Gamepad Emulator why not?

[allroy1975]

I mentioned this in the Sports games with IPac  http://www.arcadecontrols.org/yabbse/index.php?board=1;action=display;threadid=10652 thread, but I'm afraid it won't get seen as well there.  
I've written some VB programs before, but nothing complicated.  Is there a program (or would it be hard to write one?) that will create some "virtual" gamepads?  Like, When you go into the Windows Control Panel, the joystick section would show X number of controllers.  You could configure these "virtual" controllers to be keys on the keyboard. That would mean you COULD use all your 4 player CPs to play stuff like EA sports games and my (age old) virtua Tennis question.  

Wouldn't it?
It doesn't seem like it should be too hard to write it.  If it doesn't exist.  
Has anyone seen anything like this?

[Howard_Casto]

This would be super hard.  Input is one of the lowest levels of programming and bypassing it is a real pain.  Not to mention the fact that every pc game known to man supports keyboard keys, but not all support joysticks.  

So what exactly would be the point?

[allroy1975]

So what exactly would be the point?

well, seeing as how you're anti-4-Player CP, there wouldn't be MUCH point for you.  

The point for people like me who have a 4 Player CP, would be to be able to play Doubles in Virtua Tennis (on the PC version, without having to build another cab or CP with the Dreamcast in it) where the game only allows 1 player to be controlled by Keyboard.  The rest have to be joysticks.  Same goes for EA Sports games...didn't I put that in the orignal post?  Or are you just looking for another oportunity to rip us who have 4 player CPs?  

I know this makes sense to those of us who have 4 player CPs and although we don't regret our decision to go 4P, we're always looking to add games we can play with our friends.

[jakejake28]

i have a two player cp and i am interestd

[u_rebelscum]

So what exactly would be the point?

Many current windows games, especially sports games and games already ported to/from consoles, assign player inputs by device, with the keyboard one device.  Each gamepad, joystick, ect, OTOH is it's own device.  These games let control panels with ipac, keywhiz, hagstom,  MK64 (such as xarcade, hotrodse, and slikstik) only able to control one player.  (more info in the thread linked by allroy1975)

Howard, allroy1975 is asking if a key2joy prog could get around this limit by making virtual joysticks from keyboard inputs, or is he stuck with either hacking gamepads or only playing one player from a 2 player CP.


Allroy1975, I agree with howard that it would be very hard, especially with the keyboard inputs.  The keyboard and mouse are pretty much "protected" in windows so that they "always" ( ) work.  Getting at the keyboard inputs and converting to joysticks' inputs will be hampered, to say the least.

[allroy1975]

alright, well at least I know now that I'm doing an okay job of describing what I'd like to see.  

[Spaced Invader]

Too bad you're not trying to get a joystick to emulate a keyboard...way easier! I know I'm no help...  

[allroy1975]

this is driving me nuts.
I found some Game Programming irc channel and was asking them about this and they seemed to think it wouldn't be that hard.  Even if it's an external program that simulates gamepad buttons...
No one seemed willing to do it, but they seemed to think it would be hard but not impossible.  
I'm gonna find a good programmer and pay them to write this for me.  

other people are intersted, right?

[Inaba]

Off the top of my head, I don't think this would be too hard.  I've never tried to futz with input from the USB stream, but taking data from the serial or gameport is simple.  It would also be fairly trivial to translate keyboard input into the joypad buffer(s).

If USB is even remotely similar, it wouldn't be hard to write a program to do what you want it to do.  What WOULD be a potential stumbling block is if the program bypasses the Windows API's for the joypad buffers and reads them directly... then any hook/translator you have in the stream would be bypassed as well.  It may work on a game by game basis.

Basically, in short, you'd have to write a joypad driver (simple) that takes input from the keyboard and shoves it into the USB joypad stream.  

Alternately, you could write an IPAC specific driver and have all it' inputs mapped to the joypad stream instead of the keyboard stream.  I wish I was more familiar with USB programming.  Hmm, might be something to look into over the next few months.

[allroy1975]

well, I use the PS2 Input.  how differen't would that make it?

Man this makes me wish I'd spent more time learing programming and less time ripping mp3s.  

[shmokes]

I'd be super interested, mainly for 2 player Virtua Tennis (and I don't even have a 4 player panel).  I'd just like to play two player on the control panel rather than having one person on the panel and one standing there with a gamepad.

[Inaba]

Would still be fundamentally the same.  The more I think about this though, it might be kind of ugly once finished.  If you set this up like the above, you'd be virtually unable to use your keyboard in Windows, as youre keystrokes would be translated into joypad input... so you'd have to control windows strictly with the mouse while the driver is active.

Not a show-stopper, but would make it a pain to use.

[allroy1975]

If you set this up like the above, you'd be virtually unable to use your keyboard in Windows, as youre keystrokes would be translated into joypad input... so you'd have to control windows strictly with the mouse while the driver is active.

Right, that's why I suggested a seperate executable.  That way you could load it, THEN load the PC game...ie Virtua Tennis and close it when you go back into MAME.

I'm in love with this idea, and if it's possible I REALLY want to do it!  

[allroy1975]

does this help at all?
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/intinput/hh/intinput/di_4yuh.asp

[grafixmonkey]

why not just hack a few USB gamepads, and do what I did with my CP and its standard molex connectors?  i.e. Molex connector pin 7 is "up" for any joystick plugged into it.

Unplug the molex from the ipac, plug it into the gamepad.  Or just leave it in the gamepad, if that still works for mame.

At least, it's probably less effort than writing the program.  

[TalkingOctopus]

But a lot of us allready have working keyboard encoders and want to play 4 player virtua tennis!  

[allroy1975]

and that's a lot of extra time and $$.  I know the joypad hack could be done, but it'd save a lot of people a lot of time and money if something like my imaginary porogram existed.  I'm thinking about trying to write it, but I'm really not a programmer.  we need to find someone who works for a software development company!  
but I think I'm gonna try it because I'm fairly certain such a program does not exist and I think it should.  

if anyone else wants to do it, or has something like it, or wants to help...let me know.

Matt

[allroy1975]

Good news for those interested!
a friend of mine that I work with (and he's smart and does some programming) thinks this might be a fun challange.  We downloaded the joy2key source code and he's gonna look at that and see if he can't reverse what it does.  
Hopefully we'll (he'll) be able to make this work.  
anyone willing to help?

[JODY]

I'm a C / C++ developer but haven't done any low level Windows keyboard coding.  Have thought about doing some to manipulate keystrokes before they get to Mame but eventually shelled out the bucks for a hardware solution instead.

With proper documentation, preferably some example code that shows how to intercept the keystrokes, etc., I could do some coding.

I'll see if I can look around in the many libraries that are available for Dev-C++ (freeware from Bloodshed Software) and see if I notice anything that would help.

[allroy1975]

PPJoy

It's a paralell port Joystick driver, but it will also create Virtual Joysticks.  

The developer wrote an demo app in Visual C++ (complete with source code..) that takes Keyboard Data and sends it to the Virtual Joysticks.  It appears that this could be what we're looking for.  I think we just need a good Visual C++ programmer to whip up a nice GUI interface or even just an ini file would be okay by me.  

JODY does this sound like something you'd be able to do?  Take a look at the stuff:

http://www.geocities.com/deonvdw/PPJoy.htm
That's the main page.  if you scroll down on it you'll see a link to IOCTL-based user-mode joystick driver :
http://www.geocities.com/deonvdw/Docs/Diagrams/Virtual/IOCTL.htm

I tested out his Test App while watching the joysticks in the Windows Control Panel and it actually works!

Hopefully there's enough interest in a project like this to make it worth while.

Oh, BTW, my friend at work doesn't seem to think he can do it because he's not real experienced with Visual C++.

Matt

[cobelli]

Well, I have been messing around with ppjoy (I don't really know why, I have no interest right now as my arcade is not done, but I guess i just liked the challenge ) Anyway, A simple program already exists to take keyboard input and send it to ppjoy (it is on the ppjoy page). It took a while to figure out how to configure, but i got it to work, sort of. The problem is that the app does not intercept key commands. You have to be on the application, press the key, then switch to the game and the key is registered. Switch back to the app, press another key.. etc... I am hoping this is just an issue with how winxp handles dos programs. I am going to try some more native environments. Will report back.
-Cobelli

[cobelli]

Well, that was frustrating. I went through the whole process of installing windows 98 only to recieve the same error
- Cobelli

[allroy1975]

almost as frustrating is when you type up a reply to a post and it gets lost.  
I think it went something like this:
I've tried it on my 2k PC at work and I got the same thing you're getting.  I tried it on my 98SE Laptop at home and it worked fine.  

I think we just need a program (not necessarily that dos based sample) that keeps track of all the keystrokes.  i know it's possible because that's what those password stealing programs do that log all your keystrokes.  They're obviously not the program with the focus.

Of course I have no idea how to do that....but..I think that's what needs to happen.

Anyone real good at C++?

[JODY]

I'll take a look at it.  If it works and the full source is there I'm sure I can do it.  I've done Visual C++ but don't have the latest version so I'll have to see what version it requires if there are any version specific stuff and what if any third party libraries it may require.

Beyond that...can't say how long it would take until I get it to compile and look at the source.  Have done C / C++ off and on for about 15 years but as a college instructor once said you don't become an expert in it...you just use it.  It can be hard to make out someone else's code.

[Howard_Casto]

People, trust me, that's not the problem.  Getting keystrokes is one thing, passing them back to the program running is another.  It doesn't always work, especially if it's a 3d accelerated app (nearly all emulators are). Getting keys is a high level process, but sending them in a way that would work is a very low level one.    

[JODY]

Got it to compile OK in Dev-C++ but the program wouldn't run.  Tried the executable on the site and receive the same error.  I've got Win XP.

Error says:

CreateFile failed with error code 2 trying to open \\.\PPJoyIOCTL1 device

I'll look into it more when I get time.  There isn't much to the code.  Would need keyboard intercept code to join in with it and then do a GUI frontend.

[cobelli]

JODY - first off, no nned to compile, the exe is included. Also, you are getting that error because you do not have the ppjoy software installed and running.

Howard_castro - You are correct that it is difficult, but the hard part has already been done for us. PPjoy is a program originally intended for controller hacks. Natively, it accepts input over the lpt port and sends it out through directx. SO to windows, it looks EXACTLY like a joystick. You can configure it in control panel, it has drivers to run it, etc.. Tested with a few 3d apps and they all recognize it fine. The problem with the software is that we aren't taking input over the lpt port, but rather the keyboard port. However, this can be solved. PPjoy has a virtual mode in which it accepts ioctl calls. Now all we need is a program that captures keystrokes and sends the output to ppjoy. As previously stated, an example of such a program is available from ppjoy. Problem is that it doesn't capture keys while in the background. It has to be the active program in order to perform its task. Not good for gaming.

The solution: I have contacted the amazing author of ppjoy, and he is going to whip up the necessary prog for us! YAY! However, I didn't want to push the envelope by asking for it to be easy, so we may still need to do some work afterwards to make it user configurable.

[allroy1975]

The solution: I have contacted the amazing author of ppjoy, and he is going to whip up the necessary prog for us! YAY! However, I didn't want to push the envelope by asking for it to be easy, so we may still need to do some work afterwards to make it user configurable.

LOL!  I had been in contact for a few days with the author.  He had told me that someone else was looking for the same thing.  Must have been you!  anyway, about 5 minutes before you posted this I e-mailed him and asked him how much I'd have to pay him to write it for me...lol

Anyway, that's totally sweet that he's agreed to do it for us.  He said it shouldn't be too hard.  He must be pretty smart/good if he did the hard part for us already.  

Anyway..I'm pretty excited...  glad that something might actually come of this hair brained idea.  

Matt

[cobelli]

Deon (the author of ppjoy) came through! He is amazing! Wrote us a nice app that uses the DIrectinput API to capture the keyboard strokes and pass them on to PPJoy. It's fully configurable (not so easily, though, as you need the decimal value of the key) and in my testing, works great. The one problem, though, is each instance of the prog only supports 1 joystick. A workaround is to just launch the app 4 times, but I emailed Deon about it and hopefully he can add multiple joystick functionality to the program. UPDATE: In the zip is a batch file that will run PPjoyKEY 4 times, each time specifying a different INI file. Multi-joy support is too much more to ask from Deon. Hopefully, though, he will figure out how to minimize the programs to the system tray, so there will be a little less clutter. Thanks again, Deon, very cool. It took me a little figuring to get it working, so I zipped up all the necessary files and included instructions Enjoy! AND THANKS DEON!!!

---------------------------------------
Keyboard to Joystick emulation

First off, this would not be possible without the amazing work of  Deon van der Westhuysen. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!

This procedure relies on two programs, both written by Deon. The first is PPjoy. This application takes input over the lpt port and outputs it as a windows joystick. It can, however, also be run in virtual mode in which it instead accepts input through ioctl calls. Therefore, the second program is PPjoyKEY which takes keystrokes as input and outputs to ppjoy through the aforementioned ioctl process.

Instructions:
1. Run the setup program in the PPjoy folder
2. Launch the PPjoy configurator
3. Click "add"
4. Select "virtual port" from the "parralel port" dropdown
5. Select the controller number from the controller number dropdown.
6. Click "add"
Repeat for each controller.
7. Run "key2joy.bat" from the main folder.

This is a little batch file I wrote that simply launches PPjoyKEY 4 times, each time specifying a different INI file. I created the INI files to ease the installation procedure. The keys are mapped as follows:

               UP     DOWN      LEFT     RIGHT    B1     B2     B3    --BINGO! Either that, or I was attempting to say "before" but it was too many letters to type--    B5    B6    B7    B8
Joy1        1            2            3          4          5       6       7       8      9    0        -      =
Joy2        q            w           e          r           t        y       u       i       o     p        [       ]
Joy3        a            s            d          f            g       h       j        k     l       ;        '
Joy4        z             x           c           v           b       n      m       ,     .       /        

You can however specify your own configuration by using the decimal equivalent of the key (ESC is 1 and the increase accross row).

Have fun!
- Mike Cobelli
-------------------------------------------------------------------------


Since it won't fit on the forum, You can get all the files from my website http://hostfreedom.com/key2joy.zip

[cobelli]

Slightly better news! While it would be a pain for Deon to write the software to support 4 controllers at once, and he has done enough for us all ready, he did point me in the right direction for a better solution. A batch file! While I had actually tried this already, I didn't know of the "start" command, and therefore the 4 instances were running sequencially, not concurently. Anyway, in the zip file you will find key2joy.bat. Running this will launch PPjoyKEY four times, each time loading a different one of the ini files. Enjoy!
- Cobelli

[Chris]

Excellent work!

[JamIt]

To allroy1975, JODY, and cobelli,
Just wanted to express my gratitude for your efforts!
--JamIt

[allroy1975]

I read my last post and I'll try not to say "anyway" as much in this one....

I can't even tell you how excited I am to go home tonight and try to play Virtua tennis on my MAME machine.  i'm giddy!

here's what a good guy Deon is, here's part of what he wrote back to me when I offered him money:
With regards money - I'll be posting this app for free and would
not be right of me to take your money then. But if you like you
can make a donation to a charity - possibly http://www.amybiehl.org/
as they do lots of good work for disadvantaged communities in
South Africa.

I can't even tell you how impressed I am with this guy.  Smart, friendly and a good human being on top of that!

he added this as a PS:
p.s. I see you and cobelli have been ganging up on me! :-)

apparently we were, but it was unintentional.

GIDDY!  I can't wait!  *cough* *cough*  I don't feel well, I think I need to go home now!

Matt

[JODY]

If you could post the source as well as the exe, etc. I can use it to add additional features.

[allroy1975]

I swear....if it's not one thing it's another....

The program obviously works, but Virtua Tennis doesn't see those joysticks!  AHHH!
I installed the NT Drivers for DirectPadPro and even though I don't have any joysticks plugged into my PC at all, it sees those ones.  
There must be a difference between the drivers or something.  Both show up in DXDiag
I don't get it.
If there are any other fans of the game you can get the demo here before you buy it.

ftp://216.25.72.25/PatchesNDemos/eidemo/virtuaTennis/virtuaTennis.zip

Let me know if anyone else has success with ppjoy and VirtuaTennis
Maybe it's something I've got configured wrong.  

Matt

[allroy1975]

he's done it again...
Anyone else who's interested in playing Virtua Tennis through your MAME with your regular Control Panel.....Deon figured out why Virtua Tennis wasn't seeing his PPJoy Virtual Joysticks....
here's his latest e-mail to me:

It looks like Virtua Tennis ignores any joystick with more than
4 (I think) axes - what this can't be no friggin' joystick!
The PPJoy virtual joysticks by default has 8 axes... See the
problem? [Virtua Tennis also ignores joysticks with less than
4(?) buttons it seems]. Very temperamental little piece of
software!

PPJoy makes provision for changing the number of axes a joystick
reports - but I haven't yet figured out all the snags. Mainly it
makes the Game Controllers control panel applet DrWatson :-( but
everything else seems fine.

I attach a special version of PPortJoy.cpl that has this extra
functionality
enabled. Copy it over the existing one in the System32 directory.

Then:
- Open the PPJoy control panel applet. Select one of the Virtual
joysticks.
- Click on Mapping
- Select "Modify the interface mapping for the IOCTL..." (bottom)
option
  and click on Next.
- Click on Next (Create or Modify the mapping)
- Change the number of Axes to 4 (from the drop-down) and click Next
- Click Next (leave the number of buttons unchanged)
- Click Next (leave Axes mapping unchanged)
- Click Next (leave Button mapping unchanged)
- Click on Finish

From here on the ground is a little shaky (i.e. the part that is not
sorted out 100%)

First, try Virtua Tennis - if you are lucky it should work now. [I.e.
see
the sticks in the config.]

If that does not work try deleting all the Virtual Joysticks from PPJoy
and
re-creating them. Throw in a reboot for good measure :-) Then open the
Game Controllers control panel applet [Which may Dr Watson] and close
it
again. Try Virtua Tennis again.

That should solve it.

I put his new CPL file here:
http://allroy.bigdrillcar.com/mame/zips/PPortJoyfix.zip

Thanks again Dion!

Matt

[allroy1975]

well, it worked like a champ!
my brother in law came over tonight and we played some vs Virtua Tennis and some Doubles.
Worked Great.  Remapping the keys didn't work too well, so I used the Win I Pac Programmer to set up a profile for VT.
This may sound like a lot of work for 1 game, but it's soooo worth it.
2 Player Virtua Tennis....Next stop....EA SPorts!
Thanks again to everyone who helped make this happen!
especially howard for being so supportive  

Matt

[Jakobud]

Wow.  This whole thread turned out very very good  Brilliant.

[Howard_Casto]

The software is quite brilliant, I'll gladly admit.  The problem is it isn't very useful at all.  You needed it for a game that would only see a joystick and not allow for keyboard input.  That type of problem is super rare (as a matter of fact it's the first time I've ever ehard of it.)  

Quite frankly, that almost never happens.  Most problem games are games in which the game only accepts keyboard input but the layout is hardcoded, and badly at that.  Or the game only accepts mouse clicks to go through the menu, ect.  99% of the games with input issues don't even support the joystick.


Again, brilliant software, too bad it solves a virtually non-existant problem.  

I hate to be negative like this, but since you called me by name.  

[DAmnb]

Great work, thx definatly goes out to allroy1975, cobelli and Deon!    

[allroy1975]

in my very first post I made reference to a thread that asked this:

How do you guys do to play recent games like NHL, Madden etc. with a I-pac? I mean is pretty rare we can use the 2P since they don't let us remap it and I dont want to use a regular joypad on my cabinet.

Can we hack a USB joypad only on the 2P and let the I-pac plug too? Do you think any conflict will happen between those two or the joypad will work only with the game who need it?

I had obviously had the same problem with Virtua Tennis and figured it happend (and will continue to happen) in any EA Sports Game.  Since I'm a HUGE fan of the NHL series and it was a big part of the reason I made a 4 Player CP, I could see it being a problem when I went to set up that game as well.  

I'm guessing that most modern games (EA and such) will use the Keyboard as input for 1 player and expect the other 3 to have joysticks/keypads.  Because PPJoy seemed to be on the verge of solving the problem and because I could see other people were interested (and I could see it becoming even MORE of an issue later on as more games go to this format) I pushed the Issue.

Basicly what it boils down to is this:  I didn't build a 4 Player CP and put a 2200XP chip with a GeForce 4 in the machine just to play Donkey Kong.  

I'm gonna make 1 more post (as Dion just e-mailed me again, with the Source code and an updated version of his program) and then I'm ready to let this thread fade away.  

[allroy1975]

From Dion:
Hi guys,

Here is the final version of PPJoyKey. The changes are:
- Allows you to select the keys to use from a dropdown list
- Option to scan for keys to use
- Status display - whether it successfully opened the PPJoy
  virtual joystick device
- Fixed the DrWatson (access violation) that would occasionally
  occur in the original.

I include the source for the curious...


From Allroy:
I put these up on a web site if you want them:
http://allroy.bigdrillcar.com/mame/zips/PPJoyKey.zip             <-- The program
http://allroy.bigdrillcar.com/mame/zips/PPJoyKey_source.zip  <-- The Source

You may need to right click on these and do a save, but they should work.

Thanks again to everyone.
Mission accomplished.  

Okay, this is lame..but I just thought since it's also fixing a problem with EA Sports games...maybe we could say that now....
"If it's in the Game, It's in the MAME"
uhh...okay, good night everyone!

[cobelli]

Well, you beat me to the punch. I was gonna upload the new stuff Anyway, Thanks again Deon and allroy and I am glad we got the problem fixed (even though I don't even have virtua tennis )

- Cobelli

[Justin]

What a coincidence...  I've been trying to figure out how to get Virtuatennis to run on my 2 player cab, and decided to search the BYOAC for a solution.  What do you know!    This thread had the solution, and it is incredibly recent too...

Thanks to everyone for your efforts.  This is awesome!

[JODY]

I've got the source and will make improvements and post a reply back on where to download.  Don't hold your breath because it isn't top priority...yet.

[Zzap]

This has to be one of the most usefull pieces of software for so many people with keyboard based cabs! Thanks guys for chasing this up, and of course to the author Dion!

Looking forward to some EA Sports games now, and also Virtua Tennis by the sounds of it!

[Popcorrin]

I think this software is awesome.  I use mamewah as a frontend for my pc games and I was wondering if anyone knew if it was possible to fire up ppjoykey when certain games were started.  Maybe by utilizing a command line option in mamewah or possibly setting up a bat file to start both the game and ppjoykey when that game was chosen?

[TalkingOctopus]

I think this software is awesome.  I use mamewah as a frontend for my pc games and I was wondering if anyone knew if it was possible to fire up ppjoykey when certain games were started.  Maybe by utilizing a command line option in mamewah or possibly setting up a bat file to start both the game and ppjoykey when that game was chosen?

A bat file is the way to go.  To get it to work in mamewah, you may need to make a shortcut to the bat file and have mamewah use the shortcut.

[Popcorrin]

Thanks for the advice.

[Bill_S]

I just found this thread in a search last night.
Does the method described here work for any PC game, or just Virtua Tennis?
I have Virtua Tennis and am looking forward to trying it on that game but would also like to be able to make it work on the EA Sports games (NHL 2K2 escpecially).

[allroy1975]

will work for any game that uses joystick input.  

[Bill_S]

OK,
I set it up and it works great for NHL 2k2!
I can't seem to get it to work with Virtua Tennis, though.
When I launch the virtua tennis configuration utility, I think it only sees my keyboard.
It only lets me pick 1 player and the arrows under the picture of the keyboard don't seem to do anything.
Did you have to do anything special to make this work with virtua tennis?

One thing to note - I downloaded all the files from the key2joy web site.  The version was newer than what you guys have posted here in the forum (dated 10/7 I think).  
Does anyone have this working in virtua tennis with the latest version?

One more thing - I'm running Win XP if that matters.

[allroy1975]

OH YEAH!
I can't beleive I didn't tell anyone this....I must have..

I DID!
it was in a Quote from Deon
here it is:

It looks like Virtua Tennis ignores any joystick with more than
4 (I think) axes - what this can't be no friggin' joystick!
The PPJoy virtual joysticks by default has 8 axes... See the
problem? [Virtua Tennis also ignores joysticks with less than
4(?) buttons it seems]. Very temperamental little piece of
software!

PPJoy makes provision for changing the number of axes a joystick
reports - but I haven't yet figured out all the snags. Mainly it
makes the Game Controllers control panel applet DrWatson :-( but
everything else seems fine.

I attach a special version of PPortJoy.cpl that has this extra
functionality
enabled. Copy it over the existing one in the System32 directory.

Then:
- Open the PPJoy control panel applet. Select one of the Virtual
joysticks.
- Click on Mapping
- Select "Modify the interface mapping for the IOCTL..." (bottom)
option
  and click on Next.
- Click on Next (Create or Modify the mapping)
- Change the number of Axes to 4 (from the drop-down) and click Next
- Click Next (leave the number of buttons unchanged)
- Click Next (leave Axes mapping unchanged)
- Click Next (leave Button mapping unchanged)
- Click on Finish
 

I have no idea why someone would have their setup program look at how many axes a joystick has and ignore certain ones...but your MAME controller won't have more than 4 so you shouldn't need to re-configure it every time you go back and forth between NHL and VT.

hope that helps
let us know.
I bet it will though.

Allroy

[Bill_S]

I tried doing this, but the options on that screen are grayed out.
It won't let me change the number of axes.
I must be having an idiot attack again.
Any idea on why the screen is grayed out and won't let me make changes?

Update:
I tried to get the modified cpl file you linked to on page 1, but the linkappears to be dead?

[allroy1975]

Sorry about that.  I fixed the link it should point to
http://allroy.bigdrillcar.com/mame/zips/PPortJoyfix.zip

Okay...so...now let us know.  
Allroy

[Bill_S]

That worked!
Thanks for the help.
I now have NHL 2k2 and Virtua Tennis running with virtual controllers.
Thanks again!!

[Justin]

Well, I finally got VirtuaTennis for PC, and installed it in my cab.

I can confirm that with the latest incarnation of PPjoy

[PoGGiE]

Wow guys, this looks just like what I was looking for.  I used to play a lot of sensible soccer and always wanted to play it multi.  Now, a very good chap has created his own 'version' of sensi with player-manager, roleplaying, and many other extensions of the original classic we know and love!!  Only problem: unless you want to play with cursors and CTRL key, you have to play with a gamepad. 

SHOCK!! 

HORROR!!

 I hate gamepads of all descriptions and want to play sensi with my old keys.  However, apparently this would be too much work and will only be in the next version of his game which will be a completely new, 3D extravaganza.

So I'm very hopeful that this PPJOY will solve my problems!!!

I'll let you know.

By the way, the game is shareware (but its full functionality free I think).

Its downloadable on

http://soccer.a-osswald.de/

Thanks Guys!!!!

PoGGiE

[allroy1975]

I'm still subscribed to this thread and I LOVE it when this program helps people out...even though I had nothing to do with it...besides pestering the author to make it....

Good luck!

Allroy

[DreamWeb]

This is a great help!

I've now got Virtua Tennis running with two players.

My only question is...  If I understand correctly, I have to have ppjoykey.exe running in the background with my .ini loaded , correct?  Is there a way I can add this to a mamewah command line.. so I can launch Vtennis from Mamewah (and have ppjoykey and my ini load at the same time?)  Ppjoykey.exe doesn't seem to want to load the ini I have made via command line.

I know I could just load it up when I start windows each time.. but, this would make things a bit more clean.  Any ideas?

d.

[cyro]

Check www.groovygamegear.com   They have gamepad emulators.  The GPWiz RULES!!!   joystick plus 28 buttons you can't go wrong.

[cyro]

Ah...it's done.  www.groovygamegear.com  Plus, hardly ANY PC games support keyboards properly.  Most don't allow you to configure the right keys and NONE allow you to play 2 players.

This would be super hard.  Input is one of the lowest levels of programming and bypassing it is a real pain.  Not to mention the fact that every pc game known to man supports keyboard keys, but not all support joysticks. 

So what exactly would be the point?

[daveg2000]

It looks like Virtua Tennis ignores any joystick with more than
4 (I think) axes - what this can't be no friggin' joystick!
The PPJoy virtual joysticks by default has 8 axes... See the
problem? [Virtua Tennis also ignores joysticks with less than
4(?) buttons it seems]. Very temperamental little piece of
software!

PPJoy makes provision for changing the number of axes a joystick
reports - but I haven't yet figured out all the snags. Mainly it
makes the Game Controllers control panel applet DrWatson :-( but
everything else seems fine.

I attach a special version of PPortJoy.cpl that has this extra
functionality
enabled. Copy it over the existing one in the System32 directory.

Then:
- Open the PPJoy control panel applet. Select one of the Virtual
joysticks.
- Click on Mapping
- Select "Modify the interface mapping for the IOCTL..." (bottom)
option
 

[daveg2000]

Anyone that can help me with this?

I got the software installed now (further than my last post)

I have 2 'virutal' joysticks installed and recognized by windows
but when I go to the button configuration,

I can enter the info for the first button... and it works fine.

When I go and enter in which keys to use for the 2nd joystick,
I see the setttings that I used for Joy1.

Then if I overwrite those settings for Joy2, Joy2 works just
fine in games (and now Joy1 doesnt work)

If I go back into configure the buttons, and look at Joy1's
settings, it has the settings from Joy2....

I just seem to be going in a loop here, where only
one set of commands are allowed for both sticks.
 
any ideas?

[Glaine]

Sorry to post on a 2 year old topic, but I wanted to:

1) Thank you guys for all this good info, I recently had this problem and found this post searching yahoo.

2) Mention that you have to have 2 instances of the joystick emulator running if you want to have 2 fake joysticks. I save my settings for each stick in its own file and load each seperate window up with its config file when I need 2 emulated joysticks. It is a pain but at least there is a solution.

3) I need help - if I have any emulated joysticks running, it gives Mamewah lots of trouble, I just uninstalled all emulated joysticks and it is running great again now. Mainly, whenever I exited Mamewah, I was getting a "Windows couldn't shut this down right, make a report?" pop-up, along with other crashes while the program was running. Any ideas on how I can prevent this? I'm sure it's an input recognition problem, but I don't know how to disable Mamewah from reading for joysticks (didn't see a setting for this in the ini files). I wasn't actively running the joystick emulation program, but the joys were still setup in the control panel to be used.

Thanks.

[allroy1975]

hmm..never used it on my mamewah cab.  I haven't even played VT or NHL or anything on that cab in a LOOONG time....sorry dude. 

[blues11]

Hi,
Firstly, I must say it's a great idea to design a software that allows playing multyplayer games on a keyboard.
But it didn't work for me. I installed it successfully, add the "Virtual Joystick", opened the latest PPJoyKey you posted up here (it says "Successfully opened  PPJoy Virtual Joystick" (on the bottom)), set the keys and minimize it. But the game doesn't recognize it. I don't know what to do... The game requests a gamepad, so maybe this could be the problem since it's a virtual JOYSTICK?

Any help? 

[Moose13]

Hope someone can help:
I tried following all the directions given. When I open ppjoycom.exe I select the .ini (which I made in ppjoykey.exe) and it says waiting for stream init.
I don't know what I'm doing wrong. Do you need to run ppjoydll.exe as well (I tried that too) Seems that I'm running in circles.   
Looks like I may need a bat file, but I think that only would start the ppjoycom.exe with the correct ini file, which I pick the ini file manually.

Thanks

[Moose13]

Bump for some help.......

[Haggar]

I've tried this solution ad works also with virtua tennis 3.

Anyone knows how to run ppjoy minimized and close it with a command line?

[gonzo90017]

Are you running it through AtomicFE? If so, it has an option to launch a program before and after you launch a game.

[Haggar]

Yes I'm using atomic FE.
I've used that option, but when i exit from the game I've launched, the system hangs on the ppjoy window and I have to hit the CLOSE button and confirm with YES. So I have to use mouse/keyboard to do that on the cab

[gonzo90017]

You could make an Autoit script to close ppjoy when you exit the game.

[Haggar]

Great suggestion.
I've tried on a normal PC and it works. Now I have to try this stuff on the cab.

This tool is very very nice.

Thank you 

[tekopaa]

Can anyone solve EA SPORTS NHL 2007-2009 problems with PPJOY virtual joystic. When i start the game joystick moves byself when in game it works but not in menus?... problem stop if disable virtualjoystick from device manager.. Ihave tested with other games no problem there??