4P Keycode Conflict

[vindic8r]

I've done a bunch of searching and this question seems to have only come up here once long ago, and reading that thread, I'm not sure that I understood the solution.

Default MAME keycodes that are preprogrammed into the IPAC4 have the same controls for P2 buttons 5-8 as P3 directionals. Given that there aren't any 3 player games that use more than 4 buttons, this doesn't seem like it would actually present issues when playing, but it does cause CPWizard to get a bit confused. 

My attempts to remap P2 5-8 to different keys have thus far been unsuccessful - comma and period seem available for programming, but for some reason, don't work when I try them in games that I know use them, like Tekken. And CPWizard isn't showing any commands mapped to those keycodes either, so I have to think I'm doing something wrong here.

So I guess I have two questions.

• What are people using as their keycode mappings on their 4P panels?
• How does one go about properly setting those mappings in MAME? I've tried doing so from the TAB --> Input (General) --> Player 2 Controls menu, but no matter what I map there, it never works in game. The keycodes I change are always grey (which I hear means they are not the default, so that's fine), but the fact that they don't work, that's not good.

Any thoughts/suggestions would be most appreciated! My MOTUMAME build is stalled until I can crack this nut. 

[vindic8r]

No ideas? Really?

C'mon guys, help a brother out.

[PL1]

Just to clarify, which is the better way to describe your situation?

1. You can't reprogram your IPac using Ultimarc's WinIPac utility to accept comma and period on P2 Buttons 5 and 6, respectively.

2. You successfully reprogrammed both IPac inputs with comma and period.
You verified they work by using the reprogrammed buttons to "type" in Notepad/Wordpad. 
MAME still won't accept changing the default P2 Button 5 and 6 inputs to comma and period.


Scott

[vindic8r]

Just to clarify, which is the better way to describe your situation?

1. You can't reprogram your IPac using Ultimarc's WinIPac utility to accept comma and period on P2 Buttons 5 and 6, respectively.

2. You successfully reprogrammed both IPac inputs with comma and period.
You verified they work by using the reprogrammed buttons to "type" in Notepad/Wordpad. 
MAME still won't accept changing the default P2 Button 5 and 6 inputs to comma and period.

Scott

Actually, Scott, I'm not to the point where I'm programming the IPac just yet. I'm still just updating settings in MAME itself. I'm really just curious what people who have 4P panels with 6+ buttons on P1 & P2 usually map their button presses to. The default for P2 Buttons 5-7 is that they are mapped to I-K-J-L, which are the directionals for P3. This shouldn't present any conflict in game, since there aren't any 4P games that use more than 4 buttons (that I've seen), but I'm a purist and would prefer that each button on the panel maps to a unique key.

I was able to get MAME to accept the following key mappings for P2 and everything tested fine in a quick play of Street Fighter II:
P2 Button 5 = N
P2 Button 5 = ,
P2 Button 6 = .

So I think, assuming that these aren't mapped to some admin function that I've never used, I should be OK.