Keyboard and Mouse Input For Games

This is an advanced topic.

Some games or systems have mouse and/or keyboard support. To learn how to enable that kind of input for games in EmuVR, read Core Options.

You need to use your actual real life keyboard and mouse for this.

Mouse Input

When mouse input is enabled for a game, if it has Input Focus, you will move the ingame mouse cursor. In desktop mode, your mouse won't move the camera when controlling games with mouse input.

When you start controlling a mouse-enabled game, EmuVR will automatically lock your cursor as if pressing the Lock Mouse key.

Keyboard Input

Retroarch has a lot of hotkeys for your keyboard, like pressing P to pause a game, F1 to show the menu, Esc to exit the game, numpad + or - to change the volume, etc. If you're trying to use your keyboard to play games or write code in your Commodore 64, for example, those hotkeys will get in the way.

That's why Retroarch has a mode called "Game Focus", where it simply will disable all hotkeys, so you can use your keyboard at will.

When enabling keyboard input mode for a system in Game Scanner, your games will run in Retroarch with Game Focus enabled automatically from start.

That means that if you do want to use a hotkey temporarily, for example to show Retroarch's menu or to change the volume, you'll need to turn off "Game Focus" mode (which enables your hotkeys back) by pressing Scroll Lock. Press Scroll Lock again after you're done, to disable all hotkeys again, or you might be pressing random hotkeys accidentally.

TL;DR:

• All keyboard hotkeys are disabled in keyboard mode, so that you can type.
• Press Scroll Lock to toggle them back if you need them.
• Don't forget to toggle them again before you resume playing.

Gamepad buttons are not affected by this, they will always work. Some systems can receive input from both a keyboard and a gamepad at the same time.

EmuVR Window Focus

When you focus input to a mouse or keyboard enabled game, EmuVR will automatically bring its window to the foreground.

If you alt-tab from EmuVR, or any other window/program suddenly gets focused, EmuVR will automatically unfocus your input from the controlled game. It's designed like this to prevent you from accidentally clicking or pressing keys randomly onto other windows in your desktop unknowingly, in case another program steals focus for some reason and you didn't realize it because you're in VR.

Core Options / Device Code

You'll notice there's a "Device code" drop-down in the Core Options window with a number. That number is the ID that defines which virtual controller that core will simulate, such as a gamepad, light gun, mouse, keyboard, or even a single ID for a mouse + keyboard combo. Each core can have its own different ID numbers to define which is which.

Game Scanner has an internal database with proper values for each core. When you click to enable "Mouse" and/or "Keyboard" input, it will automatically select the default device ID for you.

All the games under that folder will automatically use the chosen input device in Retroarch, which means you don't need to mess with Retroarch's input settings to save core overrides or remaps manually.