Wiimote Falling Asleep After Cutscenes.

[Former user]

Original issue 370 created by TheRealBurntLasagna on 2014-01-15T17:51:44.000Z:

This issue has been around...probably forever. I just never noticed it until Sega CD support came along.

After a minuet or two of not pressing any buttons, the Wiimote will shut off. This wasn't really an issue with Genesis games, because there mostly action based and require the controller to be constantly in use. However, Sega CD games are another story...

For example. This is pretty annoying with games like Snatcher (especially if your using a classic controller) since often times there will be a long cut scene, in which the controller goes into sleep mode, then immediately afterwards there will be a shooting segment and the only way to wake up the controller is to quickly reach for the wiimote and press buttons(Classic Controller can't wake up the Wiimote). Of course, you can prevent the wiimote from falling asleep if you periodically press on the D-Pad as you watch the cut-scene, but that sort of detracts from the experience.

What I'm wondering is, could you implement something into Genesis Plus GX to prevent this? I've never noticed any other emulator/Wii game have this issue, so it makes me think it should be possible.

[Former user]

Comment # 1 originally posted by ekeeke31 on 2014-01-16T07:33:50.000Z:

It's actually not a bug but a feature of the Wiimote library every homebrew is using: there is a configurable timeout after which the wiimote is disconnected when not used.

In Genesis Plus GX, it is configured to 60s. By default, if you do not configure it, it will disconnect after 300s (5min), which is likely the case with other emu/homebrews. I agree that 60s can be a little bit too restrictive though for that kind of situation so this should be changed or left to the default.

What do you think a good timeput value should be ? Is 5min (the default value in libogc) fine ?

[Former user]

Comment # 2 originally posted by TheRealBurntLasagna on 2014-01-16T15:24:14.000Z:

Thanks for the explanation!
As for the time out, I believe the longest Sega CD cutscene is the ending to Snatcher, which is about 30mins (28mins to be exact). After this cutscene, the player still has to play the game for a bit longer, so waking the Wiimote up is mandatory after this. Setting the time out function to 30mins will definitely prevent the Wiimote from sleeping during an unwanted moment in any game you could possibly play in Genesis Plus GX. It could be an overkill for most of everything else, but that's what I would personally set it to.

[Former user]

Comment # 3 originally posted by TheRealBurntLasagna on 2014-01-19T04:27:01.000Z:

...On second thought, maybe 30mins really is an over kill. 5-10mins would probably be good for most games. Though having this setting be controlled by the user would definitely be the most convenient.

[Former user]

Comment # 4 originally posted by ekeeke31 on 2014-01-19T15:03:14.000Z:

Who cares if it is overkill ? It really does not any impact on anything beside the time after which wiimote is being shutdown when not used.

Also I don't like the idea of making this user configurable, it isn't like you are going to change this often and most people probably would not have any idea what value to choose.

It's better leave it to an overkill value by default so it never shutdown or eventually adjust the timeout automatically depending if wii controllers are used or not by players (for those who only use gamecube controllers and want their wii controllers to stay off during that time).

[Former user]

Comment # 5 originally posted by TheRealBurntLasagna on 2014-01-19T17:33:16.000Z:

Yeah, your right. 30mins would be great. No need to over complicate things ;)

The reason for the second guessing is that I was under the impression that you were concerned about the Wiimote killing off the battery's when not in use; since you set it to such a low setting initially. However, you seem to have figured out a much more practical way of handling this.

[Former user]

Comment # 6 originally posted by ekeeke31 on 2014-01-31T09:41:21.000Z:

[Former user]

Comment # 7 originally posted by vaguerant on 2014-02-06T07:43:16.000Z:

I feel like setting the timeout to as long as 30 minutes will be using a lot of players' batteries for the benefit of perhaps one game which has a 30-minute sequence without input. I rely on the shutoff when I pause a game to watch TV or eat dinner or something while leaving genplus-gx running.

I've experienced the same problem as detailed in the issue, of a cutscene ending and I push buttons confused for a few seconds before remembering to reconnect the Wii Remote. Still, I think a middle-ground value that solves most cases (e.g. 5-10 minutes, as suggested above) would be a better trade-off between battery usage and catering to games with long cutscenes.

Phrased differently: what fraction of users are actually going to play Snatcher? It's a great game and I enjoy it, but most people are probably just going to play the big name titles and never need to worry about controllers disconnecting. I agree that 60s is perhaps too short, but a wireless controller that practically never disconnects seems like a questionable idea.

For interest's sake, I just timed the Wiimote poweroff in Super Mario Galaxy to 11 minutes (weird number, but there you go). I'm not sure if all commercial games use this value, but something in this area seems appropriate for genplus-gx. Video game cutscenes have only gotten longer since the Genesis's days, so if 11 minutes is acceptable on a modern console, it should be able to do the job for almost all Genesis games.

[Former user]

Comment # 8 originally posted by ekeeke31 on 2014-02-06T12:43:47.000Z:

Then a simple option that let you enable or disable wiimote auto-shutown will be a better solution, with only two choices: either on (like it is actually) or off (with a very large timeout). It makes no sense changing to a trade-off value since this issue only arised for that game with a very long sequence.

Also, i don't really care how much people are going to play that game or how many would want that feature: if it wasn't obvious already, this is really not the reason why I add features, fix things, etc... I do not gain anything by having user happy, all i care is what I personally feel could be beneficial to the emulator ;-)

[Former user]

Comment # 9 originally posted by vaguerant on 2014-02-12T09:35:17.000Z:

This makes sense to me, solves both problems. I think the current value could benefit from a small bump, as 60s is still a very short shutoff time, e.g. shorter than the intro for Mega Turrican.

Obviously, that could be fixed by turning off auto-shutoff, so it's no longer necessary to extend the timeout, but it would put genplus-gx in line with other homebrew and commercial software shutoff times; I did test a few other (commercial) Wii games after trying Mario Galaxy last time, and 5 minutes seems to be the shortest any games use.

[Former user]

Comment # 10 originally posted by ekeeke31 on 2014-04-04T23:11:48.000Z:

added in r863