Hacking Wii U Pro Controller on Wii U Retroarch?

[Nick1]

Hi all,

Been searching around for an answer here but haven't been able to find one. I'm trying to use the Wii U Pro controller with Retroarch on my Wii U. When I launch Retroarch it shows the Gamepad as controller 1 and the Wii U Pro as controller 2. When I go into the input settings and switch controller 1 from Gamepad to Wii U Pro... everything stops working. Neither the Gamepad nor the Wii U Pro will control anything, and I have to reboot the Wii U.

Am I missing something simple here?

Thanks in advance.

 

[MikaDubbz]

The latest build of retroarch broke Pro Controller for player 1 support, and it also broke support for other player's controllers (besides player 1) from being able to navigate the menu. I believe they're aware and it should be fixed in the next build. You can use older builds and it should work though.

 

[Nick1]

Copy that. Thank you for the information.

One other question... what's the best place to check for when they've released a new build? Still learning how all of this works, so I appreciate your understanding *lol*

 

[mive]

this should show you updates if available, https://gitlab.com/4TU/hb-appstore/-/releases

 

[CaptainHIT]

Copy that. Thank you for the information.

One other question... what's the best place to check for when they've released a new build? Still learning how all of this works, so I appreciate your understanding *lol*

Why don't you check out the nightlies section? Maybe they already have a working version out there.

 

[MikaDubbz]

Why don't you check out the nightlies section? Maybe they already have a working version out there.

The latest nightly kinda implies that they're aware of the issue but it's definitely not fixed, they've removed the ability to even change to the pro controller option, doing some testing I've found that even starting a game with a second player input connected crashes the app. So I found an old copy of version 1.8.8 that I had (Current stable is 1.9.0) on my computer, loaded that up, and it works great, even has the working Ozone GUI which as I recall wasn't displaying the games properly on the Wii U for the longest time, I'm grateful that there was at least an overlap release of that working with the controller options not being all stupid.

Copy that. Thank you for the information.

One other question... what's the best place to check for when they've released a new build? Still learning how all of this works, so I appreciate your understanding *lol*

New builds are here: https://www.retroarch.com/?page=platforms
It has a link for deprecated versions, but it 404s, so I've uploaded stable version 1.8.8 which works great http://www.mediafire.com/file/an10jh9vee1q16x/Wii_U_RetroArch_rpx%281.8.8%29.7z/file

 

[Nick1]

So the controllers work with that build? Excellent! Thank you so much!

 

[Nick1]

Mika, so... I downloaded that and replaced it in my sd/wiiu/apps/retroarch folder... but when I start up Retroarch it still says it's version 1.90. Am I missing something?

 

[MikaDubbz]

Mika, so... I downloaded that and replaced it in my sd/wiiu/apps/retroarch folder... but when I start up Retroarch it still says it's version 1.90. Am I missing something?

Did you copy both the app files and the core files to your SD Card (the retroarch folder included that you put in the root of your SD card), and hitting yes to overwrite all the old ones? That should be all you have to do.

 

[Nick1]

I replaced the wwiu/apps/retroarch folder (which contains icon.png, meta.xml and retroarch.rpx). I didn't replace any of the core folders though.

Do those need to be replaced as well? If I'm using 1.8.8 will I need to not download any cores?

 

[MikaDubbz]

I replaced the wwiu/apps/retroarch folder (which contains icon.png, meta.xml and retroarch.rpx). I didn't replace any of the core folders though.

Do those need to be replaced as well? If I'm using 1.8.8 will I need to not download any cores?

Ok, so in the .zip I uploaded are 2 folders initially, the Retroarch folder and the Wii U folder. drag the Retroarch folder to the root of your SD Card and have it overwrite the files when it asks. In the other WIi U folder, enter that, then the apps folder, and then do as you did, grab that retroarch folder in there and overwrite the one inside your sd card's wiiu/apps/retroarch directory.

 

[Nick1]

That did it! I'm sorry, I didn't know I had to copy over the cores folder too, I thought it was just the Retroarch app that had to be changed. Sorry for the misunderstanding and thanks for the fast response!

If you wouldn't mind helping me with one other issue... I created a playlist for my NES games using the Retroarch Playlist Buddy and it shows up on the XMB menu under the NES controller icon... but the thumbnails/boxart only show up when I'm looking under the history icon.

Are they supposed to show up with the playlist too?

 

[MikaDubbz]

That did it! I'm sorry, I didn't know I had to copy over the cores folder too, I thought it was just the Retroarch app that had to be changed. Sorry for the misunderstanding and thanks for the fast response!

If you wouldn't mind helping me with one other issue... I created a playlist for my NES games using the Retroarch Playlist Buddy and it shows up on the XMB menu under the NES controller icon... but the thumbnails/boxart only show up when I'm looking under the history icon.

Are they supposed to show up with the playlist too?

They should show up in the playlists, you may have to adjust their visibility settings somewhere in the Retroarch menus. I dunno where off-hand, the Retroarch menus are not always as straightforward as they should be. But poke around and I'm sure you'll find the setting you need to change.

 

[Nick1]

Yeah, I'd been poking around but didn't find anything that worked yet. But the hunt goes on!

Thank you again for your help. I can use the Pro controller now, that's the important thing

 

[Nick1]

Hey it's me again... so, I built a playlist for my SNES titles the exact same way I did for NES and VB (with the Playlist Buddy) - NES and VB titles launch from the playlist just fine, but the SNES titles say "File could not be loaded from playlist."

However, if I go to "Load Content" instead, they work fine.

Any idea what might be happening there?