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I have a Retro Fighters Defender controller and a USB PS2 controller adaptor, and for a period of time I was able to get button pressure sensitivity to work via dshidmini, but after a few weeks, it stopped working. I tried reverting to earlier versions of PCSX2, and that didn't seem to fix it. Reinstalling or messing with the settings for dshidmini didn't do anything either. 

Does anyone here have any experience with getting button pressure sensitivity working with PCSX2? Is there another controller I should buy instead?

DS3 is recommended

By that, do you mean DualShock 3? I've heard it's hard to find legitimate ones these days and the knock-offs don't have the pressure sensitivity.

That's what I meant, yes.
Knock offs are unfortunately most of the time without pressure sensitivity

I just tested it with my Dualshock 3 controller (I think it's legit? It's pretty old. Definitely from before the PS4 came out) and I'm still not getting pressure sensitivity in Silent Hill 2. Is there something I should be using instead of dshidmini?

no, that should be the right way.
no idea since i don't have one, nor that game, and thus can't test

Well, poop. I don't really know how to troubleshoot it past this point. Switching to an older version of PCSX2 didn't seem to fix it, neither did using a Dualshock 3.

(12-31-2023, 04:59 PM)Fubarooba Wrote: [ -> ]I have a Retro Fighters Defender controller and a USB PS2 controller adaptor, and for a period of time I was able to get button pressure sensitivity to work via dshidmini, but after a few weeks, it stopped working.

Do you recall what caused it to stop working?

Also, what version of the Retro Fighters Defender do you have? There's a newer "Bluetooth Edition" which apparently features a wired USB connection. Since you mentioned using a USB PS2 controller adapter, I'm wondering if this "Bluetooth Edition" with a wired USB cable is the one you have.

I would like to get a Retro Fighters Defender but I would like some confirmation on if anyone is able to get reliable pressure sensitivity in PCSX2 with it before I purchase one.

I created this topic a few months back :

https://forums.pcsx2.net/Thread-Retro-Fi...ty-support

So you sort of answered my question with this topic, but can you provide some further details? At that time, it was said that getting the Defender Bluetooth Edition gamepad to work in PCSX2 with pressure sensitivity was not possible, that it was only possible with if you had the original (wireless) Defender and not the Bluetooth Edition which (unlike the original defender) apparently came with a USB connection cable that you could use.

If you have the Defender Bluetooth Edition and got pressure sensitivity to work through a USB connection, that's progress. If you have the original Defender, and were able to connect it via USB and got it to work that way, that's also interesting.

I would like to see the Retro Fighters Defender have native PCSX2 pressure sensitivity support, particularly a wired usb version of this gamepad. It would be good to know more details about how you got it to work, if you can pinpoint why it stopped working, which version of the Defender you have, what kind of USB adapter you used, etc.

I would absolutely buy a Retro Fighters Defender if it had native, or reliable PCSX2 pressure sensitivity support, through a wired USB connection. We shouldn't be reliant on using an official PS2 or PS3 gamepad in order to emulate pressure sensitive face buttons on PCSX2. The Retro Fighters Defender has designed this gamepad with the DS2 in mind and there's no reason why PCSX2 can't recognize this gamepad's features natively and have its pressure sensitivity be usable in PCSX2 and be reliable.

That said, I'm grateful for the individual button sensitivity options added to controller settings inside PCSX2 that makes using a non-pressure sensitive face buttons gamepad more versatile in PCSX2. I'm still using a gamepad with non-pressure sensitive face buttons and adjusting the button sensitivity %s for certain buttons where needed in certain games. But having the full spectrum of pressure sensitive face buttons in PCSX2 at our fingertips with the Retro Fighters Defender would be wonderful.

Sorry for the late reply.

No, I'm not using the newer Bluetooth version of the Defender. The original one comes with a USB dongle and a PS2 controller port dongle, and the USB dongle doesn't carry over the pressure sensitivity, so you have to hook it up with the PS2 controller dongle. I don't know about the Bluetooth version because it didn't exist when I bought the controller.

The method I used to hook it up to my PC is demonstrated in the youtube video "[PC/ROG Ally] How To Use PS2 Controllers On PCSX2 And RPCS3" by Archades Games. Basically, buy the original version of the Retro Fighters Defender, buy a PS2 controller to USB adaptor (not all of them support pressure sensitivity and they're pretty coy about which ones do and don't so have fun lol), and install dshidmini to make your PC recognize it by following the steps in the video.

I had to buy two sets of the adaptors they showed in the video before I got one (1) that worked. Both of the adaptors in the first shipment were completely unresponsive, the second shipment had one unresponsive one and one that worked. If you look at the above video's comment section, you can actually see me asking for suggestions before I caved and bought the second set.

I'm not sure what broke the pressure sensitivity for me. At first, I thought it was an update to PCSX2 as it seemed to stop working after I booted and installed the newest update, but reverting to older versions of PCSX2 didn't fix it. The controller still works in every other regard, and I don't seem to have any of the drivers that are known to conflict with dshidmini installed on my machine, so I'm really at a loss.

(01-10-2024, 01:43 PM)Fubarooba Wrote: [ -> ]Sorry for the late reply.

No, I'm not using the newer Bluetooth version of the Defender. The original one comes with a USB dongle and a PS2 controller port dongle, and the USB dongle doesn't carry over the pressure sensitivity, so you have to hook it up with the PS2 controller dongle. I don't know about the Bluetooth version because it didn't exist when I bought the controller.

The method I used to hook it up to my PC is demonstrated in the youtube video "[PC/ROG Ally] How To Use PS2 Controllers On PCSX2 And RPCS3" by Archades Games. Basically, buy the original version of the Retro Fighters Defender, buy a PS2 controller to USB adaptor (not all of them support pressure sensitivity and they're pretty coy about which ones do and don't so have fun lol), and install dshidmini to make your PC recognize it by following the steps in the video.

I had to buy two sets of the adaptors they showed in the video before I got one (1) that worked. Both of the adaptors in the first shipment were completely unresponsive, the second shipment had one unresponsive one and one that worked. If you look at the above video's comment section, you can actually see me asking for suggestions before I caved and bought the second set.

OK I understand now. You didn't use the original Retro Fighters Defender "wirelessly" in order to get it to work. You hooked it up to a PS2 controller port dongle that came with it, then had to find a PS2 to USB adapter (and not just any adapter, a specific one) to convert it back to USB to make it seem like it was an original PS2 DS2 in order for the pressure sensitivity to be recognized properly with dshidmini.

Do you know if there's been any progress on getting the Bluetooth Edition of the Defender to work?

Quote:I'm not sure what broke the pressure sensitivity for me. At first, I thought it was an update to PCSX2 as it seemed to stop working after I booted and installed the newest update, but reverting to older versions of PCSX2 didn't fix it. The controller still works in every other regard, and I don't seem to have any of the drivers that are known to conflict with dshidmini installed on my machine, so I'm really at a loss.

Did you use the PCSX2 "Auto Update" feature to update PCSX2 to the newest version? Is that when it stopped working? Could the issue be related to using the PCSX2 Auto Update feature rather than installing a new version of PCSX2 into a new folder each time? Some users have reported errors after using the Auto Updater, perhaps that's what caused your issue.

Surely at this point you would be looking for ways to get it to work again. Maybe Auto Updating PCSX2 caused it to change some unknown setting behind the scenes (registry entry?) that disabled the funtionality. If you have another computer that you could test it on again I would encourage you to do so, to see if you can avoid doing what you did before to see if you are able to keep it working. I'm very interested in getting the Defender, either version of it, if there's a clear and stable way to get pressure sensitive face buttons to work and have it stay working.

Though if PCSX2 could recognize the Defender and pressure sensitive face buttons natively that would be surely make this process a whole lot easier.