I've been having issues getting custom buttons for my controller working on RetroPie. I usually prefer having the O button on the bottom and the X button to the right and that's what it is on a desktop but they are flipped on the RetroPie. I've been following a few tutorials and they all say to make a sdl_controllers.txt file and edit it from there but it doesn't look like it changes the controls. I put them all to the same button and the controls were the same as usual. Has anyone been able to change the buttons?

these tutorials are probably for pico-8 running standalone, not through retropie. I think it’s retropie or emulationstation that get hardware inputs and send them to the consoles, so you’ll need to find the retropie/ES input settings for the pico-8 console and change them

After doing more digging, I found that the controls are the basic ones for the raspberry pi from playing the carts from a web browser and it would always default to them. It looks like the solution would be to change the controls from the Pico 8 software but the only things able to be edited are the keyboard controls instead of gamepad controls.

so you’re not trying my idea at all?

I apologize for not putting this in tge last comment. I did try your idea but when I found the file you mentioned there was no section for Pico8 and when I did make one it did not change controls.

this doc says you can reconfigure per-system or per-game: https://retropie.org.uk/docs/Controller-Configuration/

The problem with configuring it that way is that the method is done specifically for the libretro cores and makes files for each system individually based on it. For Pico 8, I am running it directly from the pi itself without using an emulation core so it does not have a section for the controls with the rest of the consoles.

aah I had no idea, given the title and original post!

in this case yes, it’s the sdl_controllers file that is the solution. you need to put it in the right location (see pico-8 docs), with the right config inside (there is a test tool that tells you the code for each button)

I managed to fix it. I downloaded the SDL2 controller mapper from general arcade to the Pi and ran the software to get the mapping for the controller. I then put that string into the sdl_controllers.txt in the Pico 8 folder and now it seems to work.

Thanks for answering as well. I also want to know it.