BobZ

I figured it out! I run Stella using the command line parameter “-ma 20” that sets which mouse axis is one paddle vs the other. There’s a little table in the documentation that shows the valid combinations.

Thanks but “swap paddles” doesn’t help. What that does is swap between my mouse/paddle being player #2 or player #4. Swap paddles is one of the first things I tried. For reference I’m looking at this site: https://stella-emu.github.io/docs/index.html#ControlMap I do the keyboard shortcuts: Ctrl+2, Ctrl+3, Ctrl+4 and Ctrl+5 were all tried. Those have to do with swapping paddles, swapping left & right, selecting controllers for the ports…..I would have thought something here was the answer, but no. My mouse/paddle is always either player 2 or player 4. There just has to be a way to make it player #1. What a pain in the butt, lol!

With Stella 6.7 I’m having difficulty trying to figure out how to set my mouse so it’s essentially player #1 instead of player #2. Testing it in 2600 Warlords is a great example. If I start a 4 person game, I see my mouse controls player 2 (top right player). That’s a problem because in games that require a paddle, it needs to be player 1. I’ve been using Stella for years. I’m fairly familiar with the documentation and menus. But I can’t get this so work. If I try a 1 player game of warlords, it doesn’t work properly because my mouse/paddle is bound to player 2. Same if I try to play Kaboom. My mouse/paddle won’t control the buckets because Stella has it set as player 2. How do I flip or remap so my mouse emulates the other paddle controller? (Player 1). With my older Stella version I’d edit the config file but now there’s a .SQLite file instead and I’m not familiar with it. Thanks! I’ve tried a bunch of mapping from the GUI with 0 effect. The config file used to be a text file which I knew how to edit….

I use my original Wico Atari Joystick in RetroPie (Rasp Pi 3b+) and turned a usb mouse into a paddle controller. Both work great. I’m using the joystick with Atari 2600 and 800xl emulation. I use the paddle for the 2600 only of course. With the joystick, I also set up buttons to emulate all of the switches on the actual 2600 console. I’ll paste links to the videos for each. I don’t get into technical details but neither builds were difficult. If anybody is interested I’d be glad to reply with details.

That’s okay, I appreciate the suggestions. Makes no sense to me either. I’ll just use it for PC Stella. I just made a quick and dirty spinner like the video showed as it works great!!! Link here:

Just “Paddles” produces terrible results - jittery, jumpy, etc.... I’ve already tried every combination of settings. The only one where my mouse works well is IAxDR. But the motion is reversed. Any other settings produce an unusable result. I just built a quick test version of the spinner as in the video posted on here - that works well. I’ll just build that for my RetroPie. I’ll stick to the mouse/paddle in Stella for the PC version.

Paddles_IAxDR is the setting I use. That works best. It’s reversed as I was saying...and other setting are pretty lousy. If I press the TAB button to get to the Stella config menus, the mouse goes in the correct direction!! WTF. Exit the menus and I’m in reverse for game play. I tried the Stella version RetroPie uses by default then I upgraded to whatever version it uses when you tell it to go out to the github Stella site and get the most recent. I think the issue is the Stella on Linux or whatever version you get with RetroPie. I can stick to Stella on my PC but I use RetroPie for all of my game emulators. It would be nice to have it all in 1 place.

Yes, I’ve tried that. I methodically tested every permutation on the Game Properties/controllers tab. I can always just run Stella from my PC if I want to play a paddle game I guess! Not sure why Stella on Linux (RetroPie) is giving me this issue. Plus I could create a spinner like the video above - you can change the axis physically on the spinner by adjusting it. So there’s that. I definitely have a few work around options. Just bummed I can’t get this to work as expected!

That’s cool. I’m saying I use a mouse but it’s actually mouse internals inside of an Atari Paddle that I built. So it’s really still a mouse, much like the build you posted. What’s odd is that if I run Stella on my PC it works as expected. When I run Stella from my RetroPie (my default), the control is reversed. Even weirder...inside Stella on the RetroPie, you can also use the mouse in Stella for navigating all of the config menus. My mouse/paddle goes in the correct direction inside Stellas menus!!! Then I exit the config menus and the mouse is back to reverse. So I really thought the solution resides inside the Stella configs somewhere. I haven’t found where so far! I like the fidget spinner controller, that’s great. Maybe I’ll build that too....stuck indoors with extra time!

I use a mouse for 2600 games that normally use a paddle (Warlords, Kaboom,etc). but the direction is reversed....left is right and right is left. I have the full Stella users manual but don’t see where I could reverse that so left=left and right=right. I’ve tested a bunch of setting changes with no luck! any suggestions? Bob