Controllers and peripherals

Controllers are objects like everything else. Spawn one, plug it into a console’s port, pick it up, and it works.

Virtual pads

Open SPAWN → Controllers. Alongside the generic retro pad there are system-specific ones — an NES pad, an Atari CX40 stick, a Virtual Boy pad — plus peripherals: a multitap for more players, a light gun, a mouse, and a keyboard.

Plug the pad’s lead into one of the console’s numbered controller ports. Port 1 is player one, and the ports are labeled, so a two-player game needs two pads in the right holes.

Then pick the pad up and play. Your thumbs drive the buttons directly.

Using a real gamepad, keyboard or mouse

Holding an imaginary controller is charming for about ten minutes. If you have real hardware — a gamepad, a keyboard, a mouse — RetroXR forwards it into a machine through a small box called a receiver, with nothing held in your hands.

A real device drives exactly one destination, and you say which by choosing the port you seat the receiver in.

That has its own page: using a real gamepad, keyboard or mouse.

Peripherals

• Multitap — plugs into one port and gives you several, for games that supported it.
• Light gun / ray gun — point it at the screen and pull the trigger.
• Mouse — for the systems that had one.
• Keyboard — for the computers that needed one.
• Motion controllers — a Wiimote with its nunchuk, MotionPlus and sensor bar.

Peripherals plug in the same way as pads, and the machine has to actually support them for a game to notice.

Needs an in-headset pass

This page is written from the code rather than from a session in the headset. The general model — spawn, plug into a port, pick up — is right, but the exact set of peripherals offered for a given console may differ. If you find something inaccurate, the Edit this page link at the bottom goes straight to the source.