MacOS game controller not detected

[palmerj]

I'm running mame 0.272 from macos homebrew on MacOS 15.2 (24C101) and I can't get my gamepads detected. I'm testing with both a bluetooth PS5 controller and a 8bitdo M30.

The game controllers are detected with the SDL2 gamepad tester tool and shows up in the MacOS system settings.

I've tried setting joystickprovider to auto, sdlgame, and sdljoy and still not luck.

Verbose output from launching mame with mame mk2 -window -joystick -verbose is here: https://gist.github.com/palmerj/f87f19c6b3dfe479f633397d4fa67c23

mame.ini Config is here: https://gist.github.com/palmerj/689c521192e06458c90340bc9b0d913c

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[palmerj]

Can anyone help?

[rb6502]

Controller detection is completely a function of SDL. Your verbose output shows SDL did not see any controllers for whatever reason.

[rb6502]

Try -joystickprovider sdljoy since the higher-level SDL controller functions don't seem to be interested in cooperating.

[palmerj]

So more to this. I added some debugging when having both my PS5 and 8bitdo M30 (xbox mode) connected. I added some debugging code to the SDL2 gamepad module:

diff --git a/src/osd/modules/input/input_sdl.cpp b/src/osd/modules/input/input_sdl.cpp
index f1fb0241b40..65d7f04d26c 100644
--- a/src/osd/modules/input/input_sdl.cpp
+++ b/src/osd/modules/input/input_sdl.cpp
@@ -2677,9 +2677,10 @@ public:
 
 		sdl_joystick_module_base::input_init(machine);
 
-		osd_printf_verbose("Game Controller: Start initialization\n");
+		osd_printf_verbose("Game Controller: Start initialization num:%d\n", SDL_NumJoysticks());
 		for (int physical_stick = 0; physical_stick < SDL_NumJoysticks(); physical_stick++)
 		{
+			osd_printf_verbose("Game Controller: Start initialization physical_stick num:%d, IsGameController: %d\n", physical_stick, SDL_IsGameController(physical_stick));
 			// try to open as a game controller
 			SDL_GameController *ctrl = nullptr;
 			if (m_initialized_game_controller && SDL_IsGameController(physical_stick))

I've even added mapping for my 2 controllers into a custom db txt file:

030000005e0400008e02000014010000,6 Button,platform:Mac OS X,a:b0,b:b1,x:b2,y:b3,back:b9,guide:b8,start:b10,leftshoulder:b4,rightshoulder:a2,dpup:b11,dpdown:b12,dpleft:b13,dpright:b14,lefttrigger:b5,righttrigger:a5,
030000004c050000e60c000000010000,PS5 Controller,a:b1,b:b2,back:b8,dpdown:h0.4,dpleft:h0.8,dpright:h0.2,dpup:h0.1,guide:b12,leftshoulder:b4,leftstick:b10,lefttrigger:a3,leftx:a0,lefty:a1,misc1:b14,rightshoulder:b5,rightstick:b11,righttrigger:a4,rightx:a2,righty:a5,start:b9,touchpad:b13,x:b0,y:b3,platform:Mac OS X,

Running ./mame -controller_map gamecontrollerdb.txt -window mk2 -verbose I get the following:

Game Controller: 2 controller mapping(s) added from file [gamecontrollerdb.txt].
Game Controller: Start initialization num:0
Game Controller: End initialization

So SDL_NumJoysticks() is returning 0.

I've also built against a custom build version of SDL2 ensuring that MFI is built in:

mkdir build
cd build
../configure --enable-joystick-mfi
 make -j10
 make install

And tried the official downloaded framework for SDL2-2.30.10. Still no luck....

@rb6502 Sorry to bother but I see you wrote much of this SDL2 input code. Any idea?

[palmerj]

OK definitely something wrong with something the way SDL2 is looking for gamecontroller. This test code doesn't work:

#include <SDL.h>
#include <stdio.h>

int main(int argc, char* argv[]) {
    // Initialize SDL with joystick subsystem
    if (SDL_Init(SDL_INIT_JOYSTICK) < 0) {
        printf("SDL initialization failed: %s\n", SDL_GetError());
        return 1;
    }

    SDL_JoystickEventState(SDL_ENABLE);

    int num_joysticks = SDL_NumJoysticks();
    printf("Number of joysticks detected: %d\n", num_joysticks);

    for (int i = 0; i < num_joysticks; i++) {
        SDL_Joystick* joystick = SDL_JoystickOpen(i);
        if (joystick) {
            printf("\nJoystick %d:\n", i);
            printf("Name: %s\n", SDL_JoystickName(joystick));
            printf("Number of axes: %d\n", SDL_JoystickNumAxes(joystick));
            printf("Number of buttons: %d\n", SDL_JoystickNumButtons(joystick));
            printf("Number of hats: %d\n", SDL_JoystickNumHats(joystick));
            SDL_JoystickClose(joystick);
        } else {
            printf("Failed to open joystick %d: %s\n", i, SDL_GetError());
        }
    }

    printf("\nPress Enter to exit...");
    getchar();

    SDL_Quit();

    return 0;
}

gcc joy_test.c -o joy_test $(sdl2-config --cflags --libs)

./joy_test
Number of joysticks detected: 0

Press Enter to exit...

[palmerj]

OK i think this might be a regression caused by libsdl-org/SDL@63aff8e which was released in SDL2-2.30.9+. SDL2-2.30.8 works ok and the xbox controller is found. So I need to raised an issue with the SDL project

The PS5 controller issue was a separate issue can was fixed with a repairing.

[palmerj]

I've reported the bug in the SDL project here libsdl-org/SDL#11742. Would the MAME project be open to a patch to workaround this issue for the mean time?

[palmerj]

Ok seems like the SLD devs are saying this is a feature of SLD. So MAME would need some sort of delay or polling of devices...

[palmerj]

I could add a hack which adds a SDL_Delay (1000ms seems to be needed) like so:

 2674  +             // Give system time to detect initial controllers                                              
 2675  +             Uint32 start = SDL_GetTicks();                                                                 
 2676  +             while ((SDL_GetTicks() - start) < 1000) {  // 100ms timeout                                    
 2677  +                 SDL_PumpEvents();  // Process events without removing them from queue                      
 2678  +                 SDL_Delay(1);                                                                              
 2679  +             }        

or maybe rather than adding controllers during the module input_init start it should be picked up as a device event and added when the SDL event is processed - but I don't know the MAME architecture very well, and maybe that won't work...

[cuavas]

MAME needs to know what game controllers are available on start to set up default assignments.

Adding a delay of one second before getting anything on the screen definitely isn’t a good look.

[rb6502]

Would SDL_PollEvent() work? I'd rather not #ifdef the Core Foundation call, but it's still a better solution than an enforced 1 second delay.