Stand by for a long rant post. But saying how I’m using it, shows it had a happy ending. But I did promise I would discuss this.
So, getting Dolphin setup to simulate using a Wiimote is quite tricky. Mainly because, I never used a Wiimote in my life. I had to go through several websites to try to find the actual button layout for the Wiimote. Finally found something sort of helpful.
But when setting my keybinds, it seemed that my WASD keys (the standard movement keys) weren’t exactly bound to my arrow keys. Yet trying to get my Arrow keys to move (with the up arrow for jumping), it just didn’t seem to work.
And then there was the simulated shaking of the Wiimote. My mouse is the only thing that has an Axis. And going by the IR readout, the red dot was going all over the place. It definitely showed when I thought I had a comfortable layout. And then the game says in level 1-2.. “Tilt your Wiimote sideways!”, and I’m all “Ohh hell..”
See, it worked fine when moving the mouse up (to simulate shaking the Wiimote up), but when tilting and how the cursor was just going everywhere… ugh.
Looked around online for some sort of fix. Saw people prefer to use a controller. So I thought “I wonder if I can get my PS4’s controller to work?” I keep hearing on Youtube how people manage to do it to play GTAV on the PC, using a PS4 controller. So surely it would be as easy as just unplugging the USB from my PS4 and plugging it into the back of my PC, right? .. Right??
Wrong… (well, sort of)
There’s two ways to do it. One requires money, and the other requires you to lower your guard and allow adware to infect your system(to make your controller work). Well, thankfully (though I can’t really say that for sure), I did find what is claimed to be an Adware-free program called ‘InputMapper’.
Using it, you’re also required to install some drivers, called ‘Microsoft Xbox 360 Accessories”. This tricks your computer to think you’re using an Xbox 360 controller. The reason I have to go through this hell, is because Sony never considered it to be a good idea to release drivers to make the PS4 controller work with a PC. This is really the only way.
The other way is to use a Bluetooth device (the ‘requires money’ option).
First time I used the program (the ‘InputMapper’ thing), it failed to find my device (even though it was plugged in). It was here where I knew I had been tricked into a false sense of security, and quickly removed the files. What’s bad about them, is the fact one requires to be installed directly into core Windows (can’t use Sandboxie to give me protection).
Tried to look up another reason. It seemed no matter where I looked, I got told to go to the same thing. One even said how the ‘Xbox 360 Accessories’ thing was directly from Microsoft themselves. Yet the second program, I had my doubts (still do at times).
So I tried it again, grabbing the drivers directly from Microsoft and reinstalled InputMapper. Again, it failed to find my controller.
It took a good 10 minutes until I tried something. I’m sitting there staring at my controller. Then I noticed the battery pack and wondered “could this be why it can’t find it?” So I popped it off, having really no hope it would work. Plugged in the Mini-USB adapter… and it worked!! :O
All of this time, it was the battery pack that was throwing everything off. It has to be connected directly to the PS4 controller for it to recognize it.
And sure enough, Dolphin works great with my controller. Got most of the buttons mapped out. Left stick is movement. Right stick is the ‘shaking’ part of the Wiimote(a proper axis). X is the ‘A’ button, Circle is the ‘B’ button. Triangle is the ‘1’ button, and Square is the ‘2’ button.
Lastly, L1 is the ‘-‘ button, R1 is the ‘+’ button, and the OPTIONS button is the ‘Start’ button(which brings up the Wiimote pause screen).
.
So there you go. Will I do a video review of the game? I dunno. Maybe in the future, when I get a more beefy computer. Emulators (these modern ones anyway) are kind of hard on the CPU (yes, I said CPU, not GPU).