4 player mame help, please!

[coliveira]

Hello

I have been lucky enough in the past to receive tons of great help on this web site, so I'm giving it another shot!  Thanks in advance for your help (or even your attempt). 

I'm trying to help my buddy set up a 4 player mame and we are dying here!  We can't seem to figure out how to get the jpac separated from the ipac2.  We know that we're supposed to set them up one at a time and then connect them, but we can't seem to get the ipac2 to act as players 3 and 4. 

A few questions?

When we try to configure the ipac2 in winipac, are we supposed to try to set it up as an ipac2 or ipac4?

When we set it up (either way) as players 1 and 2 or 3 and 4 and try to assign keys to it, it always reverts to player 1 and 2 defaults.  For example, we try to set up player 3 start to mark a "3", but when the button is pushed, it always comes out as a "1" which does nothing because the computer is looking for a "3".  What are we missing?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Chris

[krick]

I never got around to setting up players 3 and 4 on my arcade cabinet so I don't have any experience with Winipac or how to save your configuration in the IPAC2.

Here's the Ultimarc page on programming...
http://www.ultimarc.com/winipac_ipd.html


However, the general idea is that you have the JPAC handle players 1 and 2, using the default MAME configuration.

Then you have to change the IPAC2 default settings so that it looks like players 3 and 4 from an IPAC4 (settings here... http://www.ultimarc.com/ipac2.html ).  That way, none of the IPAC2 settings will conflict with the JPAC.

I don't know how you're connecting your JPAC and IPAC2, but I'd use the PS/2 cable and chain them together (after programming the IPAC2 separately) using the keyboard passthrough ports like this...

PC <---  JPAC <---  IPAC2 <--- Keyboard

Remember that you cannot hot-plug PS/2 devices.  If you plug and unplug a PS/2 device without turning off the computer first, you risk damaging the device and/or your motherboard.

[coliveira]

Thanks for the quick response.

I think we're having trouble at this step "Then you have to change the IPAC2 default settings so that it looks like players 3 and 4 from an IPAC4". 

Any ideas?

Thanks
Chris

[coliveira]

Got it!  Gotta hit the "program" button.  ha ha.

Thanks
Chris

[MTPPC]

Hook up just the ipac and program it to the codes shown for the "ipac4" only: http://www.ultimarc.com/ipac2.html

Once you program that device, feed the keyboard out cable from the ipac 4 to the keyboard in of the jpac and it should just pass through all your newly programmed codes. Use the j-pac with default settings.