retroarch does not use my gamepad.
 

I've installed retroarch through sbopkg some time ago. I also installed snes9x-libretro and gambatte-libretro at that time. Retroarch reports that my gamepad is a Logitech something (which it is), but I cannot get any inputs from the gamepad to register in the game. I have noticed however that when I run snes9x, plain snes9x, not retroarch-snes9x, my controls are remapped to use the D-pad instead of the joystick for directional movement. Is there a way to custom map my gamepad controls withing retroarch?

I know that retroarch recognizes my gamepad because it flashes Logitech Rumblepad across the bottom of the screen, but doesn't leave it there long enough for me to read it properly.

When you open RetroArch is the gamepad reported as configured in the OSD message? You can configure it yourself in 'Settings > Input > Input User 1 Binds' in the RetroArch gui. After binding them I would suggest saving the autoconfig profile and then seleting "Bind Default All". This way it will use the new gamepad profile you just made. They will be saved in your ~/.config/retroarch/ directory.

You can also download the autoconfig profiles in case someone else has done it for you in RetroArch's built in online updater. They are not installed to a system wide directory because they may update when RetroArch has not and using the online updater or grabbing them from the source tarball/github manually is preferable.

Also look into which gamepad driver ("hid", "udev", "SDL", etc) RetroArch is using. There's a menu to select it.

And then there's the step of launching it with verbose logging ("retroarch --verbose" or something like that) and checking that...

I followed the above advice, and started bnes-libretro and my gamepad STILL will not respond! Do I have to set up bnes for this too? Is there a way to configure my gamepad for retroarch universally?

That should configure input for RetroArch universally. Can you control the RetroArch menu ui with your gamepad or is it only that one core?

Like dugan suggested can you tell us what input driver you are using with RetroArch? You can tell by looking in 'settings -> driver' or with this command.
If you are using the 'udev' input driver I would suggest you either use the 'x' input driver instead or be sure to read README.SLACKWARE included with the slackbuild and then make sure your user is part of the input group.

Edit: If problems persist, the output of 'retroarch --verbose' when your gamepad is plugged in could help.

Doing this fixed the issue for me. Thank you for your help!

Glad to hear it!

Fwiw the new RetroArch-1.7.3 was released yesterday and its currently in the SBo ready queue for the next update which I would guess is probably sometime later today or tomorrow.

I would suggest looking at their ChangeLog, but its somehow missing the new Qt5 optional dependency for the Qt companion ui. If qt5 is installed from SBo or alienbob's repo the new gui can be optionally used by pressing 'F5' from the standard menu driver. Otherwise the standard menu drivers can be used like before without any need for concern.

https://github.com/libretro/RetroArc...1e2/CHANGES.md