With the recent update of the RetroPie Setup Script another feature has found its way into the RetroPie Project: The auto configuration functionality of RetroArch is now supported! This allows to hot-swap (USB-) controllers while the RPi is running and the all RetroArch-based emulators will automatically detect the newly connected controller.

You have to follow only a few steps to make RetroArch recognize all your different controllers:

Register your controller with the help of the RetroPie Setup Script

In the RetroPie Setup Script, choose “Setup”. There, you can find a new menu entry “Register controller for RetroArch emulator”. Connect only the USB controller to the RPi that you would like to register and select “Register controller for RetroArch emulator”. A command-line tool that comes with RetroArch is started. You need to press the buttons shown on the screen. If your controller does not have the shown button you can wait for 4 seconds and the command-line tool will skip to the next button. At the end the configuration file issaved in the directory /home/pi/RetroPie/emulators/RetroArch/configs/ You can easily contribute to the RetroPie Project by sending me the configuration files that were generated for your controllers. Alternatively, you could use, e.g., pastebin.com and send me the link. The different configurations will be added to the official RetroPie Project and more and more controllers will be supported. Right after this update, configuration files for a wired Xbox 360 controller, SNESDev, and a Saitek controller are included in the RetroPie Setup Script. Update the input configuration of Emulation Station with the RetroPie Setup Script

Emulation Station uses its own configuration file for the input settings. Having a set of controller files from the previous step, you can easily auto-generate an updated version of the input configuration files by selecting “Update input configuration of Emulation Station” from within the “Setup” menu of the RetroPie Setup Script. Update the global RetroArch configuration

Go into the “Source-based installation” menu within the RetroPie Setup Script and select only “C) Configure video, rewind, and keyboard for RetroArch”. This will update the global configuration file of RetroArch and make it aware of the autoconfig files.



From now on all systems that are emulated with a RetroArch-based core will automatically detect the connected controller.

Another feature that came with the recent update of the RetroPie Setup Script is that you can install the driver xboxdrv for wired Xbox 360 controllers now. You can do this by selecting “Install drivers for XBox 360 Wired Controllers” from within the “Setup” menu of the RetroPie Setup Script.

What do you think of these features? Found any bugs or do you have any suggestions? Feel free to post a comment here or in the forum.