SNES Emulation Under Android

[Craig 1,435]

Screenshot from Pro¹ of DKC stretched to 16:9.  The android buttons aren't usually visible, they popped up when I held down power for the screenshot menu.

So I figured I'd give this a try and see what works well for Pro¹ when playing with keyboard.

Two Main Issues:

(1) Audio Crackle During Sound Effects.  This happens on some android games too and I assume is a Pro¹ bug that will be fixed in an update, but if a certain emulator doesn't do it, please post!

(2) Simultaneous Key-presses don't work on some keys, including the arrow keys.   They do work on modifiers, and I found a way to remap most controls to modifiers to avoid this issue with Snes9x Ex, but not so much in Retroarch, at least until a better workaround from fxtec or community comes along.

Snes9x EX (Reccommended)

Although it only supports SNES, it has one big advantage over Retroarch - it sees all the keys on the Pro¹ keyboard (except Fx key)!  And, you can assign discrete keys for diagonal movement if you want.    Although no fancy thumbnails or search like retroarch, it's very fast to scroll around a long list to find games, and there's also a recents list, and it seems to automatically save games when you exit.

Since you can use all key combinations, I made what I think is the ideal keymap for side scrolling games.  You're using your left thumb for movement, mainly with Alt & Sym, and your right thumb for button presses, mainly (right) Ctrl & Slant Arrow (called Left Control & Function by this app, respectively).   Of course turn off control overlay, and reset your menu key to Esc (which it sees as back) or whatever you want.     What you cannot do with this layout is combinations up/down/diagnoal with x, however they work with aby, and left/right work with all buttons.  So this may not be ideal layout for all games, but suits many, and good starting point.

 

 

Retroarch  (not reccommended)

In settings, Set scale factor to 0.5-0.6 unless you want UI huge.   Disable the controller overlay. In hotkey binds, change menu toggle to tab because the Esc key is NOT recognized in this emulator at all (or by Android as back - its non functional).

Additionally, the  Sym & Slant arrow keys not recognized.   This makes it hard to find a way to map player 1 contols that I've found.  I went as pictured, the limitation here is no diagnol movements...

Note gameplay is smooth, I used Snex9x core. 

 

Edited December 17, 2019 by Craig

[Craig 1,435]

updated original post with better solution

[EskeRahn 5,471]

(Note that the two shifts and ctrls seems electrical in parallel - that might be why they call it a 64 key device, despite it having 66)

[Wasmachineman_NL 99]

Almost a year later and it seems the audio crackle issue is still a thing, I tried running Pokemon Explorers of Darkness under RetroArch on my Pro1, it's slow and has audio issues. Wat do?

[VaZso 1,998]

3 hours ago, Wasmachineman_NL said:

Almost a year later and it seems the audio crackle issue is still a thing, I tried running Pokemon Explorers of Darkness under RetroArch on my Pro1, it's slow and has audio issues. Wat do?

They have definitively done something regarding crackle issue as I have often experienced it earlier but I don't notice it now using the very same applications.

However, it can be still a problem with Pro1 somewhere or the emulator itself.