Make your Trackball Work Mame2003 Retropie 4 4

After doing a lot of work to build my MAME Cabinet I discovered that at some point during all the software futzing that I did, the trackball stopped working. This made no sense to me as by running the cat command in terminal I could clearly see that the Raspberry Pi was getting input from the ball. Nonetheless, when I went to play a trackball game like Centipede or Missile Command, the trackball did nothing.

I searched online and found lots of people talking about the problem, but time and time again, the solutions they suggested did not work for me. Finally I found a thread talking about the "user index binds" in retroarch, which apparently used to be set automatically, but as of Retropie 4.4 need to be set individually. If all of that sounds like gobbledeegook, then this is the video for you. I don't get technical, and don't dive deep into the process but I do show you how to access the retro arch menu and I tell you where to find the items that you will need to change, if you are having the same problem I was.

Some important things to remember:
1.) You MUST access the retroarch menu from IN A GAME! going to the retroach menu from the Retropie option on the main wheel will not work.

2.) Your controller MUST have hot keys enabled. This is the last option when configuring a controller in Retropie. My hot key is the 'select' button, which I've assigned to what looks like the "player 1" button on my control panel. Also, you need to know which buttons are A, B, and X.

As stated in the video, if you don't know how to configure a controller, leave a comment in this video, and I'll shoot a video about it.

3.) After loading the game in question in lr-mame2003, press SELECT and X to enter the retroarch menu. To navigate the menu use the joystick to move up and down, A to select, and B to back out of the menu.

4.) When you enter the retroarch menu it will start you on a quick menu. So you'll need to back out by pressing the B button. That will get you to the main menu from which your will need to go into 'Settings'.

5.) In the 'Configuration' menu you will need to change the setting to Save upon EXIT from retroarch - ON. Then press B to back out. (Yes, I've seen people say how bad it is to save this way, but I don't know how else to do it, so if you know the better option, please leave a comment and let me know.)

6.) If you go to Input, you will find input user binds for all the possible players in retro arch. Select each one, one at a time and then look for the MOUSE INDEX number. Mine had defaulted to 0. When I changed it to 2, the mouse started working. You may need to try different setting to find what works on your system.

That's it. I hope this video is helpful. This is a problem I've fought with for over a year off and on, and am both happy and relieved to finally have solved!


Special thanks to Cousin Rex for providing royalty free music on soundcloud! I love your stuff and am grateful to have it improving my videos.

Sensemayá by Cousin Rex
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Thank you for providing Creative Commons Music!

lofi synth song that's not good, but i spent a long time on ft. bass guitar solo by Cousin Rex
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Thank you for providing Creative Commons Music!

Also Special Thanks to Weird Al Yankovic! Ummm... I really didn't ask for your permission to use a clip "First World Problems" so Thanks in advance for not suing me!