Setup Xbox 360 controller with Padstarr for all of Hyperspin

[diskmach]

 

Hi guys,

 

I thought I would share my controller setup in Hyperspin for the Xbox 360 controller, as everything I tried earlier presented various problems and/or had bugs (Xpadder, JoyToKey, HyperSpin Startup Script and antimicro). If I read the forums, I don’t seem to be alone. So maybe this will benefit someone.

 

So you know, my setup is Windows 10 x64, can’t guarantee how this will work in other OS. I have 69 systems set up, plus Hypersearch.

 

So, for those of you who haven’t heard of it, Padstarr is like the “new version” of Pinnacle Game Profiler, and supposedly (it seems right) the most feature-rich game profiler. It costs USD 5.99 at the time of writing this.

 

The real benefit here are “exclusions”, that stop all active profiles when a certain program is active and restores it when exiting that program, so that for, for example Retroarch, I would set up the controller in the emulator for each system, then all I would need to do in Padstarr is to add an exclusion for the emulator. Then it would automatically switch back to the Hyperspin profile I made. Of my 69 systems 61 works in this way and are fully automated. In addition this works for single PC Games that has controller support.

 

For the systems AAE, Dice and RCA Studio 2 (Emma 02) I have set up profiles, as the controller can’t be configured directly in these systems. These profiles auto-start, but I can’t have auto-stop on them, as the Hyperspin profile can’t be started in that case. Instead I set up the Guide button to hot swap back to the Hyperspin profile. This command plays a sound when pressed, so I know where I am (but see bug note 2 below). This setup also goes for systems ScummVM, and Sega Pico (Fusion), where I basically have an empty profile with just mouse on the right analog stick, and mouse buttons on LT and RT, as I needed to add mouse control for them. This is also what I would use for single PC games that does not have controller support, although most that I have do, and I haven’t really gone through my collection yet.

 

For Wii and Wiiware, the Hyperspin profile can of course remain active, as I’m using the Wiimote, so the procedure is: start game in HS – press 1+2 on Wiimote, it connects – play game –turn off Wiimote by long pressing the power button – exit with Xbox controller.

 

Gamecube was a bit trickier. I couldn’t get neither exclusion nor auto-start to work, and it was problematic to exit the Emulator. My solution for now: start game – switch manually to an empty profile, that has only “Alt” on press the left

analog stick and “F4” on press the right analog stick + hot swap to Hyperspin profile on the Guide button – play – exit with Alt-F4 on the sticks – use Guide button to go back to the Hyperspin profile. Messy but working...

 

Rocketlauncher profile for the Pause function is identical to the Hyperspin profile and works with just auto-start. Long press start takes me to the Pause screen.

 

Hypersearch works “out of the box”, set up in the main menu wheel.

 

The F1 key that needs to be pressed when starting a Triforce game, I set up at long press on right analog stick.

 

 

Note. Padstarr needs to be minimized at all times, so start the HS profile by right-clicking it in the notification area.

 

General exit is set in Rocketlauncher to long press select.

 

 

Bug note.    Padstarr is not bug-free. But right now, I don’t have any problems that breaks the setup.

 

1. I can’t set Padstarr to start when Windows boot. There is a setting for this in the profiler, I also tried to do it manually, but no go. Just start it manually when ready to start up Hyperspin.

 

2. There is an option to play a custom sound file when executing a command, this would be pretty cool if it was working, maybe just a voice saying “Hyperspin profile activated”, or “deactivated” when you manually execute such a command? The built-in sounds work though. The developer is aware of the bug.

 

3. At some point I had problems if I forgot to switch on the controller before I started the profile in Padstarr, then I couldn’t get it going again, Padstarr said “Device not attached”,

even when I restarted the controller/Padstarr. But recently I haven’t been seeing this behaviour.  Possibly due to a faulty Logitech mouse that I uninstalled, or it was fixed in the latest release,  but I’m not sure.

 

4. The biggest problem came from crashes in the exclusions list. When adding an exclusion Padstarr would crash, although upon reopening, the exclusion would still be saved.

Annoying, but what was worse was that when clicking in the exclusion list in order to remove an exclusion, the program would also crash. So if I tested out an exclusion, but it didn’t work, I couldn’t remove it. Workaround was to install another instance of the emulator and use that instead. Now this bug seem to have disappeared magically, possibly due to factors mentioned above under 3.

 

 

Edit: April 20, 2016

Padstarr is now at version 2.2.0. Bugs/problems note 3 and 4 are long gone. And I have a fix for note 1 above in post #22 below. That leaves note 2, where still nothing seems to have happened. Well, not a deal-breaker anyway...

 

 

So, to sum it up, I should never have to rely on the keyboard or mouse from starting until exiting Hyperspin  – unless something crashes…

[Metalzoic]

Interesting. First I've ever heard of padstar but I'll try to remember it if I ever need to use anything like Xpadder, Joy2Key etc...

[Spawk]

I can't see what this does that joytokey doesn't as well. This also sounds much harder since you don't have full RocketLauncher support. Not sure what you mean by exclusions, only 1 profile is ever active at a time with JTK/RL. Each profile can have up to 16 joysticks configured. Profiles also extend down to game level. Holds, button combos, mouse clicks, all easily done. If you were having difficulties doing any of this stuff with JTK, you had it setup wrong. Maybe you were trying to configure everything in JTK instead of inside RL???

 

All that being said, controls are constantly a topic around here because everyone has a multitude of variations with the hardware/software they use in their setups. Having a few more options at hand is never a bad thing.

 

I can give this advice to people: Pick 1 thing to handle your controls! Having multiple options like JTK and xpadder both trying to control things at the same time is bound to cause issues. Know where your controls are handled from! If you feel the need to use 1 of these programs, then avoid using any startup scripts that also try to control HS navigation. Or possibly create a blank HS profile and let the script handle it??? Don't repeat game controls! Most emulators configure all controls itself. These profiles are only for ones that don't, or for other functions that are not mappable to the joystick (like exiting, savestates, screencaptures). Even if you don't need any extra functions for a system, still create the blank profile for it so RL can switch to it! This will ensure no other profile is loaded to interfere.

[diskmach]

Metalzoic: So what are you using?

 

 

Spawk: I wasn´t really trying to relate this to other methods, saying it´s better. I was just telling you about my setup, that is fully functioning and works for me.

And I´m not convinced that "Rocketlauncher support" is totally necessary. If it`s working, it´s working.

 

It´s a bit difficult to remember the problems you had after a few months, but I think with JoyToKey it was "the Read Only, can`t save profile" problem that i couldn´t

seem to get around at the time. Maybe it could have been fixed, but at some point you`re bound to look into other solutions.

 

Was my setup hard to accomplish? Well, I had to get around a couple of bugs, as you can see from my post. And I admit that I spent some time trying to figure out how this would work, and testing it,

but the actual clicking around in Padstarr, creating profiles and making "exclusions" was done in minutes rather than hours...

 

Exclusions, again, in Padstarr, is just a list of programs/emulators/games that stops the running profile and restores it when you exit said program. So I start the Hyperspin profile, run

Hyperspin, start a game, and when Retroarch, for example, starts, it suspends the HS profile and restores it upon exiting the emulator. It is "fully automated", I don`t have to press any extra buttons.

Did I explain it better this time?

[Metalzoic]

Metalzoic: So what are you using?

Nothing. Just my control panel using an iPac with a single profile. For the handful of games I need to tweak the controls for I just do it using AHK in the RLUI Keymapper.

I guess I do have a couple PC games (Castle Crashers for example) that I use Xinput for to make it think my control panel is a 360 controller.

Other than those few everything just works.

[Spawk]

Yeah you sort of did... although I seiously laughed at the "rather than hours" bit. But then again, I never had issues with reading or saving either. Maybe this is a Windows 10 issue (still on win7 here)??? Setup took me less time than reading this thread.

"Fully automated" is the whole reason why these keymappers are integrated into RL! Just create the profile in RL... done! RL will load it anytime you start that system. No "exclusions" necessary. It doesn't matter what emulator you use or what is in any other profile.

I don't mean for any of this to sound like a knock on you either. If it works for you and you are happy, then that's great! Like I said more options are never a bad thing. Just don't want people to think that jtk is "buggy" just because you couldn't get it set up.

Sent from my SGH-I337M using Tapatalk

[Metalzoic]

There are constantly people n here with Xpadder & Joy2Key issues though.

Maybe it's possible this would work better for them.

[diskmach]

Spawk: "No "exclusions" necessary". 

So what is the problem with exclusions, it´s adding a program to a list? Done in seconds rather than minutes...

 

And JoyToKey DID present a problem for me, but I never said it was buggy...

 

 

Metalzoic: I second that...

[diskmach]

If someone would like to try out this setup, I could post my profiles for Padstarr here, and give more details

if needed. Just reply here.

[mintee]

If someone would like to try out this setup, I could post my profiles for Padstarr here, and give more details

if needed. Just reply here.

 

I'd like to check them out please.

[diskmach]

Here you go.

 

See attached textfile for Game Settings when importing profiles into Padstarr.

 

Padstarr profiles for Hyperspin by diskmach.7z

[ChinMuzik]

I'm confused as to why you couldn't set an exclusion for Hyperspin with RCA Studio II.

So this way when you exit the Studio II emulator, it should swap back to the HS profile. Provided HS profile is the default one?

I ask because I am in the middle of configuring Padstarr for navigation through HS exclusively via gamepad and, IMO, it is by far the best option.

[diskmach]

I'm confused as to why you couldn't set an exclusion for Hyperspin with RCA Studio II.

So this way when you exit the Studio II emulator, it should swap back to the HS profile. Provided HS profile is the default one?

I ask because I am in the middle of configuring Padstarr for navigation through HS exclusively via gamepad and, IMO, it is by far the best option.

 

 

Hi ChinMuzik. Yes, it´s quite good, right, when you´re getting it all set up?

 

With RCA Studio II, (Emma 02), I´m not able to configure the gamepad in the Emulator´s keymapper. Did you manage that?

Give me a hint on how to do it if you did.

 

If you manage, and go for an exclusion instead, remember, if you don´t delete the profile, to uncheck "auto-start when detected" under Game Settings for the profile.

 

Anyway, it´s easy to change the settings within Padstarr for the profiles I provided. There is always room for improvements.

[ChinMuzik]

Hi ChinMuzik. Yes, it´s quite good, right, when you´re getting it all set up?

 

With RCA Studio II, (Emma 02), I´m not able to configure the Pad in the Emulator´s keymapper. Did you manage that?

Give me a hint on how to do it if you did.

 

If you manage, and go for an exclusion instead, remember, if you don´t delete the profile, to uncheck "auto-start when detected" under Game Settings for the profile.

 

Anyway, it´s easy to change the settings within Padstarr for the profiles I provided. Probably there are improvements you could make with them.

Yes, it's a lifesaver

One thing I haven't figured out yet (and Rob is, relatively, slow getting around to emails)..id how to assign a combination keystroke in the command editor.

i.e., ALT+X (exit in VICE64) assigned to START button on the gamepad.

Ah, you're using Emma for Studio II

Why not MESS?

[diskmach]

As I recall, I tried RCA Studio II in MESS first, but it looked scrambled in a way. Maybe there has been improvements in the emulation since then.

 

You´re right about Rob, he can be slow in answering, and he can be quite selective when it comes to answering at all...

 

Anyway, I think this is how you can do it:

 

Go to "Edit profile" for the profile you want to set up "Alt-X" for.

Choose "Menu - Command Editor".

Click "New".

Give your new command a name under "Command", say "Alt-X".

Press "Edit Steps" (edit mode: "Wizard").

Press "Keyboard Key". Now Press "Alt" key. Press "OK".

Press "Keyboard Key" again. Press "X" key. Press "OK".

Click "Finish Editing".

Alt-X command should now be listed to the left.

Click "Back to profile Editor".

Now you can click the start button in the profile editor and go to "Assignment - Assign Command - Alt-X"

"Back to Game Launcher" - run it and try it out!

 

 

Edit: To be clear, when creating your command, don´t just press OK and accept the default, you´ll be sending Alt-X multiple times, as the default is "hold" for a key. "Alt" needs to be "hold", and "X" needs to be "press".

[diskmach]

Cross-referencing a method to use Padstarr and the Guide Button to launch Hyperspin.

 

From: http://www.hyperspin-fe.com/topic/18545-360-guide-button-to-launch-hyperspin/

 

 

Created a "Desktop profile" in Padstarr. Added a command to it: "Hotswap profile" - "Switch to Hyperspin profile". Set this to the Guide button. It´s the only thing in that profile.

Hyperspin profile is set to autostart Hyperspin.

Add the "Desktop profile" as "Desktop profile" in Global settings. Done! With Padstarr running, press Guide button and Hyperspin launches!

[damageinc86]

I used to have the guide button launch Hyperpause, or RL's PAUSE feature now.  Once Hyperspin starts, could you have padstarr load a hyperspin navigation profile?

[diskmach]

I used to have the guide button launch Hyperpause, or RL's PAUSE feature now.  Once Hyperspin starts, could you have padstarr load a hyperspin navigation profile?

 

When testing the profile setup with RL - Pause, I had problems getting it to work with auto-stop profile. So my setup is:

launch Pause with long press start, RL profile becomes active, when exiting Pause, RL profile is still active. Now I basically have two choices:

double-click Guide button takes me back to the Hyperspin profile via Empty profile, or "pretend" that the RL profile is the Hyperspin profile, as they are identical.

There might be a better way to do this, haven´t given it that much thought...

[damageinc86]

Na, what I mean is that after your profile that allows you to use the guide button to start hyperspin is engaged and hyperspin is running, you could have an autodetect for hyperspin.exe that loaded a hyperspin navigation profile correct?

[diskmach]

I might be misunderstanding you again, but when you do that stuff in post # 16, hyperspin profile is still active at the end?

My Hyperspin profile is set to auto-start when detected. Hope that answers your question?

[diskmach]

Tip: make a note of the exclusions you have.

 

Updates are good. Padstarr is at version 2.2.0 now,

but the latest update seems to have eaten my exclusions...

 

 

Edit:

 

Says Rob:

 

"The exclusions list is stored in the proexcpt.dat file, so if you go to START MENU > SEARCH/RUN and enter %APPDATA%\PowerUp Software\Pinnacle Game Profiler\ then you will find the file there. If you backup that file then you can overwrite it again in your new installation."

 

 

Well, it´s actually in %APPDATA%\Roaming\Padstarr\...

 

 

Edit again:

 

I managed to make a restore from my WHS 2011 backup. 

Exclusions are back again. Make backups, folks!

[diskmach]

Fix for Padstarr not auto-starting with Windows.

 

When Padstarr is set to run as administrator, it won't auto-start with Windows.

If  you set it to run with normal privileges, it starts up with Windows, but gives an error message

that you have to click and Padstarr restarts again. I'm not sure about ill effects not running as admin.

 

But here is a fix to get it to auto-start and with admin rights:

I used Task Scheduler to schedule it to start.

 

First, go to Padstarr - "Global settings".

Set "Automatically load Padstarr when Windows starts up" to OFF.

"Always run Padstarr as Admin" to ON.

 

Set up a task with Task Scheduler, you can follow this guide:

 

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/67503-task-create-run-program-startup-log.html

 

It's for Windows 7, but it looks the same in Windows 10.

 

So, basically, that should take care of the problem, and Padstarr will auto-start.

[diskmach]

If you ever get an error about "The configuration data is corrupt! Padstarr cannot load this profile" in Padstarr, the solution is to go to game settings for that profile (game/emulator), and delete the path to the .exe, instead enter the path to the .exe's folder. That should do it.

[DillyDilly]

Has there been any progress with J2K/Rocket Launcher mapping??? 

Seems like this is one of the constant trouble points in setting up a HS rig?

[diskmach]

Some people are saying that they never had the problem in Windows 10 that I described above, yet many have reported it as well. I haven't checked this again as Padstarr is working for me.

Did you mean to say that you have the same problem I described somewhere here?