stella is recognizing the device, but it not mapping it correctly. Also, when you start Stella and go to Options -> System Logs, what do you see under "Joystick devices found:"? If doesn't show anything, then Stella isn't even seeing the stick. But if it does say something, try remapping and see what happens.

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These are things I knew nothing about. It says 'no joystick present'. This is the clear blue one now, have it with me at the moment. How do you re-map a device within Stella? Although last time I could use the stick in Atari800MacX, it no longer does anything. Strange. I have to get STELLA and probably the Mac OS to recognize the joystick before I can remap it, but I would still like to know how, in case I get there.

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Absolutely, if Stella can't see it, then there's nothing that can be done in the app itself. So you first need to determine why the OS isn't presenting the stick to the application. Perhaps drivers or something need to be installed?? All my experience with OSX says that it should be a plug-and-play experience, but I guess there are always exceptions. Also, one other thing I forgot to mention; make sure the device is plugged in before starting Stella; sometimes it doesn't work doing it the other way around.

 

As for remapping, have a look here.

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I always plug in the sticks before opening Stella, as I read you should plug in the joystick before running the program. So that part of the testing should be ok.

 

I tried both sticks in Windows, to further test. The black revision 2 worked, the clear blue did not. The weird deal is that things that are supposed to work right away often don't work for me. I've been trying to get MAME and MACMAME to work right for years, I embarrassingly admit. Here are some screenshots of the Windows version and the Stella version for this PC test. I wanted to use Stella 4.0, but norton wouldn't allow it to be downloaded.

 

The 'BlackJoystickLog' picture is Stella 4.0 on a mac with the Black joystick, the rest are Windows. Why is one seen but not the other?

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I would suggest trying Stella 4.0 in Windows too, with the same stick. If it works there, then it's an OSX thing. But if not, then there are deeper problems.

 

Testing in 3.9.x doesn't really tell me anything, since there have been major changes in 4.0 wrt graphics, sound, joysticks, etc.

 

I'm pretty sure that the Windows binary doesn't have a virus; I test all releases extensively before release. It must be a false-positive from Norton.

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I bought the 2 controllers, they didn't work, and I sent them back, they tested them and sent them back to me, and they still don't work. They want me to leave them good feedback, which I will If I can actually use them. Stella 4.0 in both mac and PC neither one of them work.

 

They said the controllers passed all tests which I believe to be true, I don't doubt that. I just want to solve the problem and make them work, but they know more than I do about how to do that.

 

If Windows and Mac both say no joystick is present, how should I try to make the OS recognize the device?

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Not to take this off topic too far, but do the new versions of the Syzygy joystick have a longer "throw" compared to the original sticks? In other words, they don't have that tight feel and are easier to move around.

I heard this was the case but unsure if true or not.

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I bought the 2 controllers, they didn't work, and I sent them back, they tested them and sent them back to me, and they still don't work. They want me to leave them good feedback, which I will If I can actually use them. Stella 4.0 in both mac and PC neither one of them work.

 

They said the controllers passed all tests which I believe to be true, I don't doubt that. I just want to solve the problem and make them work, but they know more than I do about how to do that.

 

If Windows and Mac both say no joystick is present, how should I try to make the OS recognize the device?

 

I think I may have found the issue, but I will need you to test my theory. Are you willing to download and test a beta version of Stella? If so, I will upload a Windows beta sometime tonight or tomorrow.

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Ran the test, clicked save log to disk and nothing happened, and tried print to console, and it appeared that nothing happened. Here is the black CX-40 revision 2 plugged in to a mighty big Windows 7 64 bit box. Chrome premium. He installed Stella, pac-man was controlled by the arrow keys fine, but the controller did not function. I haven't read about "save log to disk" or "print to console" yet, but I have the manual and will read it.

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Ok, I found a file called Stella.log, 902 bytes. Is this what saves to disk? Does the application save a new file each time, or overwrite the old one, or append the previous one? Save to console is the same thing?,.. a log file of what the program has done? You have to open up the command line to view it? Thanks for the beta.

Edited by orion1052003
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This indicates that the joystick subsystem is being correctly activated, but there are no joysticks seen at all. The only thing I can suggest at this point is to install the DirectX runtime for Windows 7, to make sure everything on your system is up to date.

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This indicates that the joystick subsystem is being correctly activated, but there are no joysticks seen at all. The only thing I can suggest at this point is to install the DirectX runtime for Windows 7, to make sure everything on your system is up to date.

 

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyId=2DA43D38-DB71-4C1B-BC6A-9B6652CD92A3

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Direct X 11 ( a lot newer than 7) with Mantle API is the system I tried it on, so it is up to date. Perhaps that means there is another cause to the problem? Maybe troubleshooting in windows can narrow down the problem. And then figure out for mac from there. If so, that would be great. I don't have a PC, I'm just asking people to let me use theirs when they are available.

 

However, I'm using mac. What can I do for that?

 

Any other tests I could run that would show more useful information for you?

Edited by orion1052003
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Direct X 11 ( a lot newer than 7) with Mantle API is the system I tried it on, so it is up to date.

Operating system numbering (Windows 7) and Direct X revision/version numbering are two different things.

 

If you are on Windows 7 [or 8], running DirectX 10.0 or above (I.E. 11), you may not have DirectX 9.0c installed on your system. DirectX 10 and above are known not to be backwards compatible or work properly at times for applications that are not specifically designed for them. Even if you have DirectX 9.0c, you may be missing vital SDK .DLL's that are needed.

 

In other words, machines which have newer versions than Direct X 9.0c installed may be missing some components/files in which the link provided will ensure the complete fully compatible Direct X packaging is installed properly. If your files are all up to date, and you are missing not a thing, it won't hurt your system. Therefore, it is best to try to see if it makes a difference in your case.

 

I'm using mac. What can I do for that?

http://www.syzygycompany.com/store/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=50

 

"Special Support Files:

 

Apple OSX Users - Some versions of OSX do not handle non-keyboard/mouse devices properly, please download and use USB Overdrive to map your joystick as a keyboard or mouse:

 

USB OVERDRIVE"

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Thanks for the suggestions. Will try out USB overdrive, downloaded it. So far, I've tried these 2 syzygy controllers on 2 macs and 2 PCs, (no go) leading to me to think they might be as universally plug and play as intended. For example, they did their tests and everything came out 100%, but they do not work on any computer I have tried so far. Except for one thing. One thing in narrowing down the problem is that the older clear blue works on PC in the release before Stella 4.0, but when I upgraded Stella to 4.0 on that PC it no longer worked. This older clear blue worked in mac before I sent it back, but not after it came back. The black revision 2 has never worked on MAC or PC since I first got it, and after it was tested and sent back it didn't work either.

 

I plan to try that Direct X part again with all the files installed and will let you know if either that makes the controllers work in PC or if Overdrive causes them to work in Mac. I'm no computer engineer, but I speculate that the 2 controllers are on different firmware, and that some type of extra drivers are necessary to make them more widely compatible with a variety of systems. Which might make for a revision 3 firmware or something like that, if they make more controllers in the future. Another strange thing is that the clear blue controller actually worked before I sent it back, and id not when it returned! However, they said the firmware was exactly the same as before! So it is a strange and complicated thing perhaps, maybe even a bug? The reason I returned it was the handle snapped off, and I later read this was a common problem of revision one, and so revision 2 has been made more durable. I returned the black revision 2 at the same time, as it did not work at all. They came back, a new clear blue and either a new or tested cx-40 rev. 2. So far, haven't got them working, although they should be plug and play.

Edited by orion1052003
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Apple Macintosh OSX--

I tried USB overdrive and it didn't work. What happens is it seems to conflict when the joystick is plugged in. When you launch Stella, you can't move down to the ROMS folder, or to any folder. Using the arrow keys or cursor, the selection flashes at the top of the list and is stuck there. The configuring part of USB overdrive did seem to work, although it sometimes recognized the controllers and sometimes did not. Also, it seems after you go in a direction, it doesn't center. For example, go left, it registers, go right…. nothing. But go up and then right, and it will register up and next right on the controller config screen. It may even work in Stella, if I could launch it.

I tried USB overdrive newest edition with the mac and there finally was movement from the controller. However, there were many strange effects. For example, after configuring the black rev. 2 CX-40, sometimes the joystick would be present in the status window as supported, but many times it would be blank. When I launch stella, there would be some kind of conflict, when you try to navigate starting from the top of the screen down a list of folders to ROMS, the selection will get stuck at the top, or flash at the top but not go down. Can't start Stella. There is a screenshot showing the folder, and the green bar snaps back up to the top when you try to use the arrow keys to move down.

Other times, you can start Stella, and I got the ship to move left and right and shoot in Space Invaders, only sometimes it did not move, did not fire, or start going automatically left on its own. I tried Pac-man as well, and during some test games it seemed to work, but after reseting or restarting stella, the pac-man would only move by pressing the keys. It's definitely not working right. However, this must be progress. I have included some activity logs and screenshots from USB overdrive.

I tried the USB classic clear blue stick on the same mac, Stella 4.0, and it was about the same. More conflict with the keys, I couldn't get to the ROMS folder to launch Stella, so I had to plug it in after launching, and of course that is improper. The log said no joystick present, but I suspect it would have been detected if I could start Stella with the controller plugged in. Pac-man was stuck on going left all the time. In USB overdrive, the proper direction shows up when I move the stick and press the button, except if you are say, down, and go back up, it still says down. Like it's not centering, it will show up when you move the stick up first or after fiddling with it.

 

PC Windows 7--Downloaded the drivers you mentioned, and a controller icon did pop up on the screen. The test was such that the icon kept disappearing and re-appearing if you touched the cable slightly. Tried a different cable and both controllers seemed to work. Seemed to lag and be pretty sluggish, getting you killed in Pac-man. But it did move at least!

 

Linux 12--Tried a Linux box, and the black revision 2 did not work, whereas the older blue one did work testing Space Invaders. However, it stopped working after trying a third game. It was with the old cable, and that could have caused that.

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overdrive_classic.tiff

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Edited by orion1052003
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Here are screenshots of Ubuntu Linux 12, Windows 7, and Mac OSX 10.7.5.

 

Here is the Linux readout of the USB ports. It lost its text format when traveling to mac.

 

I tried the controllers on a Linux box. "Welcome to Ubuntu 12.04 LTS" 32 bit. I tried listing everything connected to the USB ports, with the clear blue controller connected and lit up: owner@owner-desktop4:~$ lsusbBus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hubBus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hubBus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hubBus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hubBus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hubBus 006 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hubBus 007 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hubBus 005 Device 002: ID 046d:c52b Logitech, Inc. Unifying ReceiverBus 003 Device 003: ID 146b:0302 Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0930:6545 Toshiba Corp. Kingston DataTraveler 102 Flash Drive / HEMA Flash Drive 2 GB / PNY Attache 4GB Stickowner@owner-desktop4:~$ after unplugging :owner@owner-desktop4:~$ lsusbBus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hubBus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hubBus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hubBus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hubBus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hubBus 006 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hubBus 007 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hubBus 005 Device 002: ID 046d:c52b Logitech, Inc. Unifying ReceiverBus 001 Device 003: ID 0930:6545 Toshiba Corp. Kingston DataTraveler 102 Flash Drive / HEMA Flash Drive 2 GB / PNY Attache 4GB Stickowner@owner-desktop4:~$ and with the black cx-40:owner@owner-desktop4:~$ lsusbBus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hubBus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hubBus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hubBus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hubBus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hubBus 006 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hubBus 007 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hubBus 005 Device 002: ID 046d:c52b Logitech, Inc. Unifying ReceiverBus 001 Device 003: ID 0930:6545 Toshiba Corp. Kingston DataTraveler 102 Flash Drive / HEMA Flash Drive 2 GB / PNY Attache 4GB Stickowner@owner-desktop4:~$ Ok, I tried it again with the blue USB controller and it worked at first! It showed the controller in the log, all 4 directions and the button worked for about 3 games, then it completely stopped working, but still showwed as connected in the log

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