8BITDO NES30 Compatibility Issues - Can anyone help?
Posted: May 19th, 2017, 10:38 pm
Hello, I am new to the forums and was hoping someone here may be able to solve a problem I have been having. It's kind of long and complicated, but I'll do my best to be concise:
I recently bought a Retron 5 specifically to play my old GBA games, only to quickly learn that while the console itself is great, the controller is less than ideal - especially for platforming games due to the lack of a d-pad.
So I purchased 8BITDO's NES30 bluetooth controller along with a dongle that inserted into the NES controller port (I didn't think it mattered which console the dongle was for at first) on the Retron 5. I was able to connect, but the console seemed to be recognizing the controller as having the NES button layout without recognizing any of the additional buttons, which made playing the GBA games quite impossible.
After some research, I learned of this forum and followed through with instructions on another thread (here: viewtopic.php?f=9&t=228) for connecting the controller directly to the Retron 5 with a downloadable firmware update available to the controller itself. I was able to successfully follow all steps laid out in the thread's original post, and the final result for my own controller was as follows now:
The controller is connected directly to the console via bluetooth and is recognized as "Retron Wireless 2" - or something similar - but it seems to want to mirror the button layout of the original Retron 5 controller that I already had - which is a major problem considering it has significantly less buttons. "Y" and "B" on the NES30 now act as the "+" and "-" buttons on the Retron Wireless, and the "A" is the "down arrow"... which acts as the "B" button when used on the Retron's main controller - so it is currently reversed on the NES30. Apart from that, no other buttons work on the NES30 apart from the d-pad.
In my own troubleshooting attempts under the "Controllers" tab of the Retron's menu, I have tried changing the "Hotkey Configuration" for bringing up the menu, fast-forwarding, save states, ect - all to no avail. I the only preset hotkey I have for any of those is the menu (down, start) but the rest are blank and seemingly unable to be changed at all.
"Button Mapping" is entirely ineffective, as the "+" and "-" cannot be remapped from their current positions of "Y" and "B" on the NES30, and none of the other buttons work in any configuration when attempting to change them. I have had even tried changing the "System Playing Tab" and "Controller Used" to various other combinations besides "GBA" and "Retron Wireless" that I normally use with the stock controller, but that doesn't change anything either.
So now I am at the end of my current resources, so I have come here in the hope someone knows what to do. I really want to be able to use this NES30 controller - and I know the guy in the thread I linked was eventually able to use his - I just don't know if it was with his GBA games too, or if it doesn't matter on way or the other.
Hopefully I was able to describe my problem clearly enough that you can tell what I am even talking about. I'm not very experienced with this console yet and definitely do not know all the quirks or tricks. If you need clarification on something or more information, please let me know!
If it helps, my Retron 5 is at v2.42, and Software is v0.3.3.
Thanks!
I recently bought a Retron 5 specifically to play my old GBA games, only to quickly learn that while the console itself is great, the controller is less than ideal - especially for platforming games due to the lack of a d-pad.
So I purchased 8BITDO's NES30 bluetooth controller along with a dongle that inserted into the NES controller port (I didn't think it mattered which console the dongle was for at first) on the Retron 5. I was able to connect, but the console seemed to be recognizing the controller as having the NES button layout without recognizing any of the additional buttons, which made playing the GBA games quite impossible.
After some research, I learned of this forum and followed through with instructions on another thread (here: viewtopic.php?f=9&t=228) for connecting the controller directly to the Retron 5 with a downloadable firmware update available to the controller itself. I was able to successfully follow all steps laid out in the thread's original post, and the final result for my own controller was as follows now:
The controller is connected directly to the console via bluetooth and is recognized as "Retron Wireless 2" - or something similar - but it seems to want to mirror the button layout of the original Retron 5 controller that I already had - which is a major problem considering it has significantly less buttons. "Y" and "B" on the NES30 now act as the "+" and "-" buttons on the Retron Wireless, and the "A" is the "down arrow"... which acts as the "B" button when used on the Retron's main controller - so it is currently reversed on the NES30. Apart from that, no other buttons work on the NES30 apart from the d-pad.
In my own troubleshooting attempts under the "Controllers" tab of the Retron's menu, I have tried changing the "Hotkey Configuration" for bringing up the menu, fast-forwarding, save states, ect - all to no avail. I the only preset hotkey I have for any of those is the menu (down, start) but the rest are blank and seemingly unable to be changed at all.
"Button Mapping" is entirely ineffective, as the "+" and "-" cannot be remapped from their current positions of "Y" and "B" on the NES30, and none of the other buttons work in any configuration when attempting to change them. I have had even tried changing the "System Playing Tab" and "Controller Used" to various other combinations besides "GBA" and "Retron Wireless" that I normally use with the stock controller, but that doesn't change anything either.
So now I am at the end of my current resources, so I have come here in the hope someone knows what to do. I really want to be able to use this NES30 controller - and I know the guy in the thread I linked was eventually able to use his - I just don't know if it was with his GBA games too, or if it doesn't matter on way or the other.
Hopefully I was able to describe my problem clearly enough that you can tell what I am even talking about. I'm not very experienced with this console yet and definitely do not know all the quirks or tricks. If you need clarification on something or more information, please let me know!
If it helps, my Retron 5 is at v2.42, and Software is v0.3.3.
Thanks!