For those of you with Crayola trackballs/Genius Kidsballs.

[SpamMe]

My GF has had some trouble with backspin with this trackball in Centipede. What are you guys using for sensitivity and speed in mame?

[1UP]

Good question.  Mine is heavily modded, so my settings wouldn't be helpful... http://1uparcade.hypermart.net/projects-kidsball2.html

Usually with backspin, I think you want to use a lower sensitivity.  The problem with kidsball is that the teeth on the encoder wheels are REALLY small, so it makes a good hi-res mouse, but not good for fast game action.  That's one reason I modded mine so the teeth are about 3 times as large as they were.  I now have no backspin problems.

I think the best option though is to just buy a proper arcade trackball.  They were made for heavy play and high speeds, while PC trackballs are made for clicking and dragging, and tend to spin unevenly when cranked too fast.  My crayola tends to pull upward when I do fast horizontal spins.  I've heard of several people getting Imperial balls for $30 or so.  Ebay even has Happ TBs for cheap sometimes.

One thing I've noticed with Centipede in particular, it's pretty much impossible to get the ship to move as fast in Mame as it does in the arcade.  Not sure why...

[ErikRuud]

I have not noticed any real backspin problems with my Crayola Ball, and I have not modified it.  I just made a few sensitivity adjustments when I thought they were needed.

I have recently replaced my Crayola Ball with a 3" PS2 Betson trackball.  My daughter use the Crayola ball now.

[SpamMe]

One thing I've noticed with Centipede in particular, it's pretty much impossible to get the ship to move as fast in Mame as it does in the arcade.  Not sure why...

That's a shame. Anybody know if there's any way around that? Alternate rom or anything?

[tmasman]

One thing I've noticed with Centipede in particular, it's pretty much impossible to get the ship to move as fast in Mame as it does in the arcade.  Not sure why...

Are you sure?
I was playing centipede @ the last auction & it seemed to move pretty slowly to me... Pretty much like mame. I couldn't get it to "dart" across the screen at blinding speeds, but maybe that was a setting with the game board or something (like a dificulty dip switch or something)...  I don't know... I thought I remembered it being faster too, then I played it @ the auction & it seemed pretty slow there too.

[1UP]

I played Centipede at the Disneyland Astrocade and it sure seemed a lot more responsive than in Mame.  I wasn't able to do a side by side comparison (it's almost an hour from Disney to my apartment) so I can't be positive, but it seemed that way.

I did compare Centipede using a mouse on my workstation to using a trackball on my cab, and both were the same.  Maybe I'm wrong, I dunno...

[SpamMe]

There's a converted centipede cab at an arcade not too far from here. You can definately move a lot faster, but I had attributed that to a problem with the trackball settings.