MAME + X-Arcade

[Dynotaku]

Anyone familiar with X-Arcade sticks? I've got one hooked up to a machine with MAME on it and everything seems to work just fine - except when I'm actually playing a game, then the left stick doesn't work. If I go out to window and pull up notepad and use the stick, I see it input 2, 4, 6 and 8, so it's physically working, just not in MAME. This is all new to me and the options panels in MAME are a bit cryptic, as far as I can tell everything is set to defaults, which is what I assume should work as the X-Arcade sticks are certainly built with MAME in mind. I figured this might be a common newbie problem so I thought I'd ask here about it so this seems to be one of the more active BYOAC type forums. (And yes I know using an X-Arcade stick isn't BYO anything but I already had the stick so I thought I'd give it a try.)

[romshark]

Sounds like it's trying to use the number pad, where MAME now uses the arrow keys for Player 1. The best way to get this fixed:
1. Start a game in MAME.
2. Press TAB
3. Input (General) should be highlighted. Press ENTER (keyboard).
4. Use the arrow keys (keyboard) to select Player 1 controls. Press ENTER.
5. For each of the 4 main directions (Up, Down, Left, Right), highlight it and press enter. Then press that direction on your control stick and wait a few seconds for that key to pop up (being number pads, this'll be 2, 8, 4, and 6). Now that direction is set to work with your joystick in every game (that uses a regular joystick).

Tip- If you set a direction, and press ENTER again before moving off the menu item, you can set multiple keys to that button. For example, for UP, you can press ENTER, then Joystick up, wait, then ENTER again, then arrow up on keyboard. Now the game thinks you're pushing up if you use either the joystick or the arrow keys.
If you scroll off the menu option, then go back to it, whatever you put in will instead overwrite it.

[Dynotaku]

Excellent, thanks a lot. I didn't know about hitting TAB in MAME. (OMG noob, I know)

[romshark]

No problem. MAME itself isn't the most user-friendly program to begin with, so everybody  gets stuck at one point or another.