Trying latest MAMEUI64 - X-Arcade not working

[+thanatos]

I've been running my emulator on Mame .170 for a very long time (obviously)  Decided to try to upgrade to the latest .264.  But duplicating the general settings, the trackball on my X-Arcade isn't working at all on the new version.  Not even sure what to check at this point.  It's just supposed to be a mouse.  The trackball even moves in the interface, just not the games!

 

 

[TampaBay]

14 hours ago, thanatos said:

I've been running my emulator on Mame .170 for a very long time (obviously)  Decided to try to upgrade to the latest .264.  But duplicating the general settings, the trackball on my X-Arcade isn't working at all on the new version.  Not even sure what to check at this point.  It's just supposed to be a mouse.  The trackball even moves in the interface, just not the games!

 

 

 

Have you gone into the "General Settings" menu, then "Input Assignments" then "Player 1 Controls"?  You would need to have the correct entry in all of the settings in the "Player 1 Controls" section.

[+thanatos]

8 hours ago, TampaBay said:

 

Have you gone into the "General Settings" menu, then "Input Assignments" then "Player 1 Controls"?  You would need to have the correct entry in all of the settings in the "Player 1 Controls" section.

 

It looks like I do, also in this new version the "general settings" menu is in a different place.

 

[+thanatos]

Actually, I was only concentrating on the spinner/trackball games.  Now that I tried other things, even the joysticks aren't working with the new Mame.  But the credit button and 1player start are?   Very confused!

[TampaBay]

Are you able to configure the controls from within the game for that one specific game that you're in?  That's how I set up most of my games.  One by one, individually.   For example, if I load up the game Tron, once I'm in Tron, I call up the menu to configure the controls, and I tailor the joystick and buttons to that specific game.  (Versus using a "universal" controller setting that applies to all games).  That also lets you test it immediately.   If you change a control and you play the game and the control doesn't work correctly, you know it's not set right and you can tweak the setting until it does what it's supposed to.   Maybe try setting the controls from the "in-game" input settings menu. 

[+thanatos]

I did find the joystick setting, for some reason that was globally set to the number pad instead of up-down-left-right in MAME, so those work now.  The old MameUI must have set that itself.

 

As for the trackball/mouse - still haven't found the correct settings.  I don't get why my old version works perfectly but the new one does not.  

 

[TampaBay]

8 hours ago, thanatos said:

I don't get why my old version works perfectly but the new one does not.  

 

 

I don't think the new MAME version would have automatically brought in all your custom settings and controller configurations from the old version.  It probably just defaults to standard settings that don't automatically work with your trackball. 

 

I'd still try my suggestion from above.  I would pick a game that uses the trackball, load it up, and then launch the controller configuration menu from within that game and play around with all the controller settings until you figure out which one gets the trackball to work.  Then you can set up those settings on the "global" level so that they work with all games.

[Trebor]

MAME 0.170 is from over 8 years ago back in Jan 2016.  There have been a significant number of layout, configuration, and input changes since then.

 

Your best bet, if still running into issues, is to start with a clean folder. 

 

Go to a command prompt, change to your MAME folder, and run the command "mame -cc" (minus the quotes), or create a *.txt file enter a line that reads "mame -cc"  (minus quotes) and save the file.  Change the *.txt to *.bat and run the batch file.

 

Either method will create a brand new configuration file (mame.ini) to tweak all your settings.

 

Open the mame.ini file under Notepad, at the very least, ensure the ctrlpath is accurate pointing to where your xarcade.cfg file is located under "# CORE SEARCH PATH OPTIONS", and that "xarcade" is specified under "ctrl" within the "CORE INPUT OPTION" section.  

 

If you have created a brand new configuration mame.ini file, all the "CORE INPUT AUTOMATIC ENABLE OPTIONS" should have by default "trackball_device" set to "keyboard".  The trackball under the XArcade behaves as a mouse, so this should read "mouse", if the default "keyboard" is not working.  It can also be issued at the command line for a specific game.

 

For example:

mame.exe ccastles -trackball_device mouse

The above will run Crystal Castles utilizing the device(s) that behaves as a mouse for its input controller.

 

P.S. If your system is distinguishing between two different mouse inputs for the mouse paired with your computer and the XArcade trackball *AND* you want them to be recognized separately in games (I.E. Player 1 utilizes computer mouse, Player 2 utilizes XArcade trackball that registers like a mouse), there is the 'multimouse' option under mame.ini that should be changed from 0 --> 1.  Ditto for a mapping one player to a keyboard and another player to the XArcade joystick/buttons, for those inputs to be treated as separate devices, there is a 'multikeyboard' option.

[+thanatos]

I started with a brand new fresh MameUI install.  The general options even have an "xarcade" contoller layout setting to choose.

[+thanatos]

OK, this is an odd one.  In the root MAME64UI, it's making an .ini for each game.  When I edited the one for Centipede and change the mouse setting from 0 to 1, it started working.  Doing it in the mame.ini did not make it work for other games, I had to do it again manually.  Not sure why the GUI has these settings but then changing them does nothing at all.

 

[mr_me]

The game/system ini is parsed after mame.ini so it's mouse setting is the one that gets applied. If the game/system has never been run and has no ini file then one is created with the mouse setting taken from mame.ini.

[+thanatos]

OK, so tried a mouse game that hadn't yet written an .ini after editing the mame.ini, and it worked instantly.  So there's a problem with the MameUI64 interface and choosing XArcade in the GUI vs its actual config files.  Thanks all for your suggestions and help!