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CONTROL_PROFILES.md

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Libretro control profiles

The core resolves the control signature declared by each game in Games.xml when content is loaded. The catalog is intentionally explicit because the Model 3 game list is effectively complete.

Games.xml input signature Libretro profile
analog_gun1 + analog_gun2 Gun
analog_joystick Special: Star Wars Trilogy Arcade
fishing Special: Fishing
joystick1 + joystick2 + fighting Joystick (Standard): Fighting
joystick1 + joystick2 + soccer Joystick (Standard): Soccer
joystick1 + spikeout Joystick (Standard): Fighting (Spikeout)
magtruck Special: Magical Truck Adventure
ski Special: Ski Champ
twin_joysticks Joystick (Twin)
vehicle + shift4 + handbrake + viewchange Driving: 4-Speed + VR1 + Handbrake
vehicle + shift4 + vr4 Driving: 4-Speed + VR4
vehicle + shiftupdown + harley + viewchange Driving: Sequential + VR1 (Harley-Davidson)
vehicle + shiftupdown + viewchange Driving: Sequential + VR1
vehicle + shiftupdown + vr4 Driving: Sequential + VR4

Implementation rules

  • A shared family is a physical RetroPad layout, not a union of logical cabinet inputs.
  • Fighting, Soccer, and Spikeout share the Joystick (Standard) layout but bind only their own actions.
  • Driving variants share the same base implementation. shift4, shiftupdown, viewchange, vr4, handbrake, and harley enable only the corresponding controls.
  • A recognized 4-speed driving profile maps L/R to sequential shift and uses the four remappable half-axis inputs as an H-gate by default: Up/Left selects Gear 1, Down/Left Gear 2, Up/Right Gear 3, and Down/Right Gear 4. The 4-Speed Shifter core option can switch to Standard, where each half-axis directly selects one gear. The option and its input descriptions update immediately.
  • Driving profiles expose only the linear steering axis to RetroArch. Digital sources such as the D-pad can be assigned to it using the frontend's native remapping, without a second digital steering path inside the core.
  • Driving tuning options remain visible for every game so their availability is predictable in RetroArch, but the core applies them only to recognized Driving profiles. Steering processing occurs after Libretro polling and before Model 3 reads the 8-bit steering ADC. It incorporates the Rad Mobile/Rad Rally MAME response work: Linear, Progressive, and FBNeo Logarithmic response and 50-150% output range. Linear / 100% is a transparent default and the processed position is always applied directly.
  • Output ranges above 100% saturate at the ADC limits, allowing full lock to be reached with less physical stick travel. Values below 100% reduce the emulated wheel's maximum excursion. The 63% preset maps the full physical axis to the exact 30-80-D0 hexadecimal range.
  • Accelerator and brake have independent output-range options governed by the same Driving-only application rule. Both are unipolar 00-FF axes and default to a transparent 100%. Their 75.3% preset maps full physical travel to the exact 00-C0 range.
  • Single-view driving cabinets map VR1 to D-Pad Up. The Sega Rally 2-style profile additionally maps Handbrake to South.
  • All 4-speed profiles expose Neutral on West, alongside the right-stick four-way gate and the L/R sequential controls.
  • Four-button VR cabinets use the D-Pad as a POV: VR1 Red/Up, VR2 Blue/Down, VR3 Yellow/Left, and VR4 Green/Right. This arrangement follows the button order reported by Daytona USA 2's Service menu.
  • Harley-Davidson maps VR1 to D-Pad Up, Rear Brake to South, and Music Select to East.
  • Magical Truck exposes one cabinet side per RetroPad: each player's centered analog lever uses the left stick Y axis and each foot pedal uses South.
  • Ski Champ maps the poles to L/R, Select 1 / Left (Blue) to West, the single Select 2 / Center (Red) command to both South and Start, and Select 3 / Right (Green) to East.
  • Fishing maps Cast (Red) to South and Start, Select (Yellow) to East, Reel to R2, and Tension to L2. Tension is used by the Japan Standard getbass set; Reel is an analog 00-FF speed value on all fishing cabinets.
  • Twin-stick cabinets map the left/right shot triggers to L2/R2 and the left/right turbo buttons to L/R.
  • Gun games default to Standard, combining Lightgun, Mouse, and Analog Stick. Absolute RetroLightgun coordinates, relative RetroMouse movement, and each RetroPad's left stick update one shared cursor per player. Dedicated Lightgun, Mouse, and Analog Stick modes restrict polling to the selected source. Mouse + Analog Stick keeps both relative cursor sources active without consuming RetroLightgun coordinates.
  • Standard-mode shot inputs are deliberately parallel: Lightgun Trigger/Reload and RetroPad South/East are Left/Right Shot. Lightgun Aux A is also accepted as Right Shot. IS_OFFSCREEN is position state and is never treated as a pressed button.
  • The core option can restrict the profile to Lightgun, Mouse, Mouse + Analog Stick, or Analog Stick. It is applied immediately; content does not need to be reloaded.
  • Star Wars Trilogy Arcade keeps its separately recognized analog-joystick profile but exposes the same five input-source modes as Gun games. Lightgun 1 absolute coordinates drive the arcade yoke; its Trigger/Aux A inputs are Trigger 1/Event 1, while Lightgun 2 supplies the cabinet's duplicated Trigger 2/Event 2 pair. Reload and offscreen state are not game actions. RetroMouse remains relative, while the RetroPad left stick preserves the cabinet yoke's absolute, self-centering behavior. Upright cabinet X-axis inversion is applied after all three sources converge on the virtual axis.
  • P1 and P2 remain logically independent. Actual two-mouse or two-lightgun operation still depends on the frontend input driver; RetroArch's macOS cocoa driver currently reports neither multi-mouse nor native lightgun support.
  • Independent P1/P2 mouse input has been validated on Batocera with two physical mice. Other frontends still require an input driver that exposes multiple pointing devices (for example Windows winraw or Linux udev/x11).
  • Supermodel's native game.inputs mask remains the final polling gate. A frontend .rmp can change physical bindings but cannot enable an input group absent from Games.xml.
  • RetroArch input descriptors are regenerated after content identification and list only controls belonging to the resolved profile.
  • RetroArch controller information is regenerated at the same time, so the current Port Device displays the exact recognized profile name instead of the generic RetroPad label.
  • The default device variant on each port is the complete detected profile with + Test/Service slots: Test uses L3 and Service uses R3 as ordinary remappable Libretro slots. The profile without these slots remains available as an explicit alternative device selected by the user.
  • An unknown signature receives the generic RetroPad fallback and a warning in the frontend log. It is never assigned to the closest known profile.