Assigning a button combo to save and load states

itsallgood · Post by **itsallgood** » Thu May 01, 2008 6:29 am

Hi,
I just purchased a SNES retroport and it works just fine, but with all the buttons on the real snes controller mapped to the emulators buttons, there are no leftover buttons on a snes controller to map to save or load a state.

What would be great is if in the config/saves menu the user could enter a button combo instead of just 1 button for the save and load fields. For example, assigning [L+select] to load and [L+start] to save. This would make it possible to use save and load states with a controller when playing games that use all the controller buttons.

Or even in a more general sense it would be useful overall to be able to assign button combos to all emulator functions instead of 1 button. So then the user can have all the buttons assigned for in-game and use combos to control the emulator.
Thanks for your consideration.

Post by **odditude** » Thu May 01, 2008 6:45 am

Seconded.

The ability to assign commands to key or button combinations has practical usage, and also provides the side benefit of helping to prevent fat-fingering and unintentionally using the wrong command.

If I'm not making sense, ask for clarification.

DancemasterGlenn · Post by **DancemasterGlenn** » Thu May 01, 2008 6:47 am

I see this conflicting with any game that uses button-based soft resets.

Post by **odditude** » Thu May 01, 2008 7:00 am

Still, I think the potential benefit outweighs the potential downside. Given that the key definitions can be changed at will, I'd say that issue can be avoided rather easily.

Speaking of games with soft-resets... Bubsy had the worst idea for that EVER (just L + R) - it was far too easy to reset the game accidentally. Not that the game is really worth playing, but I digress...

DancemasterGlenn · Post by **DancemasterGlenn** » Thu May 01, 2008 7:05 am

Is that seriously the soft reset for that game? Wow, I've owned it for years and never triggered that once... weird.

I understand the benefits, of course, but the point still stands. It would be nice to have a "safety" button so that you don't trigger a save state by accident, but I don't think it would be wise to set it up using already-used buttons. Buttons are always configurable, however, so I guess it's not out of the question that it would be safe on a controller with more buttons.

Kajuru · Post by **Kajuru** » Thu May 01, 2008 2:56 pm

You could set a different key combo for games that use soft reset, to prevent accidents.

It would go like this:
In the Input# screen, you'd set A,B,X,Y,L,R,etc,..., HOTKEY1, HOTKEY2, HOTKEY3, HOTKEY4

In the Save Options screen, you'd set Save to hotkey1, and Load to hotkey2.

PS: That's for general games, if there's a risky button in a certain game, just set it Game Specific and use a different hotkey or disable it altogether.

PS: Optionally, this could go into the Key Combo editor, except that, rather than setting one key to execute multiple commands, it would be multiple keys triggering one command.

paulguy · Post by **paulguy** » Thu May 01, 2008 3:11 pm

I like the idea of at least setting a modifier key for certain "damaging" functions like save/load state. So if you set it to control or something, you'd have to press CTRL+F2 or CTRL+F4 or if you're using a PSX pad and you have save/load as L2/R2 you can set the modifier to one of the analog stick buttons to prevent slipping and ruining your game. As far as configuring what functions require the modifier, I have no idea. That'd probably require a checkbox next to every key binding, or the config file.

DancemasterGlenn · Post by **DancemasterGlenn** » Thu May 01, 2008 3:34 pm

Kajuru wrote:You could set a different key combo for games that use soft reset, to prevent accidents.

I'm definitely all for preventing accidents, but you know we'll get all sorts of new people on the forums asking why game x reset while they were trying to save state... still not saying it's a bad idea, though.

Kajuru · Post by **Kajuru** » Thu May 01, 2008 4:36 pm

DancemasterGlenn wrote:
Kajuru wrote:You could set a different key combo for games that use soft reset, to prevent accidents.
I'm definitely all for preventing accidents, but you know we'll get all sorts of new people on the forums asking why game x reset while they were trying to save state... still not saying it's a bad idea, though.

It could popup a yes/no window rather than immediately activating, just like when saving/loading from the menu.

Post by **Agozer** » Thu May 01, 2008 5:54 pm

The whole idea of quicksaving/loading means that said action is as quick as possible. A confirmation dialog makes it not-so-quicksaving/loading.

You can only blame yourself for fucking up.

Post by **grinvader** » Sat May 03, 2008 9:00 am

I don't think any sort of on-pad combo would be safe.

Try playing super metroid (holding run, jump, shoot, R and diagonal left-down at the same time in some spots) and you'll rewind, save state, and make your computer asplode.

The feature will be looked at during the ui remake, but don't expect full-pad stuff.

Post by **odditude** » Sat May 03, 2008 9:29 am

How about multi-key combinations?

Post by **grinvader** » Sat May 03, 2008 9:45 am

Already answered in my previous post.

I_am_dumb · Post by **I_am_dumb** » Mon Jul 13, 2009 9:53 am

I totally agree with this suggestion, and yeah, it might mess with soft resets for games like Secret of Mana (select+start+L/R), but the only time anyone actually uses those is when doing special stuff (like the "get 8th sword orb" cheat, and anyone doing that would have the sense to turn it off first). I like the idea because it would allow people who use classic snes pad to usb adapters with Svideo piped into their TV to still be able to save and load states without having to get up and press F2/F4.